SOCIOLOGY OF WORK

(SCLW 101)

LECTURES 2 : SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION AND

WORK PERSPECTIVES
BT MAKANISHE
DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
2022
CONTENT

• What is sociology?
• Sociological imagination
• What is work?
• Theoretical perspectives
WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?

• Sociology
• Is a science (study) of human activity in society
• Studies any topic that relates to human interaction and activity
• Studies social forces that affect social relations (what people do with and to one another)

• Think of yourself (as an individual) and the different social environments you have been
exposed to (e.g. family, school, church, market/shop, rural vs township and urban areas, etc.
• How has each or some of these social environments affected you?
• How have you affected other people in these environments?
• How have your life been if you were not exposed to a given social environments?

• Sociology helps develop a sociological imagination to answer these questions and gain
broader understanding of the multidimensionality of social phenomena.
 SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION?

• Sociological Imagination refers to

• a quality of mind that allows people to see how remote and impersonal social forces shapes (change) their
life story (biography), how they think and do things.
• remote and impersonal social forces are those which were not created by the individuals that they affect (e.g.
we are all studying but we were not there when schools were created).

• Peter Berger (an American Sociologist) equates sociologists with curious observers walking the streets of
a large city, fascinated with what they cannot see taking place behind the building walls with the
sociological imagination. Their wish to look inside and learn more beyond the architectural taste of the
builders is similar to the sociological perspective.
• This module offers the sociological perspective of work. It applies the sociological imagination to look
into what is happening in the world of work, to explore levels of reality that dig below the surface.
• To achieve this, as sociologists, we consider key concepts including Social Facts, Social Consciousness,
Troubles and Issues (Mills)
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION? CONT.…

• Social facts (Emile Durkheim)

• refer to ideas, feelings, and ways of behaving that exist outside an individual's
consciousness
• are social realities imposed on individuals by their society, community, family. (e.g. going
to church, schooling, banking, using a cellphone, etc.).
• are reinforced through socialisation and re-socialisation processes. Individuals can hardly
resist or oppose social facts because this may render their lives miserable (e.g. what will
happen if I decided not speak English anymore and stick to my mother tongue?)
• include currents of opinions: state of affairs regarding some ways of being “reflected in
rates summarizing various behavours”, e.g. marriage, crime, suicide, etc. which both
reflect and influence the thinking and behavious of other people who live in the society.
 SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION? CONT.…

• Social consciousness (Berger)

• Can be defined as awareness of social facts (e.g. marriage, education, etc.)
• For example, there is the popular assumption that people marry because of love as a powerful, irresistible emotion
that strikes at Random (blindly). However, a careful investigation indicate that marriage is driven by the
characteristics of the people who marry (e.g. sex, age, height, income, education, language, tribe, race religion, etc.).
Once a couple decide to marry what follows has been already laid out for them based on their culture, customs and
religious practices, which is drastically neglected can prevent the marriage from taking place. Yet, such step/traditions
were not invented by neither of the marriage mates .
• Guardians to ensure that the couple observe such traditions include the couple’s friends, family, elders, traditional
leaders, clergy, jewelers, florists, caterers, musicians, wedding planners.
• The guardians do not have to force the couple to follow such traditions because the couple had already built them in
their projection of what their marriage will look like – they want precisely what society expects of them.
• Sociology offers theories, concepts and methods to look beyond popular meanings and explanation of what is
happening around us. For example, Sociological Imagination allows us to dig below the surface and debunk or
challenge popular assumptions.

•
 SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION? CONT.…

• Troubles and Issues (Mills)

• Troubles refer to social and personal needs, problems or difficulties that can be explained as individual
shortcomings related to motivation, attitude, ability, character or judgement which can be resolved by changing the
individual in some ways (e.g. one or two people are unemployed when everybody else is working, there must be
something wrong with the person/s)
• Issues refers to matters that can be explained only by factors outside an individual’s control and immediate
environment (e.g. about 20 million out of 60 million are unemployed in a country, there must be a problem with the
country)
• Mills argued that most people do not have the quality of mind (Sociological imagination) that enables them to be
aware of the interplay between self/biography and world/social forces pressuring them to think and behave in a
particular in a world where information dominates people’s attention and overwhelms their capacity to make sense
of all they hear, see, and read everyday (i.e. the forces that shape their daily lives).
• The many people cannot see how their personal situations relate to the larger social forces and do not recognise
how their gains and success connect to the losses and failure of others. Lk
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION CONT…

• Exercise: Obesity as a social fact

• Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BINK6r1Wy78
• Provide a sociological understanding of obesity
• Identify the social facts, consciousness, troubles and issues

• Apply the same logic (sociological imagination) to any other social

phenomenon
WHAT IS WORK?

• In general terms, work refers to any productive activity offered, conducted or delivered by an
individual on a paid or unpaid, contractual, voluntary or forced basis (Ferrante et al., 2016)
• In other words: work is “carrying out of tasks, which involves the expenditure of mental and
physical effort, and its objective is the production of goods and services that cater to human
needs” (Crossman, 2019)
• Sociologically, the concept of work is predominantly associated paid employment.
• When work is done for a regular wage or salary on a full-time or part-time contract basis, it is
called a employment, job, or occupation
• The total work progression of a person’s professional life, which may include the many different
jobs s/he has done over the years, defines that person’s career (E.g. one may have a career in
education comprising different job positions held in different institutions)
 WHAT IS WORK? CONT. …

• Paid employment is vital because it allows us to cover the cost of living, food, clothing, utility
bills, mortgages and loans, cost of transportation, school fees, etc. among all social classes (rich
and poor) and societies (modern and traditional).
• Historically, work was initially not motivated by monetary incentive. It was done in exchange
for anything depending on the need of the individual (e.g. food, clothing, shelter, etc.) rather
than money. Work influenced by social obligation to kin (e.g. Case of Trobriand Islanders by
Malinowski, 1948). It was done for subsistence and leisure purposes – spend time on productive
activities and halted as soon as the minimum necessary activity has been reached (among
Hunters and Gatherers)
• Today, the survival-of-fittest nature of the cash economy entails that the ability to maintain a
job (paid work) is a significant part of our life (Ferrante et al. 2016).
• Cash is needed to cover the cost of basic living, including food, clothing, utility bills (water,
electricity, telephone, internet), mortgages and loans, school fees, transport, healthcare, etc.
 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

The Sociological Perspective of Work

• The study of work, industry and economic institutions is a major part of sociology
because the economy influences all other parts of society and therefore social
reproduction in general. All societies whether hunter-gatherers, pastoralists,
agriculturalists, or industrialists are centred around an economic system that
affects all parts of society, including personal identities and daily activities.
• Classical sociological theorists, including Marx, Durkheim, and Weber considered
the analysis of modern work to be central to the study of sociology
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES CONT…

• Carl Marx was the first sociologist to assess the conditions of work in factories during the
industrial revolution. He was focused on the transition of work from independent craftwork
to working for a boss in a factory which resulted in the alienation and diskilling of workers.
• Durkheim studied how norms, customs and traditions helped societies to achieve stability
as work and industries changed during the industrial revolution.
• Sociologists focus on both the macro and micro aspects of work.
• At the macro-level, they focus on occupational structures, the US and the glob al
economies, and how changes in technology lead to changes in demographics.
• At the micro-level, they study the demands that the workplace and occupations place on
workers’ sense of self and identity as well as the influence of work on families.
 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES CONT . …

The Neo-Human Relations School

• reflects what can be considered in understanding the behavior, motivation and treatment of employees based on
Herzberg’s Two factor theory and McGregor’s X-Y Theory.
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory
• Argues that employees are not just workers, they are humans too and that a happy worker is a productive worker
• The theory focuses on hygiene (external) factor and motivation (internal) factor and their influence on the
performance of employees
• Hygiene factors refer to conditions in the workplace, material reward, high salary, good safety, job security offer
strong motivation for employees to remain in the workplace
• Herzberg argued that employers should motivate employees by enforcing a democratic approach to management and
enhancing the nature and content of the actual job through certain methods, e.g. autonomy, job enlargement (a
variety of tasks are rendered more interesting and not necessarily more difficult) job enrichment (employees tasked
with a wider range of more complex, interesting, and challenging tasks surrounding a complete unit of the
organization's work)
 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES CONT. …

McGregor’s X-Y Theory

• Focus on organizational development which improves organizational culture
• Theory X argues that workers naturally dislike work and try to avoid their responsibilities if given the
opportunity
• Therefore, the theory supports the authoritarian management of employees, that workers must be directed and
punished to bring about better performance

• Theory Y counter argues that workers are active agents who enjoy working to achieve self-actualization
• Hence, the theory promotes a participative management style employees to pursuit organisational objectives in line
with their personal goals as they seek to achieve self-actualisation.
• View trust rather than coercion as a way to enforce responsible behaviours among workers
• A sense of trust and responsibility is a strong motivator because workers it creates a sense of belonging in important
matters associated with the company.
• This participatory approach is important because it allows workers who have first-hand experience on shop floor with
faults and problems that occur, Their insights can assist managers to rectify the problems. For E.g. BMW saved
millions by considering workers’ suggestions.