Differences Between Common Sense And Sociological Sense

Bauman (1990) wrote that there are both similarities and differences between common sense and sociological sense. Common sense refers to a collective understanding of how we perceive the world, it’s held by most people in society and often doesn’t consider the deeper explanations that things may have. Sociological sense refers to when these simple things are explained further and expanded on using knowledge and theories. Bauman (1990:2) stated that we need to think further. People see the world in a way that they are taught to and people seldom look further into this.

In this extract, Bauman questions the practices of many different scholarly systems and he uses these systems as a way to portray the differences between common sense and sociological

However, other social sciences such as anthropology study practices within societies either from the past or very distant from our own society. Bauman (1990:4) states that unless we are actively trying to seek a deeper meaning to common sense it will remain an ‘obvious’ meaning. One similarity between common and sociological sense is that both exist in an attempt to give structure to the society in which we live in. However, sociological sense seeks to give a deeper and less obvious meaning. Another difference between common and sociological understanding is that sociological understanding relies on facts derived from research whereas common sense relies on ideas held by collective society. Unlike many other scholarly subjects – ‘sociological discourse is wide open’ (Bauman 1990:11). When talking about subjects like physics and biology, a certain type of discourse is required whereas, within sociology, the discourse is the same as

The first one is responsible speech. By using this, sociologists are able to remain unbias and credible. Responsible speech involves sociologists not being biased towards the research they are doing and remaining balanced and open to criticism. By using responsible speech, sociologists are able to clearly describe and explain the information they’re talking about. This makes their point come across in a way that can be understood by many people rather than a few who know the jargon associated with the subject. Bauman (1990:12) detailed that when responsible speech is used that the ‘trustworthiness, reliability and … practical usefulness of the ensuing propositions will be greatly enhanced’. The next difference between common sense and sociological sense is that sociologists put more effort into increasing the size of the field. As Bauman (1990:12) states in his extract, for non-professionals, size of field is limited to our own lifeworld. There is rarely an effort made to increase the size of the field when thinking about our experiences. This may be due to lack of time and resources or plainly because a person doesn’t see the benefit in increasing the size of the field. However, sociologists like to do this as it gives an insight into other societies and how they interact. It gives research more information as there is more than one outcome to be looked at. Bauman (1990:13) argues in his extract