February 2 nd

1. February 2nd • Sign in and Participation cards • Quick Writing • Review Covenant • Lecture One – Sociological Perspective and Analysis • Homework: • Read: Chapter 2 of Introductions

2. Quick Writing • Take 5 minutes and explain the following quote: “[Humans] make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” - Karl Marx

3. The Sociological Perspective Lecture One

4. What is Sociology? • Study of Society…what does that mean? • It examines the ways in which the forms of social structure & social categories & various social institutions affect human attitudes, actions, and opportunities. • Sociology enables us to understand the structure and dynamics of society, and their intricate connections to patterns of human behavior and individual life changes.

5. Why Care About Understanding Society? • We are products of society and society is a product of us • Understand why and how we came to be like we are • Our position within the social structure (society) determines how we will act, think, and what resources we have • Our place in society is the intersection of many social relationships • Gender, race, class, age, geography, sexuality

6. Born the Opposite Sex? • Gender as a social position – a place in society • Constrains what we think our choices are and how others think about who we are and how we should act • Social positions come with an inherent set of advantages and disadvantages • By looking at gender we can see: • How the Individual and Society are linked • Gender, like other social constructions, is both a myth and reality

7. What do sociologists study? • Sociologists explore how both individuals and collectivities construct, maintain, and alter social organization in various ways • Sociology asks about the sources and consequences of change in social arrangements and institutions, and about the satisfactions and difficulties of planning, accomplishing, and adapting to such change • Areas studied in examining social dynamics include: culture, socialization, cooperation, conflict, power, exchange, inequality, deviance, social control, violence, order and social change

8. Examining the present with the past • “[Humans] make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” - Karl Marx • To understand the present social arrangement in society, sociologists must also look into the past

9. How sociologists study society • Sociologists look to explain how and why things happen. In every question a sociologist asks and every answer they give you will find an explanation of the how and why • Keep this in mind over the semester!

10. Critical Thinking is Required • Sociology is a critical and analytical discipline and sociological thinking is a process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating

11. Beliefs vs. Sociological Analysis • As social beings, we see the social world through our own lens of experience and belief system and often make judgments based on our personal beliefs • To remain objective, sociology helps us see how that lens was formed and be honest about our assumptions • What we see with sociological analyses often challenges many of our thoughts and beliefs • Come to class prepared to be exposed to alternate explanations of the world and to try and understand them

12. The Sociological Perspective • Sociology seeks to understand the relationship between the individual and society with:

13. C Wright Mills: Sociological Imagination • A quality of mind that allows us to connect: “Personal troubles of the milieu” with “Public issues of social structure” • Examining these relationships gives us the knowledge to understand society, our place in it, and the ability to make changes

14. HIV/AIDS Globally

15. Understanding and Explaining HIV/AIDS • Cultural Explanations • Virility is strongly linked to masculinity in many cultures affected by HIV/AIDS • Low status of women • Social Structure Explanations • Global poverty and inequality create low immune systems • Underdevelopment limits economic opportunities • Political Explanations • Lack of adequate health care and access to treatment • Political policies that do not address the issue • Individual Explanations • Lack of education and poor choices

16. Social Consciousness • Another sociologist, Peter Berger, believes that we need a social consciousness or “A form of consciousness that enables us to see the "reality" behind the "facades." • He asks us to critically examine the things that are familiar to us as unfamiliar • “It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this – things are not what they seem.”

17. Practicing Social Consciousness • Have you ever asked yourself: Why do women shave their legs? • Why is it normal in our culture for women to shave their legs and not men?

18. Asking How & Why (and when) with Social Consciousness • When did this ideal emerge? • In the 20th Century when women’s legs became more visible due to shorter skirts and changing fashion • How did this ideal emerge? • Needed to have the right technology to make shaving easy and safe. The safety razor emerged on the market in early 20th Century. • Why did this ideal emerge? • Anglo-American cultural standard: leg hair is unfeminine • Cultural mechanism to increase sexual dimorphism (difference between sexes in the same species)

19. In Conclusion… • A sociological perspective requires us to think critically and analytically about the social world around us, our place in it, our relationships to others, and our own personal beliefs and values • While sociologists study many aspects of society and social issues, the core concepts of the discipline are power, inequality, social justice, and social change