Sociology is the systematic study of human society. At the heart of sociology is a special point of view called the sociological perspective.
Seeing the General in the Particular
Years ago, Peter Berger described the sociological perspective as seeing the general in the particular. By this he meant that sociologists look for general patterns in the behavior of particular people. Although every individual is unique, a society shapes the lives of people in various categories (such as children and adults, women and men, the rich and the poor) very differently. We begin to see the world sociologically by realizing how the general categories into which we fall shape our particular life experiences.
In this class we will explore the power of society to guide our actions, thoughts and feelings. For example, we may think that marriage results simply from the personal feelings of love. Yet the sociological perspective shows us that factors such as age, sex, race and social class guide our selection of a partner. It might be more accurate to think of love as a feeling we have for others who match up with what society teaches us we want in a mate.
Seeing the Strange in the Familiar
At first, using the sociological perspective may seem like seeing the strange in the familiar. Consider how you might react if someone were to say to you, “You fit all the right categories, which means you would make a wonderful spouse!” We are used to thinking that people fall in love and decide to marry based on personal feelings of love. But the sociological perspective reveals the initially strange idea that society shapes what we think and do. Because we live in an individualistic society, learning to see how society affects us may take a bit of practice. If someone asked you why you “chose” to enroll at your particular college, you might offer one of the following reasons:
· “I wanted to stay close to home”
· “With a journalism degree from this school, I can get a good job”
· “My girlfriend goes to school here”
· “ I didn’t get into the school I really wanted to go to”
Any of these responses may well be true. But do they really tell the whole story? Thinking sociologically about going to college, it’s important to realize that only about 5 out of every 100 people in the world earn a college degree, with the enrollment rate much higher in high-income nations than in poor countries. Even in the United States a century ago, going to college was not an option for most people. Today, going to college is within reach of far more people. But a look around a typical college classroom shows that social forces still have much to do with who goes to college. For instance, most U.S. colleges students are young, generally between eighteen and thirty. Why? Because in our society, attending college is linked to this period of life. But more than age is involved, because fewer than half of all young men and women actually end up on campus.
Another factor is cost. Because higher education is so expensive, college students tend to come from families with above-average incomes. If you are lucky enough to belong to a family earning more than $75,000 a year, you are almost three times more likely to go to college as someone whose family earns less than $20,000. It is reasonable, in light of these facts, to say that attending is more than simply a matter of personal choice.
Seeing Society in Our Everyday Lives
To see how society shapes personal choices, consider the number of children women have. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the average woman in the United States has about two children in her lifetime. In India, however, the average is about three; in Guatemala, about four; in Ethiopia, about five; in Yemen, about six; and in Niger, the average woman has seven children.
What accounts for these striking differences? Because poor countries provide women with less schooling and fewer economic opportunities, women’s lives are centered in the home, and they are less likely to use contraception. Clearly, society has much to do with the decisions women and men make about childbearing.
Another illustration of the power of society to shape even our most private choices comes from the study of suicide. What could be a more personal choice than the decision to end your own life? But Emile Durkeim (1858-1917), one of sociology’s pioneers, showed that even here, social forces are at work.
Examining official records in France, his own country, Durkheim found that some categories of people were more likely to take their own lives. Men, Protestants, wealthy people, and the unmarried had much higher rates than women, Catholics and Jews, the poor, and married people. Durkeim explained the results in terms of social integration: Categories of people with strong social ties had low rates of suicide rates, and more individualistic categories of people had high rates of suicide.
In Durkeim’s time, men had much more freedom than women. But despite its advantages, freedom weakens social ties and thus increases the risk of suicide. Likewise, more individualistic Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than more tradition-bound Catholics and Jews, whose rituals encourage stronger social ties. The wealthy have much more freedom than the poor, but once again, their money continued stretch for more of it has a way of alienating them from other people.
Seeing Sociologically: Marginality and Crisis
Anyone can learn to see the world using the sociological perspective. But two situations help people see clearly how society shapes individual lives: living on the margins of society and living through a social crisis. From time to time, everyone feels like an outsider. For some categories of people, however, being and outsider is an everyday experience. The greater people’s social marginality, the better they are able to use the sociological perspective.
For example, no African American grows up in the United States without understanding the importance of race in shaping people’s lives. Rap lyrics by groups such as Three 6 Mafia who say that they “Done seen people killed, done seen people deal, done seen people live in poverty with no meals,” show that some people of color-especially African Americans living in the inner city-feel like their hopes and dreams are crushed by society. But white people, as the dominant majority, think less often about race and the privileges it provides, believing that race affects only people and not themselves as well. People at the margins of social life, including women, gay people, people with disabilities, and the very old, are aware of social patterns that others rarely think about. To become better at using the sociological perspective, we must step back from the familiar routines and look at our lives with a new curiosity.
Periods of change or crisis make everyone feel a little off balance, encouraging us to see the sociological perspective. The sociologist C. Wright Mills illustrated this idea using the Great Depression of the 1930s. As the unemployment rate soared to 25 percent, people who were out of work could not help but 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 collapsed; 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.
Just as social change encourages sociological thinking, sociological thinking can bring about social change. The more we learn about how “the system” operates, the more we may want to change it in some way. Becoming aware of the power of gender, for example, has caused many women and men to try to reduce gender inequality in our society.
Seeing the General in the Particular
Years ago, Peter Berger described the sociological perspective as seeing the general in the particular. By this he meant that sociologists look for general patterns in the behavior of particular people. Although every individual is unique, a society shapes the lives of people in various categories (such as children and adults, women and men, the rich and the poor) very differently. We begin to see the world sociologically by realizing how the general categories into which we fall shape our particular life experiences.
In this class we will explore the power of society to guide our actions, thoughts and feelings. For example, we may think that marriage results simply from the personal feelings of love. Yet the sociological perspective shows us that factors such as age, sex, race and social class guide our selection of a partner. It might be more accurate to think of love as a feeling we have for others who match up with what society teaches us we want in a mate.
Seeing the Strange in the Familiar
At first, using the sociological perspective may seem like seeing the strange in the familiar. Consider how you might react if someone were to say to you, “You fit all the right categories, which means you would make a wonderful spouse!” We are used to thinking that people fall in love and decide to marry based on personal feelings of love. But the sociological perspective reveals the initially strange idea that society shapes what we think and do. Because we live in an individualistic society, learning to see how society affects us may take a bit of practice. If someone asked you why you “chose” to enroll at your particular college, you might offer one of the following reasons:
· “I wanted to stay close to home”
· “With a journalism degree from this school, I can get a good job”
· “My girlfriend goes to school here”
· “ I didn’t get into the school I really wanted to go to”
Any of these responses may well be true. But do they really tell the whole story? Thinking sociologically about going to college, it’s important to realize that only about 5 out of every 100 people in the world earn a college degree, with the enrollment rate much higher in high-income nations than in poor countries. Even in the United States a century ago, going to college was not an option for most people. Today, going to college is within reach of far more people. But a look around a typical college classroom shows that social forces still have much to do with who goes to college. For instance, most U.S. colleges students are young, generally between eighteen and thirty. Why? Because in our society, attending college is linked to this period of life. But more than age is involved, because fewer than half of all young men and women actually end up on campus.
Another factor is cost. Because higher education is so expensive, college students tend to come from families with above-average incomes. If you are lucky enough to belong to a family earning more than $75,000 a year, you are almost three times more likely to go to college as someone whose family earns less than $20,000. It is reasonable, in light of these facts, to say that attending is more than simply a matter of personal choice.
Seeing Society in Our Everyday Lives
To see how society shapes personal choices, consider the number of children women have. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the average woman in the United States has about two children in her lifetime. In India, however, the average is about three; in Guatemala, about four; in Ethiopia, about five; in Yemen, about six; and in Niger, the average woman has seven children.
What accounts for these striking differences? Because poor countries provide women with less schooling and fewer economic opportunities, women’s lives are centered in the home, and they are less likely to use contraception. Clearly, society has much to do with the decisions women and men make about childbearing.
Another illustration of the power of society to shape even our most private choices comes from the study of suicide. What could be a more personal choice than the decision to end your own life? But Emile Durkeim (1858-1917), one of sociology’s pioneers, showed that even here, social forces are at work.
Examining official records in France, his own country, Durkheim found that some categories of people were more likely to take their own lives. Men, Protestants, wealthy people, and the unmarried had much higher rates than women, Catholics and Jews, the poor, and married people. Durkeim explained the results in terms of social integration: Categories of people with strong social ties had low rates of suicide rates, and more individualistic categories of people had high rates of suicide.
In Durkeim’s time, men had much more freedom than women. But despite its advantages, freedom weakens social ties and thus increases the risk of suicide. Likewise, more individualistic Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than more tradition-bound Catholics and Jews, whose rituals encourage stronger social ties. The wealthy have much more freedom than the poor, but once again, their money continued stretch for more of it has a way of alienating them from other people.
Seeing Sociologically: Marginality and Crisis
Anyone can learn to see the world using the sociological perspective. But two situations help people see clearly how society shapes individual lives: living on the margins of society and living through a social crisis. From time to time, everyone feels like an outsider. For some categories of people, however, being and outsider is an everyday experience. The greater people’s social marginality, the better they are able to use the sociological perspective.
For example, no African American grows up in the United States without understanding the importance of race in shaping people’s lives. Rap lyrics by groups such as Three 6 Mafia who say that they “Done seen people killed, done seen people deal, done seen people live in poverty with no meals,” show that some people of color-especially African Americans living in the inner city-feel like their hopes and dreams are crushed by society. But white people, as the dominant majority, think less often about race and the privileges it provides, believing that race affects only people and not themselves as well. People at the margins of social life, including women, gay people, people with disabilities, and the very old, are aware of social patterns that others rarely think about. To become better at using the sociological perspective, we must step back from the familiar routines and look at our lives with a new curiosity.
Periods of change or crisis make everyone feel a little off balance, encouraging us to see the sociological perspective. The sociologist C. Wright Mills illustrated this idea using the Great Depression of the 1930s. As the unemployment rate soared to 25 percent, people who were out of work could not help but 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 collapsed; 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.
Just as social change encourages sociological thinking, sociological thinking can bring about social change. The more we learn about how “the system” operates, the more we may want to change it in some way. Becoming aware of the power of gender, for example, has caused many women and men to try to reduce gender inequality in our society.