Sociology Lecture notes

Week 1-

The Australian Sociological Association (2012) indicates sociology focuses on:

'the organisation of social life. It looks at how people’s lives are influenced by their opportunities and experiences; and the impact
that people have on society through taking action and creating change'.

What is sociology?
Scientific study of human behaviour
Society is group of people who share culture and territory

Looks for patterns in all aspects of societies

Sociological perspective
- general in particular
- Strange in familiar

Life and choices influenced by social location

Social location can contribute to marginalisation

Sociological perspective
Adopting a sociological perspective requires us to understand and accept the double-bind position that:
 Individuals and groups create society and the social world
and
 Societies and the social world influence individuals/groups.
As a field, sociology considers both:
 Agency (individuals role in the creation of society)
and
 Structure (role of the social world in our interactions with society)

Micro Macro
Agency Structure
Individuals Choice Social Forces
‘Free Will’
Solidarity Social Control

Sociological Imagination
Mills suggested there was a need to adopt a particular mindset (the sociological imagination) in order to think in a sociological
manner.
The sociological imagination requires the ability to being able to connect individual experiences and societal relationships.
Mills put forward three key aspects that defined the sociological imagination. These were understanding society through a:
 Historical perspective. That is, exploring why society is what it is and how it has been changing for a long time and how
history is being made in it
 Biographical perspective. That is, the nature of "human nature" in a society and what kinds of people inhabit a particular
society
 Social Structure perspective. That is, how the various institutional structures, organisations, systems in a society function,
which ones are dominant, how they are kept together, as well as how they might be changing.
Mills argued that a vital task for all social scientists was to "translate personal troubles into public issues".
For Mills, the distinction between 'troubles' and 'issues' was:
 'Troubles' relate to how a single person feels about something
while
 'Issues' refer to how a society affects groups of people.
For example, a person who cannot find employment is experiencing a 'trouble', while a city (or state or country) with a high
unemployment rate makes it not just a personal, individual 'trouble' but a social 'issue'.

Social Structures

“Social structures are the patterns of relationships that endure from one generation to the next.”
Examples of social structures within many societies include:
 Marriage
 Education
  Work/leisure
 Family
 Religion
 Health Systems
Essentially, social structures are a macro perspective of the world/society we live in.

Critical thinking in Sociology

Sociologist use critical thinking as a tool to assist with unpacking assumptions about the everyday.
Questions such as:
 How are decisions made?
 In whose interests do they operate?
 What is happening for others?
are posed by sociologists to enable a deeper exploration of a social topic/issue to begin.

Week 2-

Key points
 What is meant by 'Modernism' and 'Postmodernism in sociology?
 What does the term 'Intersectionality' mean?
 What concerns should we have in relation to the 'healthy lifestyle' discourse?

Modernism
Modernity means the emergence of modern industrial civilisation- the world we see around us, a new type of society from the one
that proceeded it
Set of changes associated with industrial revolution, changes in industrialisation, science and democracy

Changed way of thinking about the world, influenced by science and tech, a way of understanding the world using science rather
than religion.

Modernity
Employs 3 rationales
- Social order
- Rational understanding
- Progress

Postmodernism
- Denies truth
- Argues shouldn’t be a notion of truth
Argue that there are only images around us and what people see is what they get with no deeper meaning
No wrong answers only alternatives
Sceptical of enlightenment
Research only shows nooks n crannies of reality

Increased diversity and choice- greater tolerance of others and individual choices over lifestyles
- Family culture and indentity education
increased hybridity- merging of cultures and development of new ones
- Subcultural groups in education

Influence of globilisation
- Crime, education, family, culture and identity, belief and media

People have developed incredulioty towards metanarratives- they no longer blindly believe that there is one truth

People try to develop their own perspectives on events

Solutions to problems are small scale rather than all enco,passing

Media saturation helps create hyperreality through bombarding people with images until we no longer believe what is real
examples include- Instagram celebrities, social media influencers

People no longer believe in a single truth and question the role of experts
Recent evidence- global climate crisis, COVID-19 pandemic

Society broken down into smaller individual narratives and multiple identities- leads to uncertainty and confusion
Structural identities such as class, gender and ethnicity become less certain

Evidence of postmodernism
- Diversity of family and personal lives
- Greater fluidity in relationships, identity and appearance
- Emergence of hybrid cultures
- Impacts of gobalisation- education, family, crime, beliefs
- Increased media saturation

Evaluation of postmodernism
- Ignores power and inequality and ignores ruling-class control of institutions such as media and education
- Do people see media images and assume its reality?
- Structures in society still exist, class, gender and ethnicity are still relevant concepts in contemporary society.

Intersectionality
- Interconnected nature of social categorisations like race, class, gender and age.

Discourses
At it's most basic level, the term 'Discourse' relates to spoken and written communication between people.

From a sociological perspective, discourses relate to the various communication forms humans use to convey meaning
(Fairclough 2013). This can be through talk, text, images and sounds.

Habitus- resources
- Combination of amount and type of capital- social, cultural or economical
- Transformed to symbolic capital

The discourses concerning the idea of ‘healthy lifestyles’ is also underpinned by an ideological perspective of what a ‘good’ and
‘healthy’ life should be, or 'positive health' (Korp 2008).

The idea of 'positive health’ can be seen in the use of terms such as 'wellness' and 'wellbeing'. That is, individuals need to attain a
certain 'level' of 'wellbeing' to be 'healthy'.

The ideas of 'positive health', 'wellness' & 'wellbeing' are posited as value-neutral (Korp 2008).

Essentially, anybody can (and should) strive to be 'healthy' and failure to do so is due to individual choice.
This perspective, and the discourses that underpin it, fail to accept the influence of social structures and systems that can directly
(or indirectly) influence opportunities for people to be 'healthy'. (Korp 2008)

Week 2 Reading

Intersectionality is a framework that recognizes the complexity of lived experiences and the interacting factors of social inequity,
which are crucial to understanding health inequities. The text highlights the limitations of traditional approaches to health
determinants, the importance of including gender as a health determinant, and the potential of intersectionality in informing a
more complete understanding of health determinants.

The paper identifies several key features of intersectionality, including its focus on multiple social identities, the recognition that
various factors are always at play, the examination of intersecting experiences of oppression, and its explicit attention to power
dynamics. The text argues that intersectionality can provide new knowledge to address health disparities across various
dimensions of social inequality. It also emphasizes the importance of integrating intersectionality into health policy and research
to create more effective and inclusive approaches to health determinants

Social determinants are those outside the body affecting health- gender, social gradient (bigger gradient, more severe health
risks), employment and type of job, unemployment, transport
Week 4

Quantitative Research Approach

Social scientists take one of two general scientific points of view when conducting research (Leavy 2017).
The positivistic view assumes that everyone see reality in the same way and that overall or general patterns provide the best
answer to research questions.
When a scientist takes a positivistic point of view and has developed a research question, the next task is to formulate a
hypothesis, or educated guess, about the answer.
Usually this educated guess is derived from a literature review.
After carefully reading what is known (and thinking about what is unknown) about a topic, the researcher is in a good position to
formulate a hypothesis.
A hypothesis implies or states a relationship between two or more variables that are derived from the research question.
A study is then developed and constructed to 'test' whether the hypothesis is true (or not).
This form of research usually adopts a quantitative approach (Leavy 2017).

Qualitative Research Approach

As alternative point of view taken by social scientists has been called the naturalistic view (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The
naturalistic perspective assumes that multiple realities exist because individuals see things differently depending on the situation
or context in which they find themselves.
In this respect context involves more than physical surroundings: it can be atmosphere, how the situation is shaped by historical
period or events, and existent norms and values.
Social scientists within the naturalistic paradigm adopt interpretivist, qualitative approaches to research (Bryman 2007).

Developing a qualitative research question

A key aspect to any systematic study begins with identifying an appropriate research question.
This usually begins with a researcher identifying a topic of interest.
While a researcher may have many topics they are interested in, they need to develop a focus on a specific topic as no one study
can cover everything that occurs in society.
To assist with refining a topic which can then lead to developing an appropriate qualitative research question, students are
encouraged to use the following 4 step approach:
1. What issue am I interested in (eg. inactivity)
2. Which group(s) am I interested in (eg. young people)
3. What do I want to know about this issue and this group (eg. why they do not to participate)
4. Who am I going to include in asking my question to (eg. parents)
Next we then take each one of these aspects and craft a focused question that provides enough detail to indicate the study is do-
able.
From the above examples a question could be:
What barriers do Adelaide parents of children (aged 5-10years) perceive in regard to enabling their child to participate in regular
after school sport?
This question provides a clear understanding who the research participants would be (i.e. Adelaide parents of children aged 5-10
year) and what information would be sought from the participants (i.e. their perceptions regarding barriers to participation in after
school sport for their child(ren)).

Systematic literature reviews tend to focus on and be used for quantitative research studies.
Qualitative research studies often draw from, and report, on previous knowledge and understandings through the development of a
narrative literature review (Cypress 2019).
A narrative literature review is a comprehensive, critical and objective analysis of the current knowledge on a topic.
A narrative literature review assists with identifying patterns and trends in the literature so that gaps or inconsistencies in a body
of knowledge can be revealed.
A good narrative literature is used to justify a focused research question as well as the need for a research study to be conducted.

The next key section within a research proposal relates to the research methodology and methods to be adopted by a study.
This section of a research proposal needs to clear and logically provide the reader with an understanding of:
 Which particular qualitative methodology underpins your study and why is this suitable?
 Selected site(s) and participant group(s). Where and with whom will you carry out this research?
 How will participants be recruited for the study? Do not blindly assume people/organisations will want to be involved in
the study.
 How many participants? Qualitative research is usually carried out with small numbers of participants. Unlike
quantitative research, more does not necessarily mean better.
 Identify the method(s) of data collection (through interviews, focus groups, observations, documents etc).
  Describe how the data is to be analysed (eg. content analysis, discourse analysis, constant comparative analysis). This
needs to be consistent with the data collection methods. In addition, data analysis needs to clearly show how the data is
to be used to answer the research question/objective.
 Ethical considerations. How will you, as an ethical researcher, ensure the principles of informed consent, participant
confidentiality and safety will be adhered to throughout the study? What strategies will you adopt/pursue to ensure your
behaviour is respectful of other’s rights? How will you address the potential issue of “Power/Knowledge” (Foucault
1980).

Week 5

Applying a sociological perspective to the dominance of the medical model with Western societies leads to an exploration of both
the power medical knowledge and discourse has in shaping society as well as unpacking how the medicalisation of everyday life
occurs.

Recent history has seen a challenge to medical dominance and clinical autonomy
Many reasons have been identified for the rise of this challenge to medical dominance (Germov 2019). This includes:
 Increase of information available to the public through a variety of sources (eg. the internet)
 Rise in the lived experiences of those with chronic conditions. That is, people with chronic conditions know more about
how their body 'works' through their own experiences.
 Capitalism.
o Big business has control over how and where medical practice can occur. Also, the power of sectors such
as pharmaceuticals and health insurance companies.
o Patients as consumers which can also lead to patient rights
 An increase in ‘Alternative’ practitioners (such as homeopathy)
 The political sector (eg. government funding (or not) or specific aspects of the medical sector).
Essentially, the medical profession in recent times has been required to take notice and respond to a variety of other sectors and
groups who also seek to assert their power/knowledge/influence.

In addition to various other societal stakeholders seeking to be involved and assert some forms of power in regard to how health
occurs, alternative paradigms have emerged in relation to understanding what 'health' is.
As discussed early in the Lesson, the concept of 'health' through a bio-medical model adopts a focus on illness and disease (as well
as injury and rehabilitation). This is referred to Pathogenesis.
That is 'Health' = What causes illness/disease (Deficit/abnormality focus).

In contrast is the salutogenic perspective of health.

'[A] Salutogenic perspective to health focuses on the need to identify, define, and describe the factors that create positive health
to complement our understandings in regard to the prevention and treatment of ill-health (pathogenesis) (Antonovsky 1985,1996;
Becker, Glascoff, and Felts 2010). Developing an understanding of the factors that enable health to occur provides the space to
create opportunities and environments through which individuals, communities and societies can enhance and improve
their physical mental and social well-being' (Peel, Maxwell & McGrath 2019, p.7)

That is Salutogenesis = What supports health/wellbeing (Capability)

In addition to the salutogenic perspective of health are the Social Determinants of Health.