SOCI10001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Auguste Comte, The Sociological Imagination, Conflict Theories
25 Jul 2018
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Document Summary
It is the systematic study of the ways people are affected by, and affect, social structures and processes that are associated with groups, organisations, cultures and societies. An assumption of sociology is that humans are not free agents, and that we are conditioned and socially constrained. Sociologists are concerned with understanding society in a disciplined way, assessing the connections and relationships between macro, meso and micro levels of society. E. g. there is evidence of macro forces impacting individual endeavours- divorce rates increasing in the 70s due to feminist movements, family act 1975 legislation changing, and hence divorce becoming less stigmatised in society. The development of sociological thinking: early 19th century, classical sociology developed: karl marx, emile durkheim, auguste. Comte and max weber: auguste comte (1798-1857) Wanted to apply mathematical-like laws or theory to the social world to predict, measure and improve society. Positivism: science should be concerned only with observable entities that are known directly to experience.
