Introduction to Sociology and its Research Methods
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page:
(What follows below summarizes the work of many sociology textbook writers over
the years. Three of the most influential in my teaching have been Robert Bierstedt, Theodore Caplow, and
Ian Robertson).
Introduction:
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to related web sites:
Our text defines the sociology as, "the systematic study of social behavior and human groups." (Schaefer, p. 3) But there are a wide variety of definitions. My favorite comes from Everette K. Wilson: "Sociology is the systematic study of people's greatest creations, the groups they build."
What is a group? It is a
collection of people interacting together in an orderly way on the basis of
shared expectations about each other's behavior." What is the difference
between groups, categories, and aggregates?
A group is a collection of people who interact.
A category
is a collection of people who possess a similar trait but who do not interact--
all bartenders in
There is also the aggregate-- these are people who happen to be at the same place at the same time, but don't necessarily interact-- the people waiting for the bus downtown.
What is the minimum number of
people that we can class as a group? Most texts will tell you two. One
sociologist, Theodore Caplow, will tell you three.
Why?
· When one of the members dies social interaction will still occur. Society is real and it is greater than the sum of its parts social relationships between a dyad are much more simple than those between triads.
·
The pattern of relationships between three people has the potential to
be far more complex alliances can be built, coalitions can form. This can't
happen when there are only two people.
I think sociology is important for
a number of reasons which are most cogently stated by Everett K. Wilson.
Sociology helps us to
understand the truth about ourselves and about our society. "We
come to know ourselves better because since we are in large measure, social
creations, to know our social world and how it influences us is to come to
a clearer conception of who we are and {to some degree} why. We come closer to
the truth about our society since sociology is the best means of understanding
and unraveling the complexities of social live; because it is the best means of
learning the methods appropriate for analyzing social reality; and because it
helps us go beyond fallible common sense to describe and explain more
accurately the classes of social behavior and connections among them."
In short, there is nothing so important for us human beings as the groups we
create, There is no intellectual activity more important than the study of
those creations, not chiefly because such study develops saleable skills, but
because such study moves us a little closer to understanding the truth in human
affairs.
The Sociological
Imagination is defined as understanding the relationship between
history and personal biography).
1. The classic example is divorce-- what are the personal causes of divorce? What are the STRUCTURAL causes of divorce? Here are a few examples:
no-fault
divorce legislation
increased labor force
participation of women
smaller families
decline in religion
and church attendance
Sociology (or any systematic field of inquiry no matter what the subject matter) has it's own special perspective. It defines what its subject matter is, helps us decide what is important, and then provides the tools and concepts which we can apply to examine it. That's what we'll be doing in this course. We'll be giving you some tools and concepts which I hope, will enable you to take a new look at a familiar world.
Sociology is a science and there has been a
considerable amount of argument about whether or not it can actually be treated
as such. I don't see what all the argument is about. Science is little more
than a method or a philosophy of investigation.
1. Science is a logical,
systematic, method by which we obtain knowledge about the world around us. This
systematic method relies on:
rigorous logic;
hard facts;
testable theories and
replication
Science presumes that there is order to the universe, that events are patterned, not random.
.
According to one sociologist,
Robert Bierstedt, Sociology is:
1. a social not a natural science: It is concerned with human social behavior not physical events or processes.
2. a categorical not a normative discipline. It describes what is not what should be.
3. a pure, not an applied science. The immediate goal is to acquire knowledge about human society, not to determine how that knowledge is used
4. an abstract science not a concrete one. It is concerned with patterns of human events, not concrete specific events. i.e. wars and revolutions; not a particular war. (Sociology VS History)
5. a generalizing discipline
(nomothetic) rather than particularizing or
individualizing. It seeks general laws or principles about human interaction
and association, not as in the case of history, complete and comprehensive
descriptions of particular societies and events
Here are concepts and terms which
are important to sociology and the study of society.
Social System: a set of persons and activities whose mutual relationships are fairly constant. The term includes societies, organizations, groups, and institutions
Society: this is a group of interacting individuals who share the same territory and participate in a common culture. We can say that a society is a self-sufficient, self perpetuating social system.
Interaction: a process by which communicating individuals influence each other's thoughts and actions. (The key here is that there is reciprocal influence).
Culture: all the shared products of human society -- everything-- both social customs, rules, laws, and the material things we make.
Norms: Norms are rules which convey the proper behavior in a given social situation. Sometimes you will hear them referred to as formal norms (those which are written down) and informal norms (unwritten, unspoken rules). We have divided them into several categories or types:
Folkways: These are weak norms or conventions followed in everyday life; not eating with one's fingers (at least in a fancy restaurant in this society)
Mores: These are much stronger norms that contain some moral significance. Killing somebody is a violation of a very strong more.
Laws: Laws are encoded (written) norms. They are formally enacted by a political authority and backed by the state.
Taboos: They are the strongest norms of all. Violation of Taboos is considered loathsome and disgusting.
Status: Status is simply the position a person occupies in society. We all occupy different statuses and most of us occupy multiple statuses. Generally, you will hear of two kinds: Ascribed: It's assigned to us or we are born into it. Generally, we can't change it. Achieved: It's a social position that we earn.
Role: A role is the part played by a person occupying a particular status in society.
Institution: Institutions are stable patterns of norms, statuses, and roles that fulfill some social need... or; (We also call a large establishment with a permanent staff of workers working under one roof an institution; (prison, museum, etc.).
Socialization: A process where a person learns the norms of a given culture; how to occupy the statuses, and how to perform the associated roles.
Power: The ability to make somebody do something against his will. It is the ability to control the behavior of others.
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Robert Bierstedt (1974, p. 4) has commented that
"Sociology has a long past, but only a short history." This is because
society has been a subject for speculation and inquiry since the dawn of
civilization-- Plato's Republic can be considered one of the West's
greatest sociological treatises; Confucius's Analects -- the East. But
only within the last century or so has sociology become a separate subject and
a separate science.
The Ancients: Plato and Aristotle:
Plato (427-347 BC):
1. He founded the Academy, -- a school which lasted over 900 years. It was for advanced students in philosophy and science. Actually it was the world's first university and was used as a model when "academic" institutions were revived in the 13th century. Relevance to Sociology:
2. Some important themes from
his writings found in social science today are:
Social ends (goals) as well
as means can be rationally selected.
The division of labor in society (its job
structure) should determine how that society is stratified. The stratification
of society should not determine its division of labor.
How well a person's natural ability (talent)
matches the position that that person occupies in the social structure is the
true test of any system of stratification.
Individual happiness depends upon the social
order.
The lack of integration in a society is the
cause of deviant behavior in individuals.
Aristotle (384-322 BC):
1. Aristotle, a student of Plato, also founded a school, the Lyceum. He developed the idea of science as a method of gathering information and understanding the world around us. But there was an ironic twist to this according to sociologist, Robert Bierstedt. In the middle ages all of his works were available to the scholars of that time but they appear to have been selectively translated and used. For example his writings on science were ignored. The practice then in vogue was authority. If a scholar wanted to know something, he looked it up in the writings of the ancients. There is actually a case where a medieval scholar was thrown out of a university because, when asked to find out how many teeth there were in a horse, he found a horse and counted them instead of looking it up in the writings of Aristotle. As far as modern sociology is concerned, Aristotle:
2.
Addressed
the problem of precision in social research.
Insisted that the study of
human behavior be focused on human values.
Performed a study of the constitutions of 158
city states which can be considered the first large-scale social research
project in all history.
The Forerunners: August Comte, Harriet Martineau, and Herbert Spencer
When sociology emerged as a separate discipline it was roughly in the time
frame of the industrial revolution. New forms of government challenged the old
monarchies, religion lost its influence as the undisputed moral authority, and
the pace of social and technological change surpassed that of anything
witnessed before in the history of humankind.
Links to related
web sites:
Sociological Timeline, U. of Missouri
The
Karl Marx/Frederick Engels Interactive Archive
The Dead Sociologists' Society
August Comte (1789-1857):
Prior to Comte, nobody had
identified sociology as a separate discipline. Comte was the first to do this,
and for this reason has been called the "Father of Sociology." He has
made at least four lasting and important contributions to Sociology:
1. His most important contribution was that he emphasized that social phenomena can be scientifically studied.
2. He also perceived the importance of the division of labor in determining social structure.
3. He introduced the distinction between theoretical (pure) and applied sociology.
4. He distinguished the study of social structure (social statics) from social change (dynamic sociology).
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876):
Mainly known for her translations
of Comte's work, Harriet Martineau was actually a better sociologist. Her own
book, Society in America, is an excellent example of rigorous
sociological analysis, focusing on status distinctions in this society stemming
from gender and race. Like Comte, she called for an applied approach where the
lessons learned from scholarly study of society would be applied to curing
social ills. Jane Addams would later advocate this approach in the
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903):
Spencer was a Victorian who truly
believed in the superiority of his society in 19th century
1 Theoretically, he had two main concepts which he pursued:
Society is very much like a
gigantic organism with different parts which function to keep it together and
help it survive. (An early version of
"functionalism").
The process of evolution operates in the
social sphere to establish a sequence of development from the simplest
primitive tribe to the most advanced civilization.
2. Spencer also collected extensive ethnographic data on many societies and arranged them in a standard format for comparison. He published this data in an eight-volume set entitled Descriptive Sociology. Unlike Comte, Spencer was an empiricist who collected his data very carefully. (Another set of volumes came out in the 1930's after his death).
3. Perhaps Spenser's greatest
influence was that he introduced a large number of students to sociology. He
wrote the Study of Sociology (1873) which was the first sociology
textbook used in a college course in the
Karl Marx (1818-1883):
Marx is perhaps the greatest social
philosopher of his century. He certainly has had a profound influence on the
course of events in recent history. He was born and educated in
1. His intellectual partner, Engles (1820-1895) wrote a book entitled, Conditions of the Working Class in England (1844) which is the earliest social survey of a slum community.
2. His broad theory (which we will call Macro or Grand theory) is so far ranging that it is difficult to summarize it briefly:
Of central importance is the concept of Class struggle. Modern conflict theory stems directly from Marx's work. He wrote his famous "Communist Manifesto" 1847 which is remembered for this famous line: "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles."
For Marx, class membership is determined by the ownership of property. Basically, there were two major classes. The bourgeoisie (the wealthy capitalists who owned the means of production) and the proletariat who owned only their own labor which they were forced to sell to the bourgeoisie at bargain rates. (Marx and Engles acknowledged the existence of other classes in modern society, but claimed that they would be gradually consumed by the capitalists and merged with the proletarians.
The interests of the capitalists (bourgeoisie) and proletarians are conceived as opposite and not subject to compromise.
He developed the concept of "Surplus Value of Labor": Everything that is produced is produced by the labor of the proletariat, but out of the product which they produce, they receive only the minimum necessary for their survival. Labor is being exploited.
Alienation: The worker is removed from the product he makes. He is unable to express himself freely because of the discipline of the industrial system. He gets very little return from the product which he makes. He loses interest in the purposes toward which his own activity is directed. He becomes alienated.
False consciousness: In this condition, the worker requires fantasies, religion, patriotism, art, and politics. These fantasies are deliberately provided by the capitalists to distract the proletarian from class consciousness and persuade him to accept exploitation.
The centrality of Economy: Everything in society is derived from the means of production. The relationship to the means of production is the foundation of a society. Law, politics, knowledge, morality, and even family relationships are all parts of the "superstructure" and are determined by the economy (how production is organized).
Marxist theory is also evolutionary: Feudalism was replaced by capitalism and capitalism would inevitably be overthrown by communism. What was needed was the development of a class consciousness by the proletariat and this would occur as more intellectuals, disgusted with the exploitations of capitalism, educated the masses.
After the proletarian revolution there would develop a classless, stateless society without private property a communist utopia.
The Founders: Emile Durkheim and Max Weber
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917):
Durkheim was born in eastern
1. A central theme in all his works is that society is a
reality "sui generis" (of its own). It is a natural entity greater
than the sum of its parts and not explainable in psychological or biological,
or purely rational terms.
2. He wrote four important books
which developed this theme in various ways.
The Division of Labor in Society: In this book he presented his own theory of social evolution. In their early stages, societies are comprised of small groups of people who resemble each other both physically and mentally; possess the same skills and aptitudes, and share the same ideas. They are bound together by what he calls "mechanical solidarity." But as societies develop, population increases and interaction between groups intensifies, the division of labor differentiates individuals by occupation, class, interests, norms, and values. Mechanical solidarity becomes "Organic solidarity." The society is now held together by complicated relations of interdependence and reciprocity.
The Rules of Sociological Method: This has been called the "Declaration of Independence for sociology." In this book he defines the subject matter of sociology to be "Social facts." (Ways of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him." In other words, Norms, customs, creeds, rituals, etc. The fundamental rules for the observation of social facts are to consider social facts as things, to examine them without preconceptions, to identify them by external, verifiable characteristics, and to concentrate on uniformities of behavior rather than individual variations. (Durkheim also introduced the method of correlation as a means of proving postulates).
Suicide: (1897) earliest in a long line of statistical studies of social problems. He took what had been considered a psychological problem and showed conclusively that social factors, primarily the degree of integration of the social groups to which an individual belongs have an effect on suicide rates.
The elementary forms of Religious Life: Here he argued that fundamental attitudes of human awareness, perceptions of time, space, categories, and causality are collective representations arising from social experience. Examining religious behavior in primitive societies he concluded that whatever is worshipped in any religion is always society in disguise.
Max Weber: (1864-1920)
Weber knew more about the organization of civilized
societies, ancient and modern, Western and Oriental, than anyone else has ever
known. Born in
1. Some Key Points:
He is known for
his studies in the sociology of religion. The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism investigated the relationship
between religious beliefs of Puritan sects of the reformation (example:
Calvinism) and the development of industrial capitalism in
Verstehen (Interpretative Understanding): stressed meaning, understanding, comprehension. (Being close to the subject matter)
The Ideal Type as a research method. He applied it to the study of bureaucracy.
He wrote extensively on bureaucracy and its effects on the individual.
Some American Social Theorists and Sociologists:
We talked about some of the more prominent theorists who influenced the
discipline, (Durkheim, Marx, and Weber). The following people influenced modern
American Sociology?
Lester Frank Ward: (1841-1913) one of the first American sociologists; (has been called by some the father of American sociology); stressed the discipline's role in social reform.
William
Graham Sumner: (1840-1910) (
George
Herbert Meade: (1863-1931) (
Robert E.
Park: (1864-1944) (
Ernest W.
Burgess: (1886-1966) (
Talcott Parsons: (1903-1979) (Harvard) functionalist, abstract theory on a macro level; had a great influence on the discipline of sociology in the 1940's and 1950's; criticized by many for his abstract, value-free non-activist approach.
C.Wright Mills: (1916-1962) criticized theories such as Parsons' and the preoccupation with devising new and complex statistical techniques and research methods. Wrote the Sociological Imagination.
Robert K.
Merton: (1910-2002 ) (
Additional Points and General Concepts:
The
The Sociological Imagination: C. Wright Mills-- that quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world. Many of the personal troubles of individuals can be understood and solved only on a broader, societal level. When only one man is unemployed, for example, that is his personal problem. His problem can be explained by his own lack of skills, opportunities, or willingness to work. When 40 percent of black youths are unemployed, that is a social problem that goes beyond the failings of individuals.
Value-free Sociology: As a pure, objective scientific endeavor, it is not possible for the sociologist to be entirely value free. His values emerge at various points starting when he picks his problem to study. Total objectivity is impossible in any science. But we do try to minimize distortions caused by out personal bias.
Theoretical Perspectives:
Links to related
web sites:
Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction
World
Wide Web Virtual Library for Sociology
A Theory is a statement that
organizes a set of concepts in a meaningful way by explaining the relationship
between them.
Functionalist theory: Society tends toward equilibrium. (Durkheim, Spencer) Manifest (intended) and Latent (unintended) functions. Dysfunctions... Functionalism tends to be a conservative perspective and has difficulty explaining social change. Example: The civil rights movement of the 60's was disrupting the equilibrium of a then balanced (but flawed) society. The implication was that the movement was "dysfunctional." (macro level theory)
Conflict Theory: Society is in a constant state of flux, tension, disagreement. Hostility exists over goals and values -- no value consensus. Powerful segments control weaker segments in society. This body of theory focuses on whose interests are involved, who benefits or suffers from existing arrangements. (Marx, Mills) Critique: Conflict theory overlooks the more stable elements of society. (macro level theory)
Interactionist Perspective (Weber, Meade) The focus on interaction. Being close to your subject and observing patterns of interaction. (micro level theory) Symbolic interaction: we communicate through the use of symbols. Critique: overlooks larger social institutions.
Ethnomethodology: we try do determine what the rules and norms of society are by intentionally breaking them and observing people's responses.
Dramaturgical Sociology: (Irving Goffman, 1922-1982) an analogy to the stage-- looking at the various roles we play and the situations that shape them. Front stage vs. back stage behavior. Impression Management:
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General Discussion:
Ian Robertson points out that there are two essential sides to what he calls the "sociological enterprise," let me add that they apply well to all forms of scientific analysis (theory and research)
- Theory: Theory is a statement that organizes a set of concepts in a meaningful way by explaining the relationship between them, and for us in sociology we would define social research as the systematic recording of human behavior in society for the purpose of developing and testing social theories.
(Robertson also makes a
distinction between theory and generalization. Generalization is a statement
about the recurrent relationships among recurrent variables. Theory tries to
impart meaning, to explain a given phenomenon by proposing causal
relationships. Generalizations just say that variables are related (i.e. age
and athletic performance are related)).
- Research: Research is the thorough, systematic, and objective act of collecting data. An important point to remember is that these two "things" we call theory and research must occur together for "science" to occur. Theory without research, (i.e. the facts to back it up) is little more than speculation. Research and facts assembled without regard to any theoretical framework are meaningless data.
This is an important process which is not limited to sociology and even the sciences themselves. We all do it ourselves every day as we form ideas and theories about the world around us. (Only, we are far less systematic and rigorous in our data collection and "theory building." Also, our "research" is almost always "action" or "applied research.") For example, when driving down the interstate, we are often confronted with the problem with restrictions on speed and our need to get to our destination quickly, which may entail violations of the law. We all "know" such generalizations about the relationship between speeding and getting traffic tickets the two seem to be related. But we need more specific information and guidelines: When, where, and under what conditions are we more likely to get pulled over for speeding? We start building theories about the behavior of the state police, the equipment they use, and what factors might result in us getting tickets.
In fact, while it is easy to see
why theory and research must accompany each other, it is very difficult, in
practice, to get them to "match" properly. All too often the theory
is such that we can't conduct the research to test it properly either because
we can't devise adequate research methods or because of ethical considerations
(How much pain will humans endure in the dentist's chair?) (What are the
effects of longterm discrimination on racial and
ethnic minorities?) (What happens to children who are raised in isolation?)
Data exists on these latter two questions because of history but it must be
adapted to our use we can't create these kinds of situations. It would be
morally wrong. (In fact graduate school is littered with the bones of students
who developed interesting questions and theories, but failed to come up with
adequate means of answering to testing them.
- The most egregious example: Nazi experiments with concentration camp inmates during W.W.II--I'm thinking of the cold water immersion studies involving human beings-- Newsweek, (Jan, 1995) describes other experiments involving twins...
- Other examples can be drawn closer to home here in the United States-- U. S. soldiers exposed to radiation to determine its effects on their ability to fight.
- There were also a series of experiments in the south where men affected with syphilis were divided into two groups-- one given a placebo the other treated. Both groups were examined periodically to see the affects of the treatment vs. no treatment at all.
- One sociological study also raised serious ethical questions: Laud Humphries study of homosexual behavior-- the "Tea Room Trade."
Cause and Effect:
Important to the construction of theory is the notion of cause and effect.
There are two basic assumptions to this: Everything has a cause. Each
cause will produce the same effect time and time again (holding everything else
constant).
The problem for us is to: 1. sort
out the cause from the effect; 2. If there are
many possible causes and many effects, determine which cause is linked to which
effect. To do this we are guided by two things: 1. logic, and; 2. the time sequence of events. Example: Smoking and
cancer. We know that a relationship exists between the two. It doesn't seem
logical that cancer causes smoking Are there any
instances where a disease will cause people to smoke?
Variables:
A variable is a characteristic that can; change with time for a given individual (age) or change from one individual to another (age, sex, income, education). For individuals some examples would be: age, sex race, IQ, attitudes about anything, income, education, etc. Variables can also be defined at the group level: Examples would be birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate, divorce rate, marriage rate, average income, average amount of cigarettes smoked, etc.
Types of variables: basically we will be dealing with three kinds: