1. The Development of Sociological Thinking
Classic origins go back to Ionic beginnings
(Aristotle and Plato, for example)
The growth of the natural sciences in the 17th-18th centuries set the pace of how science can be applied to society
This was especially applicable after the Industrial Revolution

2. Industrialization & Urbanization
Industrialization: Changes of means of production or how people make a living; when societies are transformed from dependence on agriculture and handmade products to an emphasis on manufacturing and related industries
Urbanization: Movement from the rural to the urban environments

3. The Industrial Revolution

4. Early Thinkers: A Concern with Social Order and Stability
Auguste Comte
French ( )
Elements
Origins of the term sociology
Social Statics and Social Dynamics
Natural science applied to society
Positivism

5. Early Thinkers: A Concern with Social Order and Stability
Harriet Martineau
British ( )
Elements:
Used Comte’s work
Studied religion, politics, childrearing, slavery, immigration in categories of race, class and gender
Sociology: “true science of human nature”
Call for racial and gender equality

6. Early Thinkers: A Concern with Social Order and Stability
Herbert Spencer
British( )
Elements
Society as evolving as organic species
Process of struggle
“Social Darwinism”
Only the fittest of persons (and societies) would survive

7. Early Thinkers: A Concern with Social Order and Stability
Emile Durkheim French ( )
Elements
Created a methodology of studying society
Social facts
Anomie
Division of labour
First to publish a statistical study (on Suicide)

8. Differing Views on the Status Quo: Stability versus Change
Karl Marx
German ( )
Elements
Class conflict as the source of change
Bourgeoisie and proletariat
Means of production
Alienation
Revolution

9. Differing Views on the Status Quo: Stability versus Change
Max Weber
German( )
Elements
Economic systems as only one source of change i.e.: religion was important
Value free sociology
Verstehen
Study of bureaucracies

10. Differing Views on the Status Quo: Stability versus Change
Georg Simmel
German ( )
Elements:
Web of patterned interactions among people
Social interaction processes within groups
Size of the social groups (dyad, triad)
Industrialization and urbanization
Class conflict
Individualism

11. Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives
Functionalist
Conflict
Feminist
Symbolic Interactionist
Postmodernist