Samenvatting – introduction to Sociology
Afkortingen
B(sp) Background (social problem)
B(k) Background (scientific knowledge)
Q Question
Q(d) Descriptive question
Q(t) Theoretical question
Q(a) Application question
O Observation
T Theory
P Proposition
H Hypothesis
C Condition
, Hoofdstuk 1 Questions
The sociological perspective
Individual perspective: type of explanation of human behaviour which focuses on individual causes.
Verklaring van menselijk gedrag die focust op individuele oorzaken.
Social context: social environment in which people are embedded.
Letterlijk de sociale context waarbinnen mensen zich begeven.
Sociological imagination (sociological perspective) type of explanation of human behaviour which
focusses on social causes.
verklaring van menselijk gedrag die zich focust op sociale oorzaken.
The sociological perspective seeks to explain human behaviour by the social context individuals share
(Mills).
Social phenomenon: collective human behaviour
what sociologists aim to understand is how, first, human behaviour typically results from shared
contextual conditions and how, subsequently, this gives rise to collective outcomes.
Principle 1.1 the sociological perspective
Sociology is the scientific study of social phenomena. This means that, if you want to give a
sociological explanation of human behaviour, you need to consider the influence of social contexts
and study the resulting collective human behaviour.
Proximate causes factors that are close to the phenomena to be explained.
Ultimate causes (distal causes) factors that underlie proximate causes.
Voorbeeld:
Ultimate cause Proximate cause Consequence
gepest op school Negatief zelfbeeld overgewicht
Macro level: the highest level that individuals share. Typically these are countries or groups of
countries. The macro level are social contexts that are broader than meso level units.
Meso level: social conditions that individuals share in their immediate environment (family, school,
groups, etc.)
Micro level: namely individuals and their behaviour, attitudes, resources and so forth.
Social problems
An important reason for sociologists to study certain topics is when these are considered social
problems. A social problem/ public issue (Mills) is one that:
1. goes beyond the individual (it affects many people);
2. Is an issue that many people are concerned with (it is in conflict with certain values).
Versus a personal trouble: problem related to the personal life of an individual.
What is identified as a social problem varies from time to time, from context to context. One reason
social problems fluctuate over time and differ across societies is that the problems with which people
are confronted equally change over time and space. What people consider a social problem depends
on their values.
,Why are “social problems” and “social phenomena” different?
Social problems have a normative dimension: desirable goals or values are threatened, people want
to solve this problem and politicians, policy makers, etc. offer various measures and interventions to
do so.
In sociology social problems are studies as social phenomena, which means that they are not studied
as a normative problem, but as a scientific phenomenon of interest. Understanding social phenomena
thereby contributes to understanding and solving social problems.
Lijst met voorbeelden van ‘social problems’:
Corruptie in organisaties
Criminaliteit en onveiligheid in buurten
Pesten op scholen
Geweld en misbruik in families
Inkomstongelijkheid
Oorlog en geweld
Asielzoekers
Discriminatie
Geestelijke gezondheid problemen
Terrorisme
Hoge werkeloosheid
Global warming en vervuiling
Three aims of sociology
Generally speaking the aim of sociologists is to come up with accurate scientific descriptions and
theoretical explanations for social phenomena, and to apply their knowledge. In other words there are
three core aims of sociology:
Describe
Explain
Apply
Describe: to get a good understanding of the nature of social problems we need to have accurate
descriptions to begin with.
Explain: sociologists come up with explanations and subsequently use empirical data to examine
whether these explanations are true. They need to know what causes the social problems before they
can solve them.
Apply: the last step is to apply and share insights.
First, sociological work can be valuable for coming up with predictions: It could be that sociological
studies provide evidence that suggest that some social problems will disappear, whereas others will
become more pressing.
The second way in which sociologists apply their knowledge is to develop and evaluate social
interventions.
Societal relevance: relevance of sociological work for the understanding of social problems. This is
the case when sociological work is carried out in view of current social problems that exist in society.
Three types of sociological questions
Each sociological study starts with asking a question. When sociologists study social problems as
social phenomena, the normative elements are set aside and instead the scientific aspects of it are
underlined.
Normative question: question that entails value judgements.
, Scientific question: question that does not entail value judgements. There are three types of scientific
questions, namely: descriptive, theoretical and application questions.
Principle 1.2 scientific questions
Sociologists study the scientific aspects to social problems. This means that, rather than asking
normative questions, they address scientific questions about social phenomena.
Descriptive question: type of scientific question targeted towards describing phenomena. With these
questions you use all sorts of scientific data to look at what is going on. For example scientifically
observing and describing social phenomena. (how high is the crime rate in Brazil and Canada?)
Theoretical question: type of scientific question targeted towards understanding phenomena. These
questions can also be called the “explanatory questions”, they are mainly the ‘why’ questions. (why is
the crime rate higher in Brazil than in Canada?)
Application question: type of scientific question targeted towards applying scientific knowledge.
They can be targeted towards predictions or towards social interventions. (how will the crime rate
develop in Brazil in the coming five years?)
The art of asking good sociological questions
The first element of a good sociological question is precision
Ill-defined questions: questions that are vague and ambiguous
Versus
Precise questions: questions that have a clear interpretation
There are four question ingredients that can be considered when you formulate your question:
1. The human behaviour you are interested in
2. The social context
3. The period
4. The population
Principle 1.3 precise questions
Formulate sociological questions as precisely as you can. In developing more-precise questions,
specify the following question ingredients (1) what type of human behaviour you want to describe, (2)
what social context you want to describe, (3) what period do you want to cover & (4) which population
you want to include.
The second element to a good sociological question is relevance:
Social relevance your sociological question becomes more relevant when you can relate it to social
problems that exist in society.
Scientific relevance: relevance of sociological work for the accumulation of sociological knowledge.
The contribution can be diverse – such as coming up with new findings, new theories and
explanations, or improving sociological methods.
Literature overview: systematic overview of the theories and observations that are known
(background information), typically in a certain specialized field of research. This in order to ensure
you don’t do any research that has been done before.
False theoretical question: theoretical question which aims to explain something that does not exist.
The lesson we can take from this is that we need to be sure that, when presupposing certain social
phenomena, our descriptions of those social phenomena are correct. Only then can we move on to
explain these social facts.
Comparative-case question: questions that include some comparison of cases, such as multiple
social contexts, multiple moments in time and/or multiple populations. Comparison is great because
sociological research looks at multiple people instead of the individual case.
Afkortingen
B(sp) Background (social problem)
B(k) Background (scientific knowledge)
Q Question
Q(d) Descriptive question
Q(t) Theoretical question
Q(a) Application question
O Observation
T Theory
P Proposition
H Hypothesis
C Condition
, Hoofdstuk 1 Questions
The sociological perspective
Individual perspective: type of explanation of human behaviour which focuses on individual causes.
Verklaring van menselijk gedrag die focust op individuele oorzaken.
Social context: social environment in which people are embedded.
Letterlijk de sociale context waarbinnen mensen zich begeven.
Sociological imagination (sociological perspective) type of explanation of human behaviour which
focusses on social causes.
verklaring van menselijk gedrag die zich focust op sociale oorzaken.
The sociological perspective seeks to explain human behaviour by the social context individuals share
(Mills).
Social phenomenon: collective human behaviour
what sociologists aim to understand is how, first, human behaviour typically results from shared
contextual conditions and how, subsequently, this gives rise to collective outcomes.
Principle 1.1 the sociological perspective
Sociology is the scientific study of social phenomena. This means that, if you want to give a
sociological explanation of human behaviour, you need to consider the influence of social contexts
and study the resulting collective human behaviour.
Proximate causes factors that are close to the phenomena to be explained.
Ultimate causes (distal causes) factors that underlie proximate causes.
Voorbeeld:
Ultimate cause Proximate cause Consequence
gepest op school Negatief zelfbeeld overgewicht
Macro level: the highest level that individuals share. Typically these are countries or groups of
countries. The macro level are social contexts that are broader than meso level units.
Meso level: social conditions that individuals share in their immediate environment (family, school,
groups, etc.)
Micro level: namely individuals and their behaviour, attitudes, resources and so forth.
Social problems
An important reason for sociologists to study certain topics is when these are considered social
problems. A social problem/ public issue (Mills) is one that:
1. goes beyond the individual (it affects many people);
2. Is an issue that many people are concerned with (it is in conflict with certain values).
Versus a personal trouble: problem related to the personal life of an individual.
What is identified as a social problem varies from time to time, from context to context. One reason
social problems fluctuate over time and differ across societies is that the problems with which people
are confronted equally change over time and space. What people consider a social problem depends
on their values.
,Why are “social problems” and “social phenomena” different?
Social problems have a normative dimension: desirable goals or values are threatened, people want
to solve this problem and politicians, policy makers, etc. offer various measures and interventions to
do so.
In sociology social problems are studies as social phenomena, which means that they are not studied
as a normative problem, but as a scientific phenomenon of interest. Understanding social phenomena
thereby contributes to understanding and solving social problems.
Lijst met voorbeelden van ‘social problems’:
Corruptie in organisaties
Criminaliteit en onveiligheid in buurten
Pesten op scholen
Geweld en misbruik in families
Inkomstongelijkheid
Oorlog en geweld
Asielzoekers
Discriminatie
Geestelijke gezondheid problemen
Terrorisme
Hoge werkeloosheid
Global warming en vervuiling
Three aims of sociology
Generally speaking the aim of sociologists is to come up with accurate scientific descriptions and
theoretical explanations for social phenomena, and to apply their knowledge. In other words there are
three core aims of sociology:
Describe
Explain
Apply
Describe: to get a good understanding of the nature of social problems we need to have accurate
descriptions to begin with.
Explain: sociologists come up with explanations and subsequently use empirical data to examine
whether these explanations are true. They need to know what causes the social problems before they
can solve them.
Apply: the last step is to apply and share insights.
First, sociological work can be valuable for coming up with predictions: It could be that sociological
studies provide evidence that suggest that some social problems will disappear, whereas others will
become more pressing.
The second way in which sociologists apply their knowledge is to develop and evaluate social
interventions.
Societal relevance: relevance of sociological work for the understanding of social problems. This is
the case when sociological work is carried out in view of current social problems that exist in society.
Three types of sociological questions
Each sociological study starts with asking a question. When sociologists study social problems as
social phenomena, the normative elements are set aside and instead the scientific aspects of it are
underlined.
Normative question: question that entails value judgements.
, Scientific question: question that does not entail value judgements. There are three types of scientific
questions, namely: descriptive, theoretical and application questions.
Principle 1.2 scientific questions
Sociologists study the scientific aspects to social problems. This means that, rather than asking
normative questions, they address scientific questions about social phenomena.
Descriptive question: type of scientific question targeted towards describing phenomena. With these
questions you use all sorts of scientific data to look at what is going on. For example scientifically
observing and describing social phenomena. (how high is the crime rate in Brazil and Canada?)
Theoretical question: type of scientific question targeted towards understanding phenomena. These
questions can also be called the “explanatory questions”, they are mainly the ‘why’ questions. (why is
the crime rate higher in Brazil than in Canada?)
Application question: type of scientific question targeted towards applying scientific knowledge.
They can be targeted towards predictions or towards social interventions. (how will the crime rate
develop in Brazil in the coming five years?)
The art of asking good sociological questions
The first element of a good sociological question is precision
Ill-defined questions: questions that are vague and ambiguous
Versus
Precise questions: questions that have a clear interpretation
There are four question ingredients that can be considered when you formulate your question:
1. The human behaviour you are interested in
2. The social context
3. The period
4. The population
Principle 1.3 precise questions
Formulate sociological questions as precisely as you can. In developing more-precise questions,
specify the following question ingredients (1) what type of human behaviour you want to describe, (2)
what social context you want to describe, (3) what period do you want to cover & (4) which population
you want to include.
The second element to a good sociological question is relevance:
Social relevance your sociological question becomes more relevant when you can relate it to social
problems that exist in society.
Scientific relevance: relevance of sociological work for the accumulation of sociological knowledge.
The contribution can be diverse – such as coming up with new findings, new theories and
explanations, or improving sociological methods.
Literature overview: systematic overview of the theories and observations that are known
(background information), typically in a certain specialized field of research. This in order to ensure
you don’t do any research that has been done before.
False theoretical question: theoretical question which aims to explain something that does not exist.
The lesson we can take from this is that we need to be sure that, when presupposing certain social
phenomena, our descriptions of those social phenomena are correct. Only then can we move on to
explain these social facts.
Comparative-case question: questions that include some comparison of cases, such as multiple
social contexts, multiple moments in time and/or multiple populations. Comparison is great because
sociological research looks at multiple people instead of the individual case.
