INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
by
Dr. Ron J. Hammond
SMASHWORDS EDITION
*****
PUBLISHED BY:
Dr. Ron J. Hammond and Dr. Paul Cheney on Smashwords
Introduction to Sociology
Copyright ? 2010 by Dr. Ron J. Hammond
This book is being released under a Creative Commons License of Attribution (BY).
This means that you are free to use the materials contained in this work for any purpose
as long as credit is given to the authors. More free books available at freebooks.uvu.edu.
Table of Contents
Chapter 01 History & Introduction
Chapter 02 Sociological Imagination
Chapter 03 Social Theories
Chapter 04 Scientific Sociology
Chapter 05 Culture
Chapter 06 Socialization
Chapter 07 Society and Groups
Chapter 08 Deviance & Crime
Chapter 09 Stratification
Chapter 10 Sex and Gender
Chapter 11 Race and Minority
Chapter 12 Aging
Chapter 13 Family
Chapter 14 Education
Chapter 15 Religion
Chapter 16 Media
Chapter 17 Population
Chapter 18 Urbanization
Chapter 19 Collective Behaviors
Chapter 20 Rape & Sexual Assault
*****
Chapter 01 - History and Introduction
This New Science of Societies: Sociology
Sociology is a relatively new discipline in comparison to chemistry, math, biology,
philosophy and other disciplines that trace back thousands of years. Sociology began as
an intellectual/philosophical effort by a French man named Auguste Comte (born 1798
and died 1857). He is considered the founder of sociology and coined "Sociology."
Comte's Definition of Sociology is the science of society. In his observation Comte
believed that society's knowledge passed through 3 stages which he observed in France.
His life came in what he called the positivism stage (science-based). Positivism is the
objective and value-free observation, comparison, and experimentation applied to
scientific inquiry. Positivism was Comte's way of describing the science needed for
sociology to takes its place among the other scientific disciplines.
His core work, "The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte" was translated by a Britishborn philosopher named Harriet Martineau (1802-1876). She literally clarified Comte's
original writing as she condensed it into a concise English language version. This
expanded the interest in sociology to include English speakers. Martineau held values
that are common today but were way before her time. She opposed oppression, especially
of women and Black slaves in the US. Her own work about society which first addressed
this, Society In America has been scanned and is free (public domain) to read at
%22Society+in+America%22&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 .
Why did thinkers of the day find a need for a new science of sociology? Societies had
change in unprecedented ways and had formed a new collective of social complexities
that the world had never witnessed before. Western Europe was transformed by the
Industrial Revolution, a technological development of knowledge and manufacturing that
began in the late 1600s and continued until the early 1900s. The Industrial Revolution
transformed society at every level. Look at Table 1 below to see pre and post-Industrial
Revolution social patterns and how different they were.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, families lived on smaller farms and every able member
of the family did work to support and sustain the family economy. Towns were small and
very similar (homogamy) and families were large (more children=more workers). There
was a lower standard of living and because of poor sanitation people died earlier.
After the Industrial Revolution, farm work was replaced by factory work. Men left their
homes and became breadwinners earning money to buy many of the goods that used to be
made by hand at home (or bartered for by trading one's own homemade goods with
another's). Women became the supervisors of home work. Much was still done by
families to develop their own home goods while many women and children also went to
the factories to work. Cities became larger and more diverse (heterogamy). Families
became smaller (less farm work required fewer children). Eventually, standards of living
increased and death rates declined.
It is important to note the value of women's work before and after the Industrial
Revolution. Hard work was the norm and still is today for most women. Homemaking
included much unpaid work. For example, my 93 year old Granny is an example of this.
She worked hard her entire life both in a cotton factory and at home raising her children,
grand-children, and at times great grand-children. When I was a boy, she taught me how
to make lye soap by saving the fat from animals they ate. She'd take a metal bucket and
poked holes in the bottom of it. Then she burned twigs and small branches until a pile of
ashes built up in the bottom of the bucket. After that she filtered water from the well
through the ashes and collected the lye water runoff in a can. She heated the animal fat
and mixed it in the lye water from the can. When it cooled, it was cut up and used as lye
soap. They'd also take that lye water runoff and soak dried white corn in it. The corn
kernel shells would become loose and slip off after being soaked. They'd rinse this and
use it for hominy. Or grind it up and make grits from it. We'll talk more about women
and work in Chapter 10.
These pre and post-industrial changes impacted all of Western civilization because the
Industrial Revolution hit all of these countries about the same way: Western Europe,
United States, Canada, and later Japan and Australia. The Industrial Revolution brought
some rather severe social conditions which included: deplorable city living conditions;
crowding; crime; extensive poverty; inadequate water and sewage; early death, frequent
accidents, and high illness rates. The new social problems required a new science that
was unique from any scientific disciplines of the day. Comte wanted a strong scientific
basis for sociology, but because of various distractions he never quite established it.
Core Founders of Sociology
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was the first to take a position in a university and because
of the scientific journal he edited, L'Ann?e Sociologique (the sociological year) and his
scientific work, he was able to help sociology to become part of higher education's
academic culture. He was also French and took the first position at a university as a
sociology professor.
Durkheim discussed Social Facts, a phenomena within society that typically exists
independent of individual choices and actions. Durkheim approached a subject that most
thought of as being exclusively individualistic in nature-suicide. But, he defined suicide
from a social fact perspective which helped him to establish the unique wisdom of
sociological analysis.
To Durkheim, individual people don't cause suicide, suicide is a social fact that some
members of society participate in for various social reason. Durkheim studied suicide
among categories of people in various contexts in Western Europe. He found 4 distinct
types of suicide that occur as social facts and that could be collectively remedied by
adjusting social processes. Before we explain these let's look at 2 core sociological
concepts.
Social Integration is the degree to which people are connected to their social groups. Let's
check your own personal degree of social integration. On a piece of paper right down
how many close family members you have. Then add in how many close friends and
coworkers you have. Finally add in all others whose name you know and they know
yours. This number is one measure of your social integration. But, to really get an idea
you might evaluate these relationships. In other words list your top 6 closest relationships
in order. Make a short list of the 6 closest relationships you have. Now, rank 1 for the
closest, 2 for next closest and so on up to 6th. Durkheim realized from his suicide studies
that the closer we are to others, the more socially integrated we are and the less likely we
are to commit suicide. The second concept to understand is called anomie.
Anomie is a state of relative normlessness that comes from the disintegration of our
routines and regulations. Anomie is common when we go through sudden changes in our
lives or when we live in larger cities. Sudden changes bring stress and frustration. To
illustrate this, I often tell my students to remember how they felt the day after high school
graduation. They walk for graduation then wake up the next morning with very few
demands on their time and energies. This sudden shift in demands from very intense to
almost absent, leads many to feel extremely frustrated and lost. Add to that they are now
adults and no longer students (children) and you get a prime formula for anomie (role
shift + vague expectations about what is expected + sudden change=anomie).
One of my college students told me that at the end of last semester she had 4 finals, one
paper, two presentations, and one lab project all due in the last 5 days of class. She
finished it all, packed, and moved back home. The first morning she woke up at home she
got out her planner and realized that all she had to do that day, in other words all the
demands placed upon her were to eat and shower. She was not a full-time university
student for now and was between significant roles. "It took a week to get my life back
into a routine for the break," she explained.
As a larger social fact, anomie is a byproduct of large complex societies, especially
around large cities. It's easier to get lost in the crowd, not be noticed, and to rarely receive
praise or criticism for personal actions. Durkheim and others were aware that society
impacted the life of the individual even if the individual had very little impact on society.
By the way, Durkheim measured suicide rates and so do we in our day. Suicide is the
purposeful ending of one's own life for any reason. Suicide Rate is the numbers of
suicides per 100,000 people in a population.
Durkheim's first 2 types of suicide had to do with the degree of social integration of the
individual into their groups. Altruistic Suicide is suicide which occurs when people are
over involved and over committed to a group or society as a whole. This occurs when the
needs of society as a whole override the needs of the individual. Soldiers often do this to
protect their comrades.
Egoistic Suicide is suicide which occurs when people are under-involved or undercommitted to groups. This is the loner-type suicide when an individual is disconnected
(or never connected) to others. Certain social pressures isolate us more than others and
suicide becomes more risky for the isolated. Certain social forces within society create
this isolated state within us (TV viewing, video games, online time, and other solo
activities that preoccupy us with our own interest and isolate us from our groups and
relationships; see and search "James at war Halo3" for a humorous
example of technology isolating us from others).
Interestingly, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center gives a few suicide prevention
strategies that relate to social integration:. "Strong connections to family and community
support cultural and religious beliefs that discourage suicide and support selfpreservations and various other types of social support are recommended" (retrieved 13
January, 2009 from the "Risk and Protective Factors for Suicide," National
Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action, 2001). Interestingly
Durkheim's work is quoted multiple times on this Website.
The next 2 types of suicide described by Durkheim have to do with the levels of social
control and social regulation. Anomic Suicide is suicide which occurs when people are
under-regulated by familiar norms that serve as anchors to their social reality. You'd
expect this type of suicide in very large cities or when dramatic social changes have
transpired (e.g., 9-11 terrorist attacks or recent economic recessions).
Fatalistic Suicide is suicide which occurs when people are over regulated or overconstrained. This might happen in oppressive societies where people prefer to die rather
than continue under the hopeless state of oppression (IE: prisoners of war, inmates, and
refugees). The US Center for Disease Control list Suicide as the 11th most common form
of death with about 32,000+ US suicides reported last year. That's a rate of 11 suicides
per 100,000 living people (retrieved 23 April, 2009 from Suicide and Self-inflicted Injury
at ).
In Durkheim's day he found highest suicide rates for Protestants, males, singles, and
wealthy persons. He found lowest rates for Jews, Catholics, females, marrieds, and poor
persons. Many of these are still common predictors of suicide today. The World Health
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