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Why Study Sociology
What is sociology?
Sociology is the study of human social interaction. Sociologists try to stand back and look at human interaction from a broad perspective. We want to understand how social structures impact our lives. This isn't always easy, because those of us who study sociology are, in effect, studying ourselves. But that is the challenge. We look for similarities in social structures and human interactions across cultures and through time. Sociology studies everything from seemingly individualistic behaviors like body piercing to global social phenomena like the international movement to ban land mines. What kinds of skills can I expect to learn
in sociology courses?
At Lake Superior College, we believe that learning sociology involves doing sociology. For many courses, you will purchase a data disk and learn how to manipulate and interpret data. In other words, you'll learn how to write your own hypotheses, test them, and explain your results. You'll learn how to read and interpret the research published in sociological journals. And you'll do research yourself: you'll conduct content analyses on music lyrics, field research at shopping malls, and interviews with interesting folks. In class, you'll produce concept maps that apply sociology to your own experience and play the eye-opening StarPower and BafaBafa simulations. You'll be able to successfully search the Internet for evidence to test an idea or back up a theory. We'll teach you how to check the accuracy of things you read and hear by using real-life data. We hope you leave each sociology course with an increased understanding of your place in the world around us, and a heightened curiosity about why individuals, groups, communities, and whole societies work the way they do.
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