Introduction to sociology 2017

WHAT IS YOUR
UNDERSTANDING OF
‘SOCIOLOGY’?
Compiled by C. Settley

DEFINITION OF SOCIOLOGY – pg 2 in Pretoruis & pg 3 in Du Toit
• Sociology can be defined as the study of human social life.
• Relationships can be direct, face to face relationships eg – such
like our families, school friends or at college/university.
• Can be indirect- actions and decisions of people not known to
us personally eg- healthcare policy makers.

Sociology/ Social science
• Direct • Indirect

SOCIOLOGY AND OTHER SCIENCE
• Sociology is one of a group of science called social science.
• Shares however common characteristics with other social science.
• Such as human behaviour. Some disciplines focus on what is going on inside
the individual.- neurology, psychology.
• Sociologist are interested in interaction between two or more people, whether
married couple in conflict, a teacher/ student in classroom situation, a patient/
healthcare practitioner in a therapeutic environment.
• They focus on the social forces that influence the way in which people interact
with one another.
• How people make sense of their private lives and the social worlds they occupy.
• And how every day social interaction creates society.

Concepts
• Anthropology
- The study of human beings and their
ancestors through time in terms of
physical character, environmental and
social relations and culture. It can also
be known as the scientific and
humanistic study of human species
and their various diversities.
- Specialises in: Sociocultural, linguistic,
physical. Simple, traditional and non-
industrialized societies.
- The study of humankind, in particular:
the comparative study of human
societies and cultures and their
development.
• Sociology
• The study of the development,
structure, and functioning of human
society: the study of social problems.
- The study of the development,
structure, interaction and behavior of
organized groups of human beings.
- Social institutions (economic life
education, family, politics and religion),
social stratification (by age, gender,
race and ethnicity, and social class),
social change and social problems.
- Focuses on complex and modern
societies.

• Social life
• At the most basic, social life is the
combination of various
components: activities, people,
and places.
• While all of those components are
required to define a social life, the
nature of each component is
different for every person, and can
change for each person, as
affected by a variety of external
influences.
• Social perspective- pg 10
in Du Toit
• The sociological perspective is a
perspective on human behavior
and its connection to society as a
whole.
• It invites us to look for the
connections between the behavior
of individual people and the
structures of the society in which
they live.
• Typically, we tend to think of our
society as just natural.
Concepts

THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
• Sociologist study familiar routines of daily life, but look at it differently.
• They see and understand the larger historical picture.
• As well of the impact of social forces on our private lives.
• Refiloe’s story- page 5 in Pretoruis
• While we think life is all about individual actions and free choices, many
are influenced by social circumstances that we cannot always control.
• The story illustrate the key idea of sociology- to understand people and
the phenomena in their personal lives
• Sociological imagination allows us to recognise that solutions to many
of our problems are not in changing the personal situations and
characteristics of individuals, but in changing the social institutions and
roles available to them.
• Problems such as drug addiction, homelessness, sexual violence will
not be solved by treating or punishing the individuals.
• But rather that social institutions should provide programmes to assist
such individuals.

The Sociological Imagination
• Example #1
Fat and thin girl
• A girl tries to lose weight to look desirable
according to the perception of the society.
• In order to be thin, she becomes anorexic and
experiences severe health problems.
• Now, if we see this case in isolation, we will
think that it's her personal problem ,and she is
spoiling her life on her own.
• But if we apply sociological imagination, we
would realize that it's the obsession of society
in general for the fair skin and thin body that
has indirectly affected this girl.
• It is the media that represents society, portrays
beautiful, and desirable girls as thin and fair.
• This kind of representation affects many people
directly or indirectly as it happened in case of
this particular girl.

The Sociological Imagination
• Example #2
Job rejection
• A guy gets rejected in an interview and resorts to
illegal activities.
• He tries very hard to get a job, but fails.
• Now, he joins the a gang and engages in illegal and
criminal activities.
• If you analyze this case individually, then you may
say that this boy did not try hard enough to get a job
and resorted to illegal activities to gain easy money.
• But if you see this case with the sociological
imagination perspective, then you would see that the
larger forces such as, economic meltdown,
unemployment, the lack of regulation in the sub
prime mortgage industry, etc., had a direct impact on
the life of this guy.
• We could have blamed the personal character of the
individual if very few guys went through the similar
situation.

Sociological imagination:
Activity
Mr February is an elderly person who has worked for
many years at a security company, as a night watchman.
He is now close to retirement. Unfortunately he has
become ill and has been in hospital during the past two
weeks.
The nurses are very annoyed with him as he spends his
days sleeping and is up and about during the night. He
complains of hunger at about 03:00 every night but is not
happy about eating the main meals of the day at 17:00.
Unfortunately the nurse’s attitude has made Mr February
feeling very sad and unwelcome.

Sociological imagination
• Using your knowledge of social
imagination critically analyse and
explain the following:
1) The behaviour of the nurses
2) Mr February’s behaviour
3) Discuss how knowledge of “social imagination”
could have resulted in a therapeutic and non-
judgmental relationship between the nurses and the
patient.
NB Remember to watch the videos on Sociological
imagination!!!! Compiled by C. Settley

Social interaction- pg 80 in Du Toit
• A social interaction is an exchange
between two or more individuals and is a
building block of society.
• Social interaction can be studied between
groups of two (dyads), three (triads) or
larger social groups.
• By interacting with one another, people
design rules, institutions and systems
within which they seek to live.

Social interaction
• Symbols are used to communicate the
expectations of a given society to those
new to it, either children or outsiders.
• Through this broad schema of social
development, one sees how social
interaction lies at its core.

More Concepts-
Refer to reader
• Society
• the aggregate of people living together in
a more or less ordered community.
• a body of individuals living as members of
a community.

More Concepts
• Community
• a group of people living in the same place
or having a particular characteristic in
common.
• the condition of sharing or having certain
attitudes and interests in common.

Community Society
Population is one of the most essential
characteristics of a community irrespective of the
consideration whether people have or do not have
conscious relations.
Population is important but here the population is
conditioned by a feeling of oneness. Thus
conscious relations are more important than the
mere population for a society.
A community by nature is discrete as compared with
society.
By nature and character society is abstract.
Community area or locality is very essential and that
perhaps is the reason that the community had a
definite shape.
Society is area-less and shapeless and for a
society area is no consideration.
A community has comparatively narrow scope of
community sentiments.
A society has heterogeneity and because of its
wide scope and field can embrace people having
different conflicts.
The scope of community is narrow than that of
society because community came much later than
the society. Though the primitive people might not
have understood the importance of community but
they realized that of the society and lived in it.
The society has much wider scope as compared
with the community.
In a community every effort is made to avoid
differences or conflicts and to bring likeness as
nearly as possible because cooperation and
conflicts cannot exist in a community.
In a society likeness and conflict can exist side by
side and in fact the scope of society is so vast that
there is every possibility of adjustment.

Characteristics of a society
• Definite territory
• A society occupies a definite area.
• Continuity of relationships
• Includes representatives of the
fundamental human types, that is men,
women and children.
• These relationships exist over a long
period of time. Compiled by C. Settley

• A functioning group
• Basic human group.
• Analysed in terms of relationships.
• Processes that occur within these groups.
• Differentiated from temporary groups such
as an audience etc.

• Sexual reproduction
• Fundamental.
• Source of new members.
• Additional members by means of
adoption, immigration.
• Sexual reproduction is the principal source
of increase.

• A comprehensive culture
• A sociological society contain cultural patterns.
• Diversified.
• Enables group to fulfil all requirements of social
life.
• Every full member of the group must possess
enough culture of the group to enable him to
play his part in the system of interaction.
• No one person can possess the entire culture of
the group.

• Independence
• Not a subgroup of any other group.

Characteristics of a community
• A common territory
• Forms the physical boundaries of social
interaction.
• A group of people alone can’t form a
community.
• A group of people forms a community only
when they reside in a definite territory.
• The territory need not be fixed forever.

• Special bonds of unit
• Race, religion, etc. are often evident.
• The members of a community are similar in a
number of ways.
• As they live within a definite locality they lead a
common life and share some common ends.
• Among the members similarity in language,
culture, customs, and traditions and in many
other things is observed.

• Community feeling
• Sense of belonging.
• Interpersonal interaction
• The individual feels that he/she has a role to
play in the community.
• This is vitally important to the individuals
existence.
• Materially and spiritually dependant on the
community as it satisfies physical and
psychological needs.

• Provision of institutions and
organisations
• To satisfy the basic biological,
psychological and social needs of its
members.
• Includes schools, churches, businesses,
etc.

Differences between a
community and a society
• The primary difference between a community and a
society is that a community is limited to a specific
geographic location, but a society can be made up of
people who live in different places.
• Another difference is that a society is made up of direct
and indirect social connections between people, but a
community is made up of individuals who are more
closely connected.
• For example, people who live in a town represent a
community, whereas everyone who lives in the state (or
province) of the town is located in makes up a society.

What is an urban area?
• An urban area is a
location characterized by
high human population
density and vast human-
built features in
comparison to the
areas surrounding it.
What is a rural area?
• A rural area is an open
swath of land that has
few homes or other
buildings, and not very
many people. A rural
area’s population density
is very low.
• Isolated farm settlements.
• Country trade centres
usually centered in a
village.

Urban and Rural areas
Urban area Rural area

Interaction between urban and Rural areas
Chapter 5, page 10 in reader
• Interaction in the country takes place to a greater or
lesser degree depending on factors such as distance,
rivers, mountains etc. nature of soil and availability of
raw materials.
• Town is supplied with raw materials from the country.
• Finished articles which are made in town from these
raw materials are supplied to town markets
• There is always interaction between urban and rural
• There’s more social interaction between rural and
urban due to the development of roads, motor and air
transport, there’s more social interaction

Interaction between urban and Rural areas
Continued
• People from towns can more easily visit
urban areas and vice versa
• The development of boarder industries is
bringing urbanization (Urbanization is the
process in which the number of people
living in cities increases compared with the
number of people living in rural areas).

Self - activity
• How does urbanisation present itself
today?
• What are the implications of urbanisation
for the society, government and people
involved?
• What are the drivers of urbanisation?

05/07/2017
• Social structures
• Social groups
• Social institutions
• Social stratification

05/07/2017 Social Structures- pg 85 in Du Toit
• Social organization based on established
patterns of social interaction between
different relationships (such as those
between parents and children, teachers
and students, employers and employees),
regulated through accepted norms and
shared values.

• Social relationships can be brief like
nodding and greeting.
• Other relationships are more permanent.
• Patterns of social relationships develop
over time in society because:
– They are functional &
– Contribute to social order.

• Social structure is therefore the
interwoven human interaction and social
relationships which occur repeatedly and
in stable patterns in society.

• Status: the position of an individual in
relation to another or others, especially in
regard to social or professional standing.
• Status differs from person to person’s
perception.
• Differentiated into: Ascribed status,
achieved status & master status

Concepts related to social
structure
• Ascribed status:
• Received at birth
• No control
• At birth
• Eg being a
son/daughter/mexican etc
• Achieved status:
• Earned by personal
achievements, efforts
• Eg qualified
nurse/specialist
• Master status:
• Dominates
• Known by members
of the community
• Eg princess of wales

structure
• Position: the place of an individual in a
social system.
• Many companies also have a chief financial officer
(CFO), chief operating officer (COO) and other senior
positions as necessary such as chief information officer
(CIO), chief marketing officer (CMO), etc. that report to
the president and CEO as "senior vice presidents" of the
company.

structure
• Role: the action of an individual relating to
his/her particular position.
• A role is governed by norms attached to
the role.
• Eg Head of college, operational
managers, students

Elements of the concept of
‘’role’’
• Role is the pattern of behaviour.
• The expected behaviour is divided into
rights and obligations.
• Role is a behavioural relationship-
interaction.

Role set
• A number of roles associated with one
status.
• The number of roles may exceed the
number of statuses occupied by an
individual at any one time.

structure
• Role Sets- number of roles with one status

Role strain
• Role strain is a tension that occurs when
a person is facing a single role having
multiple statuses. It means that it occurs
with in a single role.
• Role conflict role confict occur between
different roled

structure

Activity
• Page 99 in Du Toit, no,3
• Define the concept of role and show how a
nursing professional can experience role
strain and role conflict in the hospital
situation.

Social groups- pg 123 in Du Toit
• A social group is not just a collection of
people who interact with each other and
share similar characteristics and a sense
of unity.
• A social category is a collection of people
who do not interact but who share similar
characteristics.

Social groups- pg 124 in Du Toit
• Every social group is different.
• Eg the family- responsible for values,
norms, interactions and relationships
reaching deeper than the interaction found
in sports groups.
• Families also differ** eg values,
competitiveness, religion, appreciation. etc

What is the role of social groups
in the individual’s life?pg 125 in Du Toit
• How did the individual become who
he/she is?
• Was he or she born that way?
• Personality
• Thoughts
• Moods
• Feelings
• Actions

Characteristics of social groups
pg 125 in Du Toit
• Group structure
• Interactions and patterns of interaction
• Common or similar goals
• Group sentiment or group awareness
• Group norms

1- Aggregates
pg 128 in Du Toit
• A collection of people who share a
particular physical area merely through
circumstances but who do not engage in
interaction.
• The is no group sentiment or awareness
• Examples???

2- Social categories
pg 129 in Du Toit
•  Expressive and instrumental
•  In and out
•  Open and closed
•  Vertical and horizontal
•  Permanent and temporary
•  Voluntary and involuntary

2. Social categories
•  Expressive and instrumental
•  In and out
•  Open and closed
•  Vertical and horizontal
•  Permanent and temporary
•  Voluntary and involuntary

EXPRESSIVE GROUP
- Expressive ties are social links
formed when we emotionally invest
ourselves in and commit ourselves to
other people.
- Through association with people who
are meaningful to us, we
achieve a sense of security, love,
acceptance, companionship, and
personal worth.

INSTRUMENTAL GROUPS
- Social links formed when we
cooperate with other people to
achieve some goal
- Purpose
- Task group
- Eg nursing professionals as they
provide a task by caring for the
patients

Primary and secondary groups
The primary group
• Few members.
• Face to face relationships.
• Emotional security.
• Membership itself is a goal.
Right of belonging.
• Constant contact.
• Informal/casual.
• Each member is considered
unique and complete.
The secondary
• Members do not really
know each other.
• Less face to face contact.
• Work groups, church
groups, salesperson and
customers, the attorney
and his/her clients.
• Formal organisations.

The family- pg 173 in Du Toit
Functions of the family:
-Replacement of members.
-Socialisation.
-Social placement.
-Care and protection.
-Regulation of precreation.

Forms of marriage
pg 177 in Du Toit
- Cohabitant relationships.
- Gay and lesbian households.
- Single parent households.
- Childless marriages.
- Dual career families.
- Commuter marriages.
- Multigenerational families.

The in- group and the out-
group
The in-group
• Symbols, names,
slogans, clothing
• Self positive evaluation
• Mutual
identification/loyalty
• Tend to compete
• Evaluation of social
behavior.
The out- group
• Opposite of the in-group
• Viewed as negative by
the in-group
• Both groups use as
reference

The in- group and the out-
group example
‘the in group identified at school level among
kids VS the nerds’

Vertical and horizontal groups
Vertical groups
• Different social and
economical classes
• Eg church
Horizontal groups
• More or less the same
financial, occupational
social background
• Eg DENOSA

Permanent and temporary
groups
Permanent groups
• Eg the family
• Long term existence
Temporary groups
• Eg residence in a
neighborhood who exist
for a short while to form a
pressure group
• Short term existence
• Group dissolves after
request have been met

Open and closed groups
Open groups
• No limitations
• Any person can join
• Eg Facebook, Twitter
Closed groups
• Limitations
• Requirements
• Eg SANC

Voluntary and involuntary
groups
Voluntary groups
• Occupational groups, eg
teachers nurses
• Made a decision
Involuntary groups
• Not based on a decision
• Eg family

Self- Activity
• Page 188 in Du Toit.

Social relationships
pg 96
• Characteristics of primary relationships:
– Embraces the whole personality.
– Spontaneuos and intimate.
– Communication is intimate and frequently non
verbal.
– System of values.
– Feeling of love and safety.

pg 97
• Characteristics of secondary relationships.
– Few emotional ties.
– Meet for purpose.
– Less face to face.
– Specific roles.
– Communication is impersonal.
– Positions are transferable.
– Personal satisfaction plays no role.

pg 97
• Factors influencing primary & secondary
relationships:
– Age
– Status
– Gender
– Ethnic background
– Information and communication

Social institutions- pg 189 in Du Toit
• Humans have basic social needs –
belonging, support for the young etc.
• These different fields of needs have been
classified by Sociologists hence the
concept: ‘social institutions’
• Defined: Social Institutions are the major
spheres of social life, organized in such a
way that they fulfill human needs

Social institutions
• The Five basic Social Institutions:
• 1) The family
• 2) Education
• 3) Religion
• 4) Economics
• 5) Politics

• The family is the most basic of all
institutions
• It serves the person’s need to belong and to receive and
give love.
• Satisfies the need for care and socialization
• Cornerstone for individuals to function in society
• More than 90% of all people prefer to live within a family
unit
Social institutions: the family

• Enables a society to survive economically.
• Through the provision of services such as
banks.
• Fosters entrepreneurial potential in
communities.
• Without the economy, societies would not
be able to trade, import and export goods
etc.
Social institutions: economy

Social stratification- pg 103 in Du Toit
• Social stratification refers to a system by which a
society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy.
• Johnson (1986:315) describes SOCIAL
STRATIFICATION as the social structures which
provide wealth, power and status unequally among
the members of different social classes.
• It is a process in the sense that people classify
themselves with regard to different status groups
and associate themselves with the relevant wealth,
power and prestige.

Social force
• An element of society which has the
capability of causing cultural change or
influences people.

REFERENCES:
-Pretorius, E. Matebesi, Z and Ackermann, L. (2013). Juta’s Sociology for
healthcare professionals. Lansdowne, Cape Town, South Africa. Page 2- 6.
-www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-sociology-perspective-324286. Retrieved
on 3 July 2015.
-https://www.boundless.com/.../social-interaction...social-interaction. Retrieved on 3
July 2015.
-http://www.sociologyguide.com/basic-concepts/society-and-community.php.
Retrieved on 3 July 2015.

Introduction to sociology 2017

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