{"id":1367,"date":"2011-11-20T12:28:27","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T12:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2011-11-20T12:28:27","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T12:28:27","slug":"sociology-for-dummies-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/2011\/11\/20\/sociology-for-dummies-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Sociology for Dummies (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The main reference for this blog post is Sociology A global Introduction 5th<\/sup> edition (2012) by John Macionis\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0and Ken Plummer<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Macionis is a professor of sociology and a Prentice Hall distinguished scholar and works at Kenyon College in Ohio and is considered one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the U.S.\u00a0 Professor Ken Plummer works at the University of Essex.<\/p>\n

Sociology is the study of the forces of social integration and how they change in space and time.\u00a0 According to Macionis and Plummer sociology is<\/p>\n

\u201cthe systematic, sceptical and critical study of the social.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So it challenges preconceived ideas about the world like any decent science but what is the social?\u00a0 For example we mostly think of ourselves as individuals who make our own decisions whereas many sociologists, such as Durkheim (1858-1917), believe that many of the decisions we make are contingent on social factors.\u00a0 \u00a0Durkenheim noticed a correlation between the less socially integrated (single people, men, the rich) and higher suicide rates. \u00a0He argued that people would have made different decisions had they been born a different gender, social class, in another time or another space.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

Sociologists are interested in the way that different groups (ages, gender, racial etc.) are affected by society as a whole.\u00a0 In particular, the definition of gender or age or race differs depending on location in space and time.\u00a0 For example in the Victorian era in Britain, women were expected to dress much more conservatively than they are today.\u00a0 Maconis and Plummer sum this up succinctly,<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the broadest level, sociology sets out to show the patterns and processes by which society shapes what we do.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I think that the word \u201cshow\u201d here is very important, it deftly avoids the question, as a sociologist, am I required changing the world or just observe it?\u00a0 Or are critical observations enough to change it?<\/p>\n

Methodology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sociologists claim some statement and then build up an argument which supports this statement.\u00a0 To build an effective argument sociologists use a variety of methods such as case studies, statistical analysis, questionnaires and interviews.\u00a0 For example Durkenheim (above) used statistics to back up his claim that individual decisions are often not that individual and are contingent upon society<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The main reference for this blog post is Sociology A global Introduction 5th edition (2012) by John Macionis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and Ken Plummer.\u00a0 Macionis is a professor of sociology and a Prentice Hall distinguished scholar and works at Kenyon College in Ohio and is considered one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the U.S.\u00a0 Professor Ken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sociology-discipline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1369,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/comp6044\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}