BPS 1104:ELEMENTS OF

SOCIOLOGY AND
ANTHROPOLOGY
Topic 1
 Sociology
• Sociology is a scientific study of how
human beings behave in groups within a
society and how the society/group
influences the behavior of individuals.
 Introduction continues
• Sociologists are interested in knowing the
following:
• How groups are formed and the reasons
for the formation of groups;
• The dynamics of the groups over time; and
• How these dynamics are maintain and
change the groups or bring about social
change.
• Sociology is also interested in
understanding how individuals interact
within groups. For example within a family,
village, school, church, work place etc.
• Interested in understanding the
institutions/ rules that govern individual
and group behaviors. How the rules are
formed, how they are maintained, and how
they change over time.
 Society
• Sociology are interested in understanding
society- how its formed, how society is
maintained and how societies change over
time.
 SOCIETY
• What is society?
• Although the concept society is used
widely by both social scientists and non
scientists, there is no universal definition.
• Sociological definition:
 Types of society
• Hunting and gathering societies
• Pastoral societies
• Agrarian societies
• Non-industrial societies/Civilizations
• Feudal societies
• Industrial societies
• Postindustrial societies
Hunting and gathering societies
• Sociologists and Anthropologists believed that
the earliest human society survived by gathering
(fruits, nuts, and vegetables and by hunting or
trapping animals for food)
• Consisted of tribal groups about 50 people
• Had few possessions and little material wealth
• Possessions they had had to be shared
• There was limited inequality
• Do they exist today?
 Pastoral societies and Agrarian
societies
• They may hunt and gather but also keep
and herd animals
• Animals provide milk and meat
• Animals may be used as means of
transport
• Here it was possible to acumulate wealth
in form of animals
• They tend to have more inequality than the
first
 Pastoral societies and Agrarian
societies continue..
• They tend to be nomadic to look for
pasture for their animals
• They tend to be larger than hunter and
gatherer societies
• Mobility makes them encounter other
tribes
 Agrarian societies
• Rely on cultivation of crops to feed
themselves
• This provides a more reliable source of
food than gathering society
• The population tend to be higher due to
predictable and reliable source of food
• There is considerable inequality since food
could be stored and individual would
accumulate wealth
 Non-industrial
societies/Civilizations
• According to Giddens;
• They were based on development of cities
• Showed very pronounced inequalities of wealth
and power
• Associated with rule of kings and emperors
• Were more developed in the area of art and
science
• Had more institutionalized and centralized form
of government
 Non-industrial
societies/Civilizations continue
• They invented writing
• Expanded across wide areas and develop their
own empires
• Examples
• Aztecs, the maya in south America,
• Ancient Greece and Roman Empire in Europe
• Ancient Egypt in Africa
• Indian and Chinese civilization in Asia
 Modern Industrial Societies
• Characterized by:
– Industrialism
– Capitalism (involves wage labour and business run
for the purpose of making profit)
– Urbanism (Involved massive movement from rural to
urban areas)
– Liberal democracy (the rights of kings and queens to
rule was questioned)
The above changes constitute modern society or
modernity
Post modernity loss of faith in science and technology)
 Sociological imagination
• Learning to think sociologically means
cultivating powers of the imagination
• A sociologist is someone who is able to
break free from the immediacy of personal
circumstances.
• Sociological Imagination requires us to be
able to think ourselves away from the
familiar routines of our daily lives in order
to look at them anew.
 Examples
• Durkheim’s explanation of suicide: social forces
lead to suicide: high level of integration.
• Drinking coffee can invoke so many
interpretation: ( rituals, drug, set of relationships,
past social and economic development, sign of
brotherhood etc)
• Sociological imagination can be used to explain
any event/ phenomenon using social forces and
individual characteristics.
• Sociological imagination can show us not only
the case but what could become-to see the
future.
 Sociological Questions
• Developing sociological imagination
involves asking questions
• Sociologists mainly ask 4 questions
– Factual questions: eg about the crime despite
having laws, what kind of crime is common in
Uganda?
– Comparative questions: this aims at relating
one social context from one society to
another, or contrasting differences from
different societies
 Sociological question cont..
– Developmental questions: comparing past
and present societies, to understand the
nature of modern world we need to look at
pre-modern societies and study the direction
of change
– Theoretical questions: this does not look at
facts alone but also helps to ask why things
happen the way the do? Eg what are the
origins and preconditions of industrialisation?
 Common sense and sociological
perspectives
• Sociological findings both disturb and
contribute to our common sense beliefs
about ourselves and others.
• Common sense is a way ordinary people
understand social phenomenon in their
society.
• However it has weaknesses:
Limitations of common sense
Is sociology a science?
 Sociological theories
– Definition and attributes of a theory
– The evolutionary perspectives
– The functionalist perspectives
– The consensus perspectives
– Conflict perspectives
Definition and attributes of a theory

• What is a theory?
– A theory is a set of ideas that provides an
explanation for something.
– A sociological theory is a set of ideas that
provides an explanation for human society.
– Note no amount of theory can hope to explain
every thing or account for the infinite amount
of data that exist or cover the endles ways of
viewing reality.
 BASIC FUNCTIONS OF A
THEORY
• Theory provides a short hand for
communication e.g. structure functional theory.
• Theory helps us to organise ideas and in so
doing un cover hidden assumptions and
makes possible a much more explanation of a
particular event than relying on a single
statement or universal claims.
• It is a an indicator of maturity of any given
discipline. With theory we can be able to
categorise knowledge, and explain various
social phenomena
 Basic functions continue…
• A theory also helps us to go beyond facts in their current
form and explain other facts since theory tends to be
general and universal. Therefore if one is equipped with
a theory and an event occurs any time any where, it
becomes possible for one to explain that phenomena.
• Theory helps us to develop concepts that one needs to
study a social phenomena, since concepts are
dispensable tools of any scientific inquiry.
• Theory propositions can be translated directly in to
research hypothesis. In this way theory can be used to
guide research.
 ELEMENTS OF A THEORY
• Concepts
• Assumptions
• Scope conditions
• Propositions
• Terms
 Concepts
• A concept can be a word, a term, or a symbolic
expression that stands for a phenomena or experience
or event relations.
• it is the means by which experiences about the real word
are organised into mental images and communicated to
a wider audience or used during the testing of a
particular proposition.
• Concepts are normally developed for the purpose of
precise communication hence avoid strange or
mysterious ideas.
• Concepts too must be developed within a theoretical
framework so and explain contextual situation under
which the concept is applied. DEMONSTRATION
 Propositions

• A theory contains a set of propositions.

• Propositions are statements of relationship
between at list 2 of the properties or variables of
social phenomena.
• it relates variables to one another; Are the
research statements to be verified, once verified
they constitute a building blocks of a theory.
• The relationship stated between the variables
should be highly probable either negative or
positive and specify the necessary conditions
under which the relationship holds.
 Proposition: Types of relationship
• Reversible relationship: university
education leads to better jobs vice versa.
• Irreversible relations e.g. x ……….y, but
y…cannot lead to y.
• Univ. degree –better income but it does
not mean every body who has better
income is a graduate.
 Assumptions

• Any theory rests on a massive function of

assumptions that influence the way that theory is
developed. These assumptions include the
fundamental image that sociologists have on
their subject matter. These assumptions are
some times called paradigm.
• Paradigm refers to the underlined intellectual
assumptions that scientist make about subject
matter.
 Scope conditions

• This refers to framework or boundary of

application and possible evaluation of the
theory.
• It defines the social phenomena to which
the theory applies. The provision of scope
statements enables people or other
academicians intending to use the theory
as well as those who want to evaluate it to
know what it is and how to deal with it.
 Terms / definitions

• The purpose of any definition is to facilitate

communication and the shared usage of terms.
• To define is to introduce a new idea or describe the
meaning or particular usage of a particular terms. So to
describe is to specify a new idea by means of already
familiar ideas.
• Note: the major characteristic of a theory is that, it must
be tested before it is confirmed. Testing refers to the
determining the correctness and adequacy of a particular
theory i.e. its logic in terms of consistency, clarity,
general-ability and falsify-ability.