DAY 60 - Introduction to Sociology

We spent the day on the Introduction to Sociology - here's the complete lecture Sociology - we finished at the point of Hubert Blumer's theory on Symbolic Interactionism.

I used the example of the five dollar bill.  Holding up a real $5 bill and a piece of paper with a happy face and the number 5 on it you all agreed that the two items were pretty much the same - each a piece of paper, each with 5s on it, each with a face.  True the real bill is more colourful, is on higher quality paper and has ink on both sides, but still, very very similar.

Given the choice, all of you would choose to keep the real $5 bill over the fake one BECAUSE of the meaning it has to you.  It has value that is transferable into an item of value from a store, for example.  That is the idea of Symbolic Interactionism - that we react to things based on the meaning they have to us.

Remember, Test next Tuesday!