Sociology Week 3

Week Three Thursday 9/13/18

By: Maddie Gums

            Today In sociology we discussed Critical Sociology which is the study of society that focuses on the need for social change, and this was developed in reaction to perceived limitations of using positivist sociology. When using positivist sociology, it rejects the idea that society exists in natural systems. This approach also points out that the point of using sociology is not just to research but also to change the bad things that they are researching. For example, if I was researching how watching too much tv can influence a child to be more aggressive I would also want to work and try changing this and not just leave it how it is.  Another topic we discussed in class was how to approach conducting the research. The first thing a researcher needs to have before conducting their research is technical competence, so they need to know, and have a background in what they are studying. The researcher also needs to have full enclosure and disclosure. Protection of the subjects, so they won’t release their identity, and they will keep them safe during the research processing. Informed consent is something that is very important when it comes to researching so they need to get consent from subjects before researching on them like they can’t do a naturalistic observation on someone without asking their permission. Researchers also need to show where they are getting their money from to do their research, and they need to have cultural sensitivity when it comes to test subjects.

Definitions:

            Positivist Sociology: is the view that social phenomena ought to be studied using only the methods of the natural sciences. So, positivism is a view about the appropriate methodology of social science, emphasizing empirical observation.

            Disclosure: a process of communication by which one person reveals information about himself or herself to another. The degree to which the information revealed is private or personal is the depth of that disclosure.

            Cultural Sensitivity:  Cultural sensitivity is being aware that cultural differences and similarities between people exist without assigning them a value positive or negative, better or worse, right or wrong.

One thing I can do to benefit myself and society is by exploring more cultures that are around the world to broaden my spectrums to help myself learn more so I become more open minded. This will benefit me because it will make me smarter and this will benefit society because I will know more about other cultures and I will be here to teach other people about them also!

One thing I can do to benefit myself and society in a negative way is by not being open minded to learning and accepting of the views of other people in other cultures this would be negative because it wouldn’t allow me to learn more and society would have another person who is one minded and not willing to learn.

One thing society can do to impact me in a positive way is by exposing me to many different things within our own culture. Teaching me morals and values of our culture then eventually allowing me to expand out and learn about all of the other cultures around me.

One thing society can do to influence me in a negative way would be by not accepting other cultures in, and by not allowing or encouraging anyone to learn about the other people and groups that live in the world. I feel like if I did not learn about different cultures in my life I would not be the same person I am today.

Solution that could be put into place for one minded people would be by just exposing them slightly to the different things the people in our beautiful world have to offer but only little bits at a time so they eventually will want to learn more.

Chapter Three Questions:

1: What is something that would be an example of symbol in the united states?

2: The values that Robin Williams discussed in 1970s are those still the same today?

3: What are some cultural universals?