Sociology examines how our behavior individually and in groups is influenced by social processes and what that means. In fact once you start seeing things with a sociological perspective – things will never be the same. It’s knowing how and why we do what we do that engages us with the world around us and makes us more effective agents for social change. However, sociologist C. Wright Mills describes sociology as “the intersection of biography and history?” A lot of you may wonder what he mean: well from my studying and perspectives; The reason why he say sociology is the interception of biography and history is because, Biography: happens to individuals and History: happens to society. For example, every
First of all I am going to explain what exactly the sociological imagination and common sense explanations are, and then go on to discuss how each justify educational outcomes. ‘The sociological imagination’ as explained by C. Wright Mills(1959) asks people to question everything that goes on around them and not just to conform to what they know and to what they have come to accept as normal, but to question their own beliefs and question why things happen the way they do. This concept hoped that people would put their own problems into perspective and consider them on a universal scale and in doing so; they would have more knowledge and a better outlook to make decisions and more empathy to situations. Mills wanted people to challenge their own beliefs and ideas and in doing so this could even change society. Common sense is such a simple concept but when it comes to a defining it, it’s difficult to explain.
Compare and contrast two approaches to defining and measuring crime and deviance. There are a number of sociological theories that explore the concepts of crime and deviance within society. Although these theories are diverse and offer differing perspectives and explanations of crime and deviance, they all agree that a social approach is required (Taylor et al. 2008). This assignment will explore the social constructivist approach to defining and measuring of crime and deviance from a functionalist and interactionist perspective with a brief overview of the Marxist perception.
Many people ask, why does crime occur, who commits the crimes and why. We also ask the question of whether or not economic class, race, ect, has anything to do with why crime occurs. Theories have been conjured upon these acts to try to give meaning on why, what happens takes place. In this essay I would like to take the time to explain these theories to help others understand and maybe change their own viewpoints. Crime can affect the way individuals perceive others generally creating bias and prejudice within a person’s frame of thought; hopefully we can make someone think a little differently.
Sociological Theory, Volume 6, No. 2. American Sociological Association. The authors provide an overview of basic choice theory and its building blocks. The authors attempt to look at why people use rational choice and what causes the chain reaction of events that occurs once a choice is made.
In the study of sociology, there are three sociological assumptions: argument, evidence, unit of analysis. These arguments differ greatly, but share common ground: assuming exactly what they need to be explaining. When writing a sociological argument, it is important to
Prejudice can be defined as being an attitude, such as dislike towards a given minority. The following essay aims to outline and evaluate research studies into prejudice. A piece of research done by Sigall and Page (1971, cited in Baron and Byrne, 2003, pg 203) looked at an approach known as the ‘bogus pipeline’. The aim of this research was to look at social pressure and whether attitudes towards minority groups are indeed affected by this. Prejudice is mostly assessed through self- report questionnaires, responses to questionnaires are influenced by social desirability Bias, which is the tendency to give socially approved answers, (Eyesnck, 2000).
In this article, the writer (Peter L. Berger) attempts to explain the purpose and methods of studying sociology. It can be derived from the article that sociology breaks down the façade of appearances and assumptions to reveal differences and deviances that can be cultural, political, religious, moral, and so on. Berger compares the experience of studying sociology with “culture shock” by explaining that one expects, when entering a new culture, to experience the shock of lifestyles, traditions, and activities that are new, opposite, or variations of what an individual is accustomed to. The article explains that this same experience can also be had when studying, in depth, the reality underneath the façade of individual units within society
------------------------------------------------- Identify and explain the main arguments proposed by positivist thinking that sociology is a science. Consider and explain the responses from anti-positivist thinking that propose an interpretist approach. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches, illustrating your answer with references to sociological theorists, methodology and research. Positivism in short is the view that the study of sociology can be carried out in a scientific manner. It was a term coined by one of the founding fathers of classical sociology Comte and it involves: “Knowledge that is disciplined, empirical and scientific free from religious or political bias.” On the other hand as society and the early science of sociology evolved a different approach was seen by many to be the way forward.
Mills interpreted the Sociological Imagination as “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society” (Mills, 1959). However, in order to become aware of the connection between our personal background and the wider society, we as individuals would need to activate our Sociological Imagination and detach ourselves from everyday patterns in order to gain a new perspective. We have come to infer that using ones Sociological Imagination is understanding that factors from society and societies of our past contribute to the way our family, friends, and neighbours may behave. Different societies in various parts of the world differ in forms of government, cuisines, dress and ways of entertainment. These life styles present in dissimilar societies world wide can be explained by looking and studying the conditions, resources and ways of thinking that have been used in the past , which were gradually passed down to future generations, becoming the traditions and customs we see today.