Understanding Sociology: Key Concepts and Social Dynamics

Sociology: Key Concepts and Social Dynamics

Sociology is the science that studies, describes, and analyzes the processes of life in society. Its object of study is human beings and their social relations within human societies.

Objectives of Sociology

• To acquire an overview of all topics related to this discipline.
• To facilitate the student's analysis of the social dimensions of education.
• Understanding of society.
• Familiarization of students with the method of sociological social processes.
• Knowledge of how social influences operate in the classroom.
• Formation of a critical attitude towards the social influences of education.

Key Sociological Concepts

The Family as an Institution: Area of identity, sexuality area, economic area, and ego-strengthening area.

Association: The human right to unite and form groups, associations, or organizations.

Community: A set of individuals who share common elements, such as language, customs, values, social status, roles, etc.

Status: Describes the social position an individual occupies within a society.

Role: Refers to the set of functions, norms, and behaviors defined socially and culturally that are expected of a person according to their acquired or assigned social status.

Social Networks: A social structure made up of people, which are connected by one or more types of relationships such as friendship, kinship, common interests, economic exchanges, sex, or shared beliefs.

Social Action: Every action has a meaning for those who carry it out, affecting the conduct of others, and this action is guided by such involvement.

Social Movement: A non-formal group of individuals or organizations involved in political and social issues aimed at social change.

Social Pattern: How social events are interpreted from a culture, such as an apple, associated with sin, with smooth skin and health.

Social Groups: The set of people who play reciprocal roles in the company. Individuals within it act according to the same rules, values, and objectives agreed upon and necessary for the common good. Primary groups are the community. Secondary groups are people as individuals and associations.

Social Conflict: A struggle for values and status, power, and scarce resources in the course of which the opponents want to neutralize, injure, or eliminate rivals.

Class Struggle: Conflict between social classes has been based on the events that shape societies.

Sociology of Education: A discipline that uses the concepts, models, and theories of sociology to understand education in its social dimension.

Important Sociologists

Durkheim: Attempted to study social reality to discover regularities in patterns of human behavior in society.

Comte: Had the idea that all sciences form a hierarchy so that each link depended on the one above according to the complexity of the phenomena studied.

Marx: Historical change and development are not random but the relations that man maintains with the economic relationship must be distinguished.

Forming an Association

To be or make a partnership means a structure (president, members, secretaries, etc.) and those who write a document that expresses the association and its goals and is recorded in civil registration.

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic Interaction Model: Linked to social psychology, particularly in its emphasis directed to the interactions that the individual has in the course of their daily lives.

Language of Symbols: Gestures of human beings are autobiographies because they are in themselves their expressions.

Sociology of Education

Sociology of Education: A discipline that uses the concepts, models, and theories of sociology to understand education as a social dimension. It is a special sociological science that deals with some of the specifics of the principal objective. It has to intervene in the educational process.