This document discusses the concept of society and how it can be studied sociologically. It addresses that society: 1) Is made up of groups of people who shape their lives in patterned ways that distinguish them from other groups. 2) Cannot be easily defined or observed as a whole object due to its complex and fluid nature, being composed of countless other components like culture, class, ethnicity. 3) Can best be studied sociologically by observing how people live their lives and interact with each other in patterned social processes that together make up the larger society.

2. Let’s go back to what is Society….
Society is a group of
people who shape
their lives in
aggregated and
patterned ways that
distinguish their
group from other
groups.

3. What does society look like?
• Society as an object itself (sui generis)
• if society is an object, then it can be examined
closely and analyzed like any other subject
(sounds simple isn’t it? We divide it in pieces and
explore each piece carefully)
• A sociologist does to society, what a biologist
does to a living organism, or a geologist does to a
rock:
• Society becomes something scientifically
weighted, measured and dissected.

4. A geologist studying a rock:

5. Is Society a concrete object after all?
• But, wait…if we dissect this object, we’ll find out that
it’s made up of countless other components such as:
culture, working class, ethnicity
• These things appear to be sui generis (objects on their
own) as well: more phenomena to examine by
themselves, hmmm, but wait….
• And these components can be broken down even
further into seemly endless bits and pieces
• It gets confusing: overwhelming, almost impossible to
imagine we could analyze something so big, with so
many parts, the shapes and boundaries are so fluid

6. Society looks like this painting by
Kandinsky:

7. networks

8. What can we see?
• If we can’t see the whole of society, what can we see?
• We can see people living their lives,
interacting with each other, working, playing,
eating, dancing, flirting, lying, fighting,
grieving, driving in their cars, ending their lives
by own choice, partying, getting married,
quarrelling, stealing, loosing their minds…..etc
• There are limitless observable phenomena for us to analyze
sociologically that surrounds us
• In fact they are all happening around us right now, every
moment of every life

9. This is what society looks like:
• People actively and collectively shape their lives,
organizing their social interactions and relationships to
produce a real meaningful world: and they do this in
patterned ways that (we as) social scientists can
analyze.
• We are curious to analyze the social
processes that everyone experiences and
how those social processes create the larger
society of which we are all a part of

11. Is sociology a science?
• Natural science is the
study of the physical
features of nature and
the ways in which they
interact and change
• Social science is the
study of the social
features of humans and
the ways they interact
and change

12. Positioning sociology among other sciences:
Sociology overlaps with other social sciences, but much of the
territory it covers is unique.

13. Sociology
Therefore…
• is the systematic or scientific
study of human society and social
behavior, from large scale
institutions and mass culture to
small groups and individual
interaction

14. Let us awaken your…
SOCIOLOGICAL
IMAGINATION

16. The term SOCIOLOGICAL
IMAGINATION was coined by the
American sociologist C. Wright Mills in
1959 to describe the type of insight
offered by the discipline of
sociology. Mills defined sociological
imagination as
“...the vivid awareness of the
relationship between experience and
the wider society”.

17. It is “the capacity to shift from one
perspective to another”.
The capacity to see how sociological
situations play out due to how people
differ in terms of their places in given
social or historical circumstances. It is a
way of thinking about things in society
that have led to some sort of outcome,
and understanding what causes led to that
outcome.

18. Sociological Imagination (1)
• A quality of the mind
that allows us to
understand the
relationship between
our particular
situation in life and
what is happening at
a social level.
• The interplay
between the self and
the world.
C. Wright Mills (1916 -1962)

19. Sociological imagination (2)
• The sociological imagination requires that we
search for the link between the micro and macro
levels of analysis
• Mill’s characterization of sociology as the
intersection between biography and history
reminds us that the process works in both
directions:
• While larger social forces influence individual
lives, there are many ways in which our
individual lives can affect society as well

20. Sociology and Common Sense?
• Our theories and opinions typically come from ‘common sense’ ,
every day knowledge and experiences. These can be biased
and incidental 
• This is not the sociological imagination!
• The common sense knowledge, while sometimes accurate, is not
always reliable, because it rests on commonly held beliefs rather
or assumptions than on systematic analysis of facts.
• Doing sociology is a radical undertaking: it
requires from us a willingness to suspend our own pre-conceptions,
assumptions and beliefs about the way
things are 

21. How to think like a sociologist and use
your sociological imagination:
1. Never assume
anything
2. Get ready to be wrong
3. Ask even more
questions
4. Make the everyday
strange
5. Embrace life’s
complexities
http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/06/how-to-think-like-a-sociologist.html

22. Proverbs 1:3-5
3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
4 for giving prudence to those who are simple,
[a] knowledge and discretion to the young
5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance

23. Use your Sociological Imagination…what is going
on with these pictures?