Theme 1:

Society, agency and structure.

Go through the first two readings

Possible Questions:
• Describe the sociological imagination as a particular way of thinking. (It is a habit of mind. It is
a particular way of thinking in how we study sociology. How biography is linked to history? Your own
personal experiences (or other peoples) how we experience things in our personal lives, that we make
ways to change what we have experienced. Link it into agency and structure. We are born into a
society and elements of this society shape us - school, parents, friends, environments. Linking
personal problems with social problems. Like divorce, war or unemployment (C.Wright Mills work)
• What is the relationship between agency and structure. Definitions of both words. Agency is
linked to our own individual choice. But society has rules and barriers with which it limits our full
agency. This is structure. Degrees of socialisation. Agency also has an impact on structure. There are
tensions within society built on the relationship between agency and structure that also form society
• Give examples of the link between private troubles and public issues. Think about one of our
own struggles and link it to others.
• What is the relationship that exists between common sense and sociological knowledge?
Define common sense and sociological knowledge. Links and differences between the two. We
cannot escape common sense at all in the social sciences, but we have to further beyond it as well.
We cannot take everything at face value. Know the four elements.
• How does sociological knowledge differentiate itself from tactic knowledge? Define both.

Second theme:
Modernity and the changing nature of social solidarity:
• Define modernity
• Durkheim contends that social facts should be considered as things. Explain what this
statement entails and how it shapes sociological knowledge. What is a social fact? What does it
mean when you treat a social fact as a thing? Durkheim suggests that it is a separate thing from an
individual, however it influences the individual. Should be approached objectively. How do you study a
social fact? Society is suis generous (pre-existing) Institutions can be studied as a social fact.
• Describe Durkheim's notion collective conscience and collective representation. Define both.
External to the individual again.
• Explain why Durkheim challenges the notion that suicide is simply an individual act. It is not
an individual act, as there are other external reasons for people commit suicide. Two social
processes: Social integration high or low. Low is egotistsic and high is ultruistic. Ultruistic is when
someone is strongly enmeshed into a group, and this means that the persons own interests take a
back seat to the collective group. The group objective is more important. For example the army or
suicide bombers, where you can see it as commiting suicide for the greater good. Egotistical is when
you are not very integrated. Uses statistics to study the rates of suicide that show who and why
people commit suicide (for example married people vs unmarried people) Regulation low and high.
Low Anomic suicide. Anomie is a form of lawlessness that leaves people feeling placeless. High is
Fatalistic where people feel so constrained by the rules, such as in slavery. Where every part of you is
controlled.
• Durkheim identifies four types of suicide, discuss and give examples of each one.
• Define anomie.
• Explain why Durkheim studies elementary forms of religions? Because they were simpler. As
societies evolve over time, stories become more complex. Studying the elementary. Religion is the
expression of society, a form of solidarity within solidarity.
• How does Durkheim describe the sacred? The sacred is anything that people decide is sacred
• Describe the role of ritual and collective effervescence. Those feelings of closeness between
people who are not genetically related, but rather spiritually
• Discuss the division of labour in society. Mechanistic and organistic solidarity. Compare the two
and how they influence other things like law. Retributive and the other thing. more complex societies
and complex jobs make a bigger divide in the older seen collective experiences.
• How does solidarity differ in traditional and modern societies. Explain why it differs.