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Welcome to Sociology 101 Online! Peter Berger once claimed, "It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this-things are not what they seem." The reason Berger would say something like that is that the sociological point of view is not part of our culture here in the U.S. Most of us believe that human behavior, feeling, and thinking are psychological or individual in origin. Sociology, on the other hand, sees the influence of social factors on human behavior, emotion, and thought (so race and gender really do matter). So, my first objective in this course is to help you see the world through social lenses. The second objective has to do with language. Sociology, like all disciplines, has its own language. For example, if you were to take a course in physiology you would learn that the back of your arm is really comprised of a muscle that has three parts: the anterior, posterior, and lateral heads of the triceps. And in sociology you'll also find that we have specialized terms for what you already know-you already know that you are a son or daughter, but did you know that son/daughter is comprised of status positions and roles? So, part of what we will be doing is getting specific words for the world around us-and as we do, we will be seeing something different in our world because of the new words. Before you begin the course, there are a number of basic question that need to be addressed. Click here to go to the How to Succeed in this Course page.
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If you prefer to view online content while offline, you may download the text of each unit here. All fiels are in the Adobe PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to read. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, you may download it for free here. |