The Sociological Perspective Seeing the general in the particular PDF

Preview

Summary

Important lecture notes...

Description

The Sociological Perspective Peter Berger Summarized the work of sociology as: “Seeing the general in the particular” and “Seeing the strange in the familiar - Social facts: Institutions, norms and values which exist external to the individual and constrain the individual - “Seeing the strange in the familiar” - Finding patterns and relationships among seemingly unique and isolated phenomena; and uncovering the influence of “social facts” - Institutions, norms and values which exist external to the individual and constrain the individual - Official records in France - Men, Protestants, wealthy people and the unmarried had much higher rates - Women, Catholics and Jews, the poor and married people How do sociologists study society? - Seeing the strange in the familiar - Questioning things we take for granted as “normal” and recognizing their socially constructed character - Imagine you are walking along and have taken the and of a member of the opposite sex! Whose hand is on the front/top? The Sociological perspective: Marginality and Crisis - The greater people’s social marginality, the better able they are to use the sociological perspective - From time to time, everyone feels like an outsider - For some categories of people, however, being and outsider is an everyday experience - African americans have a deeper understanding the importance of race in shaping people’s lives - Often, their hopes and dreams are crushed by society - White people, as the dominant majority, think less often about race and privileges it provides - People at the margins of social life, including women, gay people, people with disabilities, and the very old, are aware of social patterns - Periods of change of crisis encouraging us to see the sociological perspective - C. Wright Mills- the Greatest depression of the 1930’s - unemployment rate soared to 25 percent - People were able to see general social forces at work in their particular lives - Rather than saying, “Something must be wrong with me, I can’t find a job.” - They took a sociological approach and realized, “ The Economy has colllapsed; there are no jobs to be found.”

-

Mills believed that using what he called the sociological imagination in this way helps people understand not only their society but also their own lives, because the two are closely related....