Blogging through Invitation to Sociology (2023)

  “What did I learn from this class?” -      First and foremost this course introduced me to the knowledge to further explore sociology. To be honest, I wouldn't be able to remember all the details surrounding all topics. However, the major points I do. Which enables it to further expand. I think that's quite valuable. Before this course, I didn't know about things such as conflict theory. Know I do, which can be an introductory start to much more. -      Working with the materials provided has expanded my perspective on many important topics. By working with and thinking about it. Not necessarily changing my opinion, but more in a way of seeing more, a broader perspective/greater understanding, of those topics. Understanding is I think one of the more important aspects. Many problems arise from people not understanding something. Thus I think it's an interesting point. Jasper Toonen - 16 June 2023 Introduction to Informa tion Sociology

1. Summarization      Demography is the study of human populations. That includes size, structure and changes over time. It helps explain different social phenomena. It is based on data taken from countries' registration statistics. Important demographic indicators include birth and death rates, migration trends and fertility rates. Fertility rates are influenced by factors such as women's education, the cost of raising children and a country's level of development. Mortality rates are affected by factors such as education, wealth and race. The demographic transition theory describes the change from high birth and death rates to low rates because a specific society would have developed economically. Overpopulation occurs when the population exceeds the resources available. Population growth is currently the highest in relatively less developed countries. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      I think demographics is not something people tend to th...

1. Summarization      The impact of technology, including mobile phones, social networks and games, on various aspects of social life has increased massively. Mobile phones have brought about changes in society and created new social norms. Social networks have benefits, such as maintaining connections, but also raise concerns about privacy and time management. While some studies suggest a link between violent games and aggression, the overall impact is to be found minimal. Games can also have benefits. Like improving visual attention. However, gaming too much can be associated negatively, including addiction and problems in behaviour. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      This article confirms some thoughts I already had regarding social media in particular. To be very blunt and general. There has been a big increase in the usage as well as the impact of social media on our society. For persons, this can have health issues. For society, it means...

1. Summarization      Race is a way of categorizing people based on physical differences, while ethnicity refers to shared social traits like nationality, religion and culture. Race has been controversial throughout history, with discrimination based on physical features and abuse of moral character and intelligence. The scientific validity of race has been questioned. This leads to a shift in viewing it as a social construct. Racial classifications have been influenced by the power to concentrate privilege in certain groups. Trying to gain an understanding of race as a social construct has led to a focus on studying human variation in terms of populations and using the term ethnicity to capture shared cultural identities. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      Something I did not know previously what the actual difference between race and ethnicity. Apparently, I misused the word ethnicity a lot. Although they might be related, they are different...

  1. Summarization      The term gender refers to the socially described roles and behaviours associated with masculinity and femininity. Where sex refers to the allocation of individuals into categories based on biological factors. People can differentiate between cisgender. Those who conform to societal notions of sex and gender. Or transgender, those who do not. The complexity of human biology and the challenges of the binary understanding of sex, highlight the existence of intersex individuals. The theory of gender being a socially constructed interpretation of behaviour, influenced by societal norms and expectations is proposed. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      Nowadays, it's a rather actual topic concerning the discussion of genders.  Therefore, I think most of the information provided in the article is already known to me or not surprising. The highlighting of the sociology theories, such as conflict theory, might be interes...

1. Summarization      Social inequality refers to the uneven distribution of wealth in a society. This creates welfare differences among different groups of people. It leads to a gender gap that limits women's opportunities. Social inequality is influenced by factors such as power, religion, status, race, ethnicity, gender, age and sexual orientation. Social inequality can also affect access to rights and privileges, healthcare, education and political representatives. So various types of social inequality exist, including wealth inequality, treatment inequality, political inequality, life inequality and membership inequality. Social mobility is the movement between social strata, either upward or downward. There are several ideologies regarding social inequality. This goes from individualistic views that consider it natural and desirable to collectivistic perspectives that aim to reduce or eliminate inequality. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?    ...

  1. Summarization      Social stratification is the division of people in a society into different groups. The classification is based on factors like wealth, income, education, occupation and status. It is categorized into 3 classes: upper, middle and lower class. The concept of social stratification exists more clearly in complex societies where large inequalities exist. The degree of social inequality determines a person's social stratum. Stratification can have impacts like racial segregation impacting access to services like mortgages. Social mobility refers to the movement of individuals or groups between different classes of the social hierarchy. Marxists view social class as determined by someone's relationship to the means of production, while Weber emphasizes class, status and power as different sources of social power. Where Mills argues that power in society is concentrated in a power elite consisting of corporate, political and military leaders. 2. What...

1. Summarization      Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective that looks at social interaction in everyday life as if it was a theatrical performance. It was introduced by Erving Goffman. He compared social interactions to actors on a certain stage. According to this perspective, individuals present themselves differently. That is depending on the situation and the audience, just like actors playing different roles. Goffman identified the front stage, where people perform and the backstage, where they can relax and be themselves. The goal of this 'performance' is to gain acceptance and create the desired impression. This theory also highlights the importance of creating, a personal front and borders in managing social interactions. Dramaturgical theory suggests that our identities are not fixed, however, are constantly constructed through our interactions with other people. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      Dramaturgy is an interesting theor...

1. Summarization      Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that explores how people use symbols and meanings to communicate. It suggests that language and shared understanding influence our behaviour and shape society. According to this theory, the sense of ourself is shaped by society where we create meaning through communication. It also examines the unique relationship between individuals and society. Researchers study how people interact and develop their identities through methods like observation and participation. Symbolic interactionism highlights the active role individuals play in shaping their social environment and emphasizes the significance of our interpretations in various situations. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      It is interesting to read about interactionism as it is mostly new to me. How people think and interact with themselves, as with others. The key assumptions and the premises derived from that particula...

1. Summarization      Social network analysis looks at the structure of social networks, including actors, ties, and interactions. It origins from various disciplines in the 80s and is now often used in sociology. Social networks are studied at micro, meso and macro levels, focusing on individuals, organizations and populations. Different network types, such as random and scale-free networks, are analyzed. Graph theory and balance theory are among the theoretical frameworks used in social network analysis. Structural role theory and heterophily theory were fundamental theories in this field. The presence of structural holes in networks provides advantages by connecting separate clusters. Overall, social network analysis provides valuable insights into relationships at various levels of society. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?   A Dutch tv show simulates the process of a specialized detective team of the police searching for 'criminals' in hiding. A data a...

1. Summarization      Social structure refers to the relationships between individuals or groups. It can be seen as the way people and groups are connected, how they behave in society, and the rules and norms that guide their actions. Social stratification is an example of social structure, where society is divided into different levels based on factors like race, class, or gender. The concept of embeddedness highlights that our actions are influenced by the personal relationships we have. Over time, sociologists like Marx, Durkheim and Weber have worked on our understanding of social structure. They explored how economic factors, cultural norms and institutions shape society. Different perspectives such as structuralism, feminism and practice theory have expanded the concept. The relationship between social structure and individual agency is a major factor of social science. Researchers use various methods, including multivariate analysis, to examine social structures an...

1. Summarization      Deviance is behaviour that violates cultural norms. It can be divided into two types. Formal deviance is the violation of formally enacted laws. Informal deviance violates informal social norms, also known as unwritten laws. Several theories within deviance are Social-Strain Typology, Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory and Labeling Theory. At Social-Strain Typology, one can break one norm to pursue the other. The theory is based on two criteria. A person's motivation to adhere and the belief to pursue one's goals. Structural Functionalism sees deviance as a way for people to know what they can and cannot do. Conflict Theory approaches deviance as a result of power imbalances. Labelling Theory also looks at power imbalances but goes further by stating, people become deviant when they're being labelled as a certain person. Deviant behaviour is related to subjects such as incarceration, gender, race, homicide, and profiled neighbourhoods. A wide ...

1. Summarization      Socialization is an important part of sociology. However, its definition remains fluid. Socialization prepares humans to function in social life. Per surroundings as in culture, experience different socialization. Socialization can be divided into primary and secondary phases. Primary socialization takes place at the beginning of one's life. Secondary socialization in adulthood enrichens the primary learned principles. In some rare cases a child who has been abanded by its parents and not been raised by humans, lacks the basic human skills. This highlights the importance of socialization for humans to function socially. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      I didn't realize how socialization has a vital impact on our social existence. Especially with the examples of situations where no socialization has taken place. It defines who we are as well as how we behave. The phase when you are young is particularly important to lear...

  1. Summarization      Government is like an umbrella term for a wide variety of institutions that make up the general control over a country. There are many different types of governments, with democracies, totalitarian regimes and everything in between. A type of government always has a ideal state, however in reality it often deviates. Basic political systems are autocracy, aristocracy, democracy, republics and federalism. Democracy can be either direct or indirect. In the indirect form, the people vote for representatives, who will then act on their behalf in making governing decisions. In a government, power can be divided into several functions. A commonly known model is called the 'trias politica'. The legislature, executive and judiciary powers are divided over several institutions. This is often applied to democracy as it ensures no one has the power to undermine the system. Sometimes a government works on the principle of a multiparty system. A party or a ...

1. Summarization      Politics is the general term for group decision-making related to societal issues. Key components of politics are power, authority and violence. Political power gives one the ability to exercise their opinion in societal decision-making. Authority is the justification for that power. Violence is often a manner to enforce it. There are many different kinds of political systems and governments. Common known ones are monarchy, democracy, totalitarianism, oligarchy, communism and theocracy. In a democracy, there are often political parties through which citizens can vote for a representative to enforce their ideals. Ideology can be from topics like gender, age, race etc. In current, democracies there is an increasing trend of more extreme views. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      In my home country, the Netherlands, we have a constitutional monarchy. Simply put, it is a mix between a monarchy and a democracy. Where the monarc...

1. Summarization      Economic sociology is a field that is describable as a mix between economics and sociology. The effect of social phenomena on economics is central in this field. It consists of two major parts, classical and contemporary. Classical focuses majorly on economic structures and institutions, whereas contemporary looks at the social consequences of economic exchanges. Closely related, but different from economic sociology is socioeconomics. With this, the development of societies in correlation to the economy is studied. Phenomena such as deforestation, pollution, natural disasters and household impacts impact the economy. With a booming economy, production in factories increases, which may lead to more pollution in society. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      It is particularly interesting to see how there are multiple fields, and a structure, in sociology. Where some are very closely related and to the untrained eye may seem ...

1. Summarization      Economy is a social science that entitles the way people use their surroundings to get to their material needs. Throughout history, the manner of exchanging goods has changed from social relationships through the use of coins. Two widely used social systems are capitalism and socialism. Capitalism prioritizes the market, rather than the people surrounding the market, like socialism. The idea is to have as less restrictions as possible, as opposed to the interference of the government in modern socialism. Economists, a specialist in the field of economy, often use statistical tools to look at the state of an economy. There are various ways of determining. The GDP, gross domestic product, tells how much a country 'earns' annually. This is an indicator of a country's wealth. On the other hand, one indicator does not perceive everything. The GDP per capita tell how much a person in a country earns on average. Which already tells one something different t...

1. Summarization      Within sociology, religion is also a study. Studying religion by the likes of especially Emile Durkheim, but also Karl Marx and Max Weber, distanced itself from other social studies. Unlike philosophy, sociology does not try to undermine the validity of beliefs. Marx viewed religion as a tool for capitalism to justify suppressing the truth. Science was in his eyes a way of replacing faith with reason. Durkheim studied the social cohesion of societies. Anything that connects a society can be a religion. A unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things. Weber looked at religion from a perspective as to why imperfections exist. He found that religion helped shape modern capitalism. Two related actual phenomena are secularization and globalization. Secularization is the effect of decreasing the importance of religion in society. According to theories there has always been a link between religion and globalization. 2. What was interesti...

1. Summarization      Religion can have multiple definitions and is thus subject to which perspective is used. Sociologists look at religion, not to prove what is right or wrong of faith itself, but to understand and predict the behaviour related to its people. The definitions of religion can be 'sacred vs. profane, 'religion as existential questioning' and 'religion as supernature'.  The latter one is the most commonly used perspective. Religion is classified by protest or equilibrium. With sects on the protest side, and churches on the equilibrium side. In between are denominations. A separate group are cults, which are broken off from like sects, and formed on their own. The world religions are Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism. Sociologists use social factors of science to analyse religions better. The future of religion remains to be answered. As it is challenged by secularism. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      The...

1. Summarization      A social movement called the free-culture movement promotes open content. Other people are free to use the ideas of others without being hindered by too many copyrights. Well-known free exchanges are open-source software and remix songs. People supporting the movement believe open access is beneficial and can accelerate developments. Large corporations lobby for copyrights to claim ideas. Lawrence Lessig founded the Creative Commons organization through which he initiated a new copyright system, which offered more content freedom. The movement also has its opposition. This comes from people who feel the rights of their work are less protected. Or people, like Richard Stallman, who feel it's unnecessary to open everything. 2. What was interesting/what did you learn?      It is interesting to see how in the past few decades this has risen to things we now know. Especially things like remixed songs or as a software engineer using open-sou...