What is Sociology?
                                                                   Two major themes                                                                         Examples
           Identify some of the things                                                                   Identify some of the ways 
                    sociologists study                                                               sociologists study social life 
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   What is Sociology?
                                   Two major themes
      Identify some of the things                     Identify some of the ways 
           sociologists study                       sociologists study social life 
    Sociologists study social behavior -         The definitions included words like 
    people and their patterns of                 “scientific”, “systematic” and 
    behavior. The focus is on the way            “objective” - ideas that tell us 
    people form relationships and how            something about how sociologists 
    these relationships, considered in           study behavior and the kinds of 
    their totality, are represented by the       knowledge they are trying to produce to 
    concept of a “society”.                      explain such behavior. 
    The focus of attention is group              Sociologists create knowledge that is 
    behavior – how the groups people             factual, rather than simply based on 
    join or are born into (family, work,         opinion. Systematic ways of studying 
    education and so forth) affect their         social behavior are used - sociologists 
    development and behavior.                    test their ideas about social behaviour 
                                                 using evidence drawn from their 
                                                 observations.
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   What is Sociology?
       “Sociology is a social science concerned with the 
       study of social relationships and the various ways 
       these relationships are patterned in terms of our 
       membership of social groups”.
                                                      This being the case, we 
                                                      need to look a little more 
                                                      closely at the concepts of 
                                                      social groups in order to 
                                                      understand how the 
                                                      relationships we form 
                                                      shape our behavior…
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   What is Sociology?
                        A Friendship Group
              Includes people who hang around 
              together because they like each other
                                                                   A Work Group
        A  “social group” is a collection of                Might include people who do 
        individuals who interact – both formally           the same type of job.
        and informally – with each other.
                                                                      A Peer Group
                                                                 Includes  people of 
                                                                 roughly the same age 
      An Educational Group
   Might include people studying           A Family Group
   together in the same school /       People who are related 
   college or class.                   by birth, marriage, etc.
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   What is Sociology?
                                                               Social Groups…
                   Structure             Society                         The largest group 
   Our relationships are                                                 to which we 
   based on (or                        Institutions                      usually belong…
   structured by) both 
   formal and informal 
   rules. “Society”                    Small Groups
   therefore, represents 
   a totality of 
   relationships that                   Individuals
   imposes rules upon 
   our behavior.                                                             Groups, such as 
                                                        Action               families, peer 
                                                                             and friendship 
                                                                             groups, etc.
       Institutions are stable 
       patterns of group 
       behaviour that persist             The main types of institutional groups in our society are:
       over long periods of time          Family and Kinship, Government, Work and cultural 
                                          institutions such as the media, education, and religion.
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