Introduction to Sociology Dersi 1. Ünite Sorularla Öğrenelim

According to Durkheim, what is a suicide and what are the types of it?

Durkheim developed a theory and explained suicide as a sociological phenomenon, as a social fact. He claimed that there are four types of suicides and the rates of suicide are based on the degrees of social integration and moral regulation in that society. When these two social factors increase or decrease too much, suicide rates get higher. This shows that suicide is a social fact, and is in relation with other social facts.

What does sociological thinking make people comprehend?

Sociological thinking makes people comprehend that things are not always the same as they think; and that the world that they think they know may actually be different than what they think. This enables us to understand our and other people’s problems better. Thus we see that all people confront similar obstacles and disappointments with us. Thus, we respect their right to choose and perform the life style they choose. In other words, sociological thinking creates a solidarity based on mutual understanding and respect.

What are the differences between commonsense and sociology?

There are important differences between commonsense and sociology. These can be summarized in four points:

• The first difference is related to the responsible speech. Unlike people depending on commonsense while talking, sociologists make effort to follow the rules of responsible speech. This means they make a clear distinction between untested personal claims and the statements corroborated by evidence. This is a very important point because the trust to and credibility of scientific knowledge depends on the belief that scientists follow the rules of responsible speech.
• The second difference is related to the size of the field from which the material is drawn. People who talk with regard to commonsense generally think and talk depending on few people’s lives and experiences. This causes their thinking to be partial or one-sided. Sociologists, on the other hand, broaden their horizons, use a wider perspective and can link individual biographies to social processes. Sociological thinking is a multi-dimensional thinking practice.
• The third difference is related to how we understand events. In everyday life, people tend to think that everything that occurs in the world is an outcome of somebody’s intentional actions. They think that goodwill lies behind good events and ill intensions lie behind unpleasant events. Sociologists do not make personalized interpretations. Sociologists’ explanations depend on networks of dependencies rather than individual actors or actions.
• The last difference is related to dogmas. In everyday life, repeated actions become habitual and commonsense does not ask critical questions. The reactions to social facts are perceived as true ways of life. However, sociologists challenge the supposed commonsense and ask radical, critical, provoking questions about the social facts. Sociology discusses the flow of the life in details.

What does sociology help us to do?

Sociology does not aim to replace our incorrect information with unquestionable true information. It helps us to question and criticize the facts that are accepted true without questioning.

What are some different definitions of Sociology?

Giddens defines sociology as the scientific study of the social life of human beings, human groups and societies. For another definition, sociology is the systematic and planned study of human groups and social life in modern societies. Sociology can also be defined as scientific examination and research of human societies and the human behaviors in the social groups. Thus, we can define sociology as the scientific investigation of the society, the social interaction, the relation between the individual and the society, the structures of the social institutions and their relations with each other. Sociology as a social science has its origins in the effort to understand the transformation from the traditional society to the modern society. It aims to understand the structure of and changes in the societies through scientific inquiry on contemporary human societies.

How can we define society?

Society is not the totality of people; it is the totality of the mutual relationships among a community of people who share a specific territory, a specific culture and common social institutions.

How do the sociologists classify the types of societies?

Sociologists classify the types of societies depending mainly on their characteristics of production. Therefore, although human groups have established many types of societies through the history, sociologists usually refer to six types of society:

• Hunting and Gathering Societies
• Pastoral Societies
• Agrarian Societies
• Traditional States
• Industrial (Modern) Societies
• Post-Industrial Societies

What are the fundamental concepts in sociology?

There are a number of concepts in sociology, which are essential in explaining, understanding and studying society and social behavior. These are social action, social structure, social institution, social fact, group, self, status, role, value, norm, sanction and socialization.

How can we define Social structure?

Social structure is the perpetual, continuous and organized relations among the groups and social institutions that consist the society.

Define the Interpretive approach and the Positivist-Structuralist approach.

The approach in which social action is more important is the Interpretive approach, and the approach in which the structure is more important is the Positivist-Structuralist approach.

What do social facts consist of?

Social facts consist of ways of acting, thinking, and feeling, which are external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion. They are the creation of human activities but they are not intended.

What is a social group?

A social group is an organized group, of which the members have mutual interaction, reciprocal relations, common goals, similar behaviors, a sense of unity and follow the group norms.

What are the types of status?

Statuses are divided into two basic types. These are ascribed and achieved status.If a status is determined at the birth of the individual, it is an ascribed status. In addition to ascribed statuses, individuals may acquire other statuses in their life time with the exercise of their abilitres, skills, knowledge or luck. These are called the achieved statuses.

What are sanctions?

Sanctions are the anticipated consequence of violating the rules and the norms. They are used to make members of the society follow the norms. Thus, sanctions are mechanisms of social control.

What is socialization?

Socialization is the process by which a society transmits its social values, norms, and culture to its members. Socialization must not be confused with socializing. Socializing is interacting with other people, the members of the family or workplace, or friends. Socialization is the process in which the individual learns how to be a member of the society he/ she lives in, the process that prepares them to function in social life.

What is the rise of sociology based on?

With the major changes that the French Revolution and Industrial Revolution caused, new questions arose about the structure and future of the society. The rise of sociology is based on the attempts to answer the questions with scientific methods.

What does interdisciplinarity refer to?

A discipline is a sub category of a science. The science of sociology is a discipline of social sciences. Interdisciplinarity refers to combining or involving more than one academic discipline into one scientific activity.

What are the aims of scientific knowledge?

The aims of scientific knowledge are :

1. To comprehend, define and classify its study subjects depending on observations,
2. To establish causality relationship between facts and to explain these relationships by testing and verifying through observations,
3. To draw on these verified relationships, to develop generalizations, laws and theories and to make inferences and estimations about the future of the study subject.

What are the characteristics of scientific knowledge?

Not every knowledge is scientific. Scientific knowledge is rational, empirical, factual, logical, objective, explicit, consistent, systematic, generalizable, valid, reliable and critical knowledge which is generated through scientific methods of inquiry.

What is science?

Science is a set of logical, systematic, documented methods for investigating nature and natural processes and the knowledge produced by these investigations. Social science is the use of scientific methods to investigate individuals, societies, and social processes and the knowledge produced by these investigations.

What are the scientific research principles that social science researches should meet?

Social scientists cannot follow exactly the same research procedures with physical sciences. However, as long as they meet the scientific research principles, social science researches are certainly scientific. These principles are:

• Value freedom
• Objectivity
• The use of evidence
• The use of scientific research methods
• The capacity for being tested

What does scientific method refers to?

Scientific method refers to the process of hypothetico-deduction, the method of logical positivism, in which the scientists first hypothesize through deduction, and then test these hypotheses through empirical ways. For a long time the only valid method for scientific inquiry was believed to be positivism. However, in the 20th century much of the scientists agree that there is more than one valid method in scientific researches.

What are the most commonly used approaches in social sciences?

In every social research, the researcher adopts a methodological approach. The selection of the method is very important because it shapes and limits the research design and techniques. There are three main methodological approaches in social sciences. These are the Positivist, the Interpretive and the Critical approaches. In addition to these, there are Feminist and Postmodern approaches.

What is the difference between nonprobability and probability sampling?

The difference between nonprobability and probability sampling is that in probability sampling, units are selected randomly, but in nonprobability sampling they are judgmentally selected.