Introduction to Sociology

Sociology is the study of human social life. Human social life is complex and encompasses many facets of the human experience. Because of the complexity, the discipline of sociology subdivided over time into specialty areas. The first section of this book covers the foundations of sociology, including an introduction to the discipline, the methods of study, and some of the dominant theoretical perspectives. The remaining chapters focus on the different areas of study in sociology.

Part of the Social Sciences Bookshelf

Table of Contents

• The Foundations of Sociology
  • Introduction
  • Sociological Methods
  • General Sociological Theory

• Social Life
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Socialization
  • Groups
  • Demography
  • Deviance and Norms

• Social Inequality
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Stratification

• Social Institutions
  • Family
  • Religion
  • Health and Medicine

• Social Change
  • Collective Behavior
  • Social Movements

• Famous Sociologists
  • Émile Durkheim (Wikipedia article)
  • Karl Marx (Wikipedia article)
  • Georg Simmel (Wikipedia article)
  • Thorstein Veblen (Wikipedia article)
  • Charles Horton Cooley (Wikipedia article)
  • George Herbert Mead (Wikipedia article)
  • Talcott Parsons (Wikipedia article)
  • Harold Garfinkel (Wikipedia article)
  • Max Weber (Wikipedia article)
  • Pierre Bourdieu (Wikipedia article)

Print Version

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Instructor Resources

• Noted Contributors
• Course Adoptions (if you adopt this text for your course, please make a note of it on this page)
• Introduction to Sociology Resources This will take you to a .zip file that contains my lecture notes, class handouts, syllabus, and final for the course I just taught using this text. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via my talk. --Rcragun 18:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• Sociology Internet Library has material for students, teachers, and professionals.
• Statistics Internet Library has material for students, teachers, and professionals.

Future Chapters

1. Education
2. Organizational Behavior
3. Social psychology (belongs in Social Life section)
4. Nation and Civilization
5. Social change
6. Influence and Interaction
7. Emergent norms
8. Human Ecology and Urbanization (belongs in Social Change section)
9. Sexuality (Wikipedia article) (belongs in Social Life section)
10. Aging (Wikipedia article) (belongs in Social Life section)
11. The Economy (Wikipedia article) (belongs in Institutions section)
12. Politics and Government (Wikipedia article) (belongs in Institutions section)
13. Media (Wikipedia article) (belongs in Institutions section)
14. Everyday life