SOCIOLOGY

Prepared by:
Fatima Grace D. Fabillar
 SOCIOLOGY
◦ The word sociology has been derived from two
terms, logus which means science or study, and
socius, which means group or partners.

◦ Hence, sociology deals with the study of groups.

 SOCIOLOGY
◦In a group, the interaction process is vital.
From this, patterns of behavior evolve.
Relationships are developed and group life is
achieved.
 SOCIOLOGY
◦According to Joseph Fichter, “sociology is the
scientific study of patterned, shared human
behavior.”
 SOCIOLOGY
◦The term sociology was first used about a
hundred years ago by Auguste Comte, a
Frenchman, in the year 1838.
 STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST
PERSPECTIVE
◦According to functionalism, society is a system
of interconnected parts that work together in
harmony to maintain a state of balance and
social equilibrium for the whole.
STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST
PERSPECTIVE
◦A common analogy, popularized
by Herbert Spencer, presents these
parts of society as "organs" that work
toward the proper functioning of the
"body" as a whole.
 It offers a way to S It provides moral
transmit a society’s
skills, knowledge, and O guidance and an outlet
for worship of a higher
culture to its youth.
C power.

I
They provide a context
for reproducing,
E It provides a means of
nurturing, and
socializing children.
T governing members of
society.
Y
It provides for the
production, distribution,
and consumption of
goods and services
 STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST
PERSPECTIVE
◦The functionalist perspective emphasizes the
interconnectedness of society by focusing on
how each part influences and is influenced by
other parts.
 STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST
PERSPECTIVE
◦ Functionalists use the terms functional and
dysfunctional to describe the effects of social
elements on society.

◦ Elements of society are functional if they contribute

to social stability and dysfunctional if they disrupt
social stability. 
DYSFUNCTIONAL VS.
FUNCTIONAL
CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
◦The main argument of this
theory is that stratification
exists because there are
people who are willing to
exploit others.
 CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
◦This theory is based on Karl Marx’s idea
regarding class conflict.
 CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
◦For Marx, all of history has been a class
struggle between the powerful and the
powerless, the exploiters and the exploited
(Shephard and Greene, 2001).
 CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
◦The powerful use a belief
system that legitimizes the
way things are and often less
powerful simply accept these
beliefs to be natural.
 CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
◦Stratification then does not
benefit the society as a
whole but only the
interests of the powerful
class.
 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
PERSPECTIVE
◦It is a school of thought in sociology that
explains social behavior in terms of how
people interact with each other via symbols; in
this view, social structures are best understood
in terms of such individual interactions.
 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
PERSPECTIVE
◦ According to this theory, people inhabit a world that
is in large part socially constructed. In particular, the
meaning of objects, events, and behaviors comes
from the interpretation people give them, and
interpretations vary from one group to another. 
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
PERSPECTIVE
◦ Cooley, in his theory of a "looking glass self,"
argued that the way we think about ourselves is
particularly apt to be a reflection of other
people's appraisals (or more accurately, our
imagining of other people's appraisals) and that
our self-concepts are built up in the intimate
groups that he called "primary groups." 
 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
PERSPECTIVE
◦Mead emphasized that human beings
do not react directly to events; they
act based on their interpretation of
the meaning of events.
◦ Make a graphic organizer about your designated Founder of Sociology.

Name
AUGUSTE COMTE
◦ Social statics (structure)
◦ Social dynamics
◦ Positivism
◦ Sociology 1838, 1839
AUGUSTE COMTE
◦ He was generally recognized as the “father of
sociology.”

◦ Comte eventually reached the conclusion that he

should develop his own ideas; he decided that he would
not read any scientific writings, reviews, or even
newspapers, to keep his mind from being contaminated
by the thoughts of others.
AUGUSTE COMTE
◦ He called this practice “cerebral hygiene.”

◦ Cerebral hygiene is the practice of cleaning out the mind of any unused or
unwanted data that has been saved. It helps us maintain good health and prevent
infection.

◦ In his book, he first used the term sociology which he intended to call “social
physics,” hence, the study of society on a higher level.
AUGUSTE COMTE
◦ Comte divided his subject matter into two: social statics and social dynamics.

◦ Comte’s aim in his book, Positive Philosophy was to develop and advance the
study of society and apply the methods of science to study of society.
HERBERT SPENCER
◦ Organic Analogy (biology & sociology)
◦ First principle book
◦ Homogenous Masses
◦ Survival of the Fittest
◦ Welfare policy
HERBERT SPENCER
◦ An English philosopher, sometimes referred to as the
second founder of sociology.

◦ He began writing his first book, Social Statics (1855) a

systematic presentation of sociological analysis, which
is often called the “first sociology textbook.”
HERBERT SPENCER
◦ Spencer argued that like animals, human societies evolved from simple forms
(primitive societies) to more complex forms (industrial societies).

◦ He believed that through natural selection, those societies that adapt to their
environment and compete successfully will persist.

◦ He argued that social life is governable by laws of conflict and competition and,
as in the animal world, natural selection leads to “survival of the fittest.”
HERBERT SPENCER
◦ Spencer compared society to an organism which continually changes to adapt
to its environment.

◦ Consequently, he believed that social progress is inevitable through evolution

due to the principle of his “survival of the fittest.”
EMILE DURKHEIM
◦ Egoistic suicide –moral support, social integration is low *depression
◦ Altruistic social integration is high *pressure
◦ Anomic suicide –regulation is too weak,
◦ Fatalistic suicide –regulation is too excessive

◦ Social deviance – functionalist perspective *acceptable and unacceptable

EMILE DURKHEIM
◦ A French scholar, who was strongly influenced by Comte.

◦ He became France’s first professor.

◦ He believed that social solidarity was based on the shared

values and beliefs of the members of a society.
EMILE DURKHEIM
◦ He identified two types of solidarity:

◦ Mechanical solidarity – this provided by the similar tasks,

sameness in the primitive societies.

◦ Organic solidarity – based on differences like those that

prevailed in industrial societies resulting from the people’s
various tasks, most of them necessary for the continuance
of societies.
EMILE DURKHEIM
◦ One of Durkheim’s most notable contributions was his
monograph on Suicide (1897), in which he looked
beyond individual motives to social factors as
explanations of suicide.
KARL MARX
◦ Conflict Theory – dominance of power
◦ *Struggle of classes: Proletariat - lower group & bourgeoisie - upper group
◦ *Inequality/injustice
◦ *Exploitation of workers; insufficient compensation
◦ *Current Issue: ENDO
◦ *Alienation
KARL MARX
◦ Karl Marx concentrated on social conflict.

◦ A German socialist and philosopher.

◦ He and Friedrich Engels wrote The

Communist Manifesto in 1848. It is a
propaganda pamphlet dealing with class
struggle.
KARL MARX
◦ According to Karl Marx, social change was brought
about through “the process of conflict between two
opposing classes.”

◦ This was the first modern theory of social change.

◦ He was an economic determinist because he believed

that the structure of an economy determined all other
aspects of society.
KARL MARX
◦ He argued that material conditions were at the core of
class conflict, and that those who owned and
controlled the means of production were the
oppressors and those who owned nothing but their
own labor were the oppressed.

◦ He also believed that the conflicting interests of these

two groups of classes would inevitably lead the
oppressed to overthrow their oppressors.
MAX WEBER
◦ Weber’s first book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism (1906) examined how belief systems might affect
people’s actions and in turn the economic system of their
society.

◦ He introduced the Verstehen method into sociology. He

believed that sociologists must not only employ objective
methods but also must ascertain the subjective meanings that
people attach to their own behavior and that of others.
MAX WEBER (VEBER)
◦ Social Stratification
◦ Three Modes of Authority
◦ Verstehen –putting yourself to someone’s else shoes
◦ Bureaucracy
MAX WEBER
◦ Today, sociologists still rely on Weber’s descriptive analysis
of bureaucracy, the organizational structure that is prevalent
in modern society.
Bureaucracy
◦ Bureaucracy refers to a specialized system and processes designed to maintain uniformity and
controls within an organization.

◦ Bureaucratic processes are most common in large organizations or governments.

◦ To maintain order, such systems are formal and rigid.

◦ For example, an oil company may establish a bureaucracy to compel its employees to
complete safety checks when operating on a rig.
Bureaucracy
◦ Bureaucracy vs. Governance or Administration

◦ Bureaucracy is not the same as governance or administration. Some administrative structures

are not bureaucratic, and many bureaucracies are not part of administrative structures.

◦ The differences lie in the objectives of each system. An administration directs organizational
resources towards an objective goal, such as generating profits or administering a service.
Bureaucracies ensure that procedural correctness is followed, irrespective of the circumstances
or goals.
FERDINAND TOENNIES
◦ Essential will: The interest of ALL/Collectivism - Gemeinshaft
◦ Arbitrary will: The interest of YOURSELF/Individualism- Gesselshaft
FERDINAND TOENNIES
◦ German sociologist

◦ His first and most important writing was Gemeinshaft and Gesselshaft
originally published in 1887.

◦ According to Toennis, “all social relations are creations of human will, of

which there are two types:

(1) the essential will: the basic, instinctive, organic tendency which drives
human activity; and
(2) arbitrary will: the deliberate, purposive form of volition which
determines human activity with regard to the future.
FERDINAND TOENNIES
◦ Two basic types of social groups:

◦ A social group may be willed into being because of sympathy

among the members, who feel that it is a value in itself. The
expression of the will is called gemeinschaft.

◦ A social group may arise as an instrument to attain some definite

end. The arbitrarily willed group is called the gesselschaft.
Gemeinschaft
◦ Gemeinschaft emphasizes community ties in which personal relationships and
families are given more importance.

◦ Ferdinand Tonnies believed that family was the perfect epitome of gemeinschaft.

◦ The idea is to focus on the “will of all” rather than self interest.

◦ The group values and norms regulate the gemeinschaft community. 

Gesellschaft
◦ In contrast, gesellschaft emphasizes more on secondary relationships instead of families and
personal relationships.

◦ Gesellschaft is characterized by a more elaborate division of labor. Gemeinschaft typically

derives from a moderate division of labor.

◦ The individuals of the society act according to their own interests.

◦ Gesellschaft can be seen in very large cities where individuals are self-centric.

◦ Modern businesses, managers, workers, and owners are a good example of a gesellschaft
association.
GEORGE SIMMEL
◦ Types of Reciprocal Knowledge
◦ Social Interaction – Secrecy
GEORGE SIMMEL
◦ George Simmel was an early German sociologist known for creating
social theories that fostered an approach to studying society that broke
with the scientific methods used to study the natural world.

◦ Simmel's work served as an inspiration for the development of

structuralist approaches to studying society, and to the development of the
discipline of sociology generally speaking. 
EDWARD B. TYLOR
◦ Founder of Cultural Anthropology (Definition of Culture)
“Culture… is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts,
morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [a
human] as a member of society.”

◦  Primitive Culture – influenced by Charles Darwin

◦ Animism
EDWARD B. TYLOR
◦ Sir Edward Tylor was one of the pioneering anthropologists of the world.

◦ After his researches into the Early History of Mankind and the
Development of Civilization (1865), anthropology really came into
shape.

◦ He is credited for his contributions such as the invention of the term

animism (a belief in spiritual beings); and his stress on material culture.
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER
◦ Founding Father of American Sociology

◦ Laissez-faire –leave the market alone

◦ Free trade – a policy of no restrictions of import and export

◦ Against Paternalism – providing needs, but not teaching people to be responsible

◦ Individualism (Self-interest) & Ethnocentrism
◦ Ethnocentrism (Xenocentrism, Cultural Relativism)
◦ Folkways (Book)
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER
◦ He was president of the American Sociological Society, and
author of Folkways and the Science of Society.

◦ He dealt extensively with a discussion and study of

folkways.

◦ According to him, folkways are habits of the individual and

customs of the society which arise from efforts to satisfy
needs.
◦ Early American sociologist William Graham Sumner
was the first to write about the distinctions between
different types of norms in his book "Folkways: A
Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages,
Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals" (1906). 

◦ These norms are, in order of increasing significance,

folkways, mores, taboos, and laws.
Folkways
◦ Folkways, he wrote, are norms that stem from and
organize casual interactions, and emerge out of repetition
and routines.

◦ We engage in them to satisfy our daily needs, and they are

most often unconscious in operation, though they are quite
useful for the ordered functioning of society.

◦ A common example of a folkway is the practice, in many

societies, of waiting in line. This practice brings order to
the process of buying things or receiving services,
allowing us to more easily perform the tasks of our daily
lives. 
◦ Other examples of folkways include the concept of
appropriate dress, the practice of raising one's hand to take
turns speaking in a group.

◦ Folkways mark the distinction between rude and polite

behavior, so they exert a form of social pressure that
encourages us to act and interact in certain ways.

◦ However, they do not have moral significance, and there are

rarely serious consequences or sanctions for violating them.
Mores
◦ Mores are more strict than folkways, as they determine what is considered
moral and ethical behavior; they structure the difference between right and
wrong.

◦ People feel strongly about mores, and violating them typically results in
disapproval or ostracizing.

◦ As such, mores exact a greater coercive force in shaping our values, beliefs,
behavior, and interactions than do folkways.
Mores
◦ Religious doctrines are an example of mores
that govern social behavior. For example, many
religions have prohibitions on cohabitating
with a romantic partner before marriage.

◦ The belief that forms of discrimination and

oppression, like racism and sexism, are
unethical is another example of an important
more in many societies today.
Taboo
◦ A taboo is a very strong negative norm; it is a prohibition of certain
behavior that is so strict that violating it results in extreme disgust
and even expulsion from the group or society.
Taboo
◦ Often times the violator of the taboo is
considered unfit to live in that society. For
instance, in some Muslim cultures, eating
pork is taboo because the pig is considered
unclean.

◦ At the more extreme end, incest and

cannibalism are both considered taboos in
most places.
Laws
◦ A law is a norm that is formally inscribed at the state or federal level and is
enforced by police or other government agents.

◦ Laws exist to discourage behavior that would typically result in injury or harm to
another person, including violations of property rights.

◦ Those who enforce laws have been given legal right by a government to control
behavior for the good of society at large.
Laws
◦ When someone violates a law, a state
authority will impose a sanction, which
can be as light as a payable fine or as
severe as imprisonment.
ALFRED REGINALD RADCLIFFE-
BROWN
◦ British Social Anthropologist
◦ Founder of Modern Anthropology
◦ 2 Ritual Procedures:
(1) What it means to people to have it?
(2) And what consequences they have for it?
ALFRED REGINALD RADCLIFFE-
BROWN
◦ One of the founding fathers of modern social
anthropology.

◦ He became instrumental in making

anthropology a university subject.
ALFRED REGINALD RADCLIFFE-
BROWN
◦ He claimed that ritual might express more than merely
man’s dependence on society; even more basically, it
expresses his dependence on his whole environment,
physical as well as social.

◦ To Radcliffe-Brown, there are two important things to be

found out about any ritual procedures: (1) what it means
to the people who have it, and (2) what its social
consequences are.
FRIEDRICH ENGELS
◦ Communist Manifesto (primarily worked with Karl Marx)
◦ Das Capital (Marx’s Main Idea)
◦ Family structure change over history – monogamous marriage, the father secures that his children will
inherit what they have.
FRIEDRICH ENGELS
◦ Engels worked in the history of literature
and politics in collaboration with Karl
Marx.

◦ Together with Marx, he wrote Communist

Manifesto.
◦ The Communist Manifesto, which was first
published in February 1848, remains an
essential guidebook for any socialist serious
about overthrowing capitalism. ... Marx and
Engels demonstrated that capitalism was
itself a necessary and definite stage of class
society, but only a stage.
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
◦ Conspicuous consumption is a term introduced by the
Norwegian-American economist and
sociologist Thorstein Veblen in his book "The Theory
of the Leisure Class" published in 1899.

◦ The term refers to consumers who buy expensive items

to display wealth and income rather than to cover the
real needs of the consumer.
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
◦ Conspicuous consumption is the spending of money
on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to
publicly display economic power—of the income or of
the accumulated wealth of the buyer.

◦ Ostentatious consumption of goods that is meant to

provoke the envy of other people;
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
◦ And the term conspicuous compassion, the deliberate
use of charitable donations of money in order to enhance
the social prestige of the donor, with a display of
superior socio-economic status.
BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI
◦ Polish-born social anthropologist

◦ Bronisław Malinowski is arguably the most influential

anthropologist of the 20th century, mostly for social
anthropology.

◦ He is considered the father of ethnographic

methodology by most field working anthropologist
because of his ideas on participant observation.
 
BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI
◦ Participant observation was introduced into
anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth
century when  Bronisław Malinowski (1884–
1942) challenged the traditional paradigm of
researchers conducting their studies from the
veranda of a missionary station, by taking
accounts from individuals rather than observing
situations firsthand (Wax and Cassell 1979). 
BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI
◦ In participant observation the observer participates in
ongoing activities and records observations. Participant
observation extends beyond
naturalistic observation because the observer is a
"player" in the action. The technique is used in
many studies in Anthropology and Sociology.
PITIRIM SOROKIN
◦ A Russian-born American sociologist and political
activist, best known for his contributions to the social
cycle theory.

◦ In 1947, his Society, Culture, and Personality was

published which is considered the best source of his
views as a whole, where he returned to the staple
topics of much sociological writings such as groups,
classes, roles, social structure, and social mobility.
PITIRIM SOROKIN
◦ Social structure is the system of
socioeconomic stratification.

◦ Social mobility, movement of individuals,

families, or groups through a system of social
hierarchy or stratification.
TALCOTT PARSONS
◦ Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8,
1979) was an American sociologist of the
classical tradition, best known for his social
action theory and structural functionalism.
TALCOTT PARSONS
◦ According to Parsons, action was not to be
conceived as completely free but was grounded
in and circumscribed by norms and ultimate
principles of action (values). In 1951, he
published his book The Social System,
acclaimed to be his major contribution to the
field of sociology.
TALCOTT PARSONS
◦ In sociology, a social system is the patterned
network of relationships constituting a coherent
whole that exist between individuals, groups,
and institutions. It is the formal structure of role
and status that can form in a small, stable group.
 AUGUSTE HERBERT MAX
COMTE SPENCER KARL WEBER FERDINAN
MARX D
EMILE
DURKHEI TOENNIES
M

ALFRED THORSTEIN
REGINALD FRIEDRIC VEBLEN
GEORGE SIMMEL EDWARD
WILLIAM RADCLIFFE- H ENGELS
B. TYLOR GRAHAM BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI
BROWN
SUMNER
 TALCOTT PARSONS
PITIRIM SOROKIN