SOCIOLOGY SUMMARY

Lecture 1: Sociological perspectives and research

Required reading:
Macionis, J. J. & Plummer, K. (2012). Sociology: a global introduction. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Ltd. Chapters 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 16, 17, 23, 24

What is sociology?

Sociology is the systematic study of human social relationships and institutions. Sociology’s subject matter is
diverse, ranging from crime to religion, from the family to the state, from the divisions of race and social class to
the shared beliefs of a common culture, and from social stability to radical change in whole societies. “A form of
consciousness, a way of thinking, critical way of seeing, perspective”

Invitation to Sociology:

Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective is a 1963 book about sociology by sociologist Peter L. Berger.
Seeing through, looking behind ‘closed doors’ and ‘seeing the general in the particular’. Excitement of finding the
familiar becoming transformed into something with meaning. First wisdom of sociology: “Things are not what
they seem”. It is like opening gifts, things are multi-layered.

Sociological imagination:

The term sociological imagination was created by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1959 to describe the
type of insight offered by the discipline of sociology. The term is used to explain the nature of sociology and its
relevance in daily life.

- Trappings of society – overwhelming

- Quality of mind – interplay between human and society
- Sociological imagination – intersection between biography and history
- Biography – personal milieu (troubles)
- History – public issues (what’s happening in society)
- Major events rarely just happen – products of social forces
- More we know about operations of society, more likely we will engage it

How to think about sociology:

- Theory – a statement of how and why specific facts are related

- Theoretical perspective – a basic image that guides thinking and research

Durkheim’s study on suicide:

Suicide is an 1897 book written by French sociologist Émile Durkheim. It was the first methodological study of a
social fact in society. He wrote that social integration is linked to the risk of suicide. According to Durkheim, the
term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the
victim himself. According to Durkheim, there are four types of suicide: anomic, altruistic, egoistic and fatalistic.

Sociological research:

When conducting sociological research, you have to fulfil two requirements:

1) Looking at the world sociologically
2) Asking sociological questions

There are several tools you can use, such as: experiments, surveys, fieldwork, ethnography, participant
observation and secondary/ historical analysis

Common sense versus scientific evidence

Concept = mental construct that represents some parts of the world
Variable = concept whose values changes 1
Measurement = process of determining the value of a variable
Classic sociological perspectives:

1. Functionalism

Functionalism states that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their
functional role – that is, they have causal relations to other mental states, numerous sensory inputs, and
behavioural outputs. Functionalism developed largely as an alternative to the identity theory of mind and
behaviourism. Society is like a complex system – parts working together for stability and solidarity.

- According to Émile Durkheim, society depends on bonds and solidarity.

- According to Herbert Spencer, society is like human body
o Structures – how parts fit together to make a whole
o Functions – how each part contributes to the whole
- According to Robert Merton, society has different types of functions
o Manifest (intended) functions are conscious, deliberate and beneficial
o Latent (unintended) functions are the unconscious, and beneficial, and
o Dysfunctions (unintended) are unconscious and harmful.
- Critique: glosses over inequality

2. Conflict theory

Within the conflict theory, society is seen as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change. Social
conflict theory is a Marxist-based social theory which argues that individuals and groups (social classes) within
society interact on the basis of conflict rather than consensus. “History of all existing societies is history of class
struggles”. It is about groups competing over scarce resources (e.g. power)

- Critique: glosses over shared values and interdependence

3. Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism focuses on social interaction based on symbols with meanings. Society as a product of
everyday interactions of people doing things together in a shared reality

- According to Max Weber, human actions, ideas, beliefs and meanings shape our society
- According to Erving Goffman, society is a presentation of ourselves as a symbol
- Critique: obscures larger social structures (context)

Contemporary sociological perspectives:

1. Multiple perspectives: Multidisciplinary approach

2. Different perspectives: Point of view from women, a minority, colonised, LGBT, child, etc.
3. Other voices: Post-modernism, risk consciousness
4. Global perspectives: Interconnectedness, more equal than others

Societies: The definition of a society are people who interact in a defined space and share culture

- Society in the eyes of Karl Marx: material based

- Society in the eyes of Max Weber: ideas, beliefs
- Society in the eyes of Émile Durkheim: bonds, solidarity

Different types of societies

- Hunting and gathering (simple technology)

- Horticultural and pastoral (technology, land, and animals)
- Agrarian (technology and farming)
- Industrial (technology and machinery)
- Post-industrial (technology, network, risk, surveillance)

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Lecture 2: Social construction of everyday life

Microsociology

Microsociology concerns the nature of everyday human social interactions and agency on a small scale.
Microsociology is based on interpretative analysis rather than statistical or empirical observation. Social
construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann) – “Process by which people create reality through interactions”.

Thomas Theorem

The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy
Swaine Thomas: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. In other words, the
interpretation of a situation causes the action. Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations.
Whether there even is an objectively correct interpretation is not important for the purposes of helping guide
individuals' behaviour.

Socialisation

Lifelong social experiences by which individuals construct their personal biography, assemble daily interactional
rules and come to terms with wider patterns. Process of learning to become a member of social group -- the
activity of mixing socially with others.

Development

The ‘Nature, Nurture or Both’ debate: one of the oldest arguments in the history of psychology is the Nature vs
Nurture debate. Each of these sides have good points that it's really hard to decide whether a person's
development is predisposed in his DNA, or a majority of it is influenced by this life experiences and his
environment. Keep in mind that nature and nurture not opposing.

- Nature argument: trait and behaviour are determined by gene or heritability

- Nurture argument: trait and behaviour are determined by learning, outside of the individual
- According to sociologists, nurture is more important
- Human capabilities: ‘features which are central to human life to function well’

Two theories of socialization

1. First theory by Sigmund Freud

Freud proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: Id, ego and super-ego. This model
represents the roles the id, ego, and super-ego play in relation to conscious and unconscious thought.

o Id: human basic drives

o Ego: efforts to balance with the demands of society
o Super-ego: operation of culture within individual

2. Second theory by George Herbert Mead

Social self: the human capacity to be reflexive and take the role of others. Social behaviourism: power of
environment to shape behaviour

- Self emerges from social experiences

- Self is the subject (I) and the object (me)

Parallelism in Freud’s id and super-ego and Mead’s I and me:

- For Freud, the id and super-ego are in constant tension, while Mead’s I and me work cooperatively

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Constructing situations

Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis: theatrical performance. With performances, they mean non-verbal
communication, demeanour, use of space, idealisation, embarrassment (spoiled performance), tact (face-saving)

- The presentation of self; the effort to create impressions to others

Ethnomethodology

Ethnomethodology is the study of methods people use for understanding and producing the social order in which
they live. It generally seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream sociological approaches. “It is the study of the
way people make sense of their everyday lives”. (Garfinkel). By breaking or ignoring rules, responses or reactions
of people are their sense of reality

Social identity

With social identity they mean our or their understanding of

who we or they are and who other people are Prejudice and discrimination is a vicious cycle:

Stage 1 – prejudice and discrimination

- Group behaviour/ group image are possible and
Stage 2 – social disadvantage
emergent Stage 3 – belief in minority’s inferiority
- Identity: includes and excludes simultaneously

Lecture 3: Ethnic and migration

Some definitions:

- Social categorisation: The process of differentiating groups of people

- Race: Category of people sharing biologically transmitted traits
- Racialisation: Process of ranking people based on their race
- Ethnicity: Shared cultural and historical heritage

Race and ethnicity may overlap, but know the distinction -- biological difference (race) and cultural heritage (ethnicity)

- Diaspora: Dispersal of population from its homeland to other areas

- Minority: Category of people (culturally/ physically) who are socially disadvantaged

Prejudice

Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. It is a rigid, irrational
generalisation about an entire category of people. An attitude/feeling with little regard to facts.

Stereotypes

A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. A prejudicial,
exaggerated description to every person in a category of people

Racism

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that
one's own race is superior. The belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another. Cognitive,
evaluative, affective aspects. We try to explain racism by:

- The scapegoat theory: from frustration, unfairly blaming others

- Authoritarian personality: personality trait with clear-cut views
- Cultural theory of prejudice: embedded in culture, common attitudes (social distance)
- Post-colonial theory: criticises and challenges the dominance and superiority of Western (white)
thinking and cultures

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Discrimination

Any action that involves treating various categories of people unequally, this can either be positive or negative.
Forms of discrimination could take place at school, your job or during your relationship. Institutional: bias inherent
in the operations of institutions

Majority-minority: patterns of interaction

- Pluralism: social parity among racial and ethnic groups

- Assimilation: process by which minorities gradually adopt patterns of dominant culture
- Segregation: physical and social separation of categories of people
- Genocide: systematic annihilation of one category of people by another (ethnic cleansing)

Migration

- Migration patterns
o Classical model (government-sponsored)
o Colonial model
o Guest worker model
o ‘Illegal’ model
- Trends of migration:
o Globalisation, acceleration, differentiation, feminisation, politicisation

Lecture 4: Culture

Culture:

The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively, the ideas, customs,
and social behaviour of a particular people or society. Culture is considered a central concept in anthropology,
encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies. Humans
make culture, and culture makes us. Remember that a culture shock is a two-way process.

‘Designs for living’: values, beliefs, behaviour, practices and material objects that constitute people’s way of life

- Toolbox of solutions to everyday problems and the bridge to the past, guide to the future

Components of culture

Symbol: A symbol is a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing
something abstract. The meaning is recognised and shared by people; meanings do not inherent in objects, but
are constructed. Semiotics is the study of symbols and signs

Language: A system of symbols that allows communication

o Cultural reproduction: from one generation to another

o Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: perception through our language a hypothesis
o linguistic determinism: language shapes our thinking (strong)
o linguistic relativity: distinctions between languages (weak)

Values: Standards of what is good and bad

Beliefs: Specific statements held to be true. World values survey; traditional vs. secular-rational (survival vs. self-
expression)
Norms: Rules and expectations guiding the behaviour prescriptive (what you should do) and the proscriptive
(what you should not do)

o Sanctions: consequences of following (positive) or breaking (negative)

o Mores: standards of proper moral conduct (strictly enforced)
o Folkways: customs for casual interaction (not strictly enforced)

Material culture: artefacts, tangible things (e.g. house)

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Cultural diversity

- Monocultural and multicultural

- Diversity: many ways of life  variety and hierarchy
o High (elites) and pop (widespread)
o Cultural capital (power/ status derived from education, awareness, aesthetic preferences)
o Subculture (patterns that are distinct from general population)
o Counterculture (patterns opposing those widely accepted)
o Cultural integration (close relationship among elements of system)
o Cultural lag (elements change disrupting the cultural system)
- Cultural changes due to new invention, discoveries, diffusion, etc.

Understanding and questioning culture

- Ethnocentrism: seeing/judging other culture through own

- Cultural relativism: seeing/judging a culture through its own standards/context
- Global culture: economy, communication, migration
o The limits of global culture are uneven flow of goods, info and people, unequal access to goods
and services, glocalisation)
- Cultural hybridisation: ways of combining cultures (languages, practices, symbols)
- Hegemony: means of dominance of one group through idea
- Is culture a constraint or freedom?

Social movements

- Types:
o Alternative (limited change)
o Redemptive (selective focus, but radical change)
o Reformative (limited change, but for everyone)
o Revolutionary (transformation of society)
- Stages:

Lecture 5: Control, crime and deviance

Deviance: In sociology, deviance describes an action or behaviour that violates social norms, including a formally
enacted rule, as well as informal violations of social norms. For instance: crime, the violation of norms enacted
into laws.

Control processes: Subject to bureaucratisation, professionalization and state funding

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Social control system: Social control, within sociology, refers to the many ways in which our behaviour, thoughts,
and appearance are regulated by the norms, rules, laws, and social structures of society. Social control is a
necessary component of social order, for society could not exist without it. “Planned and programmed responses
to expected deviance”.

Criminal justice system: Societal reaction to alleged violations using police, courts and prison officials

Surveillance society: A society relying on communication and information technologies for administration and
control resulting to close monitoring of everyday life

Explaining crime and deviance

- Classical school:
o Nature of crime is rational to maximise gains
and ensure to escape punishment
o Critique: it assumes that people are rational,
free and self-interested
- Positivist school (deterministic):
o Focuses on characteristics (biology,
personality) and causes of crimes
o Critique: specific types of people, different,
outside of control
- Functionalism:
o Deviant in relation to norm (rule-making and
rule-breaking involve power)
o Affirmation of values and norms, clarification
of boundaries, promotion of unity,
encouragement of change/alternative
- Strain theories:
o Cultural goals > means Anomie = norm breakdown
o Conformity: pursuing goals by approved
means
o Youth deviant subculture
 Delinquent Boys (1955) is a book which is written by Albert Cohen. The central idea of
this book is that the widespread "crisis" of juvenile delinquency can be grappled with
only if one first understands delinquency as a persistent subculture that is traditional
in certain neighbourhoods of our cities. It is about delinquent boys from deprived
backgrounds with status frustration (thwarted aspiration for status, school life more
alienating and frustrating)
o Six concerns of youthful deviant subcultures
1. Trouble (frequent conflict with teachers and police)
2. Toughness (value on physical size, strength)
3. Smartness (ability to out-think or “con” others)
4. Excitement (thrills, risks escaping routines)
5. Fate (lack of control over their lives)
6. Autonomy (freedom expressed as resentment to authorities)
o Critique: unfairly focus on poor people. Conventional terms of success

- Learning theories: Deviance depends on association with others

- Labelling theory:
o Deviance comes not from people’s actions, but from reactions of others
o Social construction of reality is variable
o Primary deviance: marginal and passing
o secondary deviance: repeated violations leading to deviant identity (Thomas theorem)
o stigma: negative social label affecting self-concept and identity)
o retrospective labelling: interpretation of the past consistent with present deviance
o Critique: glosses over behaviours condemned everywhere

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 - Conflict criminologies:
o Link between deviance and power
 Societal norms for the interest of the rich
 Powerful have resources to resist labels
 Norms and laws mask political character
o Marxist tradition: material basis of criminal behaviour
o Deviant labels to those who impede capitalism (achievement and competition)
 who threaten property of others
 who can’t or won’t work
 who resists authorities
 who challenges the status quo
- Left realism:
o Relative deprivation: perceived disadvantage arising from comparison
o Marginalisation: edge of society and outside mainstream with little stake in society crimes
in context (job crisis, poverty and inequality, fear of crime and ‘others’, family crisis)

Feminist and gendered criminology: Questioning the already established theories

- (Conflict theory): Why women commit fewer crimes than men do?
- (Strain theory): Why are women socialised to view success in terms of relationships?  Unmarried
women and childless women = problems
- (Labelling theory): Why different standards for men and women?  Men having power to escape
responsibility
- (New questions): Why is there fear of crime in women? Why women are often victims of sexual violence?
Why women are more socially controlled than men?

Importance of race and ethnicity:

- Correlation between race ethnicity and victimisation/crime rates

- Disproportionate number of arrests and prison terms

Lecture 6: Groups, organisations and rise of network society

Living in social groups

- Primary group
o Small group with personal, enduring relationships
o A group held together by relationships formed by family and environmental associations,
regarded as basic to social life and culture.
- Secondary group
o Mostly large and impersonal group pursuing specific interest or activity
o They can be small or large and are usually short term. These groups are typically found at work
and school.

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Group conformity: Power of group pressure to shape behaviour (experiments). Reference group serves as
reference in making evaluations and decisions

- Group size can be:

o Dyad (need to sustain)
o Triad (more stable)

Dunbar: Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain
stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person
relates to every other person

Group dynamics

- Social diversity affects group dynamics in 4 ways:

1. Large groups turn inwards
2. Heterogeneous groups turn outwards
3. Social parity promotes contact
4. Physical boundaries foster social boundaries

Organisations

- Formal organisation: large, secondary group organised to achieve goals efficiently

o utilitarian organisation: provides material rewards
o normative organisation (voluntary): pursuing worthwhile goals
o coercive organisation (involuntary): form of punishment or treatment

Bureaucracy

Organisational model rationally designed to perform tasks efficiently. The elements of a bureaucracy are:
specialisation, hierarchy of offices, rules and regulations, technical competence, impersonality, formal and written
communication.

- Problems:
o Bureaucratic alienation (dehumanising potential)
o Bureaucratic inefficiency and ritualism (preoccupation with rules)
o Bureaucratic inertia (tendency to perpetuate self)
o Bureaucratic abuse of power (self-interest and above accountability)
- Humanising bureaucracy by a more democratic atmosphere; social inclusiveness; sharing responsibilities
and expanding opportunities for advancement

McDonalization of Society

McDonaldization is a term developed by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society
(1993). For Ritzer McDonaldization becomes manifested when a society adopts the characteristics of a fast-food
restaurant. McDonaldization is a reconceptualization of rationalization and scientific management. Where Max
Weber used the model of the bureaucracy to represent the direction of this changing society, Ritzer sees the fast-
food restaurant as a more representative contemporary paradigm (Ritzer, 2004:553).

- The process of McDonaldization can be summarized as the way in which "the principles of the fast-food
restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of
the world."
- The process by which principles of fast-food industry applied to social life
o Efficiency (minimisation of time)
o Calculability (quantifiable and deliberately planned)
o Predictability (uniformity and standardisation)
o Control (automation)

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Social networks and rise of network society

- Social networks: the web of social ties that link people who identify with one another
- In 21st century, networking replaces older patterns of group life and communication
- Most extensive social networks – young, educated and urbanites
- Mobile phones – shifting patterns of contact and communication, breakdown of split backed with home
and street – intrusive

Lecture 7: Social division and social stratification

Social division:

Human differences are made socially significant and play a role in shaping society. It is a social process – social
exclusion and marginalisation, exploitation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, violence. The term
intersectionality means the ways in which different forms of inequality and division interact with each other.
There are different forms, for instance:

- Social-economic
- Gender
- Ethnic and racialized
- Age
- Language

Social stratification:

- A system by which society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy

- Five principles of stratification
o 1. Characteristic of society, not reflection of individual differences
o 2. Persists over generations
o 3. Universal but variable (what and how?)
o 4. Involves not just inequality but beliefs
o 5. Engenders shared identities
- Systems and forms of stratification:
o There are two sorts of systems: closed systems (little change), and open (mobility) systems
o Forms of stratification:
 1. Slavery: a form of stratification in which people are owned by others as property
 2. Estate system: based on rigidly interlocking hierarchy of rights and obligations
 3. Caste system: based on inherited status or ascription (this is a closed system)
 Birth alone determines one’s social mobility (India example)
 In agrarian setting, rigid sense of duty and discipline
 Endogamous marriage contributes to persistence
 4. Class system: resulting from unequal distribution of wealth, power and prestige
 More open and based on achievement
 Product of industrialisation
 Rests less entirely on birth (unlike caste)

Role of ideology

Ideologies are the cultural beliefs legitimising key interest and justifying stratification. - Ideology takes the
form of cultural patterns, unlikely to be challenged

o Plato: society teaches to view stratification as fair

o Marx: more critical of inequality
 Wealth and power at the hands of the few elites
 Right to own property (bedrock principle of capitalism)
 Laws of inheritance (money and privileges)
 Ideas and resources controlled by elites

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Explaining stratification

- Functionalism:
o Greater functional importance means greater rewards
o By distributing resources unequally, society motivates people to aspire for significant positions,
work better, harder and longer -- overall effect is a productive society (Davis-Moore hypothesis)
o Critique: what is functional and important is different from societies (stars). If stratification
benefits society, then why it breeds conflict and revolution?
- Meritocracy
o Based on personal merit
o Society promotes equality of opportunity, inequality of rewards
o Pure class system based on ability and effort
o extensive social mobility
o Critique: wealth and power transfer and concentrated; some groups disadvantaged (for
instance: women, ethnic/religious groups)
- Marxist/ Neo-Marxist ideas (conflict):
o Stratification provides advantages to some people at the expense of others
o Vast differences in wealth and power backed with bourgeoisie (capitalists) and proletariat
(labourers)
o Due to oppression and misery, proletariat would organize and wage revolution overthrowing
capitalism
o Critique: revolutionary and overthrowing capitalist society. Severing rewards from performance
generates low productivity
o Why is there no Marxist revolution? (Dahrendorf)
 Because of the fragmentation of capitalist class
 Because of the expansion of white collar work and rising standard of living
 Because of more extensive worker organisations (labour-management relations)
 Because of more extensive legal protections (rights and access to courts)

o Why is Marx’s analysis still relevant?

 Because wealth is highly concentrated and inequalities have been increased
 Because of the global system of capitalism (low income countries – sweatshops)
 Because work remains degrading and dehumanising
 Because labour activity has weakened (non-unionised workers)
 Because the law still favours the rich
- Weber’s class, status and power (symbolic)
o dimensions of stratification
 economic (wealth), social (status, prestige), political (power)
o Socio-economic status (SES) composite ranking based on various dimensions
o historical analysis of inequality
 agrarian societies (prestige and status)
 industrial societies (wealth)
 bureaucratic societies – socialist states (power)
o Critique: While social class boundaries blurred, striking patterns of inequalities (wealth) persist

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Lenski’s societies and stratification

Gerhard Emmanuel Lenski Jr. was an American sociologist known

for contributions to the sociology of religion, social inequality and
introducing the ecological-evolutionary theory.

- Hunting and gathering:

With little surplus, based on age and sex
- Horticultural, pastoral and agrarian:
Landlords and serfs
- Industrial:
The rise of living standards, literacy, white collar jobs,
women empowerment

Greater inequality is functional in agrarian societies. Industrial

societies benefit more from egalitarian settings

Lecture 8: Risk, society and cities and spaces

The sociology of space is a sub-discipline of sociology that mostly borrows from theories developed within the
discipline of geography, including the sub fields of human geography, economic geography, and feminist
geography.

- Urbanisation shapes and reshapes our societies: concentration of humanity into cities
- Sociology of space: looks at changing ways in which we create, and organise in the space we live
- Social construction of space: ways of making organising and transforming locations through which lives
are conducted

Four differing patterns of urban life

1 Evolution of the first cities

o The first cities: Jericho and Mesopotamia
o The pre-industrial cities: urbanisation in Europe began in 1800 BCE
 Mediterranean island Crete (Greek civilisation)
 Roman empire (Rome with a population of one million)
 Fall of Roman empire in the Dark Ages – walled cities
 Ghetto (Italian word borghetto, outside city walls)

2 Rise of modern industrial city

- Before this, the cities were centralized around the cathedrals (religion). This revolution changed it to the
business districts buildings.
- The rise of metropolis: a large city that dominates an urban area
- After the 1950s, large cities stopped growing because of subordination
- People went to live in suburbs: urban areas beyond political boundaries of a city
o Factors that fuelled the growth of suburbs:
 People wanted to leave behind congested cities
 To go back home to quieter communities
 Take advantage of cheaper cars and low property prices

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 - Growth of mega-cities (cities with a population over 8 million)
- Gentrification: the process where areas decline is transformed

3 Urban revolutions
- 800 BCE: urban permanent settlements
- 1750-1950: Industrial revolution in Europe and France

4 Rise of global or world cities

- Rise of global or world cities: large, urban regions, highly interconnected
- Key command points for organisations, key market places

Understanding cities

According to With, a city is a setting with a large, dense and diverse population forming an impersonal, superficial,
self-interested and transitory way of life. “City people know other by what they do.” Urban ecology is the study of
the link between physical and social dimensions of cities: why are cities located where they are? - Urbanism as
a way of life: distinct experience, pervasive newness, obsessive individualism, excitement and sophistication

- Social area analysis: investigation of what people in specific residential areas have in common (family
patterns, social class, ethnic, race, religion, etc.)

Risk society

Three scientific revolutions:

1. Quantum revolution (atom): energy, weapon

2. Biomolecular revolution (gene): GMO’s, cloning
3. Information revolution (computer): digitalisation, overload, privacy

Sociology of knowledge:

The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within
which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. Sees an association between forms of
knowledge and society.

Epistemic relativism:

Epistemic relativism is a way to reason where facts used to justify any claims are understood to be relative and
subjective to the perspective of those proving or falsifying the proposition. Knowledge rooted in a particular time
and culture. According to Beck, the modernisation brought insectaries with which our society nowadays is dealing.

Review

Things to know Things to read

Invitation to sociology
Three sociological perspectives + critiques/ investigations
Socialisation theories
Components of culture
Ethnicities and racism
Theories explaining crime and deviance
Bureaucracy and McDonalization
Forms and systems of social stratification
Theories of stratification and their critiques
Suburban spaces, Lenski’s societies
Sociological perspectives and research methods, Chap.
1,2,3 (pp.62-63),4 (pp.106-115)
Social construction of everyday life, Chap. 7 (pp.208-228)
Ethnicities and migration, Chap. 11 (pp.348-366)
Culture and social movements, Chap. 5,16 (pp.563-567)
Control and deviance, Chap. 17
Groups, organizations and work, Chap. 6
Social division and stratification, Chap. 8
Risk society/ Cities and spaces, Chap. 23 (pp.796-797),24

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