JUNE 9, 2015
Sociology - Introduction from Lovella Mole
According to our trusty friend, Google, "sociology" is the study of development, structure, and functioning of human society. It is also referred to as the study of social problems. It came from the French word "sociologie" and was adapted into an English word during the mid 19th century. But setting all the knowledge stuff aside, what is sociology?
In my own prior knowledge, whenever I hear the word "sociology", the first word that comes into my mind is society. It is the study of society, wherein we talk about the people all around us, and the community that surround us. How do the other people interact with other people? Why are they acting that way? These are only one of the many questions we ask ourselves whenever we go out of our house and observe the people all around us. Sociology will help us to understand the community - why they think that way and why they act that way.
Another word that can be associated with "sociology" is anthropology. Overall, anthropology means the study of humankind. We talk about humans - our species - in sociology. There are two kinds of anthropology - cultural and physical. Cultural is the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development while physical is the science of human zoology, evolution and ecology. But we're not going to talk about the physical anthropology that much. Sure, it might talk about humans and evolution, but those are in the science department. There's a thin line between science and sociology, and that is anthropology.
A quote from W.H. Auden, an Anglo-American poet
The third word that I can associate with "sociology", is history. We observe the people all around us and think about, "How? Why?" We also think about, "When did this all start?" In sociology, we also tackle about the moment when it all began. When did the girls start to wear really short shorts? When did all the boys begin to wear skinny jeans too? We watch the youth today and ask these questions. You know you're old when you ask these questions. Just kidding!
Sociology is also associated with, simply, life itself. You can't have sociology when there's no one living. You can't observe the society without life. You can't start history when nobody started to live.
Last but not the least, the study of sociology from a Marxist perspective is called Marxist sociology. It is both a mixture of sociology and political philosophy. It is influenced by Karl Marx (philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, revolutionary socialist). According to Wikipedia, Marxist sociology has questions like: "How does a mode of production influence the social class?" and "How do economic factors influence inequalities such as those relating to gender and race?" It is a much complicated view of sociology, but it is still talking about the society.
Karl Marx influenced Marxist sociology
Discussed VS Textual Definition
Yesterday, our teacher asked us about our own perspective of sociology. We came up with a lot of different answers, but the gist is still the same. Sociology is about people. Written above is the textual definition of sociology and I can confirm that the words that we discussed and the textual definition is quite the same. We have a fair amount of knowledge about sociology, but we want to learn more.
The more you know....
Great Expectations
Normally, when we have new classes, we have expectations about what our classes would be. Would it be really fun? Would it be amazing? Would it be exciting? I have great expectations in this semester. I think it would be really great because I am excited with this subject. It is a very interesting class, since I always wanted to talk about the society all around us.
Inspiring quote from our very own Rocky Balboa
© Lovella Mole | SY 2015-2016 |
No comments:
Post a Comment