Introduction to Sociology: block 1 (part 2)
We will continue now with Unit 2
from block 1: Introduction to Sociology.
We will be using the same handbook that we used for Unit 1
and we will see what are the sociological perspectives.
We mean by this that sociologists
do not perceive society in the same way.
Some sociologists see the world basically as
a stable and ongoing entity.
Their interest is the durability
of social institutions like family
or organised religion.
This way of seeing the world is called Functionalism
or functionalist perspective.
Here we also study who were the precursors:
we find two US male sociologists,
Parsons
and Merton,
and a male German sociologist, Luhman.
Other sociologists
assume that society
is formed by many conflicting groups
competing for scarce resources.
This way of seeing the world is called Marxism
or conflict perspective.
There are recurring questions in this perspective:
¿Who benefits,
who suffers,
and who dominates at the expense of others?
Another perspective
is amazed by people's everyday forms of social interaction,
which we sometimes do not realise.
This perspective is known as the interactionist perspective
or symbolic interactionism.
It considers human beings interacting with their meaningful objects:
material things, actions,
other people, relationships, symbols...
And also nonverbal communication
and manipulation of symbols, as we already mentioned.
Some of the pioneers of this perspective are: Mead,
US citizen, is regarded as the founder of the interactionist perspective.
Goffman
popularized a particular type of interactionist method
known as the dramaturgical approach
in which people are seen as theatrical performers.
It compares everyday life
to the setting of the theater and stage.
People
seek to present particular features
of our personalities
while we hide other features.
Other sociologists
see inequity in gender
as a key point when studying society.
This way of seeing the world
is called Feminism or the feminist perspective.
Another female author, Wells-Barnett,
was an advocate in the women’s rights campaign,
especially the struggle to win the vote for women
and she researched what it meant to be female
and Black in the United States.
Another woman, Hill Collins,
drew the attention to the blocking factors,
proving that not only wealth influences
how we navigate our daily life in every society.
Other sociologists
study society from a wide range of sexualities and gender identities,
not just heterosexuality.
This way of seeing the world is called the queer theory.
One of its pioneers is Foucault,
who has pointed out that what is regarded as normal
and acceptable about human sexuality
differs depending on the culture and the time.
Another female US sociologist, Sedgwick, argues
that any society analysis cannot be a comprehensive analysis
unless it includes
the sex identity spectrum
that people are or identify themselves as.
There are a lot of missing perspectives
and one of them is inclusion.
Could you help us to acknowledge the different capabilities?
We won't be repeating what we already saw in Unit 1,
you need to read, write outlines, do research on the internet,
and listen to the teacher's lectures.
Also, remember that the Bibliography is important, but not the only aspect.
Remember that you have a theoretical and a practical part.
One of the practices for this block
covers an approach to the scientific method,
this is, explaining how we work in the academic setting.
Since this is just the first course of the degree,
the purpose is that they know the steps
and how to distinguish them,
just an introduction.
But they need to know that in the academia
they are not allowed to copy and paste information from the internet,
they have to write, and we show them how to do it properly.
Step by step, they will thoroughly learn the process.
We thank you again for your attention, special thanks to María José
and Eduardo, from the ACISO association,
for their help, their support and their solidarity.
Thank you.
Traducción y subtítulos: María Remedios Campos López,
alumna en prácticas de la UPO, 4º curso del grado de TEI Inglés,
curso 2019-2020.