1.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

1.1 How sociological perspective differs from common sense
Sociology is the systematic study of human society. Society refers to people who live in
a defined territory and share a way of life. At the heart of sociology’s investigation of society
there is a special point of view called the sociological perspective.

 Seeing the general in the particular.

Berger describes the sociological perspective as seeing the general in the particular. This
means that sociologists look for general patterns in the behaviour of particular people.

Although every individual is unique, a society shapes the lives of people in patterned ways
that are evident as we discover how various categories (such as children and adults, women and
men, the rich and the poor) live very differently. We begin to see the world sociologically by
realizing how the general categories into which we fall shape our particular life experiences.

The social world guides our life choices. For example, the “Power of Society” figure shows
how the social world guides people to select marriage partners from within their own social
categories. It guides our actions, thoughts, and feelings. We may think that marriage results
simply from the personal feelings of love. Yet the sociological perspective shows us that factors
such as age, schooling, race and ethnicity, sex, 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 what to look for in a mate.

 Seeing the strange in the familiar.

At first, using the sociological perspective may look 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. 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 enrol at your particular college, you might offer reasons
like: “I wanted to stay close to home.” “I got a basketball scholarship.” “With a journalism degree
from this university, I can get a good job.” Any of these responses may well be true. But do they
tell the whole story?

 Seeing society in our everyday lives.

Society has the power to shape even our most private choices, we can see this with the
suicide rates or with the number of kids a woman has depending on the country they live.

 Seeing sociologically: Marginality and crisis.

Anyone can learn to see the world using the sociological perspective. But two situations
help people see how society shapes individual lives: living on the margins of society and living
through a social crisis. The greater people´s social marginality is, the better they are able to use
the sociological perspective.

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 For example, African Americans living in the inner city feel that their hopes and dreams
are crushed by society. But white people, as the dominant majority, think less often about
race, believing that race only affects people of colour and not themselves despite the
privileges provided by being white in a multiracial society. All people at the margins of social
life, including not just racial minorities but also 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 our familiar routines and look
at our own lives with a new curiosity.

The sociologist C. Wright Mills, agreed 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.

1.2 The importance of a global perspective.

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  High-income countries are the nations with the highest overall standards of living.
These nations produce most of the world’s goods and services, and the people who live
there own most of the planet’s wealth. Economically speaking, people in these countries are
very well off, not because they are smarter or work harder than anyone else but because they
were lucky enough to be born in a rich region of the world.

 Middle-income countries are the nations with a standard of living about average for
the world as a whole. On average, they receive eight years of schooling. Most middle-income
countries also have considerable social inequality within their own borders, so that some
people are extremely rich (members of the business elite in nations across North Africa, for
example), but many more lack safe housing and adequate nutrition (people living in the shanty
settlements that surround Lima, Peru, or Mumbai, India).

 Low-income countries are the nations with a low standard of living in which most
people are poor. Most of the poorest countries are in Africa and a few in Asia.

Where we live shapes the lives we lead:

To understand ourselves and appreciate how others live, we must understand

something about how countries differ, which is one good reason to pay attention to the global
maps

Societies are increasingly interconnected through technology, economics, and immigration:

In the recent decades, the United States and the rest of the world have become linked
as never before. Electronic technology now transmits sounds, pictures and written documents
around the globe in seconds.

One effect of new technology is that people all over the world now share many tastes
in food, clothing, and music. Rich countries such as the United States influence other nations.

But the larger world also has an impact on us: about 1.25 million immigrants enter the
United States each year, bringing their skills and talents, along with their fashions and foods,
greatly increasing the racial and cultural diversity of this country.

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Many social problems that they face in the United States are more serious elsewhere:

Poverty is a serious problem in the United States, but poverty in Latin America, Africa
and Asia is more common and more serious. In the same way, although women have lower
social standing than men in the United States, gender inequality is much greater in the world’s
poor countries.

Thinking globally is a good way to learn more about ourselves:

We cannot walk the streets of a distant city without thinking about what it means to
live in a high-income country. Comparing life in various settings also leads to unexpected
lessons. For instance, were you visit a squatter settlement in Chennai, India, you would likely
find people thriving in the love and support of family members despite desperate poverty.
Why, then, are so many poor people in our own country angry and alone? Are material
things—so central to our definition of a “rich" life—the best way to measure human well-
being?

In sum, in an increasingly interconnected world, we can understand ourselves only to

the extent that we understand others. Sociology is an invitation to learn a new way of looking
at the world around us. But is this invitation worth accepting? What are the benefits of
applying the sociological perspective?

1.3 Applying the sociological perspective.

Applying the sociological perspective is useful in many ways:

1. Sociology is at work guiding many of the laws and policies that shape our lives.
Sociologists have helped shape public policy—the laws and regulations that guide how
people in communities live and work—in countless ways, from racial desegregation and
school busing to laws regulating divorce.

2. On an individual level, making use of the sociological perspective leads to important

personal growth and expanded awareness.

 The sociological perspective helps us assess the truth of “common sense.”

If we think we decide our own fate, we may be quick to praise very successful people as
superior and consider others with fewer achievements personally deficient. A sociological
approach, by contrast, encourages us to ask whether such common beliefs are actually true
and, to the extent that they are not, why they are so widely held.

 The sociological perspective helps us see the opportunities and limitations in our lives.
Sociology helps us learn more about the world so that we can pursue our goals more
effectively.

 The sociological perspective empowers us to be active participants in our society.

The more we understand how society works, the more active citizens we become. It’s the
sociological perspective what turns a personal problem into a public issue. E.g.:

Personal problem  Being out of work  Public issue  A lack of good jobs.

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 As we come to see how society affects us, we may support society as it is, or we may
set out with others to change it.

 The sociological perspective helps us live in a diverse world.

The sociological perspective encourages us to think critically about the relative strengths and
weaknesses of all ways of life, including our own.

3. Studying sociology is excellent preparation for the world of work

A background in sociology is excellent preparation for the working world. Sociologists
focus on difficulties not in the personality but in the individual’s web of social relationships.

But sociology is not just for people who want to be sociologists. People who work in
criminal justice gain the “sociology advantage” by learning which categories of people are
most at risk of becoming criminals as well as victims, assessing the effectiveness of various
policies and programs at preventing crime, and understanding why people turn to crime in the
first place. Similarly, people who work in health care (including doctors, nurses, and
technicians) also gain a sociology advantage by learning about patterns of health and illness
within the population, as well as how factors such as race, gender, and social class affect
human well-being.

Unless you plan to have a job that never involves dealing with people, you should
consider the workplace benefits of learning more about sociology.

1.4 The Origins of Sociology.

Like the “choices” made by individuals, major historical events rarely just happen. The
birth of sociology was itself the result of powerful social forces.

 Social change and sociology:

Striking changes took place in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Three kinds of
change were especially important in the development of sociology:

• Rise of a factory-based industrial economy.

• Explosive growth of cities.

• New ideas about democracy and political rights.

A NEW INDUSTRIAL ECOMOMY. During the Middle Ages in Europe, most people plowed
fields near their homes or worked in small-scale manufacturing. By the end of the eighteenth
century, inventors used new sources of energy, the power of moving water and then steam, to
operate large machines in mills and factories. Instead of labouring at home or in small groups,
workers became part of a large and anonymous labour force, under the control of strangers
who owned the factories. This change in the system of production took people out of their
homes, weakening the traditions that had guided community life for centuries.

THE GROWTH OF CITIES. Across Europe, landowners took part in what historians call
the enclosure movement, they fenced off more and more farmland to create grazing areas for
sheep, the source of wool for the thriving textile mills. Without land, countless tenant farmers
had little choice but to head to the cities in search of work in the new factories. As cities grew
larger, these urban migrants faced many social problems, including pollution, crime, and

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homelessness. Moving through streets crowded with strangers, they faced a new and
impersonal social world.

POLITICAL CHANGE. Europeans in the Middle Ages viewed society as an expression of

God’s will: From the royalty to the serfs, each person up and down the social ladder played a
part in the holy plan. This theological view of society is captured in lines from the old Anglican
hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful”:

Philosophers spoke of personal liberty and individual rights. Echoing these sentiments, the
Declaration of Independence states that every person has “certain unalienable rights,”
including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The French Revolution, which began in
1789, was an even greater break with political and social tradition. The French social analyst
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) thought the changes in society brought about by the French
Revolution were so great that they amounted to “nothing short of the regeneration of the
whole human race”.

A NEW AWARENESS OF SOCIETY. Huge factories, exploding cities, a new spirit of

individualism, these changes combined to make people more aware of their surroundings. The
new discipline of sociology was born in England, France, and Germany, precisely where the
changes were greatest.

 Science and Sociology:

Auguste Comte created the term sociology in 1838 to describe a new way of looking at
society. This makes sociology one of the youngest academic disciplines. Of course, Comte was
not the first person to think about the nature of society. Such questions fascinated many of the
brilliant thinkers of ancient civilizations, including the Chinese philosopher K’ung Fu-tzu, or
Confucius, and the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle.

Yet these thinkers were more interested in imagining the ideal society than in studying
society as it really was. Comte and other pioneers of sociology all cared about how society
could be improved, but their major objective was to understand how society actually
operates.

Comte saw sociology as the product of a three-stage historical development. During

the earliest, the theological stage, goes from the beginning of human history to the end of the
European Middle Ages around the 1350 c.e., people took a religious view, society expressed
God’s will.

With the dawn of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century, the theological approach
gave way to a metaphysical stage of history in which people saw society as a natural rather
than a supernatural system. Thomas Hobbes (1588– 1679), for example, suggested that
society reflected not the perfection of God so much but the failings of a selfish human nature.

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 What Comte called the scientific stage of history began with the work of early
scientists such as the Polish astronomer Copernicus (1473–1543), the Italian astronomer and
physicist Galileo (1564–1642), and the English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton
(1642–1727). Comte’s contribution came in applying the scientific approach (first used to
study the physical world) to the study of society.

Comte’s approach is called positivism, a scientific approach to knowledge based on

“positive” facts as opposed to mere speculation. As a positivist, Comte believed that society
operates according to its own laws, much as the physical world operates according to gravity
and other laws of nature.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, sociology had spread to the United States
and showed the influence of Comte’s ideas. Today, most sociologists still consider science as a
crucial part of sociology. But we now realize that human behaviour is far more complex than
the movement of planets or even the actions of other living things. We are creatures of
imagination and spontaneity, so human behaviour can never be fully explained by any rigid
“laws of society.” In addition, early sociologists such as Karl Marx (1818–1883), were troubled
by the striking inequalities of industrial society. They hoped that the new discipline of
sociology would not just help us understand society but also lead to change towards greater
social justice.

1.5 Sociological Theory

 Theory: Statement of how and why specific facts are related.
The job of sociological theory is to explain social behaviour in the real world. Sociologists
test their theories by gathering evidence using various research methods.

In deciding which theory to use, sociologists face two basic questions: What issues should
we study? And how should we connect the facts? In the process of answering these
questions, sociologists look to one or more theoretical approaches as “road maps.”

 Theoretical approach: Basic image of society that guides thinking and research
Sociologists make use of three major theoretical approaches: Structural-functional, social-
conflict and symbolic-interaction.

THE STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL APPROACH. The structural-functional approach is a

framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work
together to promote solidarity and stability. As its name suggests, this approach points to
social structure, any relatively stable pattern of social behaviour. Social structure gives our
lives shape, in families, the workplace, the classroom, and the community. This approach also
looks for a structure’s social functions, the consequences of any social pattern for the

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operation of society as a whole. All social structures, from a simple handshake to complex
religious rituals, function to keep society going, at least in its present form.

The structural-functional approach owes much to Auguste Comte, who pointed out the
need to keep society unified at a time when many traditions were breaking down. Emile
Durkheim, who helped establish the study of sociology in French universities, also based his
work on this approach. A third structural-functional pioneer was the English sociologist
Herbert Spencer (1820– 1903) who compared society to the human body. Just as the
structural parts of the human body (the skeleton, muscles, and various internal organ) function
interdependently to help the entire organism survive, social structures work together to
preserve society. The structural-functional approach, then, leads sociologists to identify
various structures of society and investigate their functions.

Robert K. Merton (1910–2003) expanded our understanding of the concept of social

function by pointing out that any social structure probably has many functions, some more
obvious than others. He distinguished between manifest functions, the recognized and
intended consequences of any social pattern, and latent functions, the unrecognized and
unintended consequences of any social pattern.

Merton recognized that not all the effects of social structure are good. Therefore, a
social dysfunction is any social pattern that may disrupt the operation of society. Globalization
of the economy may be good for some companies, but it also can cost workers their jobs as
production moves overseas. Therefore, whether any social patterns are helpful or harmful for
society is a matter about which people often disagree. In addition, what is functional for one
category of people (say, high profits for Wall Street bank executives) may well be dysfunctional
for other categories of people (workers who lose pension funds invested in banks that fail or
people who cannot pay their mortgages and end up losing their homes).

Highlighted importance of social integration

AUGUSTE COMTE during times of rapid change.

Helped establish sociology as a discipline.

EMILE DURKHEIM

Compared society to the human body.

HERBERT SPENCER

Introduced manifest and latent functions;

ROBERT K. MERTON social dysfunctions

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 THE SOCIAL-CONFLICT APPROACH. The social-conflict approach is a framework for
building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change.
Unlike the structural-functional emphasis on solidarity and stability, this approach highlights
inequality and change. Guided by this approach, which includes the gender-conflict and race-
conflict approaches, sociologists investigate how factors such as social class, race, ethnicity,
gender, sexual orientation, and age are linked to a society’s unequal distribution of money,
power, education, and social prestige. A conflict analysis rejects the idea that social structure
promotes the operation of society as a whole, focusing instead on how social patterns benefit
some people while hurting others.

Sociologists using the social-conflict approach look at ongoing conflict between

dominant and disadvantaged categories of people, the rich in relation to the poor, white
people in relation to people of colour, and men in relation to women. Typically, people on top
try to protect their privileges while the disadvantaged try to gain more for themselves.

EXAMPLE:

A social-conflict analysis of our educational system shows how schooling carries class
inequality from one generation to the next. For example, secondary schools assign students to
either college preparatory or vocational training programs. From a structural-functional point
of view, such “tracking” benefits everyone by providing schooling that fits students’ abilities.
But social-conflict analysis argues that tracking often has less to do with talent than with social
background, with the result that well-to-do students are placed in higher tracks while poor
children end up in the lower tracks.

Thus, young people from privileged families get the best schooling, which leads them
to college and later to high-income careers. The children of poor families, by contrast, are not
prepared for college and, like their parents before them, typically get stuck in low-paying jobs.
In both cases, the social standing of one generation is passed on to the next, with schools
justifying the practice in terms of individual merit.

Many sociologists use the social-conflict approach not just to understand society but
also to bring about societal change that would reduce inequality. An example of this is Karl
Marx, who championed the cause of the workers in what he saw as their battle against factory
owners.

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  Feminism and gender-conflict theory.
One important social-conflict theory is gender-conflict theory (or feminism theory), the
study of society that focuses on inequality and conflict between women and men. The gender-
conflict approach is closely linked to feminism, support of social equality for women and men.

The importance of gender-conflict theory lies in making us aware of the many ways in
which our way of life places men in positions of power over women: at home (where men are
usually considered “head of the household”), in the workplace (where men earn more income
and hold most positions of power), and in the mass media (where, for instance, more men
than women are hip-hop stars).

Another contribution of feminist theory is making us aware of the importance of

women to the development of sociology. Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) is regarded as the
first woman sociologist. Born to a wealthy English family, Martineau made her mark in 1853 by
translating the writings of Auguste Comte from French into English. In her own published
writings, she documented the evils of slavery and argued for laws to protect factory workers,
defending workers’ right to unionize. She was particularly concerned about the position of
women in society and fought for changes in education policy so that women could have more
options in life than marriage and raising children.

In the United States, Jane Addams (1860–1935) was a sociological pioneer whose
contributions began in 1889 when she helped found Hull House, a Chicago settlement house
that provided assistance to immigrant families. Although widely published, Addams wrote
eleven books and hundreds of articles, she chose the life of a public activist over that of a
university sociologist, speaking out on issues involving immigration and the pursuit of peace.
Though her pacifism during World War I was the subject of much controversy, she was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

 Race-conflict theory.
The study of sociology that focuses on inequality and conflict between people of different
racial and ethnic categories. White people have numerous social advantages over people of
colour, on average, higher incomes, more schooling, better health and longer life expectancy.

Race-conflict theory also points out the contributions made by people of colour to the
development of sociology. Ida Wells Barnett (1862–1931) was born to slave parents but rose
to become a teacher and then a journalist and newspaper publisher. She campaigned tirelessly
for racial equality and, especially, to put an end to the lynching of black people. She wrote and
lectured about racial inequality throughout her life.

An important contribution to understanding race in the United States was made by

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963). Born to a poor Massachusetts family, Du Bois
enrolled at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and then at Harvard University, where he
earned the first doctorate awarded by that university to a person of colour. Du Bois then
founded the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory, which was an important centre of sociological
research in the early decades of the twentieth century. Like most people who follow the social-
conflict approach, Du Bois believed that sociologists should not simply learn about society’s
problems but also try to solve them. He therefore studied the black communities across the
United States, pointing to numerous social problems ranging from educational inequality to a
political system that denied people their right to vote and the terrorist practice of lynching. Du

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Bois spoke out against racial inequality and participated in the founding of the National
Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).

THE SYMBOLIC-INTERACTION APPROACH. The structural-functional and social-conflict

approaches share a macro-level orientation, a wide focus on social structures that shape
society as a whole. Macro level sociology takes in the big picture, rather like observing a city
from high above in a helicopter and seeing how highways help people move from place to
place or how housing differs from rich to poor neighbourhoods.

Sociology also uses a micro-level orientation, a close-up focus on social interaction in

specific situations. Exploring urban life in this way occurs at street level, where you might
watch how children invent games on a school playground or how pedestrians respond to
homeless people they pass on the street. The symbolic-interaction approach, then, is a
framework for building theory that sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of
individuals.

How does society result from the ongoing experiences of tens of millions of people? One
answer is that society is nothing more than the shared reality that people construct for
themselves as they interact with one another. We create reality, as we define our
surroundings, we decide what we think about others and shape our own identities.

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 The symbolic-interaction approach has roots in the thinking of Max Weber (1864–
1920), a German sociologist who emphasized the need to understand a setting from the point
of view of the people in it.

Since Weber’s time, sociologists have taken micro-level sociology in a number of

directions. George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), explored how our personalities develop as a
result of social experience. Erving Goffman (1922–1982), dramaturgical analysis describes how
we resemble actors on a stage as we play our various roles. Other contemporary sociologists,
including George Homans and Peter Blau, have developed social exchange analysis. In their
view, social interaction is guided by what each person stands to gain or lose from the
interaction.

Who's Who in the Symbolic-Interaction Approach:

Understanding a setting from people in it.

MAX WEBER

Build personalities from social experience.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

Dramaturgical analysis.
ERVING GOFFMAN

Social-exchange analysis.
GEORGE HOMANS & PETER BLAU

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1.6 Applying the approaches: The sociology of sports.
Structural-functional

• Appears too broad

• Ignores inequalities of social class, race and gender

• Focuses on stability at the expense of conflict

Social-conflict

• Appears too broad

• Ignores how shared values and mutual interdependence unify society

• Pursues political goals

Symbolic-interaction

• Ignores larger social structures, effects of culture, factors such as class, gender and
race

 The functions of sports:

A structural-functional approach directs our attention to the ways in which sports help
society operate. Sports have important latent functions as well, which include building social
relationships and also creating tens of thousands of jobs across the country. Participating in
sports encourages competition and the pursuit of success, both of which are values that are
central to our society’s way of life.

Sports also have dysfunctional consequences. For example, colleges and universities try to
field winning teams to build a school’s reputation and also to raise money from alumni and
corporate sponsors. In the process, however, these schools sometimes recruit students for
their athletic skill rather than their academic ability. This practice not only lowers the academic
standards of the college or university but also short changes athletes, who spend little time
doing the academic work that will prepare them for later careers

• A structural-functional approach directs our attention to ways sports help society

operate.

• Sports have functional and dysfunctional consequences.

 Sports and conflict:

A social-conflict analysis of sports points out that the games people play reflect their
social standing. Some sports—including tennis, swimming, golf, sailing, and skiing—are
expensive, so taking part is largely limited to the well-to-do. Football, baseball, and basketball,
however, are accessible to people at almost all income levels. Thus, the games people play are
not simply a matter of individual choice but also a reflection of their social standing.

From a feminist point of view, we notice that throughout history men have dominated the
world of sports. In the nineteenth century, women had little opportunity to engage in athletic
competition, and those who did received little attention. For example, the first modern

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Olympic Games, held in 1896, barred women from competition. The 2016 Olympics, by
contrast, will include women competing in twenty-eight sports, including boxing. Throughout
most of the twentieth century, Little League teams barred girls based on the traditional ideas
that girls and women lack the strength to play sports and risk losing their femininity if they do.
Even today, our society still encourages men to become athletes while expecting women to be
attentive observers and cheerleaders.

Race also figures in sports. For decades, big league sports excluded people of colour, who
were forced to form leagues on their own. But the race-conflict approach helps us to see that
racial discrimination still exists in professional sports. For one thing, race is linked to the
position’s athletes play on the field, in a pattern called “stacking.”

Who benefits most from professional sports? Although many individual players get sky-
high salaries and millions of fans enjoy following their teams, the vast profits sports generate
are controlled by a small number of people— predominantly white men. In sum, sports in the
United States are bound up with inequalities based on gender, race, and wealth.

• Social-conflict analysis points out games people play reflect their social standing.

• Sports have been oriented mostly toward males.

• Sports in the United States are bound up with inequalities.

 Sports as Interaction:
Following the symbolic-interaction approach, we see sports less as a system and more as
an ongoing process.

From this point of view, we expect each player to understand the game a little bit
differently. Some players enjoy a setting of stiff competition; others, love of the game may be
greater than the need to win. In addition, the behaviour of each player may change over time.

The major theoretical approaches—the structural-functional approach, the social-conflict

approach, which includes gender-conflict/feminist theory and race-conflict theory, and the
symbolic-interaction approach—provide different insights into sports, and none by itself
presents the whole story. Applied to any issue, each approach generates its own
interpretations. To appreciate fully the power of the sociological perspective, you should
become familiar with all these approaches.

Symbolic-interaction approach

• Posits sports are less a system than an ongoing process

Structural-functional, social-conflict, and symbolic-interaction

• Provide different insights into sports

• No one is more correct than the others

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