Part 1 Introduction to the Sociological Imagination
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Education Pearson from permission prior without distribution for not File Part 1 Introduction to the sociological imagination Proofs: M01_PUNC9541_05_SE_C01.indd 1 12/5/12 3:08 PM The importance of the social environment in helping us to understand how people live the way that they do – and how this varies from time to time and from place to place – is now widely acknowledged. It is accepted that the social world in which we are brought up will influence the way we live. Sociology has played a central role in developing this way of understandingEducation the world around us. Through research and theory, sociologists explore the significance of wider social factors in shaping our lives as individuals, groups, societies and globally. While much of this work is carried out in universities, sociological research often informs policy and practice in many areas of life, including health care, education, family life, crime and justice. In Chapter 1 , we explore the idea of a ‘sociological imagination’ and considerPearson how the subject of sociology developed and attained academic rigour and acceptance. In this chapter we spend longer than authors of other introductory books in examining the origins of the subject, but we feel it is important to establish the background and positionfrom of the subject you are now studying. After this history, we introduce and discuss a number of key concepts that you will come back to throughout the book and your studies – in particular, we look at culture, socialization and identity. We consider the effects on individuals of cultural deprivation by describing examples of cases where children have been brought up without normal human contact – extreme cases such as children brought up in the wild as well as the recent horrific cases from Austria of girls being imprisoned in their houses for many years. Chapter 2 provides a detailed introduction to, and examination of, the different theoretical perspectives in sociology. This review follows a basicallypermission chronological pattern, starting by looking at the classic theories that helped establish sociology as a serious academic subject. In this section we look at the theoretical works and arguments of Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber and consider their continuing influenceprior in contemporary sociology. The second half of the chapter turns to more recent theoretical work, from, roughly, the second half of the twentieth century. Here we introduce interpretivist sociology and interactionism, feminist theorizing, structuralism and postmodernism. Our emphasis is in looking at how these theories can be applied to everyday contemporary life. Chapter 3 focuses on sociological withoutresearch. After raising and considering the debate as to how ‘scientific’ the study of society can be, we look at the major different methodological approaches to researching the social world and then at the specific methods by which sociologists go about collecting and analysing data and information, including questionnaires, interviews and observation. distribution for not File Proofs:2 M01_PUNC9541_05_SE_C01.indd 2 12/5/12 3:08 PM Chapter 1 Education Pearson from Sociological thinking permission . tourists are often good intuitive sociologists as they often seem to find everyday things interesting, even those we may have become so accustomed to we barely notice them. So, suddenly the design onprior a banknote, the manner in which people greet each other, the way people order food in cafés, how people queue for a bus, can all appear strange and worthy of attention. It is well worth trying to adopt the inquiring gaze of the tourist in our own societies. This can have the effect of giving us insight into how the world came to be the way it is, how it is maintained and perhaps alert us to the fact that it can withoutbe organised in a variety of different ways. Therefore, an appreciation of movement and change as well as understanding continuities is crucial, we would argue, to developing our sociological imaginations. (McIntosh and Punch 2005: 29) distribution Introduction Key issuesfor We live in a digitally connected world where we are ➤ What is sociology? increasingly dependent on emails, texting and new not technologies. How would you cope if you lost your ➤ What are its origins as a discipline? mobile phone, had your laptop stolen and your TV ➤ What kinds of explanation does sociology File broke down? Th ere are many recent shift s in society offer for social and personal behaviour? which interest sociologists: the cult of celebrity, ➤ What is culture and how does it affect social materialist culture where we desire a never-ending range and personal behaviour? of commodities, the rise in cosmetic surgery and botox, mobile lifestyles and the gradual disappearance of local, Proofs: 3 M01_PUNC9541_05_SE_C01.indd 3 12/5/12 3:08 PM Part 1 Introduction to the sociological imagination small-scale, specialist traders to large supermarkets and . technological innovations generate unintended restaurant chains. If you have children (now or in the consequences and unanticipated (and oft en future) they are going to be unlikely to know how to use contradictory) eff ects. As socio-material a telephone box, how to put a roll of fi lm into a camera confi gurations, they usher in a whole range of Education or how to write a cheque. Instead, they will be familiar changes in social practices, communications with online shopping, electronic banking, ticket-less structures, and corresponding forms of life. Th e airlines, digital channels and multiple forms of same technologies can mean very diff erent things to recycling. Th ey will be more likely to order the evening’s diff erent groups of people, collectively producing fi lm entertainment from ‘Netfl ick’ via a television new patterns of social interaction, new connected to the Internet rather than renting a DVD relationships, new identities. RatherPearson than simply from the local ‘video’ store. Patterns of consumption reading them as adding to time pressure and have changed over recent decades and impact upon accelerating the pace of life, mobile modalities may ourselves, our bodies (see Chapter 13 ) and the be creating novel time practicesfrom and transforming environment (see Chapter 10 ). Hastings raises the quality of communication. interesting questions about the power and manipulation (Wajcman 2008: 70) of modern marketing and the corporate sector: Changing modes of communication and new When a supermarket chain attains such dominance technologies are a key feature of contemporary minority that it covers every corner of a country the size of world societies. By stepping back for a moment and the UK, threatens farmers’ livelihoods with its trying to see our surroundings at a distance, like a procurement practices, undercuts local shops and tourist in an unfamiliar environment, we can question bullies planners into submission, it becomes our taken-for-grantedpermission assumptions about patterns of reasonable to ask: does every little really help? Once change and continuity. Our ‘sociological imagination’ is the 100 billionth burger has been fl ipped and yet a way of thinking critically about the social world to enable us to understand how society works. another trouser button popped it is sensible to prior wonder: are we still lovin’ it? As the planet heats up Sociology provides us with a more accurate picture of in response to our ever increasing and utterly the social landscape of the society in which we live. It unsustainable levels of consumption, it is fair to off ers particular and exciting ways of understanding question: are we really worth it? ourselves, other people and the social world. It examines (Hastings 2012: 2) the social facts and forces that aff ect us all. It helps us to make sense of the changes that occur around us all the Society changes over time and sociology is keenwithout to time: changes such as the eff ect of new technologies on explore these processes of social change. For example: everyday life; the variations in employment patterns as A closer look Defining the majoritydistribution the world’s population and land mass terms such as developed/developing, and minority worlds despite using the majority of the world’s Western/non-Western, global north/ for resources. Furthermore, by using the global south are also used in some of In this book we tend to use the recent terms we are reminded that what the chapters. terms ‘majority world’ and ‘minority happens in our society, in a minority Majority world (in terms of world’ to refer to the developing world world context, is not necessarily the not population and land mass): Africa, and the developed world respectively. way most of the world’s population Asia, Latin America These terms invite us to reflect on live their lives and that, with greater theFile unequal relations between the access to resources, we tend to Minority world : UK, Europe, two world areas. The minority world experience more privileged lifestyles Australia, New Zealand, Japan, consists of a smaller proportion of (see Chapter 9 ). However traditional USA and Canada Proofs:4 M01_PUNC9541_05_SE_C01.indd 4 12/5/12 3:08 PM Chapter 1 Sociological thinking factories open or close; and the infl uence on education, matter of course. Before looking at what sociology is health and other services of economic and political and how it has developed, we shall consider how a philosophies and policies. In view of the insights into sociological approach can enable us to understand social life that sociology provides, it might seem strange social phenomena like the widespread riots in EducationEngland that it is not a subject that is taught to all children as a 2011. Case study Pearson The English riots of August 2011 from permission prior without distribution for not File ▲ Figure 1.1 Photo of English riots, August 2011 – picture research required Proofs: 5 M01_PUNC9541_05_SE_C01.indd 5 12/5/12 3:08 PM Part 1 Introduction to the sociological imagination Case study continued Education On 4 August 2011 Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Broken Britain Tottenham, England.