Introduction into Sociology

Students will become familiar with sociology as a multiparadigm science, the history of sociological thought, and with the most significant personalities of the world and Czech sociology and the sociology of basic categories. The course is intended to provide an overview of sociological knowledge.

The knowledge gained can be used to explore the social environment, the analysis of social phenomena and processes taking place in society even when dealing with ordinary people.

Topics: 1.The subject, structure and function of sociology 2. Basic sociological concepts (social experience, soc. phenomena, processes, relationships, the social nature of man). 3. The development of sociological thought from the 4th decade of the 19 century to the 2nd decade of this century. – The period of “big theory” and the sociological classics, the 1950s of the 20th century and “big research”, or “new theory” after the 2nd World War, contemporary world sociology. 4. The development of Czech sociology. 5. Nature and Society (their relationship, the stages of its development, the concept of environment, environmental problems). 6. Culture (the many layered sociological concept of culture, structure and function of culture, mass culture). 7. Fundamentals of individual and communal life, socialization and personality, social position and social roles, ritualisation negotiations. 8. The group structure of the society. 9. The social structure of society. 10. Institutions, organizations, bureaucracy. 11. Social changes and the idea of progress. 12. Issues of ethnic and national relations.

CALHOUN, C., LIGHT, D., KELLER, S. Sociology. New. York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.
SCHAEFER, R. T., LAM, R. P. Sociology. New. York: McGraw–Hill, 1995.