Difference Between Sociology And Common Sense

Sociology is often thought of as a common-sense explanation of society, however there is a vast difference between sociological thinking of society and common sense thinking of society. The definition of sociology is ‘the study of the development, structure and functioning of human society’, therefore to think sociologically would mean to look in detail about different aspects of human society, looking beneath the surface to form theories and judgements. The oxford definition of common sense is ‘good sense and sound judgement in practical matters’ common sense thinking of society would therefore look at society as a whole, making judgements based on its face value, giving a limited understanding.

One of the big questions to ask when thinking these questions render the evident a puzzle and may defamiliarize the familiar’ (Bauman & May 2001). In order to be able to think sociologically we have to defamiliarize what we know, or what we perceive to be true, then by looking at the answers to sociological questions we could have a completely different understanding of that topic. You couldn’t do this if you were to use common sense. For example, if you were to use common sense to look at the teenager you would look at their regular behaviour and may draw the conclusion that they are loud, drink a lot and are lazy. Whereas if you were to think about the teenager sociologically you would learn about the construction of the teenager and that the term was only created in the 1950’s due to the emergence of media. Therefore, common sense thinking differs drastically from sociological as it very much what you see is what you get, and sociological thinking looks at the historical content and the effects that it has on

In some cases, sociological findings aren’t always revolutionary and do appear consistent with common sense thoughts (Sociology and Common Sense, n.d.). For example, social class and political views, common sense would suggest that those of a higher social class would vote for left wing political parties as their manifestos would benefit them the most, whereas the working class are more likely to vote for right wing political parties as their manifest favours them, sociological thinkers have researched this theory many time and have reached the same conclusion as common-sense thinkers. Therefore, in a case like this there is no difference between common sense thinking and sociological