Sociology Week 2

Week Two Tuesday: 9/4/18

During class on Tuesday we discussed that the development of sociology was triggered by the rapid transformation of Europe during the 18^th century. When sociology was transforming there was also a rise with the industrial economy, an explosive growth of cities, and how people at this time were more aware of the social world. We also briefly touched on the topic of Emile Durkheim and who is most likely to commit suicide such as individualistic people. Along with the origins of sociology we also went over the 4 sociological perspectives the first one we talked about was seeing the general in the particular and this came from Peter Berger. The second perspective is seeing the strange from the familiar, third is seeing personal life choices from the social contexts. The fourth and final perspective we discussed in class was seeing the crisis and the marginality. I find it interesting that all of the perspectives start with the word “seeing” and I think this happens because when looking at society everything we take in and judge comes from our eyes and what we are seeing, and no one can change what we are seeing and how we interpret it when we are seeing it. Another thing we talked about is positivism which is an approach to understanding the world that comes from science that emphasizes empirical observation. When talking about positivism another term that comes up is empiricism which is a theory that states that knowledge comes mostly from sensory experiences. Empiricism is based on facts, evidence and research.

One thing I can do to benefit myself and society is to keep raising concerns about the gender conflict theory. Continuing to fight for the rights for women to get paid the same amount when they are doing the same jobs as men. Also fighting for women who get discriminated against for breastfeeding in public, for women who get victim blamed, and for all women in our society. It will benefit me by allowing me to fight for myself and something I believe in, and it will benefit society by maybe encouraging for women to join the work force when they are starting to get paid the same amount as men.

One thing I could do to negatively impact myself and society would be if I was not a productive member of society. If I was not working, not going to school and stealing food from a nearby gas station. This would impact society because I would be taking away money and not putting any money back into the economy, and I would be taking police officers away from more important jobs. It would impact me because I would be a criminal for stealing and it would make it even harder for me to get a job.

One thing society can do to affect me in a positive way is by acknowledging more social dysfunctions and instead of putting them over my head because “I’m not old enough to understand” if people in society would acknowledge social dysfunctions and teach younger people like me to solve and understand them it would make everything so much better for us.

One thing society can do to influence me in a negative way is by not acknowledging and educating people on how to manage and treat mental health problems. This would influence me because I struggle with anxiety and if I did not have people to turn to for help I would be very lost because in our society mental health has such a bad stigma with it.

A solution that could help solve the problem with the mental health stigma is by putting mental health education into the common health class curriculum. Make mental health education required content in health class in middle school. In this day and age people who suffer from a mental illness usually don’t know what to do or who to turn to. I feel like if the mental health stigma went away and more people were educated on it life would be a lot easier for some people. 

Chapter 1 Questions:

1.     Sociology can it be defined as the study of human relations?

2.     Did Comte just study positivism or was he the one who developed the term and the idea of it?

3.     When did the Race conflict theory become a widely known theory?

4.     How long did Emile Durkheim take to gather information regarding his theories that certain characteristics of people make them more at risk for suicide. 

5.     What is an example of latent functions in real life?

6.     What is a real life example of marginality?

Chapter 7 Questions:

1.     What falls under the category of media?

2.     How much/what did Marshall McLuhan contribute to sociology?

3.     Is/was radio considered media?