What do we mean when we say thinking sociologically? In order to think sociologically you must first understand the term sociology. Allan Johnson in his text talks about how he came across sociology and how he practices it in his daily life. He later adds that he practices sociology in many ways, practicing it when he thinks about how social life works, when he writes books, when he works with people who are trying to see what's going on in the world and their lives in it. We are always participating in something larger than ourselves, and if we want to understand social life and what happens to people in it, we need to understand what we are participating in and how we participate in it. Sociology ends up meaning pretty much whatever you want it to mean, which comes close to meaning nothing. Simply put, sociology is the systematic study of the development, structure, and functioning of institutions, culture, and relationships at the group level. Social life, social change, social causes, and consequences of human behavior are studied to better understand human societies. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To think sociologically we must have a sociological perspective. What do we mean by having a sociological perspective? The sociological perspective essentially means avoiding explaining things based on individual or biological explanations or blaming society outright. For example; if you write about poverty or crime, don't try to explain crime on the basis of criminal psychology, or don't explain that hormones make men more prone to crime than women, etc. These are individual and biological ways to explain, instead talk about how things valued in society are difficult to obtain, for example money, and people commit illicit acts to obtain it. Both Allan Johnson and Beteille Andre in their respective texts bring out the concept of "suicide" of the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim and he gave a brilliant demonstration of the superiority of his approach over that of common sense through his study on suicide. If we ask why people kill themselves, we are likely to think first about how they feel when they do it: hopeless, depressed, guilty, alone, or, in the case of soldiers and suicide bombers, bound by honor, duty, loyalty. . , or religious belief to sacrifice oneself for someone else or for what they identify as a greater social good. This might explain suicides taken one at a time, but what do we get when we add up all the suicides that happen in a society in a given year? What does that number tell us and, above all, what? This was the question posed by one of the founders of sociology, Emile Durkheim. He tirelessly argued that systematic investigation of a topic was not possible unless the researcher freed himself from his preconceptions about it. These preconceptions, generally formed by limited experience, were not only often incorrect but also prevented the examination of available and relevant facts. His thesis was that suicide was a social fact whose forms and patterns could not be explained by the known facts of human psychology. Although observing the psychological process in individuals can explain why a person commits suicide, this cannot explain the patterns of suicide found in the social system. Sociologically, a suicide rate is a number that describes something about a group or society, not individuals. who are part of it. Individuals may feel depressed or lonely, but groups and societies cannot feel anything. Durkheimsystematically pursued the distinction between incidence and rate of suicide and assembled a large amount of data to demonstrate that suicide rates varied systematically between societies and between religious, professional, and other groups within the same group.society. His study seemed to discover that there are social causes behind what common sense might lead one to believe was an extremely private or individual act. One of Durkheim's most important findings was that suicide rates increase significantly not only after an economic crash but also after an economic boom. . The point is that when he had an important idea that seemed to go against common sense, he decided, as a sociologist, to test that idea by systematically assembling a large set of data and applying concepts and methods to the data that might even be useful. be applied to other areas of life in other parts of the world. To develop sociological thinking we need to understand the concept behind it in two contexts. In Allan Johnson's text, he explains that "the individualistic model does not work", that we must develop a sociological perspective and thinking. We must first understand what is meant by an individualistic model? An individualistic model is that model that encourages us to think that if enough individuals change, systems will change too, but a sociological perspective shows why change is not so simple. An individualistic model is misleading because it encourages us to explain human behavior and experience from such a narrow perspective that it misses what is happening. Even an individualistic model does not work because personal solutions arise mainly from a sense of our personal needs. He later adds that, as an individual, he may not feel or act racist, and in his heart he may even hate racism, but this goes beyond the fundamental sociological point that he is involved in one way or another by virtue of of his participation in the company itself. He talks about how sociology makes him aware that he is involved in something bigger than himself, sociological practice frees him from personal guilt and blame for a world that he did not create and which is not his fault. At the same time, it makes him aware of how he chooses to participate in the world and how and why those choices matter. He has no reason to feel guilty simply because he is white and that the creation of racism was not his doing, but he also cannot afford the luxury of thinking that racism and white privilege have nothing to do with him. When we say that we are always participating in something bigger than ourselves, it is important to remember that we are not a homogeneous term. There are multiple “uss” in social life, and an important part of sociological practice is to see how the presence of multiple “uss” influences what happens. Beteille Andre in his text emphasizes the point that the sociological perspective is different from common sense. Common sense is not only localized but also bound by time, place, class, community, gender, and so on. It is also unreflective because it does not question its own origins and assumptions, or at least it does not do so deliberately and methodically. It goes without saying that no sociologist can completely isolate his academic work from the assumptions of his common sense. Our sociology is influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the common sense that is part of our social environment, but to what extent is this common sense in turn influenced by sociology? Common sense is based on a limited range of experiences of particular people in particular places and times. When it comes to matters such as family, marriage, kinship, work and worship, the..25