 Well sociology is the study of human societies and that includes individuals within those societies and that in it you know all the social institutions such as family how we make decisions educational processes including just the ones of socialization within your family and also religion and polity or how we make decisions and economics you know how we how we use exchange of goods and services and it is a different way of thinking and understanding the world whether it's the human social world or the natural environment and a relationship with the natural environment and it gives us a kind of tool kit for understanding why we have the experiences we have and why we see the world and the issues the way that we see them so. As sociologists we're interested in people's behavior and to some extent people's behavior is outside of themselves you know people of course have ultimate responsibility for their lives and their behaviors and decisions but there's a whole host of factors outside of the individual that can potentially play a role in that that's what sociology tries to be attentive to. Whenever we're born and we're placed into the world there's this already existing world and structure that we're embedded in and people kind of bump up against that and attempt to bump up against that and kind of transgress those boundaries and those norms and that's something that sociology sheds light on. Sociology focuses on group interaction so the unit of analysis is the group. In contrast with psychology that focuses more on the individual the mind and individual behavior now that's a very simplified way of making the distinctions because there are overlapping sub areas one of them is social psychology where sociology blends with psychology but sociology is interested in every institution economics so we have economic sociology politics so we have political sociology we have social anthropology and we have the sociology of literature even because everywhere human beings engage in any social activity be that even the most intimate social activity sociology has some interest in it as a research foci but also as a way of enhancing our general understanding of human interactions. We study institutions just those big overarching structures that situate our lives and our behaviors everything from the workplace to family to health and really anything that people do in the world is something that's right for sociological investigation. We're people science and we study the things that people do and we do that we do that in ways distinct from other disciplines and other departments. So sociology is a really valuable toolkit it's a way of engaging systematically with the world we watch patterns and we look at patterns and we look at what are the factors that impact like life chances and those sorts of things so you know we study people we study aging we study organizations we study social change we look at social institutions like the education system the health care system the criminal justice system media and we look at all of those things how they work how they're organized. Sometimes I think about it like a like an iceberg how 90% of the mass of an iceberg is under the water and can't see it. Sociologists tend to think about society in that way as well. There's certain aspects of our world that we're well aware of but there's a whole slew of other issues that are hidden or just kind of embedded in in these larger structures and to be a good sociologist or to think like a sociologist does mean that sometimes we try to delve underwater and try to see that 90% that's hidden from the everyday world. You as a member of the group will be affected by the group in which you live. If you're an American you learn to talk in a particular way not because you were born that way and sociology is interested in establishing the fact that your accent, your speech patterns, your preferences, your attitudes much of it is learned and specific to your group so we study that scientifically. Sometimes it's difficult for us to even make sense of or even recognize culture because we're so blinded by it since we're embedded in culture since day one. Sometimes we refer to this as sociology of the everyday just the stuff that normal people do whether it's you know relationships with their pets or conversations that we have or the ways that men versus women take up space on buses or airplanes you know all those things seem like they're meaningless but there's there's something important there's something sociologically important about those minor taken for granted notions of our behaviors. So the goal for sociologists is to make the familiar unfamiliar so you don't take for granted the assumptions you actually might start with the assumptions and look at those critically in terms of how does it how do those assumptions shape the way that we see things so for example we are trained in the United States to have a individualistic orientation right we're taught that the United States is a meritocracy there's a strong ethos of individualism that people will succeed and fail based on either their work ethic or their talent or their combination of the two right and so that's kind of assumption that's built into the US structure culture really just basically all of our major social institutions and so as a sociologist we ask the question was that true right and so you kind of flip it and don't take that assumption for granted you actually interrogate the assumption and then go out and investigate to see if that's the case and so then that opens up an opportunity for you to see things that you otherwise wouldn't see so if you just focus on individuals individual behavior you can see how that individual behavior is connected to somebody's life chances or where they wind up in society but then as a sociologist I'm also interested in how people are situated within social groups and social institutions and how that might shape their life their trajectories you know where they wind up in in life and so it's a different reference point and allows us to see things that typically you wouldn't see I think is good socialized Americans we like to think that we are the ultimate individuals and and culture doesn't matter and it doesn't influence us but whenever we do look at the broader scheme of social issues we see that then it does matter it's hard to deny the fact that that we're good conformists you know we're a nation of individuals but we're also very good I'm a kind of falling falling in line and kind of adhering to just the norms and expectations of what it means to be you know quote a good person or good American you know you fill in the blank it's difficult I think that is probably the biggest challenge in our intro level classes to try to get students to see that both things can be happening simultaneously you can be an individual that still be bound by culture or influenced by culture takes a while for for intro students to get there but once they get there it really is it really is like putting a new lens over your eyes or putting on new set of glasses because you really do see the world an entirely different light after that individualism matters you know the individual behaviors and psyche those things matter but but culture is powerful and part of its power is that it's sometimes hidden and it's this embedded unrecognized component of our day-to-day world sociology tries to uncover that and tries to you know kind of rip the curtain back so that we can see how it is that these things matter these things influence us they don't dictate our outcomes they they are influential we know what's happening to us you know my dad lost his job or you know you know I was in a car accident and that affected me personally but we also want students and to look at the intersection of their own biographies and what's happening in their social context or their history because you know our experiences are shaped by what we're born into and the time period that we're born into and so yes my dad lost his job but hey there is an economic downturn in all of society it's not it's not his fault necessarily it's something that's happened at an institutional level that's part of our society's makeup and maybe we can understand that process a little bit more and not blame the victim for what's happening to them individually at this point in time and so I think that's one of the main gifts that we give to students even if they're not majoring in sociology is that to look beyond their own personal experience in in a larger social context and try to understand it in a from an institutional level and how some opportunities are structured for you and some are structured against you and it's not always your fault it's maybe just circumstantial in terms of the time period that you're born to into or the social class that you're born into or the group that you happen to be born into in a geographic sense so you know it that that's one of the things I think that we really strive to do with our interest students in particular but all students coming through the program is to to understand social forces and how they affect the individual our cultures affect often the way we explain our behaviors and in most western industrialized capitalist cultures we tend to attribute our behaviors to internal factors so we we we make claim to being smart because we work hard in other cultures it's a lot easier to to explain the fact that your behavior is significantly influenced by the group to which you belong so because I'm teaching in a western industrialized capitalist culture I've had to put in more effort to translate the fact that your behavior mind behavior is as much biographical as it is historic it is historic in the sense that larger social institutions and forces intersect with my biography to completely explain why I do what I do and how I do what I do and where I do what I do so for example my desire to leave the campus very quickly at the end of a workday is going to be constrained by the macro rules of traffic light compliance so I would have to wait no matter how motivated I am to get to the next assignment I would have to wait for other cars that have the right of way that's one way in which my individual behavior is constrained by macro social structures but it's not just constraints macro social structures do facilitate our behaviors I do have students who tend to want to dismiss that but when you provide evidence okay of this group this proportion you know maybe doesn't have access to education as much as this other group when they see the data data speaks volumes and if they're using a scientific mind and logic then then they understand the processes a little bit better and and if they're able to step back a little bit and look at it from a larger social context that you know really the pillars of science or logic and observation and we use those in sociology too so if you if your observations are your data then you have to use logic then to interpret that data and sometimes people's prejudices of course get in the way but it makes for lively discussions and we can look at things from different points of view and see where the truth really lies there are obviously certain people who even in the face of evidence they would they would they will stand their ground as as it were but we generally say that you have the right to your opinion not to your facts and that's that's how I I brutally bring it to their attention yes you could think one way but let's look at what the data suggest but I'm also honest enough to let them know that data are not always foolproof that's why we continue the research process in other words data could themselves be biased there are all kinds of information still there so not everything that is data is accurate fact and so one of the challenges more for them for their generation than when we were going to school is sorting through the morals of of data and separating facts from fiction and one of the areas we tend to discuss more is poverty most people most of my students when I ask them what they think about people on welfare they automatically go into those stereotypes of people who are lazy people who are dishonest and they want to game the system and so you then bring forth research findings to answer those questions for example you let them know that over 35 percent of those who are on welfare are children under 15 by our laws they should not be working and so they couldn't be accused of being lazy you tell let them know that 27 percent of those who are on welfare are working eight hour jobs like Mcdonald's what a burger that will not give you twenty one twenty two thousand dollars that's the cutoff point for poverty in the united states we let them know that they well as many of them as are here on Pell grants are also part of a six percent of those who are welfare are on Pell grant students like them that brings it home so that when they look at the when they look at the poor henceforth they don't have the assumption that the poor are actually lazy the idea is that these different systems of stratification are so important in shaping people's life chances and their interactions with other social institutions right so if you're poor your experience with the education system with the criminal justice system even with like religion with health care are all going to be shaped by your economic location in our culture whenever we think about credit card debt we usually frame that as an individual failing you know this person is making the wrong economic choices you know is not you know adhering to their budget etc if we were to use a sociological perspective to try to make sense of credit card debt we could see that there's this culture of consumption that might be feeding into that credit cards and credit card debt is it is more natural today i mean it is the norm for everyone age 18 come to college and you you just get a slew of these credit card applications get a free t-shirt if you apply for our credit card or you know get free shipping on amazon or whatever the case might be there's those factors you know they might see that their parents are increasingly relying on credit cards as well their their peers you know it's becoming just the normal part of young adulthood and college life in that sense it's normalized still take stigmatized but it's a normalized component of our economic world um so it's an individual choice people are individually deciding you know i'm going to pay my power bill with my credit cards or i'm going to buy this with my credit cards um or you know during the summer i'm going to live off my credit cards but at the same time there's something greater um at play here um that that to me is is is one of the powers of sociology is that we're able to look outside of the individual and see how there's these other things in the world these other powers in the world that are providing opportunities for some providing constraints for others and situating us on particular pathways i mean one of the things of science is to try to make predictions about certain things and and we do know for example that you know feelings of prejudice are higher whenever there is more economic competition among groups and so you know knowing that in any context is going to be helpful that sometimes when people are prejudicial you'll understand that it's not just that um they really hate the other people it's just that they're feeling a pressure that's created from the outside that makes them manifest this sort of feeling and uh and show it towards other groups in some way i mean you can predict when the kkk is going to get active because of of those kind of social trends that happen and that's because sociologists have sort of noticed this over over time so yeah there and and that's that's actually what sociology has to deal with if you're going to deal with race relations you're going to talk about the kkk right you're going to talk about all groups and you're going to talk about them in a scientifically honest manner a lot of other social sciences you know they're very much focused on the individual and and as they should be but there's this assumption in sociology that people's behavior is influenced by things outside of them we're all born into this world with identities and genders and racial ethnic identities and all that matters you know and it matters more to some people than others and it doesn't define us and it doesn't you know kind of prescribe us for a particular life outcome but it does influence the pathways that we may find ourselves on some of the top skills that sociology majors tend to use in their careers um number one is using and constructing evidence-based arguments being able to number one recognize data and also analyze those data make sense of those data write reports um that's generated from those data you can do content analysis and we have these kind of ways that you can code information so that you're looking at the um like content that organizations produce in a systematic way watching commercials or news programs and we'll look at how much space is given to particular topics textbooks textbooks are cultural artifacts and so you can analyze the textbooks for um not just what's there but what isn't there and and um how dissemination of information the construction of knowledge is packaged and so what what do we learn from the packaging of that information sociologists are everywhere and they're using sociological perspectives and the work that they do in every day and that could include business it could include marketing it could include social work um it could include people who are doing number crunching for either hospitals or for government agencies um and basically the skills we teach are things that are practical in a lot of variety of places um my specialty is medical sociology which doesn't seem to really go together right um but what i have been working on for the last few years along with my students and with other colleagues is looking at hospital data from our region and about 15 counties and seeing what the trends are things like disease are not just physical they occur in a social context and people's behavior is affected by that social context which may or may not contribute to a disease pattern for example and my most recent project is looking at red tight events and how that has affected respiratory hospitalizations so in a hospital or in a community setting you may have people who are sociologists who don't necessarily wear that title but they're doing sociology so even md anderson which is a world-renowned cancer center has added a whole behavioral science wing and that includes sociologists working there so a new thing that we're working on has to do with resilience community resilience after let's say something like a hurricane we're just now in the beginning stages of looking at um how do people recover which communities recover quicker than others after a major natural disaster and so at the table on that conversation are psychologists sociologists and people who are environmental scientists who deal with you know um weather patterns and such and so it's very exciting that again sociology you wouldn't think a sociologist would have anything to contribute to other areas especially physical scientists but we do so sociology is um is relevant in almost every um and human endeavor including the practice of science itself we for example have a subfield the sociology of science which looks at the patterns of interactions that develop among collaborating scientists and why certain kinds of scientific topics tend to be more relevant in certain kinds of societies and deserving of intense academic or research pursuits than others so uh whether or not you're a physicist you're a scientist you're a biology major there is some sociology in whatever you are doing even if you are a math major we for example are interested in why there are gender differences in the uh in people's interest in mathematics why men tend to be more likely to major in math than women and so really it's just about developing these skills that are very much desirable in the broader community i mean whether if you're working for government people want to assess right their operations what's happening how people perceive you know the services that they're receiving if you look at the education system they've got standardized tests they're doing analysis in terms of students attendance right um pass rates um truancy issues mastery of content um so if you maybe you look at within the various sectors i mean even the private sectors they want to evaluate um the effectiveness of their operations right so what are their goals in terms of their business are they meeting their goals are their gaps what can they do better i mean all of that kind of leads you in the direction of evidence-based decision-making processes sociology prepares students for a range of careers and and occupations and professions um there's been recent national surveys of sociology graduates and number one they do uh suggest that they use a lot of their sociology coursework um in their day-to-day lives on the job we have former students who are lawyers we have some that work for universities where they do institutional research to find it what the trends are for their particular students we have some that work with the census bureau um we have some that work in social services many who with just a bachelor's degree do go on to work for social services and helping them to um to deal with everyday problems in their lives and how to make that better for them there are some who are who have been employed by multinational corporations to do marketing research who buys what where when how and with whom those are job opportunities that sociologists tend to fail i also like to think about sociology as a people science if you're curious about the world you might make a good sociologist if you if you're a people watcher i think that that makes you a good sociologist or if you ever just ask if you're ever curious about why the world exists the way that it does or why people do the things that they do those are inherently good sociological questions uh my first sociology professor the irony of history was an american catholic priest he made sociology so interesting specifically by making it a discipline that queried taking for granted knowledge he did not leave any space that you could not ask questions and very invasive and sometimes subversive questions i like irreverent questions questions that will shake people's belief and then you know we can talk about how do we best answer these questions using evidence empirical evidence not just you know folk tales