Week 2 sociological imagination a new way to think
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This document discusses various sociological concepts and theories. It explores how social identity is defined in relation to groups, how social institutions shape society, and the differences between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. It also mentions several sociological theories, including functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. The overall message is that sociology examines how social forces and interactions between individuals and groups influence society.
Week 2 sociological imagination a new way to think
- 1. A NEW WAY TO THINK SOCIAL FACTS Social Problems
- 2. Trapped by Self Deception and Assumptions https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception?language=en&utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_med ium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
- 4. It’s easy for our brain to get stuck in mental loops, and the best way to break these mental loops is to change the reference point. We are not changing our intuitive understanding of the problem or the core we have identified, just how it is expressed. We could, for example, ask: What is the best way to solve this? But we could also ask: What is the worst way to solve this? Each contains knowledge, and we should dissect both.Just as a problem has forms, it also has many shapes. Different shapes hold different truths.
- 5. Frequently, when we have spent a lot of time thinking about a problem, we create a tunnel vision that rigidly directs us along a singular path. Logical thinking starts at one point, makes reasoned connections, and if done well, it always leads to the same place every time. Creative thinking is a little different. It, too, makes connections, but these connections are less logical and more serendipitous, allowing for what we think of as new thinking patterns.
- 6. If you don’t find the core of a problem, you start off with all of the wrong details, which is then going to encourage you to add many more of the wrong kinds of details until you’re stuck.
- 7. Developing Self and Social Consciousness • Distinguishing personal problems from public issues resulting from social structure • Troubles versus issues: personal/ societal • One man's death is a tragedy: 145 people killed by a terrorist blast is a statistic.
- 8. Thinking like a sociologist means looking at the world around you in a new way. Challenge conventional wisdom and question what most people take for granted.
- 9. Coined by C. Wright Mills, this tool helps us to: • connect our personal experiences to society at large and greater historical forces. • “make the familiar strange,” or to question habits or customs that seem “natural” to us. The Sociological Imagination
- 10. Imagine – John Lennon Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today... Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhq-yO1KN8
- 12. Outrospection - Empathy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG46IwVfSu8&feature=youtu.be
- 13. ○ The way individuals define themselves in relationship to groups they are a part of (or in relationship to groups they choose not to be a part of). ○ What groups are you in? Or not in? ○ Write down a list of groups that you define you. What Is Social Identity? 13
- 14. ○ Social institutions are networks of structures in society that work to socialize the groups of people within them. ○ Examples include: ○ the legal system ○ the labor market ○ the educational system ○ the military ○ the family What Is a Social Institution? 14
- 15. ○ Microsociology understands local interactional contexts, focusing on face-to-face encounters and gathering data through participant observations and in-depth interviews. ○ Macrosociology looks at social dynamics across whole societies or large parts of them and often relies on statistical analysis to do so. Divisions within Sociology 15
- 16. Think about you own backgrounds, including their race, gender, religion, and economic class. How larger social forces—the economy, civil rights, religious movements, and so on—have shaped what it means to be a person “like you” someone with the same list of traits—in society today.
- 17. Functionalism, conflict theory, feminist theory, symbolic interactionism, postmodernism, and midrange theory are all modern sociological theories. Theories of Sociology 17 Macro Theories
- 19. Sociology focuses on making comparisons across cases to find patterns and create hypotheses about how societies work now or how they worked in the past. Sociology looks at how individuals interact with one another as well as at how groups, small and large, interact with one another. Sociology and Its Cousins