Introductory Sociology Lesson

Outlining the course

 Introduction
Sociology is the development of systematic knowledge about social life, the way it is organized, how it
changes, its creation in social action and its disurption and renewal in social conflict

Sociological theory is both a guide to sociological inquiry and an attempt to bring order to its result

Sociological theory it not simply a collection of answers to questions about what society is like

It offers many answer, but it also offers help in posing better questions and developing inquiries that
can answer them

Knowledge is never complete. Of necessity, therefore, theory is also a guide to new research and a way
of organizing debates over what our partial knowedge tell us
 What is Sociology
• Sociology is the scientific study of human activity in society.
• More specifically, it is the study of the social forces that affect
the things people do with and to one another
• Social forces are anything humans create that influence or
pressure people to interact, behave, respond, or think in certain
ways.
• Sociological Immagination > An exercise in sociological
imagination: The sociological imagination allows us to grasp
biography and history and the relations between the two
within society (C.W. Mills, 1959, 6).
• It is a quality of mind that allows people to see how remote and
impersonal social forces shape their life story or biography
• A biography consists of all the day-to-day activities from birth
to death that make up a person’s life. Social forces are
considered remote and impersonal because, for the most part,
people have no hand in creating them, nor do they know those
who did.
 • Sociological imagination: a point of view that
allows us to identify seemingly remote and
impersonal social forces and connect them to our
biographies
• Social facts: ideas, feelings, and ways of behaving
«that possess the remarkable property of existing
outside the consciousness of the individual»
• Sociology emerged as an effort to understand the
Sociological dramatic and almost immeasurable effects of the
Industrial Revolution on human life across the
imagination globe. Although the early sociologists wrote in the
ninetheenth and early twentieth centuries, their
observations remain relevant
• Positivism: a theory stating that valid knowledge
about the world can be derived only from sense
experience or knowing the world through the
senses of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing and
from empirical associations
 • The classic sociologists were wide ranging and
comparative in their outlooks
• They did not limit their observations to a single
academic discipline, a single period in history, or a
single society. They were particularly interested in
Classic the transformative powers of history, and they
located the issues they studied according to time
and place
sociologists • All lived at a time when Europe was colonizing
much of Asia and Africa; when Europeans were
migrating to the United States, Canada, South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and South America.
• The significance of European expansion and
movement of peoples on the discipline of sociology
 • Explorers, traders, missionaries,
administrators, and anthropologists
recorded and reported more or less
accurately the details of life in the
multitudes of new social groupings which
they encountered….never had man more
evidence of the variety of answers which

Classic his species could produce in response to

the problems of living.
• This knowledge was built in the
sociology foundations of sociology
• Contemporary sociology continues this
tradition by incorporating a global
perspective throughout
• It applies sociological concepts and
theories to a wide range of critical issues
 The adventure of sociological theory is relatively
new

But is is closely connected to a long history of

Sociological social thought, extending back to the ancient

world

theory Greek philosophers, Roman lawyers, and Jewish

and Christian religious scholars all contributed
significantly to the ‘prehistory’ of sociological
theory

They not only thought about society, they

thought in systematic ways about what made is
possible, how it could be better, and what
caused social order sometimes to collapse
 • Society – social action and relationships
and organisations – came to the fore not
The idea of simply as an intellectual development
but in response to enormous change in

Society and social life itself

• The rise of individualism: individualism

the Roots of may seem the opposite of a concern for

society

Sociological • The product of individual thought and

action or judged on the criterion of how
well it meets individuals’ needs, society
Theory looks different from when it approached
as ordered according to divine law or
dictated by kings
 • The rise of modern states
• The development of large-scale markets,

The idea of capitalism and modern industry

• The european explorations of the rest of

Society and the world and the trade, war, and

colonization that followed in its wake

the Roots of • Sociological theory was born in reflection

on both momentous changes in Europe
and the patterns of similarities and
Sociological differences discerned among human
societies around the world

Theory • The changes and the confrontations with

differences were often disruption, but by
their very disruptions called attention to
the issue of HOW SOCIETY WORKED
 • Social theory continues to be
characterized by a wide variety of more
specific theoretical perspectives.

Main • In short, alongside attempts to develop

analytical syntheses, there continues to be a

proliferation of specific narratives on
different topics
concerns and
goals • A new constellation of analytical concern
that is not reducible to a common
denominator, essential core, or
generative first principle
 • The discursive formation of social theory is
not a fixed unity, it is dynamic, subject to
reconstitution in the light of new
interpretative moves, retrievals of forgotten
or marginalized thinkers and works,

Main innovations and novel syntheses, changing

relationships to cognate formations such as
philosophy, linguistics and political economy
analytical and in response to transformed social
conditions

concerns and • Generally, it is a body of analyses described

as ‘classics’ that have provided the
foundations of social theory, that is the
goals works of key nineteenth-century figures, who
are attempting to make sense of the ‘great
transformation’, specifically the emergence
of modern forms of social life, through the
development of novel forms of social analysis
 • The initial analytic focus of social theory,
the accelerating erosion of traditional

Main forms of life and emergence of the

modern world, was from the beginning a
moving target, and the features initially
analytical ascribed to that modern world –
‘constant revolutionizing of production,
concerns and uninterrupted disturbance of all social
conditions, everlasting uncertainty and
agitation’
goals • have become more pronounced and
more prominent with the passage of
time
 • The emergence of formal theories about
social life, theories offering different
perspectives on ‘the social’,
• conceptualizing the study of social
phenomena in a variety of different ways –
Main analytical social facts (Durkheim),
• social action (Weber),
concerns and • sociation (Simmel),
goals • forces and social relations of production
(Marx) –
• accelerated with the constitution of the
modern epistemological configuration and
the formation of the social sciences in
general and sociology in particular.
Main analytical concerns and goals
It is here, in the second half of the Ninteenth century with the
increasing institutionalisation of modern forms of life, with the
increasing diffusion of that form of life we now identify as modernity,
that the discipline of sociology established itself and took root,

and a distinctive practice of social theorizing about the social became

a possibility within the field of knowledge that an understanding of
the indeterminate and fragmentary character of contemporary social
theory may be achieved
 • A social science like sociology does not
develop cumulative knowledge in the
same way as natural sciences
• Rather the relationship it has to its
Main subject matter is that of a double
hermeneutic

analytical • Social knowledge stands in a complex

relationship to its subject matter

concerns and • It is not independent or detached from

the social world. To the contrary, ideas,

goals conceptions and explanations infiltrate

the very social contexts that they seek to
describe or account for and in the
process of social knowledge and the
social world that is its object are both
transformed
 Historical contexts and the emergence of sociology

Sociology and revolutions

Cultural revolution Political Revolution Economic and social revolution
(change)
The rise of scientific knowledge American and French Revolutions Industrialization

Religions’ loss of influence 1848 Upheavals and political Consumer society

The secolarisation of society change
The Enligthtenment Democratisation and recognition Capitalism
of fundamental rights

Urbanization
From modern society to postmodern/global
society
Key features of society Premodern Modern Postmodern
Economy Agriculture /farming Industry Information society
Society Rural society Urban society
Megalopolis
Politics Leaders’ religious and Democracy Disenchantenment
dynastic legitimisation Cynicism
Apathy
Distrust

Culture Religion Rationality and science Fragmented and

multicultural society
 • There has been a veritable explosion of
interest in the theme of globalization and
adunjnct matters in recent years
• Much of this has been confined to academia,
but rapidly af the end of the twentieth
century it became very much more than an
Globalisation academic issue
• Thus, to survey the present debate about

Theories globalization in a relatively short space is a

daunting task
• While the same might well be said of a
number of other areas of sociology, there are
features of the explosion of interest in and
discourse about globalization that tend to
make comprehensive discussion of this
theme rather different
 • First, the debate about globalization cuts across a
considerable number of disciplines – including sociology,
anthropology, political science and international relations,
comparative literature, religious studies, business studies,
cultural and communication studies, geography, feminist
studies, ethnic studies and history.
• This gives rise to the issue of transdisciplinarity that is a

Globalisation transcendence of disciplinarity, although it certainly does

not mean th obliteration of perspectives deriving from the
conventional academic discipline

Theories • The current tendency to regard globalization in more or less

exclusively economic terms is a particularly disturbing form
of reductionism, indeed of fundamentalism.
• Indeed, this is an important topic in its own right – namely,
how and why the notion of globalization has come to be
used economistically, most notably in the field of business
studies, even though during the early 1980s a much more
comprehensive perspective had been developed in such
disciplines as sociology and anthropology
 • Key problems of the globalization
paradigm >
• When globalization trends begin?
• What drives the globalization process?
What is its ‘motor force’?
• Does global change involve increasing

Globalisation homogeneity or increasing, or a mixture

of the two?

Theories • What is the relation between the local

and the global?
• Is the modern nation-state being
undermined by processes of
globalization?
• How does modernity relate to
globalization and globality?
 • A mounting debate about the
interconnectedness of the world as a
whole and the concomitant increase in
reflexive, global consciousness
• The two essentially defining features of
globalization

Globalization • Having said that globalization has only

taken a particular, discernible form
during the past five centuries or so
Theories • In this context, form involves the idea
that the world has increasingly taken a
particular overall shape consisting of
nation-states; individual selves; the
system of international relations; and
humankind
 • There is no straightforward answer to
the question as to the driving force of
globalization
• One dimension, such as the cultural (or
religious) has been more important than
Globalization others at certain historical moments,
while the economic or the political have
been powerful at other times
Theories • But generally it is best to say that over
the long haul there has been no single
motor force and that the question of
causation in this respect is a matter for
comparative and historical study with
regard to particular places and periods
 • Given the very widespread support for the
homogenization position it is crucial to
consider carefully the heterogeniety aspect,
in terms of the idea of differences within-
sameness
• The concept of glocalization is vital in coming

Globalization to terms with the homogeneity vs

heterogeneity dispute
• Globalization is not an all-encompassing
Theories process of homogenization but a complex
mixture of homogeneization and
heterogeneization
• The local stands at one end of a continuum
at the opposite end of which is the global
• The local is globally – certainly translocally –
produced and reproduced
 • The nation-state is being simultaneosly
weakened and strengthened
• The respects in which it is being
weakened include the following: a)
increasing significance of transnational
corporations;
Globalization • b) migration flows and the rise of post-
national membership and forms of global
Theories citizenship;
• c) the mounting concern with issues that
transcend the nation-state’s effective
reach, notably environmental matters
and the rise of megacities which straddle
two or more nation-states, thus leading
to crucial problems of governance;
 • d) the growing strenght of supranational
institutions;
• e) the striking increase in and the
influenced of international non-
governmental organizations;
• f) the crystalization of an extensive
concern with human rights issues, this
Globalization being a vital example of the increasing
penetration of the internal affairs of
Theories nation-states by external agencies;
• g) the rapid increase of political
interactions over the past twenty years,
the globally co-ordinated presence of
these on the international scene
presenting a threath to the conventional
form of the nation-state
 • However, in spite of these, and still other,
trends the nation state remains the
central and most formidable actor in

Globalization world affairs generally

• A good example of this is the degree to

Theories which national interests and conflicts

between states continue to dominate the
functioning of the European Union
where the legal decisions of the relevant
agency within the EU are directly binding
 • Globalization has been a consequence of
modernity (Giddens)
• The global age: an age which supersedes the
epoch of modernity (post-modernity) (Albrow)
• Pivotal attributes of globalization and
preconditions of different types of modernity
• The process of globalization when considered
Globalization multidimensionally has having political, cultural
and further aspects other than the economic

Theories • Then includes numerous phenomena that ar

not related to what is problematically called
westernization
• Use of the concept of globalization than
provides an exploratory space in which one can
include all kinds of cultural flows from Asia to
the West and so on
 • Position one:
• Globalization is producing a
homogeneous world characterised by a
belief that freedom of expression and
appreciation of, and respect for, human
Globalisation: and cultural differences should be
universally valued and a fusion of distinct
different cultural practices into a new world
culture.
standpoints • This respect and fusion is embodied in
trends such as world beat, world cusine,
and world cinema. Globalisation includes
the emergence of global citizens, who
think of the world as one community and
feel a responsibility to the planet.
 • Position two:
• Globalisation in producing a
homogeneous world by destroying
Globalisation: variety and the local cultures that get in
the way of progress or simply cannot
compete against large corporations
different • The engines of cultural destruction –
something referred to as McWorld and
standpoints Coca-colonization – are consumerism
and corporate capitalism; How is
globalisation destroying local cultures
 • Position three:
• Globalisation actually brings value to and
appreciation for local products and ways
of doing. Consumption of goods and
services is not one-way exchange in
which buying culture simply accepts a
Globalisation: foreing product as it is known and used
in the exporting culture(s).
different • Although the products of corporate
capitalism penetrate local markets, they
standpoints do not eliminate demand for local
ingredients and products
• Moreover local tastes are incorporated
into corporate offerings.
• Coca-cola, for example, offers 450
different brands in 200 countries.
 • Position four:
• Globalisation and its interconnections
intensify cultural differences by actually
‘sparking religious, ethnic, and cultural
Globalisation: conflicts as people fight to preserve their
identity and particular way of life’

different • By resisting western influences that have

dominated globalisation to date, by
asserting an identity that clashes with
standpoints western ideals (that is individualism,
freedom of expression, democracy) or by
protecting and enforcing boundaries
even as they are opened and erased
 • For a start, it must be recognized that ideas
about home, locality and community have
been extensively spread around the world in
recent years
• In a word, the local has been globalized and
the stress upon the significance of the local
or the communal can be viewed as one
Globalization ingredient of the overall globalization
process

Theories • It is virtually a commonplace to say that

when we talk about the process of
globalization or the condition of globality we
are speaking in macro-sociological terms,
while in speaking of quotidian, small-scale
interaction we are operating in a micro-
sociological frame
• Yet these characterizations are very
misleading
 • Much of what is thougth of as being personal
or as pertaining to the individual life cycle is
in fact sustained by a global culture and
transmitted mainly through the educational
institutions of contemporary societies,
institutions which are remarkably isomorphic
Globalization on a global scale
• In other words, notwithstanding significant
Theories and particular differences from society there
is much general similarity between the
various istituzionalized individualisms of the
contemporary world
• Several modern civilizations have emerged,
all multicentred and heterogeneous, all
generating their own dynamics
 • More succintly, modernity has spread to
most of the world but has not given rise
to a single civilization
• This historically continuos process has
over hundreds, of thousands, of years
cumulatively created condition of
Globalization globality which may be defined on the
one hand as increasingly reflexive
consciousness across the world of both
Theories variety as well as global singularity, and,
on the ohter hand, as concrete
institutional interdependence and
isomorphism
• Cross societal emulation has become an
institutionalized feature of all forms of
modernity
 • Global interdependence > a situation in
which social activity transcends national
borders and in which one country’s problems
– such as unemployment, drug abuse, water
shortage, natural disasters, and the search

Globalisation for national security in the face of terrorism –

are part of a larger global situation
• Globalisation > the ever increasing flow of
theories goods, services, money, people, information,
and culture across political borders
• The flow has become more dense and quick
moving as space – and time-related
constraints separating people in various
locations seemingly dissolve