This New Science of Societies: Sociology
Sociology is a relatively new discipline in comparison to
chemistry, math, biology, philosophy and other disciplines that
trace back thousands of years. Sociology began as an
intellectual/philosophical effort by a French man named Auguste
Comte (born 1798 and died 1857). He is considered the founder of
sociology and coined "Sociology." Comte's Definition
of Sociology is the science of society. In
his observation Comte believed that society's knowledge passed
through 3 stages which he observed in France. His life came in what
he called the positivism stage
(science-based). Positivism is
the objective and value-free observation, comparison, and
experimentation applied to scientific inquiry. Positivism
was Comte's way of describing the science needed for sociology to
takes its place among the other scientific disciplines.
His core work, "The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte" was
translated by a British-born philosopher named Harriet Martineau
(1802-1876). She literally clarified Comte's original writing as
she condensed it into a concise English language version. This
expanded the interest in sociology to include English speakers.
Martineau held values that are common today but were way before her
time. She opposed oppression, especially of women and Black slaves
in the US. Her own work about society which first addressed this,
Society In America has been scanned and is free (public domain) to
read at
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A...ummary_s&cad=0 .
Why did thinkers of the day find a need for a new science of
sociology? Societies had change in unprecedented ways and had
formed a new collective of social complexities that the world had
never witnessed before. Western Europe was transformed by
the Industrial Revolution, a
technological development of knowledge and manufacturing that began
in the late 1600s and continued until the early 1900s. The
Industrial Revolution transformed society at every level. Look at
Table 1 below to see pre and post-Industrial Revolution social
patterns and how different they were.
Table 1. Pre-Industrial and Post-Industrial Revolution Social
Patterns
| Pre-Industrial Revolution |
Post-Industrial Revolution |
| Farm/ Cottage |
Factories |
| Family Work |
Breadwinners /Homemakers |
| Small Towns |
Large Cities |
| Large Families |
Small Families |
| Homogamous Towns |
Heterogamous Cities |
| Lower Standards of Living |
Higher Standards of Living |
| People Died Younger |
Peopled died older |
© 2005 Ron J. Hammond, Ph.D.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, families lived on smaller
farms and every able member of the family did work to support and
sustain the family economy. Towns were small and very similar
(homogamy) and families were large (more children=more workers).
There was a lower standard of living and because of poor sanitation
people died earlier.
After the Industrial Revolution, farm work was replaced by
factory work. Men left their homes and became breadwinners earning
money to buy many of the goods that used to be made by hand at home
(or bartered for by trading one's own homemade goods with
another's). Women became the supervisors of home work. Much was
still done by families to develop their own home goods while many
women and children also went to the factories to work. Cities
became larger and more diverse (heterogamy). Families became
smaller (less farm work required fewer children). Eventually,
standards of living increased and death rates declined.
It
is important to note the value of women's work before and after the
Industrial Revolution. Hard work was the norm and still is today
for most women. Homemaking included much unpaid work. For example,
my 93 year old Granny is an example of this. She worked hard her
entire life both in a cotton factory and at home raising her
children, grand-children, and at times great grand-children. When I
was a boy, she taught me how to make lye soap by saving the fat
from animals they ate. She'd take a metal bucket and poked holes in
the bottom of it. Then she burned twigs and small branches until a
pile of ashes built up in the bottom of the bucket. After that she
filtered water from the well through the ashes and collected the
lye water runoff in a can. She heated the animal fat and mixed it
in the lye water from the can. When it cooled, it was cut up and
used as lye soap. They'd also take that lye water runoff and soak
dried white corn in it. The corn kernel shells would become loose
and slip off after being soaked. They'd rinse this and use it for
hominy. Or grind it up and make grits from it. We'll talk more
about women and work in Chapter 10.
These pre and post-industrial changes impacted all of Western
civilization because the Industrial Revolution hit all of these
countries about the same way: Western Europe, United States,
Canada, and later Japan and Australia. The Industrial Revolution
brought some rather severe social conditions which included:
deplorable city living conditions; crowding; crime; extensive
poverty; inadequate water and sewage; early death, frequent
accidents, and high illness rates. The new social problems required
a new science that was unique from any scientific disciplines of
the day. Comte wanted a strong scientific basis for sociology, but
because of various distractions he never quite established it.
Core Founders of Sociology
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was the first to take a position in a
university and because of the scientific journal he edited, L'AnnŽe
Sociologique (the sociological year) and his scientific work, he
was able to help sociology to become part of higher education's
academic culture. He was also French and took the first position at
a university as a sociology professor.
Durkheim discussed Social Facts, a
phenomena within society that typically exists independent of
individual choices and actions. Durkheim approached a
subject that most thought of as being exclusively individualistic
in nature-suicide. But, he defined suicide from a social fact
perspective which helped him to establish the unique wisdom of
sociological analysis.
To Durkheim, individual people don't cause suicide, suicide is a
social fact that some members of society participate in for various
social reason. Durkheim studied suicide among categories of people
in various contexts in Western Europe. He found 4 distinct types of
suicide that occur as social facts and that could be collectively
remedied by adjusting social processes. Before we explain these
let's look at 2 core sociological concepts.
Social Integration is the degree
to which people are connected to their social groups.
Let's check your own personal degree of social integration. On a
piece of paper right down how many close family members you have.
Then add in how many close friends and coworkers you have. Finally
add in all others whose name you know and they know yours. This
number is one measure of your social integration. But, to really
get an idea you might evaluate these relationships. In other words
list your top 6 closest relationships in order. Make a short list
of the 6 closest relationships you have. Now, rank 1 for the
closest, 2 for next closest and so on up to 6th. Durkheim realized
from his suicide studies that the closer we are to others, the more
socially integrated we are and the less likely we are to commit
suicide. The second concept to understand is called
anomie.
Anomie is a state of relative
normlessness that comes from the disintegration of our routines and
regulations. Anomie is common when we go through sudden
changes in our lives or when we live in larger cities. Sudden
changes bring stress and frustration. To illustrate this, I often
tell my students to remember how they felt the day after high
school graduation. They walk for graduation then wake up the next
morning with very few demands on their time and energies. This
sudden shift in demands from very intense to almost absent, leads
many to feel extremely frustrated and lost. Add to that they are
now adults and no longer students (children) and you get a prime
formula for anomie (role shift + vague expectations about what is
expected + sudden change=anomie).
One of my college students told me that at the end of last
semester she had 4 finals, one paper, two presentations, and one
lab project all due in the last 5 days of class. She finished it
all, packed, and moved back home. The first morning she woke up at
home she got out her planner and realized that all she had to do
that day, in other words all the demands placed upon her were to
eat and shower. She was not a full-time university student for now
and was between significant roles. "It took a week to get my life
back into a routine for the break," she explained.
As a larger social fact, anomie is a byproduct of large complex
societies, especially around large cities. It's easier to get lost
in the crowd, not be noticed, and to rarely receive praise or
criticism for personal actions. Durkheim and others were aware that
society impacted the life of the individual even if the individual
had very little impact on society. By the way, Durkheim measured
suicide rates and so do we in our
day. Suicide is the purposeful
ending of one's own life for any reason. Suicide Rate is the
numbers of suicides per 100,000 people in a
population.
Durkheim's first 2 types of suicide had to do with the degree of
social integration of the individual into their
groups. Altruistic Suicide is
suicide which occurs when people are over involved and over
committed to a group or society as a whole. This occurs
when the needs of society as a whole override the needs of the
individual. Soldiers often do this to protect their comrades.
Egoistic Suicide is suicide which
occurs when people are under-involved or under-committed to
groups. This is the loner-type suicide when an individual
is disconnected (or never connected) to others. Certain social
pressures isolate us more than others and suicide becomes more
risky for the isolated. Certain social forces within society create
this isolated state within us (TV viewing, video games, online
time, and other solo activities that preoccupy us with our own
interest and isolate us from our groups and relationships; see
www.youtube.com and search "James at war Halo3" for a humorous
example of technology isolating us from others).
Interestingly, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center gives a
few suicide prevention strategies that relate to social
integration:. "Strong connections to family and community
supportÉcultural and religious beliefs that discourage suicide and
support self-preservationsÉand various other types of social
support are recommended" (retrieved 13 January, 2009 from
www.sprc.org the "Risk and Protective Factors for Suicide,"
National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for
Action, 2001). Interestingly Durkheim's work is quoted multiple
times on this Website.
The next 2 types of suicide described by Durkheim have to do
with the levels of social control and social
regulation. Anomic Suicide is
suicide which occurs when people are under-regulated by familiar
norms that serve as anchors to their social reality. You'd
expect this type of suicide in very large cities or when dramatic
social changes have transpired (IE: 9-11 terrorist attacks or
recent economic recessions).
Fatalistic Suicide is suicide
which occurs when people are over regulated or over-constrained.
This might happen in oppressive societies where people prefer to
die rather than continue under the hopeless state of
oppression (IE: prisoners of war, inmates, and
refugees). The US Center for Disease Control list Suicide as the
11th most common form of death with about 32,000+ US suicides
reported last year. That's a rate of 11 suicides per 100,000 living
people (retrieved 23 April, 2009 from Suicide and Self-inflicted
Injury at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm
).
In Durkheim's day he found highest suicide rates for
Protestants, males, singles, and wealthy persons. He found lowest
rates for Jews, Catholics, females, marrieds, and poor persons.
Many of these are still common predictors of suicide today. The
World Health Organization reported that worldwide the suicide rates
show clear patterns being higher for males at all ages and
especially higher for the elderly (retrieved 23 April, 2009 from
http://www.who.int/violence_injury_p...n/en/chap7.pdf ). This
report also noted that the highest suicide rates in the world were
reported in: Lithuania 51.6; Russian Federation 43.1; and Belarus
41.5/100,000 population. Interesting isn't it at the 3 worst
countries are geographically close together? Durkheim found
geographic patterns within his researched countries, too. The
countries with the 3 lowest suicide rates were: Azerbaijan 1.1;
Kuwait 2.0; and Philippines 2.1/100,000 population (*retrieved 23
April 2009 from World Report on Violence and Health, Table 7.1,
"Age-Adjusted suicide rates by country from www.UN.org
English).
Look at Figure 1 below to see a recent pattern of suicide rates
in the United States. Since 1950 male rates (red line) have gone
down overall, but did experience a slight increase in the early
1990s. Male's rates are the highest. The blue line is the
combination of males and females into the total and it parallels
the other lines about mid-range. The green line represents females.
Females typically commit less suicide than males in most countries
of the world.
I use many figures and charts in this books so let me just point
out a few tricks to reading them. Look at the legend on the side or
bottom of the charts. It tells you which lines represent which
categories. Also look at the title to make sure you read the
details of what is being represented.
Figure 1. Suicide Rates per 100,000 United States, Various
Categories 1950 to 2005*
*Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
WWW.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html
Now let's consider the US rates by age. Look at Figure 2 below.
Ironic, isn't it that the older persons (persons with the most
wisdom and experience) would have the highest suicide rates? The
75-84 and 85+ age categories have the highest suicide rates while
the 15-24 years olds have the lowest. Durkheim would argue that
these rates are social facts and that at the core of the problem
lies social level processes that either facilitate or inhibit
personal choices by exerting social pressures.
Figure 2. Suicide Rates per 100,000 United States, Age
Categories 1990 to 2005*
*Retrieved 24 April, 2009 from Table 120. Death Rates From
Suicide, by Selected Characteristics: 1990 to 2005, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus.htm
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was an influential person in the
development of sociology as a strong academic discipline. He was
not a sociologist. He was an economist, philosopher, and
revolutionary. Marx was born in Germany and his writings on the
class struggles that existed in society wherein the poor masses are
exploited by the few wealthy elite still apply today (perhaps even
more so than in his day). His philosophy and the timing of his
writings helped early sociologists in the development of social
theories and scientific approaches. We will talk more about Marx
and Conflict Theory in Chapter 3.
Another key German founder of sociology was Max Weber
(pronounced vey-bur) (1864-1920). He was a very intelligent person
who strongly influenced the development of sociology and taught
some of the other early sociologists of his day. Weber studied
economics and his work gave balance to Karl Marx's extreme ideas.
He studied religion and the economy and published a work called,
"The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." He also
studied bureaucracies and defined Ideal Type as the abstract
description of a social phenomena by which actual social phenomena
may be compared (You'll see an ideal type in Chapter 9 on caste
versus class economic systems). Ideal Types are given as
hypothetical examples and we can compare current economic systems
to them.
Another early sociologist was a British man named Herbert
Spencer (1820-1903). Herbert is remembered for his failed ideas
about survival of the fittest in society (not the animal kingdom).
He is most remembered for the sociology that wasn't. In other
words, he believed that survival of the fittest applied to classes
within society and that the wealthy aristocrats were the fittest.
Whatever the wealthy people did was in effect better for society in
the long run. The problem with his philosophy is that it was not
supported by scientific inquiry. In fact his complex ideas were
interesting, but not a good explanation of social processes and
their causes when put to scientific rigors.
Eventually scientists adopted sociology in the US. Lester Ward
is considered the founder of US sociology (1841-1913). Ward saw
sociology and its potential to better the society in the US as
tool. He emphasized the scientific methodology in using sociology
to solve real world social ills such as poverty. He, like Martineau
felt that women had rights and should be treated as equals (most in
his day thought he was wrong about women at the time because the
prevailing belief was the inferiority of women). Ward is the
founder of US sociology and first president of the American
Sociological Association (see www.asanet.org ). His sociological
principles and processes are still utilized by many who work in
governmental and social service sectors today.
Another sociologist from the US was Talcott Parsons (1902-1979).
Parsons was a Functional Theorist who did extensive work on Systems
Theory (see Chapter 3). Parsons was also a president of the
American Sociological Association and for a short period of time
was the world's premier sociologist. His work at Harvard supported
much of the professionalism sociology has today.
Sociology began in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, then the
United States. Sociology waxed and waned in popularity outside of
the US over its short history. Today, sociology has become a United
States-centered scientific discipline with most sociologists living
in the US. There is significant sociological work being done in
various countries of the world, but most of the 14,000 members of
the American Sociological Association (the world's largest
professional sociology organization) live in the US.
During the 1920s and 1930s the Chicago School was a center for
sociological research that focuses on urban and ecological
sociological issues. Within the Chicago School were 2 other
important US sociologists, Charles H. Cooley (1864-1929) and George
Herbert Mead (1863-1931). Their work together gave tremendous
support to the Symbolic Interactionism Theory (Chapter 3). The
construction of how we form the "I" and the "me", the self-concept,
and the looking glass self (see Chapter 6) was crucial and is still
widely used in today's scientific inquiry.
United States Sociology: A Career?
Other notable people who majored or made a career in sociology
include: The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.; W. E. B. Du Bois;
Georg Simmel, Alex de Tocqueville, Jorgen Habermas; Amati Etzioni;
Ronald Reagan; Robin Williams and Dan Aykroyd; Anthony Giddens; and
First Lady, Michelle Obama. Most people who take sociology take
only 1 course (that's estimated to be 600,000 US students per
year). But more and more are choosing it as a major. The next 3
figures, Figures 3, 4, and 5 show the numbers of sociology
graduates from 1990 to 2004 at the Bachelor's, Master's and
Doctoral level.
In Figure 3 you can see that over 20,000 students graduate each
year with a sociology Bachelor's degree. Many of them find work in
government, social service, business, and other service-related
sectors of the economy. Figure 4 shows that about 2,000 graduates
earn their Master's degree in sociology each year. And in Figure 4
you can see that about 550 students graduate each year with their
Doctorate in sociology. Of course the career with a doctorate pays
the best, has the best career advancement opportunities, and is the
most comprehensive training for research and theory that a student
could acquire.
Figure 3. Numbers Graduating in Sociology-Bachelor's Degrees
1990 to 2004*
*U.S. Department of Education, National Center of Education
Statistics , Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System,1990-2004 ( Washington, DC: NCES, 2006). www.caspar.nsf.gov.
Retrieved 12 October 2008.
Figure 4. Numbers Graduating in Sociology-Master's Degrees 1990
to 2004*
*U.S. Department of Education, National Center of Education
Statistics , Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System,1990-2004 ( Washington, DC: NCES, 2006). www.caspar.nsf.gov.
Retrieved 12 October 2008.
Figure 5. Numbers Graduating in Sociology-Doctoral Degrees 1990
to 2004*
*U.S. Department of Education, National Center of Education
Statistics , Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System,1990-2004 ( Washington, DC: NCES, 2006). www.caspar.nsf.gov.
Retrieved 12 October 2008.
Sociology is a good 4-year program and also offers good career
opportunities. Money Magazine often rates good jobs in the US.
Sociologists had an average pay of $68,724 with an estimated high
range of about $138,000 per year (retrieved 24 April, 2009 from
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/money...shots/196.html
Best Jobs in America). This report also ranked college
professors as the 2nd best job in America. Over half full-time
doctoral-level sociologists are faculty at colleges and
universities (www.asanet.org ).
If I'm right, you probably won't major in sociology and you
likely just needed the 3 credits of social science elective. I
admire you for being in higher education. I urge you to graduate
with your four-year degree. This course and textbook will enhance
your thinking, science, and writing skills and make you an overall
better student. Enjoy it. Ask questions of your professor.
Participate in the classroom discussion. If you do choose sociology
as a major, then look me up at your next sociological conference
meetings.
