SOCIOL 2D06 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: The Sociological Imagination, Symbolic Interactionism, George Herbert Mead
10 Oct 2016
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Introduction: we are all interested in trying to explain and understand other individuals and their behaviours, while we rely on speculation, social scientists use systematic study (surveys, experiments, observations and other research methods) to test their theories. Social scientists do not rely on speculation, but rather test theories and revise them if things change. Society is a broad term that includes many levels of social interaction, from those occurring among individuals to complex relations among nations. Changes within society do have an impact on an individual level, so sociologists try to explore how societal processes work to in uence people"s lives. Sociologists examine people"s social positions and statuses. Macro-sociology: macro-sociology: analysis of large-scale social processes. Instead of researching individual thoughts, feelings, and behaviours macro-sociology looks at larger groups and social institutions. Sociologists can use societal-level data to speak to a larger social phenomena: includes structural functionalism (emile durkheim and talcott parsons)
