I have been taking a Sociology class for the past couple weeks at the UW and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Most answers Sociologists ask can be answered with common sense and maybe a poll or two. This class is bogus. I haven't learned anything. Everyone I have spoken to has shared my feelings.
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What the hell is Sociology?
- Thread starter Chony
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Escape Goat
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looking at society/cultures and figuring out why they behave the way they do. Thats my guess.
Escape Goat
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Psychology is concerned with the individual. Anthropology the life of ancient humans. History is documentation of fact.
So hang on, if that's Sociology, what's Psychohistory?
distantmantra
Member
iapetus said:
It's not a real discipline, so it doesn't matter.
I think Sociology is fascinating, especially when you look at deviance and concepts such Durkheim's Conflict Theory. I minored in it as an undergraduate.
I'm Psychology's bitch... also known as a graduate student.
Eh, must be the teacher. Sociology can be pretty fun when it's executed right, especially when you get out of the cover-all classes and get into specific stuff like Sex and Society, etc. You really need someone with an interesting perspective to teach it. My teacher had some socialist leanings, so it was great watching him get into stuff like wealth redistribution, racism vs classism, and consumer culture.
I didn't agree with everything, but it made the class fun.
I didn't agree with everything, but it made the class fun.
Sociology is one of my main areas of interest. Is it common sense? Yes and no. It looks at the things you see and do in everyday life, and tries to give them shape and meaning. It's very much based at the macro level of looking at the world and looks for causes of behaviour, as well as trends within cultures, and various theories of social interaction and cultural hierarchies. Your teacher just might suck. If you get a good prof who is actually passionate about the subject and ENCOURAGES class discussion, then you can have some truly engaging debates on many social and ethical issues, heavily relating to cultural gaps and what is "right" and "wrong" in the context of said cultures.
I <3 sociology and I love discussing sociological issues with people who are also passionate about them.
I <3 sociology and I love discussing sociological issues with people who are also passionate about them.
Well the past can be yesterday, so Anthropology works just fine.
Sociology at this point just seems bogus. We are on the subject of religon, and why people leave churches to form sects, and all my answers so far have come from common sense and/or personal experience. All of our readings have really nothing to do with anything. All I can see as being as a Sociologist is going around the world to prove whatever social issue I come up with.
Sociology at this point just seems bogus. We are on the subject of religon, and why people leave churches to form sects, and all my answers so far have come from common sense and/or personal experience. All of our readings have really nothing to do with anything. All I can see as being as a Sociologist is going around the world to prove whatever social issue I come up with.
History may involve the documentation of people, events, and places... but figuring out what happened in the past isn't cut and dry and neither is it merely a list of dates. There's much more to it.
...but anyway, there's a bit of overlap. It's just a matter of focus.
...but anyway, there's a bit of overlap. It's just a matter of focus.
Alucard said:
Anthropology in the US is taught with four major disciplines included: Cultural/Social Anthropology (area most similar to sociology, but they're really unique enough not to be combined... just many schools do so due to budget restraints), Archaeology (what most people think of when anthropology is mentioned), Linguistic Anthropology/Anthropological Linguistics, and Physical or Biological Anthropology (hot evolution action).
Some US schools still lump in Archeology with the Art and history departments... but this may have changed more since I was in school.
In post-structuralist theory, sociology is a discipline that combines elements of anthropology, politics, history, philosophy, and the thoughts of the person creating any given theory. See: Baudrillard and Foucault. Sociology is the modern(ish) combination of many seemingly disparate structures into one readable text.
I was under the impression that anthropology was the study of any culture.
Dictionary.com says:
The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.
So you can be an anthropologist sudying a modern society, because we all continue to develop socially and culturally.
Dictionary.com says:
The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.
So you can be an anthropologist sudying a modern society, because we all continue to develop socially and culturally.
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
Doesn't Tom Cruise follow this?
Sociology deals more with how society shapes, acts upon, and influences the individual. I really, really love it. A large part of it is that the sociology(/criminal justice, they're pretty interrelated, and I'm majoring in CJ) department at my school is fucked up and weird and great. I took Social Deviance last semester from the head of the department. He spent 15 minutes one day telling us the story of how he cut peppers, and took a whiz without washing his hands. The material is very interesting, and I really like the viewpoint. I'm in a dominant/subordinate group relations course this term, and it's shaping up to be hot. Next year I get to take all sorts of hot sociology courses.
Protip: Intro to sociology (like basically every intro course ever) fucking sucks. It's all terms and names. As has been covered above, once you get to the real meat & potatoes and take the more specialized courses, it's a whole 'nother world, and it's a total blast.
Protip: Intro to sociology (like basically every intro course ever) fucking sucks. It's all terms and names. As has been covered above, once you get to the real meat & potatoes and take the more specialized courses, it's a whole 'nother world, and it's a total blast.
Right, history is an oversimplified, truncated, circumscribed interpretation of the past that is nothing like what is actually experienced by the participants. In fact, sometimes, it's complete BS. Cook, the first to 'discover' Australia for instance.Hitokage said:
I've recently read a history book about Australia, so I should know this, but didn't the Dutch discover Australia, like over 100 years before Cook? Of course, they were so cautious and money-focused that they didn't do much with their find even by the time Cook landed, but still.Stele said:
AlphaSnake
...and that, kids, was the first time I sucked a dick for crack
You wanna study boring? How about you meet my friend Philosophy. Holy moley, talk about a pile of inane shit that just doesn't make sense!
Lucky Forward
Member
Chony said:
I remember when I had my Intro to Sociology class, the first day the professor listed five findings of sociology on the board, and we got into a discussion of how they were really just common sense, and we listed the likely underlying factors of why the findings were true.
Then, Tah-Dah!, he revealed he had fooled us, and that every "finding" he had listed on the board was WRONG, and the exact opposite was true. So much for common sense.
He was a great teacher and he made it a very interesting course.
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