SOCIOLOGY

1

When the XX century began most families shared one characteristic: the wife didn't work outside the home. If a wife worked it meant that her husband was not able to support a family. By contrast to the beginning of the century, in the 1990s over 70 % of women were in the work force. The transformation was quick. The major reason for that was the World War II – when most women just had to start working. They became electricians, machinists, carpenters, as well as lawyers, engineers, physicians and proved that they could do this sort of work not worse than men. Today work for married women is accepted and commonplace. Most women have to combine family and work outside the home. On the way to work they look through the daily papers, go through any correspondence and plan the day. At work they make decisions about appointments and organize meetings, have business lunches, negotiate deals. At home women pick kids up from school, keep the house clean, cook dinners and take care of the family. Weekends are sacred and reserved for family, but occasionally something comes up which they just can't avoid, and they have to work.

2 Telephone Talks

In this age of the Internet, e-mail and electronic communication, the telephone continues to be one of the most important business tools. Ninety per cent of all sales enquiries begin on the telephone, so from the start, it is vital to project a company image which is friendly and professional. At the same time, poor and ineffective telephone behaviour can cost millions of dollars in terms of lost sales opportunities. For example, in the insurance business, failure to answer a call promptly and respond efficiently could result in a valuable policy going straight to the competition. The average telephonist can answer as many as 300,000 calls in a year, so in many companies, this is a vital role.
Although good receptionists have a certain amount of natural ability, companies need to train staff in specific skills of telephone use: transferring a call, placing a call on hold, dealing with angry callers, answering correspondence by phone, using a caller’s name and taking messages correctly. Callers should not hear informal expressions. Surveys show that customers want a prompt response from a real person who can make decision, and so answering systems will often be a false economy.
More business is lost through poor service than by poor product performance, and the quality of a firm's response to a call is one of the chief factors in creating a perception of good or bad service.

3 Company History

The Japanese company, Nintendo, is the world leader in interactive entertainment systems. Nintendo has sold more than one billion video games worldwide, including Nintendo 64 and GameBoy, the world's best-selling video game. The history of Nintendo goes back to 1902, when the great grandfather of the present day president, manufactured the first playing cards in Japan. He founded an unlimited partnership, Yamauchi Nintendo & Company. Later the company changed its name to Nintendo Co. Ltd., and started to manufacture games in addition to playing cards.
In 1970 Nintendo reconstructed and enlarged its corporate headquarters, and introduced electronic technology into its products. A key year in the company's history was 1980, when Nintendo established a subsidiary in the USA, Nintendo of America, Inc. Five years passed before it started sales in the States of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which reached number one selling toy status in just two years.
The most significant event in Nintendo's recent history was in 1989 when it introduced the first portable hand-held game system with interchangeable game packs, GameBoy. It was a tremendous success. When Nintendo launched Nintendo 64 in Japan they sold more than 500,000 units on the first day. Two years later it released Pokemon, a breakthrough game concept for GameBoy which generated a worldwide craze and became an international social phenomenon. The company constantly introduces improvements and additional features to its products.

4 Business Correspondence

These days business correspondence consists mainly of sending e-mails rather than letters and faxes. It's easy to write an e-mail. You type it onto a computer screen, hit a button and off it goes. But the speed of the process is a problem. It doesn't encourage us to think much about what we write. As a result, e-mail messages are often grammatically incorrect, disorganised and full of spelling and typing errors. Badly-expressed ideas are more difficult to read.
The object of modern business communication is to be fast and efficient. Think about ways to help the reader process the information as quickly as possible. Space is not limited in an e-mail, so you can use extra line breaks to separate text into paragraphs. This makes the message easier to read. Aim for short simple sentences, and use a standard font in a size which is not too small and not too big. One frequent feature of e-mail is that writers use a cheerful, informal tone. In many cases this is inappropriate, even in an internal e-mail. The tone used needs to be businesslike, but not too abrupt.
Remember that an offending message can stay on file for years. The reader can easily re-distribute e-mails which reflect badly on the writer and the company represented. It may be just another message, but when you put something down in black and white, be careful what you say and how you say it.

5 Hotels

The hotel industry is becoming more and more globalised. International chains are encircling the world, taking over local operators. Size is becoming more important as customer expectations rise. Travellers get off long-haul flights and receive a carefully prepared welcome. Receptionists offer refreshments suitable for the time zone which guests have just come from. International business travellers want Internet connections, widescreen televisions and push-button blinds in every room. They want faxes delivered to their rooms at all hours of the night. This means employing more staff than most operators can afford.
Between a third and half of hotels' revenue comes from food and drink, but these only contribute 20 to 30 % of profit. The real profits come from the rooms, so for most operators the principle objective is to improve occupancy. However, there are limits to the internationalisation of European hotels.
It's much simpler to build hotels in the US than in Europe because there is so much space in the US. If you want a hotel, you can just build it. In Europe there are fewer opportunities for construction, so there are more conversions. Converted buildings aren't as easy to adapt to the US chain model as new buildings because the rooms are different shapes and sizes, so the standard 'template' doesn't work.
It is difficult to turn a seventeenth century castle into a Holiday Inn, so some independent operators still prosper. That is bad news for the ideal guest of a multinational chain. He likes to wake up anywhere in the world in the knowledge that the bathroom is on the left, the blinds are blue and the phone is on the wall, six and a half inches above the bedside table.

6 Dealing With a Major Problem

Companies sometimes face major problems. For example, Cristal Malvern faced the problem of fire. Cristal Malvern is an established brand which has become popular due to its original TV ads. The fire completely destroyed the factory and offices of the mineral water company. It was a tragedy for the local community as Cristal Malvern is one of the area's main employers.
They were unable to start production for a very long time. The company was unable to continue its commercial activity during the period of reconstruction, because of the nature of product. They couldn't just move to another location, because this is where the water comes from.
The major concern for top management was the workforce. They tried to protect as many jobs as possible, but according to the adjustment plan some jobs were redundant. About 10 % of the workforce was made redundant. The majority of the remaining employees agreed to be temporarily laid off, until the new production facilities were built.

7 Starting Business

Michael Welch left school at 16 and started work in a garage as a car-tyre fitter. He quickly learnt about the car-tyre business and decided to set up his own mail- order company. He advertised in motoring magazines and sold high-performance specialist tyres. He knew very little about running a business so he took a college course to study aspects like financial management. His next step was to get a job with the tyre company Kwikfit where he got some experience. His company, Blackcircles.com, allows customers to order tyres on the Internet and get them fitted within a day. Its low-cost, speedy service has proved to be a success. Welch started in an office with a single desk which he rescued from a rubbish bin.
These days, Blackcircles.com is a thriving business and the company has built up a network of 970 franchise outlets. The company has set up a central call centre which phones every single customer to get feedback on the service. Recently the company has launched a specific web-based service for customers with fleets of cars and has added motorbike tyres to its range of over 20,000 tyres.

8 The Problem Of Stress

Stress is not an illness or a negative condition. A certain amount of pressure brings out the best in our work. In the initial stages of stress there is a sensation of excitement and increased mental concentration.
However, too much stress is negative. It is bad for the individual. It is also bad for the employing organisation. In the UK, for example, stress-related illness is the cause of half of lost working days.
The negative impact of stress is linked to heart disease, alcoholism, nervous breakdowns, job dissatisfaction, certain forms of cancer, migraines, asthma, hay fever, insomnia, depression, eczema and many other medical and social problems. Many surveys confirm that the root cause of work-related stress is bad management and overwork. Too much pressure, long hours and poor communication are the main factors. Reports and studies have identified the principal cause of stress as 'new management techniques' designed to 'improve performance'. Policies such as 'performance-related pay' increase stress and demotivate a work force.
Many legal and medical experts advise companies to consider the costs and legal implications of stress-related illness. They emphasise the benefits of reducing stress as better health, reduced sickness absence, increased performance and output, better relationships with clients and colleagues, lower staff turnover. Managers should learn to motivate but not exhaust employees. There is a balance between obtaining maximum efficiency, and a worker's need to rest and recuperate their creative energies.

9 Headhunters

Headhunters originally referred to primitive tribes who cut off their enemies' heads as battle trophies.
In the context of the business world headhunter is a person or company who searches for good staff and tries to persuade them to leave jobs and go to work for another company.
They adopt the practice of tempting top executives to move jobs by promising them a better salary or a better position. They act on behalf of a client who is looking for someone to fill a vacant post. Headhunters discreetly contact suitably qualified people who may be interested in moving jobs and applying for this post.

10 Staff Appraisal

Appraisal is an interview between a manager and an employer, which allows the manager to judge how well the employee is doing their job. Companies often introduce twice-yearly formal appraisals. Their aim is to ensure that employees' work match the goals of the business.
Appraisal is based on each employee's job description and uses a scoring system. Each objective is rated on a scale of one to four and both managers and employees fill in the form.
The process is formal. Employees are invited to their appraisals in writing, and they get a copy of the appraisal form to fill in before the interview. The completed form is then discussed during the appraisal itself. There is an emphasis on feedback.
After the appraisal, team leaders write a report of the discussion and put action points and timescales against each item before giving a copy to the employee. A system where staff can express their views and have issues and problems addressed is good for motivation. It's also good to have a formal way of telling people when they've done a good job.
Appraisal is often a key motivator for staff.

11 Air Travel

Business trips are an inevitable part of most jobs. A lot of trips are arranged by means of plane, because it’s fast and safe. There are certain recommendations useful for those who want to minimize any discomfort during the flight.
Book as early as possible – within three weeks of the flight. With an early booking you can choose the seat you want. However, if you book months in advance, you'll be too early for a seat assignment. If you use a travel agent, make sure they have a record of your seating preferences – aisle or window.
The price of your ticket may be different from that of your neighbour’s. Nowadays all airlines have pricing departments which adjust the price of tickets in order to get the maximum possible profit for each seat on the flight. Ticket prices vary according to supply and demand and depend on how full the flight is, and when you make your reservation.
Airlines justify these variable pricing policies on the extremely narrow profit margins of the business. To illustrate this, EasyJet use a graphic which shows the seating plan of a plane with 155 seats. They need to sell 39 of these seats to cover airport costs. 37 seats go in fuel costs and 15 to pay the pilots and crew. That leaves just 9 seats for profit.
Passenger pay extra charge for the wheelchair that the plane is obliged to carry, for insurance against the risk of terrorism. If your luggage is over the allowed weight, they will charge you extra fee for 'excess baggage'. At the same time you can't claim a refund if a flight is delayed, but if you're five minutes late for check-in, they won't let you through and you'll miss your flight.
Nevertheless, you should be polite. According to new rules of many air companies, if a passenger is rude to ground staff or crew, he will be denied from boarding. And in case he is involved in serious accidents, he will get a life-time ban.

12 Applying For a Job

When you're job-hunting you can use the help of employment agencies or study job ads in press.
There are state and private agencies. State employment agencies don't receive fees for finding jobs for people. Private employment agencies receive a fee. State agencies usually deal with non-skilled positions. They see applicants without an appointment and they can spend just a few minutes with each applicant. Private agencies mainly deal with high-salaried jobs. A counselor spends a lot of time with each applicant and he (or she) may be able to see only a few applicants a day. You can also study the ads of job opportunities published in newspapers and magazines. Carefully read the demands of the given position. The demand to know a foreign language is very important.
Job-hunters are usually given the following advice. As many people as possible should know that you're a job-hunter. You shouldn’t avoid contacts which might be useful in finding a job. Stress where possible your responsible attitude and ability to mix with any people. Send your applications to as many companies as possible. Stress your qualification for the vacancy. Describe the experience you've gained which makes you the right person for the position. If you follow the advice and think more about the future than the past, you are sure to get the job of your life.

13 Time Management

People are dependent on time. One company decided to make an experiment to find out how clockless environment affects productivity and workflow. They took away all the clocks at their headquarters and told everybody to carry on working as usual. In the result they found out that most employees worked under pressure, because they didn’t know how long they should stay in the office. They were happy when the experiment was over.
Time is like money, people and equipment. It's a limited resource. Time management is about making the best possible use of it. There are three fundamental steps of time management. The first step is to analyse how you use your time now. Break your day into half hour periods and cut everything that isn't necessary.
Take a look at the necessary tasks. If someone else can do them, delegate the work. Other people may not perform the task as well as you. But without experience they'll never learn.
The next step is to prioritize. Take the tasks which require your attention and put them in order of priority – which are the most important, which are urgent needs. Lastly, organize your time and your tasks. Set realistic deadlines. The right amount of pressure brings speed and high performance, but on the other hand, too much pressure means things can go wrong.
When possible, organize your work so as to have large blocks of time for top priority tasks like problem analysis and forward planning. Discover the time of day when you are at your best and assign the most difficult tasks to it.

15 Office Gossip

Workplace relations have changed over the years. These days there's less opportunity to gossip and socialize, because many companies have abolished some useful institutions which allowed for social interaction, like, for example, tea trolleys.
In fact it is a revolution in human resources. Talking about things not connected to work is now seen as bad and as wasting time. There are even theories about removing chairs from meeting rooms. They say that meetings will be more efficient and finish quickly. And perhaps in the long term, with these drives for efficiency, companies will make false economies.
The difference between a good job and a bad job are human, emotional elements. In other words, happy employees are productive employees. People enjoy the social aspects of work, the personal interaction with colleagues. In some ways gossip, is the glue that holds the organization together. Providing communal space such as coffee areas or lunch rooms allows employees to share information and build relationships that benefit both the company and the employees.
But gossip shouldn’t be encouraged. It is obviously a question of balance. Gossip doesn't make company more efficient, but neither does no gossip. I think company managers should remember this when trying to improve efficiency and bring down costs.

16 E-Commerce

Commerce is changing with society. New services are constantly introduced into the market. One of the recent tendencies is electronic commerce. For a while, companies believed that consumers wanted convenience more than the best price. Catalogue shopping works on this principle, but it makes up only two per cent of the economy.
Consumers really want things to be simple, easy and fast. They want to be entertained when they shop. They want the best service and great prices. The Internet and e-commerce can provide all of this.
High definition graphics and video will be part of the everyday online shopping experience. Today the biggest obstacle to the Net is the keyboard. But voice recognition will make it obsolete. The consumer will access the network from anywhere – from home, the car; or perhaps even from a pair of glasses.
People will be able to virtually shop and interact with their friends without leaving home. Artificial intelligence will put a virtual shop assistant at the service of every online shopper. She will suggest colours, sizes and other features that match the shopper's preferences. These will be stored on the company's computers.
The consumer will say, what he wants to buy in a certain range of money. The network will take that request, along with any other historical preferences the consumer has - such as size, style and fabric. It will assemble a range of options at different prices from a variety of stores. All in the consumer's exact size. Then the consumer will be able to virtually try on the different sweaters using a 3D model of herself stored in the computer. And that is real e-commerce.

17 E-Work

The Internet and other new technologies have changed the way we work. One big telecommunications company tried to persuade its employees to work from home. They believed that if the staff used computers, fax machines, mobile phones and the Internet, they would maintain the same levels of productivity as when they work in the office. In their talks with the unions, the company argued that the plan will make it possible to save on expensive city centre rents, demonstrate the effectiveness of telecommunication equipment, reduce investment in office improvements, improve the quality of life for workers.
Those employees who have already had experience in working from home have different ideas of the problem. They have mentioned that there is a lot of good in working from home. For example, you don't have to work with obsolete office computers, or sit in traffic jams. Also, you can save on such things like transport, smart clothes or lunch. They have also paid attention to the fact that the flexibility is great, because you can work at five in the morning or on a Sunday afternoon.
At the same time, there are certain drawbacks in working from home. First of all, there is no getting away from the family. You don’t get a chance to escape and meet new people. It can be difficult to get down to work because you have to be very self-disciplined.
At last, if you have a technical problem, you're on your own. There's no IT expert to call on.

18 Business-Ethics

What Is Ethics? Ethics is a set of rules that define right and wrong conduct. These ethical rules tell us when our behavior is acceptable and when it is disapproved. Ethics deals
with fundamental human relationships. Ethical rules are guides to moral behavior. For example, all societies have ethical rules forbidding lying, stealing, deceiving, and harming others. They also have ethical rules that approve of honesty, keeping promises, helping others, and respecting the rights of others. Such basic rules of behavior are thought to be essential for the preservation and continuation of organized life.
What Is Business Ethics? Business ethics is not a special set of ethical rules different from ethics in general and applicable only to business. Business ethics is the application of general ethical rules to business behavior. If protecting others from harm is considered to be ethical, then a business firm that recalls a defective and dangerous product is acting in an ethical way. For example, the banks that allowed laundered money to flow through their accounts not only broke the law but protected criminals who harmed society. When business firms or people in business violate the rules that define right and wrong behavior, they are acting unethically, and they also may be acting illegally.
Ethics and Etiquette. There is some difference between business ethics and etiquette. Etiquette means rules for formal relations or polite social behavior among people in a society or a profession. Being a manager you should stick to the following rules in your everyday activities.

1. Do not order, ask and be polite.
2. Remember that people work with you, not for you. They like to be treated as associates, not slaves.
3. Keep your promises, both important and less important promises.
4. Criticize, if you must, only in private – and do it objectively. Never criticize anyone in public or in anger.
5. You should say “Good morning” when you come in and “Please” and “Thank you” at every opportunity.

19 Advertising

Advertising is a kind of message transmission that is designed to promote a product, promote a service, or promote an idea. Advertising influences us in every way from the products that we buy to the way that we think about issue. Advertising reaches us in many ways. It comes in so many forms, in printed form – in newspapers and magazines; and audiovisual – over the radio, on television. Advertisements bombard us with their messages in all of these media. No one can fully escape their effect. What are the functions of advertisements? The first one is to inform. Many of the information people have about household devices, cars, building materials, electronic equipment, cosmetics, detergents and food is largely derived from the advertisements they read. Advertisements introduce them to new products or remind them of the existing ones. The second function is to sell. The products are shown from the best point of view and the potential buyer, on having entered the store, chooses the advertised products. The aim of a good advertisement is to create a consumer demand to buy the advertised product or service. The third function of advertising is to make mass media cheaper. The public advertising seen on street boardings, railway stations and buildings makes peoples life more joyful. Moreover, all those small ads in the press help ordinary people to find a better job or a better employee, to sell or to buy their second-hand things and find services, or learn about educational facilities, social events. Advertising has to do two things in order to be successful.
First, the advertisement must be interesting enough to attract the customer's attention.
Second advertising must be convincing: it must give clear reasons for the customer to buy the advertising product. This is achieved by using a variety of techniques. The first technique is the use of slogans. A slogan is a short phrase that an advertiser uses over and over in its ads. Slogans are usually short and easy to remember. The second technique is testimonial. Testimonials are advertisements that have people sometimes famous, sometimes no to tell us that they use and like a certain product. Most people are influenced by what others say. And the last technique is repetition that is running an ad again and again. Repetition is important for ensuring that an ad will be remembered.
Advertising is a serious business, and that certain techniques in advertising are used to convince people to buy certain products, services, and ideas.

20 Freelance Work

A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. Fields where freelancing is common include: journalism, publishing, writing, filmmaking, cosmetics, fragrances, editing, event planning, copy editing, copywriting, computer programming, web design and graphic design, website development, consulting, tour guiding, and translating.
Freelancers may charge by the day, hour, or page or on a per-project basis. Instead of a flat rate or fee, some freelancers have adopted a value-based pricing method based on the perceived value of the results to the client. By custom, payment arrangements may be upfront, percentage upfront, or upon completion. For more complex projects, a contract may set a payment schedule based on milestones or outcomes. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, approximately 10.3 million workers in the US (7.4 % of the US workforce) are independent contractors. In the past three years, companies have increased their outsourcing by 22 % on the internet.
The Internet has opened up many freelance opportunities, expanded available markets, and has contributed to service sector growth in many economies. Offshore outsourcing, Online outsourcing and crowd sourcing are heavily reliant on the Internet to provide economical access to remote workers, and frequently leverage technology to manage workflow to and from the employer. Much of the computer freelance work is being outsourced to poorer countries outside the United States and Europe. This has spurred conflict because American and European workers are not receiving the benefits. The compromise has led to student freelancers who now provide a steady source of cheap labor while keeping jobs American and European.
The major drawback is the uncertainty of work and thus income, and lack of company benefits such as a pension, health insurance, paid holidays and bonuses. Many freelancers, especially in journalism, regard themselves as having greater income security through the diversity of outlets – the loss of any one of which leads to the loss of only a portion of income, rather than its totality as with salaried employees.
Freelancers often must handle contracts, legal issues, accounting, marketing, and other business functions by themselves. If they do choose to pay for professional services, they can sometimes turn into significant out-of-pocket expenses. Working hours can extend beyond the standard working day and working week. According to the latest investigations India leads rather confidently being the largest source of freelancers over the world. Then United States follow India, having been pressed by Russia.
The third place is divided between Russia and Philippines. Then there are Ukraine, Pakistan; on last place is  Argentina. The matter is that Indians, Pakistanis and especially Filipinos frequently work at the low prices. In a case with Filipinos business reaches 50 cents per hour. It makes $20 a week and, roughly speaking, $80 a month.
More than 12.000 freelancers work on the average for 5$/hour! Almost 23.000 – for 10$/hour, hardly more than 14.000 – for 15$/hour. For 30$/hour works all order of 3.000 freelancers. In the USA average hourly rate is the best. The lowest rate is in the Third World countries, Russia is among them in this list. It is important to note that being a freelancer is not suitable to all people. Being a freelancer requires discipline and self-motivation along with other easier to acquire skills. If the freelancer works at home they are prone to additional stresses that if not managed properly, could prevent them from earning an income at their profession.

21 Sociology And the Internet

The internet has created a new and interesting concept of sociology and how applied sociology can be used which wasn’t quite perceptible to begin with. When the internet was first conceived it was seen as more of a tool for research and learning. And it has been just that, greatly so for the field of sociology.
One of the most widely used methods of applied sociology is observation (наблюдение). It is a quick, effective way to gather information about the behavior of a particular society, including those of the internet. Because you won’t be physically gathering behavior cues it is key to concentrate on what is being said and how it is delivered. This is what is known as content analysis in applied sociology. You should have a good idea of the type of community to expect if you know the subject or topic that’s at the core of a website.
The purpose for the internet community (сообщество) will also direct the behavior of its members greatly. Was the community formed as a purely social network or one for education, building business relations, politics, sharing do it yourself projects? If you’re unsure, the applied sociology method of archival research could help you dig up when the internet community began, what its original mission was, past forum discussions and more.
The internet has changed how we communicate in general. There are functions for filtering content, for excluding foul language and even to block a person from communicating all together. We are learning to communicate within new confines as well as societies with few boundaries. As we’ve become more comfortable with these changes in communication they’ve begun stretching beyond the computer into the real world.
Sociologists are just now gaining the ability to measure how communication through the internet alters the way we communicate in person. The lack of physical interaction and anonymity of communicating online had become a growing concern. This is especially true for the younger generation who has never known life without these internet communities and new ways of communicating.

22 Fairness and Inequality

In most societies there are certain broadly shared beliefs about what is socially just and unjust, what is fair and unfair. Here is the basic problem: we observe some empirical case of social inequality – some people are better off than others or their lives are more fulfilling than others or they are healthier than others. These are observations. And we ask: is the observed inequality just or fair? Does the inequality violate some principle of justice? Now, some inequalities are simply cases of bad luck – one person gets hit by lightening, another does not.
There is a dramatic inequality in their fates. And there is a sense, of course, in which one could say (as kids do): that’s not fair; the person who got hit by lightning “didn’t deserve it.” Such expressions reflect a deep moral intuition that most people have: people should get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
This is why when someone gets struck by lightning we say “that’s so unfair, they didn’t deserve that.” When we talk about a social injustice – not just the unfairness of bad luck – what we mean is that there is an inequality which is unfair and which could be remedied if our social institutions were different. Something could in principle be done about it. When we say that it was a social injustice for African-Americans to be denied admission to all-white universities before the end of racial segregation in America what we mean is that it was not just “bad luck” to be born black and thus denied admission, but that this grossly unfair inequality in educational opportunity could have been remedied by a change in social institutions. This does not mean, of course, that it was politically possible to remedy that injustice in the 1920s or 1930s. Racial segregation was always a profound social injustice, as was slavery before it, but the social forces supporting segregation were so powerful and cohesive that until the 1950s and 1960s they were able to successfully repress struggles against segregation and maintain those institutions. The claim that an inequality is unjust, therefore, can be seen as an indictment of the way in which existing configurations of power block the social changes needed to reduce or eliminate the inequality in question.

23 What is Sociological Theory?

Why do people commit suicide? One traditional commonsense answer is that people inherit the desire to kill themselves. Another view is that sunspots drive people to take their own lives.
Sociologists are not particularly interested in why any one individual commits suicide; they are more concerned with why people in general take their own lives. In order to undertake such research, sociologists develop theories that offer a general explanation of some type of behavior.
In sociology a theory is a statement or a series of statements that uses concepts to explain problems, actions or behavior. An effective theory will have both explanatory and predictive power. That is, it will help us to develop a broad and integrated view of seemingly isolated phenomena and to understand how one type of change in an environment leads to others.
An essential task in building a sociological theory is to examine the relationship between bits of data, gathered through research, that may seem completely unrelated. For example, in researching the problem of suicide sociologists are primarily concerned not with the personalities of individual suicide victims, but rather with suicide rates and how they vary from country to country. And their research suggests that suicide, while a solitary act, is related to group life. They have developed a theory to explain how individual behavior can be understood within a social context. Their theory has predictive power, since it suggests that suicide rates will rise or fall in conjunction with certain social and economic changes.
Yet, theories can also be distinguished by levels of analysis. There are two of them. Macrosociology concentrates on large-scale phenomena or entire civilization. Thus, the above described cross-cultural study of suicide rates is an example of macrosociology.
By contrast, microsociology stresses study of small groups and often uses experimental studies in laboratories. Sociologists find it useful to employ both of these approaches. In fact, we can learn a great deal by using macro-level and micro-level analysis to study the same problem. For example, we might try to understand criminal behavior at the macroscopic level by analyzing crime rates in various countries and at the microscopic level by examining the social forces that influence individuals to become criminals or delinquents.

24 Family

The family as a social institution is present in all cultures. A family can be defined as a set of persons related by blood, marriage (or some agreed-upon relationship) or adoption who share the primary responsibility for reproduction and caring for members of society.
In human society the family has traditionally been viewed in very narrow terms as a married couple and their unmarried children living together. However, this is but one type of family, what sociologists refer to as a nuclear family upon which larger family groups are built. But only a certain part of households will fit this model. A family in which relatives other than parents and children – such as grandparents, aunts and uncles live in the same home is known as an extended family. While not common, such living arrangements do exist. The structure of the extended family offers certain advantages. Crises, such as death, divorce, and illness involve less strain for family members, since there are more individuals who can provide assistance and emotional support. In addition, the extended family constitutes a larger economic unit than the nuclear family. If the family is engaged in a common enterprise, for example, running a farm or a small business the additional family members may represent the difference between prosperity and failure.
In considering these differing family types, we have limited ourselves to the term of marriage which is called monogamy. The term monogamy describes a form of marriage in which one woman and one man are married only to each other. Some observers, noting a high rate of divorce in modern society, have suggested a more accurate term "serial monogamy" under which a person is allowed to have several spouses in his or her life but can have only one spouse at a time.
Some cultures allow an individual to have several husbands or wives simultaneously. This form of marriage is known as polygamy. You may be surprised to learn that most societies throughout the world, past and present, have exhibited a preference for polygamy, not monogamy. Polygamy cultures devalue the social worth of women. It is helpful to examine the functions the family fulfills. There are six of them:

1. Reproduction. For a society to maintain itself, it must replace dying members.
2. Protection. Human infants need constant care, economic security, upbringing.
3. Socialization. Parents and other kin monitor a child's behavior and transmit the norms, values and language of a culture to the child.
4. Regulation of sexual behavior. Standards of sexual behavior are most clearly defined within the family circle.
5. Affection and companionship. The family is obliged to serve the emotional needs of its members. We expect our relatives to understand us, to care for us, and to be there with us when we need them.
6. Providing of social status. We inherit a social position because of the family background and reputation of our parents. Moreover, the family resources affect our ability to pursue certain opportunities such as higher education and specialized lessons.