Ability to make connects between individual experiences and wider social forces. Ability to see how social conditions shape our lives. Participate in social life and step back and analyze the broader meaning.

 Social Environment

Social Context shapes us.

Determines people's behavior is shaped + influenced by context.

Shills-

“Human actions are limited or determined by “environment.” Human beings become what they are at any given moment not by their own free decisions taken rationally and in full knowledge of the conditions, but under the pressure of circumstances which delimit their range of choice and which also fix their objectives and the standards by which they make choices.”

Karl Marx in 18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” 

Micro – small scale, face-to-face, individual, and groups

Middle (or mezo)  - groups and organizations

Macro – large scale, groups, organizations, institutions, societies

They believed that human societies arose, flourished, and declined.

Before the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, theologians and philosophers of the medieval Europe and Islamic worlds believed that what were inevitable?

Modernity = combined forces of... 

(5 things)

1)         Rise of Capitalism         (market based profit oriented economies)

2)         Rise of Industrial technology  (steam engine, internal combustion, etc.)

3)         Rise of Urbanism (movement to high density cities)

4)         Rise of Modern Politics Nation-State,  Nationalism,  Democracy, Civil and Human Rights

( Dutch, English, American and French Revolutions)

5)         Rise of Science (Physics, Chem, Bio etc.)

Classical Sociology took off with...

(3 people)

Karl Marx (and Fred Engels)

Emile Durkheim

Max Weber 

He explained the rise of modern burueacracy. Explained rise of capitalism as an unintended side effect of Calvinist Protestantism.

20^th century Sociology

University of Chicago (or Kansas University) first U.S. Soc depts..

      Chicago School and empirical data

      Social Surveys  (Fred Engels, Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois) 

Major Sociological Paradigms (or perspectives)

(3 things)

Interactionism

Functionalism

Conflict

Focuses on Small scale, face-to-face and small group interactions.  Starts with individuals and sees social context as consequence of many individual actions

The Research Process

(7 things)

Define the Problem

Review the Evidence (or literature)

Formulate Research Questions

Work out a Research Design

Carry out Research (collect data)

Analyze and Interpret Results

Report Findings

Questions asked to a relatively small group of people.  Useful for gathering more detailed info from small group.   Generates detailed info about small group. 

Controlled Experiments

(2 types)

Positive – highly rigorous and controlled environment.

Negative – frequently lack “mundane realism” the experiment itself is artificial and not reflective of how people really behave in real situations.   

Examination of produced documents (life histories, letters, diaries, newspapers, video, audio, graffiti etc.)

“survival of the fittest”  the notion that people who are more successful in social life will be more likely to survive and to have children who will also succeed.  Therefore, the rich are rich because they are smarter, stronger, etc. and the poor are poor because they are less strong, less smart etc. 

Use of biology to explain animal behavior, including humans. 

needs for water, food, stable body temperature, sleep, sex…? 

Genetically determined COMPLEX pattern of Behavior.  Humans have few, and some say no, instincts.  In either case, Humans have remarkably fewer instincts than other animals. Instead, humans have developed “culture” to adapt to and interact with their natural and social environments.  Biologists who study animal behavior in natural environment  have found that much of animal behavior is itself highly influenced by the social group and not directly predetermined by genetics.   So, our most basic responses are certainly hardwired into us.  And our more complex behaviors are socially learned in cultural contexts  (akin to software). 

Abstract ideals, ideas that support or justify norms

(e.g. freedom, equality, community, tradition)

Specific rules or guidelines for action

(e.g. don’t drink and drive, don’t commit murder, say “please and thank you”

Strongest and most serious norms, usually shared across many cultures governing acts that are strictly prohibited, even unthinkable for vast majority of people. 

Differences within and between cultures across places and times

Cultural mainstream in any given time and place.  From grassroots (bottom up) or from cultural gatekeepers (top down). 

Systems of norms that group members believe in and act upon.

Leadership and influence, ability of dominant group to get others to follow its ideology.

Smaller (in numbers of people or social influence) culture within a larger dominant culture.  Hold many of the norms of the larger culture, but also hold some distinct norms.