Sociological Theory That Reflects My Worldview

Sociologist/ Sociological Theory that Reflects My Worldview

The Sociologist that reflects my worldview the most is Emile Durkheim. He is one of the founders of modern sociology. His Rules of the Sociological Method gave sociology its own subject matter. His research interests ranged from religion, division of labor, suicide, as well as sociological theory. His theory about suicide interested me the most because a lot of people commit suicide today and the golden question still remains: why? Durkheim’s main argument was that suicide is not an individual act, as was previously thought by leading scientists of his time. His theory was that suicide was a social fact that was tied to social structures (Jones 1986). He defined suicide as a social

At first I was not sure how to relate sociology to nursing until I realized that many patients come from a wide variety of different types of social classes, which affects how they view the healthcare system. Poorer patients tend to be more noncompliant, harder to teach, and more prone to attitude problems. But, the lower-class patient might not have reliable transportation to and from appointments, which affects them being able to follow up with appointments. They might be functionally illiterate and cannot comprehend the educational pamphlets that healthcare workers give them. They might not be able to afford the nutritious foods for their prescribed diabetic diet because of the price differences in the healthy foods and the junk foods. Whereas, the patient from the middle class can afford transportation, healthy meals, understand what is being taught to them through the pamphlets, and take ownership of their care with much more ease than some of the patients who fall in the lower class. It is imperative that healthcare workers understand that people are individuals while at the same time can be part of a group inside a group. Understanding a patients' cultural and ethnic background is important and never forgetting that everyone is different. Sociology helps people in the healthcare field to recognize common traits among certain groups of people but also teaches to never stereotype. As I go through my future nursing classes I am

Economic trends, such as inflation or recession, and political decisions, such as giving national resources to defense or reducing health care spending, affect my family and me. The sociological perspective holds that a person can best understand their personal experiences and problems by examining their broader social context, by looking at the big picture. The social world overwhelms each of us from the moment of our birth until the day we die. Throughout our lives, each of us is part of a set of social relationships that provide guidelines for how we interact with others and how we see ourselves. This does not mean that human behavior is strictly determined by our links to the social world; humans are more than mere puppets whose behavior is programmed by social structure. It does mean, however, that influence between the individual and the larger social world is reciprocal. We are influenced by and we have influence on our social environment. The social world is a human creation, and we can and do change that which we create. It acts upon us, and we act upon it. In this sense, social units are not static but are constantly emerging and changing in the course of human interaction. The difficulty for most of us is that we are so caught up in our daily concerns that we fail to see and understand the social forces that are at work in our personal environments. The concepts, theories, methods, and levels of analysis