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Sociology Explained

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Common knowledge or common sense and sociological research findings can often times contradict one another. For example, in American culture some individuals believe the notion that "opposites attract?while others may believe "birds of a feather flock together? Which belief do you find more accurate? How might sociological research differ from these common beliefs or knowledge? As a sociologist, how would you test these theories?

In your discussion, please define sociology as a field of study, discuss sociological theory, and discuss how sociology is relevant to everyday situations and large social issues. Connect sociology and common sense. Knowledge that relies on common sense is not always reliable. Therefore, you should discuss the use of theories to examine and analyze information.

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Solution Summary

The solution is a 'primer' a comprehensive and extensive discussion of the field of sociology, its focus and its objective/purpose. It defines and explains sociological theory, sociological perspectives and how they apply/are used to make sense of the social world. Included in the discussion are the theorists Michel Foucault and C. Wright Mills on the topics of discourse, knowledge and sociological imagination. References are listed. There are two word file attachments - a longer primer and a shorter version of it.

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Dear Student,
What I have provided you is a 'primer' - all the necessary information that you might need to understand the necessary terms and initial conepts in sociology is there. I believed that this would have been more beneficial to you. Your initial questions are answered and more. As a sociology lecturer - I believe that all the information that you needed was provided to help you with this assignment. Your post is asking to explain the idea of sociologically situated beliefs - as common knowledge, that which people decide to be right and true contradict one another. How does sociology make sense of that? Additionally, discussing that question means delving into sociological theories, explaning how they work, which in turn needs an explanation regarding social phenomenon, sociological imagination, use of philosophy in explaining sociological phenomenon. It is important to understand how knowledge is constructed in a socioloical sense to understand how to make sense of contradicting common knowledge. Alright. Let's remake the solution and relocate the answers to your questions (bearing in mind that this is still based on the primer I gave you). The solution is now structured that it 'answers'all the questions via a discussion (as was pointed out in your post). I have added this 'streamlined' solution as a wordfile as well. Do not throw away the earlier primer I have written for you as you will find it useful in the long run. As always, you cannot pass this solution as your own. This new rewritten solution is in an essay form following the APA format.

Sincerely,
OTA 105878/Xenia Jones
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Sociology and the establishment of Knowledge

Sociology is a fascinating field of study. Immanuel Kant, the father of sociology at first sought to study the mystery of the social - that is, of humanity (the individual, the groups, the cultures they belong to, societies, civilizations) by looking through that field of study using the social sciences, taking on qualitative and quantitative approaches (mostly quantitative during his period) to explain social phenomenon. Before I provide you with a lengthy explanation on key sociological concepts and terms let me discuss the question that you brought forth - how do we explain 'sayings and 'quotes', i.e. Opposites attract and birds of the same feather. The thing about the social world is that the truth is always relative and at the same time ...

Solution provided by:
Xenia Rochelle Jones, MA, PhD (IP)
Education
  • MPhil/PhD (IP), Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • MA, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • Certificate, Geva Ulpan (via Universita Tel Aviv)
  • BA, University of the Philippines
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