1. Dr. Ali Montazeri Tehran University of Medical Sciences
Medical Sociology
Dr. Ali Montazeri
Tehran University of Medical Sciences

2. Outline What is sociology? Different approaches
What is medical sociology

3. 1-What is sociology Sociology is about: social behaviour,
why people behave as they do,
what factors in society affect their behaviour,
how groups of people in society organise themselves and come to be as they are

4. 2-What is sociology
It is some times said that sociology is about the study of social problems, that is, about what people feel is wrong with society such as crime, poverty, drug abuse and so on.
Sociologists not only are interested in what people in a given society say is wrong with it, but also in what is seen as good, normal or healthy.

5. 1-Different approaches
1. Those who see the pattern and characteristics that can be detected in social behaviour (systems approach)
2. Those who see the characteristics patterns as the consequences of the actions and interaction of individuals (action approach)

6. 2-Different approaches
Action approach
-social action
-micro study
-variation
-symbolic interactionism
phenomenology,
ethnomethodology
M.Weber ( )
Systems approach
-social systems
-macro view
-common value
-functionalism, positivism
E.Durkhiem ( )

7. Positivism
It is an approach in sociology which links it to the natural and physical sciences:
- collects evidence
- tests hypotheses
- formulates theories
- arrives at general laws

8. Functionalism
It refers to the notion of society as an organism, or as a system and how various part of the system relate together. This means an examination of social subsystems like politics, economics, culture or institutions like the family, marriage, education, law, religion, etc...

9. Symbolic interactionism
The starting point for an examination of behaviour is the individual and how the individual is made into the kind of person he becomes by his interaction with others (most of human behaviours are learned and considerably influenced by the social environment they grow up in).

10. Phenomenology
It is a close examination of meanings and common assumptions and it is concerned to discover how people arrive at those meanings and assumptions.

11. Ethnomethodology
The emphasis of ethnomethodology is on the ways in which ordinary people make sense of their everyday lives.

12. What is medical sociology?
The study of relevance of sociology to three main issues:
- the major influences
on health
- people's experiences
of illness,
- the organnisation
of health care