Introduction to Sociology

1. Introduction to Sociology • The Basic Insight of Sociology: • Human behavior is socially conditioned. • Probabilities and rates are often determined. • Social structures often involve multiple causes operating at multiple levels. • It is not quite true that “Anything is possible” • Nor is true that “Nothing can be different.”

2. Syllabus and Course Requirements • Many materials are on the web page. • Syllabus • The web copy will be updated as needed • And has active links • For example self-tests and project specifications. • These power point lectures (with links to course themes and glossary) can be printed in different forms • Volunteers to help those with net problems or questions: at web-help

3. Sociology: The scientific study of society. • Sociology is often concerned with rates and probabilities. For example, • Murder rates • Suicide rates • Divorce rates • Probabilities of terrorism … • We often do not need to predict individual behaviors in order to predict and explain rates. • The predictability of rates is one of the reasons that we do not assume that "anything is possible."

4. Example #1 • the zip code trick • (*p.4 - i.e. this example is described in Sociology, Micro, Macro and Mega p.4) • One knows a great deal about someone from their zip code. • One's zip code changes the odds of virtually any kind of behavior: • music, sex, voting, reading, grades. • E.g. Probability of going to college from 90210 and from E. L. A. • The zip code mainly reflects social class. • This is the point of Table 1.1 (*pp.16-18).    

5. Approach to sociology in terms of social problems • 3 x 5 card: • What is the most serious social problem we face?   • What does it mean to say that something is a “Social Problem?” • What causes the social problems? • Sociological Imagination; micro- and macro-level analysis; keeping our levels straight

6. Example #2: 187 – a sick school • Benny leads the class in trashing the class and throwing books on the ground. • As a substitute teacher, what do you do? • Depending on the level that we address it different responses are appropriate: • Micro: Benny’s character: get rid of him. • Macro: the role of KOS head: get rid of it. • Mega: the conditions generating KOS: get rid of them.

7. Thinking in Systems Terms • Pettigrew, in How To Think Like a Social Scientist says that social causation is usually multicausal at multiple levels. • Multiple causes: since many causes are operating, each one has only a statistical effect. • Since there is a cascade of effects of any action, estimating the net effect is complex. • Any action to be explained usually exists at such different levels as the individual actor, the role and the structure.

8. Two Responses to Social Problems • Individual explanations and solutions • Change individuals’ behaviors • E.g. rewards, punishments, incarceration • “Shooting bullfrogs” • Systemic explanations and solutions • Change the conditions generating the behavior • E.g. structural changes • “Draining the swamp”

9. Example #3: A little quiz • Consider the following common sense interpretations of research questions: • Common sense often gives several different answers or the wrong answers • Pettigrew ch. I Table