{"id":21,"date":"2016-04-16T00:52:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T00:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontosociology-waymaker\/?post_type=chapter&p=21"},"modified":"2016-06-30T19:23:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T19:23:14","slug":"why-it-matters-add-image-condense","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-intro-to-sociology\/chapter\/why-it-matters-add-image-condense\/","title":{"raw":"Why It Matters: Sociological Foundations","rendered":"Why It Matters: Sociological Foundations"},"content":{"raw":"

Why define sociology and explain how empirical research is used to study the social world?<\/h2>\r\n
Everything\u2013and I mean everything\u2013would be lost if the cops saw me. I was sitting at a table by myself in the back of a heavy metal bar I had visited off and on for the past year and a half. About a third of the faces in the\u00a0crowd were now familiar to me, and I nodded affirmatively\u00a0to acknowledge\u00a0the presence of acquaintances. The\u00a0place was packed, dark, and sweaty. Long-haired leather-clad men and women broke sweat moving feverishly to the deafening wall of sound produced by the live band on stage.\r\n\r\nHowever, my sense of calm and comfort suddenly turned to\u00a0mortification when I\u00a0noticed the faces of two uniformed police officers\u00a0in the\u00a0dim light of the long bar\u00a0off to my left. They had\u00a0just\u00a0arrived to case the joint, and\u00a0I had a lot at stake in staying out of sight. For the next forty minutes I hid under tables, crouched\u00a0on the dance floor, and in bathroom stalls as the officers methodically scoped out every inch of that club. More than once, those I knew figured out something was up and assisted me\u00a0by standing in between myself\u00a0and the panoptical gaze of the officers. When they finally left, others smiled at me knowingly as I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only had I dodged the officers, but my actions had increased my street-cred among the regulars.\r\n\r\nI\u00a0was in the club that night because, as a sociologist, I was conducting a long-term participant observation study of the heavy metal scene. Of all the nights in all the bars in a city exceeding one million people, my then-brother-in-law and his partner, both beat cops, decided to unknowingly case the very place in which\u00a0I was making some observations. I had already been approached at least a half dozen times that evening by regulars asking if I wanted\u00a0to buy drugs of various sorts. I rejected their offers, but I knew that\u00a0exchanging pleasantries with an officer of the law would have immediately pegged me as a\u00a0narc\u00a0(undercover narcotics officer). Not only would have this\u00a0destroyed my credibility in that particular bar but\u00a0the entire city scene, which would have\u00a0prematurely ended\u00a0my research project. I was indeed fortunate to have avoided contact with the police.<\/blockquote>\r\n\"GraphicWelcome to the exciting (and sometimes dangerous!) world of sociology. Sociologists study society and social interactions, and in order to do so, they sometimes go to\u00a0extreme measures to do\u00a0research that will provide insightful and valuable results. They\u00a0go beyond common sense understandings in trying to explain or understand social phenomena. Sociologists\u00a0do not see the world as we normally do, they question and analyze why things happen and if there is a way to stop a problem before it happens.\r\n\r\nIn this module, you'll examine some of these research methods after we first establish a foundational understanding of what sociology is and how it came to be. In addition, you'll learn about the main theoretical perspectives central to the study of society and see how sociology can be applied in the real world.\r\n\r\nYou'll come to find that sociology is pertinent to every aspect of your life. You may see yourself\u00a0as an individual, but by virtue of your\u00a0gender, race, class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or even consumption habits, you are\u00a0also a member of several social groups, all of which are interacting constantly.\r\n\r\nDo you want to relate to people in both your personal and professional life? Do you want to understand the impacts of the structures of society on the individual as well as how the individual acts on the structure of society?\u00a0These are the types of things you will examine\u00a0in this course.\r\n\r\nDid you know that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Robin Williams, and First Lady Michelle Obama were all sociology majors? Chances are good that\u00a0you'll find the the subject fascinating, too!<\/span>\r\n

LEARNING OUTCOMES<\/span><\/h2>\r\n