SOC 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Harriet Martineau, Auguste Comte, Sociological Theory

• School: College of The Sequoias
• Department: Sociology (SOC)
• Course: SOC 001
• Professor: silva

Document Summary

A theory is a set of statements that explains why a phenomenon/something occurs. Theories are tools and evolve over time. Emile durkheim: suicidal study, 120 years ago, emile (first person to become a chair of sociology department), apply the scientific method and theory to a question to get some answers about social concerns. His focus was suicide rates in countries: he noticed different countries that bordered each other had different suicide rates. He wondered why: he did research and found 3 things: Married had lower rates than singles: married people have someone a companion. Catholics had lower rates than protestants: catholics went to church 7 days a week, protestants went 1 day a week. Civilians had lower rates than military or veterans: veterans are surrounded by people when they come home, but no one understands what they went through, so they feel isolated in their own experience. Social interation is key to be well balanced and well grounded.