Introduction to Sociology and the Sociological Imagination
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Transcript of Introduction to Sociology and the Sociological Imagination
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An overviewPrepared by John N. Abletis
Department of Sociology, PUP
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the study of societyand social interactionstaking place within it
the study of social facts
the study of social structures the study of social processes
the queen of the social sciences
Research areas in Sociology [Fields ofSpecialization]
among social scientists and cultural workers,sociologists are the more frequent and vivid in
displaying the sociological imagination
Sociology
Our Social World Model
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Society and Culture
Societies are self-perpetuating groups of peoplewho occupy a given territory and interact with oneanother on the basis of shared culture (Bryjak &Soroka, 2001, p. 65)
Cultureis a peoples way of life or social heritageand includes values, norms, institutions, andartifacts that are passed from generation togeneration by learning alone (Ibid, p. 31)
Sociocultural System The field of culture is the primary concern of
Anthropology, yet the experience of sociologicaldiscovery could be described as culture shock
minus geographical displacement (Berger, 1963,
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Social Processes
actions taken by people in social units.
Processes keep the social world working
(Ballantine & Roberts, 2011, p. 20)
to understand a social unit we mustconsider the structure and processes within
the unit as well as the interaction with the
surrounding environment. No matter what
social unit the sociologist studies, the unit
cannot be understood without considering the
interaction of that unit with its environment.
(Ibid)
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Social Institutions
[They] are orderly, enduring, and established
ways of arranging human behavior and doing
things. Social relationships in institutions are
structured for the purpose of performing sometask(s) and accomplishing some specific goal.
(Bryjak & Soroka, 2001, p. 193)
Family
Education Religion
State (Polity) [primary concern of Political Science]
Economy [primary concern of Economics]
Mass Media [primary concern of Media Studies]
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Social Facts
they consist of manners of acting, thinking, andfeelingexternalto the individual, which areinvested with a coercivepower by virtue of whichthey exercise control over him. Emile Durkheim
(1895, p. 52)
We are located in society not only in spacebut intime. Our society is a historical entity that extendstemporally beyond any individual biography.Society antedates us and it will survive us. It wasthere before we were born and it will be there afterwe are dead. Our lives are but episodes in its
majestic march through time. In sum, society is the
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Research Areas in Sociology
According to the International Sociological
Association, the following are the primary
research areas of sociologists worldwide:
AgingAgriculture and Food
Alienation Theory and Research
Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution
Arts
Biography and Society
Body in the Social Sciences
Childhood
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Research Areas in Sociology
Clinical Sociology
Communication, Knowledge and Culture
Community Research
Comparative Sociology
Conceptual and Terminological Analysis
Deviance and Social Control
Disasters Economy and Society
Education
Environment and Society
Family Research
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Research Areas in Sociology
Futures Research
Health
History of Sociology
Housing and Built Environment Labor Movements
Language and Society
Law Leisure
Logic and Methodology
Mental Health and Illness
Migration
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Research Areas in Sociology
Organization
Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-
Management
Political Sociology Population
Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policty
Professional Groups
Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations
Rational Choice
Regional and Urban Development
Religion
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Research Areas in Sociology
Science and Technology
Social Classes and Social Movements
Social Movements, Collective Action and Social
Change Social Psychology
Social Indicators
Social Transformations and Sociology of
Development
Sociocybernetics
Sociotechnics, Sociological Practice
Sport
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Research Areas in Sociology
Tourism, Internationl
Women in Society
Work
Youth
source: http://www.isa-sociology.org/rc.htm
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Sociological Imagination
the quality of mind essential tograsp the interplay of man and society,of biography and history, of self andworld. C. Wright Mills (1959, p. 10)
personal troubles vs. public issues It is now the social scientists foremost
political and intellectual task to makeclear the elements of contemporaryuneasinessand indifference. (Ibid, p.20)
By such means the personaluneasiness of individuals is focusedupon explicit troubles and the
indifference of publics is transformedinto involment with public issues. (Ibid,
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Sociological Imagination
Three sorts of questions consistently asked by
classical social analysts:
What is the structure of this particular
society as a whole? What are itsessential components, and how are they
related to one another? How does it
differ from other varieties of socialorder? Within it, what is the meaning of
any particular feature for its continuance
and for its change? (p. 13)
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Sociological Imagination
Where does this society stand in human
history? What are the mechanics by which
it is changing? What is its place within and
its meaning for the development ofhumanity as a whole? How does any
particular feature we are examining affect,
and how is it affected by, the historicalperiod in which it moves? And this
periodwhat are its essential features?
How does it differ from other periods? -
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Sociological Imagination
What varieties of men and women now
prevail in this society and in this period?
And what varieties are coming to prevail?
In what ways are they selected andformed, liberated and repressed, made
sensitive and blunted? What kinds of
human nature are revealed in theconduct and character we observe in this
society in this period? And what is the
meaning for human nature of each and
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Grand Theory
To be aware of the idea of social structure and
to use it with sensibility is to be capable of
tracing such linkages among a great variety of
milieux. To be able to do that is to possess thesociological imagination. (p. 17)
[T]hat every self-conscious thinker must at all
times be aware ofand hence be able to
controlthe levels of abstraction on which he
is working. The capacity to shuttle between
levels of abstraction, with ease and with clarity,
is a signal mark of the imaginative and
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Methodological Inhibition
But no method, as such [natural scientific
method/statistics/positivism], should be used to
delimit the problems we take up, if for no other
reason than that the most interesting and difficultissues of methodusually begin where established
techniques do not apply. (p. 83)
If the problems upon which one is at work are
readily amenable to statistical procedures, oneshould always try to use them... No one, however,
need accept such procedures, when generalized,
as the only procedure available. Certainly no one
need accept this model as a total canon. It is not
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Use of Method and Theory
Method has to do, first of all, with how to ask andanswer questions with some assurance that theanswers are more or less durable. Theory has to do,with paying close attention to the words one is using,
especially their degree of generality and their logicalrelations. The primary purpose of both is clarity ofconception and economy of procedure, and mostimportantly just now the release rather than therestriction of the sociological imagination. (p. 135)
For the classic social scientist, neither method northeory is an autonomous domain; methods aremethods for some range of problems; theories aretheories of some range of phenomena... that he must
be very well acquainted in a substantive way with thestate of knowled e in the area with which the studies
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Use of Method and Theory
Serious attention should be paid to general discussion ofmethodology only when they are in direct reference to actualwork... But neither Method nor Theory alone can be taken aspart of the actual work of the social studies. (p. 136)
Classic social science... Neither builds up from microscopic
study nor deduces down from conceptual elaboration. Itspractitioners try to build and to deduce at the same time, in thesame process of study, and to do so by means of adequateformulation and reformulation of problems and of their adequatesolutions. To practise such a policy... is to take up substantiveproblems on the historical level of reality; to state these
problems in terms appropriate to them; and then no matter howhigh the flight of theory, no matter how painstaking the crawlamong detail, in the end of each completed act of study, to statethe solution in the macroscopic terms of the problem... Thecharacter of these problems limits and suggests the methodsand the conceptions that are used and how they are used.
Controversy over different views of methodology and theoryisrobabl carried on in close and continuous relation with
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Mills on Academic
Specialization
As he comes to have a genuine sense ofsignificant problems and to be passionatelyconcerned with solving them, he is oftenforced to master ideas and methods thathappen to have arisen within one or another ofthese several disciplines. To him no socialscience specialty will seem in any intellectuallysignificant sense a closed world.He alsocomes to realize that he is in fact practising thesocial science, rather than any one of thesocial sciences, and that this is so no matterwhat particular area of social lie he is mostinterested in studying. (p. 157)
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On Politics
In common with most other people, he does feelthat he stands outside the major history-makingdecisions of this period; at the same time heknows that he is among those who take many of
the consequences of these decisions. That is onemajor reason why to the extent that he is aware ofwhat he is doing, he becomes an explicitly politicalman. No one is outside society; the question iswhere each stands within it. (p. 204)
In a world of widely communicated nonsense, anystatement of fact is of political and moralsignificant. All social scientists, by the fact of theirexistence, are involved in the struggle betweenenlightenment and obscurantism. In such a world
as ours, to practise social science is, first of all, to
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Note about the term
sociological I hope my colleagues will accept the term sociological imagination.
Political scientists who have read my manuscript suggest thepolitical imagination; anthropologists, the anthropologicalimaginationand so on. The term matters less than the idea, which Ihope will become clear in the course of this book. By use of it, I donot of course want to suggest merely the academic discipline of
sociology. Much of what the phrase means to me is not at allexpressed by sociologist.In England, for example, sociology as anacademic discipline is still somewhat marginal, yet in much English
journalism, fiction, and above all history, the sociological imaginationis very well developed indeed. The case is similar for France: boththe confusion and the audacity of French reflection since the SecondWorld War rest upon its feeling for the sociological features of mansfate in our time, yet these trends are carried by men of lettersrather than by professional sociologists. Nevertheless, I usesociological imagination because: (1) every cobbler thinksleather is the only thing, and for better or worse, I am asociologist; (2) I do believe that historically the quality of mindhas been more frequently and more vividly displayed by classic
sociologists than by other social scientists; (3) since I am goingto examine critically a number of curious sociological schools, I need
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References
Ballantine, J. H. & Roberts, K. A. (2011). Our SocialWorld: Introduction to Sociology, 3rded., CA: PineForge Press
Berger, P. (1963). Invitation to Sociology, NY: Double
Day Bryjak, G. J. & Soroka, M. P. (2001). Sociology:
Changing Societies in a Diverse World, 4thed., MA:Allyn and Bacon
Durkheim, E. (1895). The Rules of SociologicalMethod [Excerpts]. Retrieved April 18, 2012 from
http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/rules.html
International Sociological Association (n.d.). Research
Committees Retrieved April 18 2012 fromhtt // i i l / ht