Sociology: Understanding our Society and Culture

Name: Sociology: Understanding our Society and Culture
Rating: 4.6 (290 reviews)

Learn about a range of topics and social issues. Understand human nature and society.

Highest Rated

Created byProficient Courses

Last updated 2/2025

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What you'll learn

Understand the social forces that shape our behavior.
Explore the impact of our social environment on us.
Learn about the primary social institutions, such as family, government and economic system.
Deep dives into our behavior when we are part of a group.
Understand social groups and their role.
Understand yourself better and your actions.
Understand social status and class.
Explore urban and rural communities and how each impacts us.
Better understand the social world.
And much more!

Course content

6 sections • 18 lectures • 1h 45m total length

How does our social environment affect us?5:24
Humans have an inborn capacity to learn due to hereditary features, enabling language and complex behaviors. Social environment shapes the expression of gifts, as shown by experiments with raised chimpanzees.
Social environment
What is culture and how it influences us?3:53
Explore how culture, a rich social environment of learning, language, beliefs, and arts, shapes our skills, emotions, and personality beyond the natural environment.
Culture
What is the role of the social group?4:36
Explore how social groups transmit culture, shape personality, and enforce norms through social processes that vary by context.
Social group

What are the origins of our culture?5:27
Trace how culture arises from learned behavior and social transmission, from instinct and heredity to imitation, language, and collective learning that shape our diverse human society.
Origins of culture
Is our culture biologically determined?4:21
Biology influences culture but does not determine it; culture shapes the family's social organization. Learning and discipline modify impulses; customs and mores regulate behavior and shift over time.
Culture and biology

Why do we form groups?6:26
Explore how group life shapes human experience, from dependence on others to the formation of primary groups like family and friends, versus impersonal secondary groups.
Group life
Do we alter our behavior when we are part of a group?6:07
Explore how belonging to a group shapes behavior through social pressure and conformity, from group loyalty to adopting majority opinions, with informal and formal social control mechanisms.
Behavior in groups
What is status and how is it determined?4:36
Explore how social status positions individuals within groups, and how roles flow from status, including ascribed versus achieved status and the process of social differentiation across groups.
Social status
What is social class?5:42
Explore how social class determines status and life chances within a stratified society, and compare open and closed classes and the role of social mobility.
Social class

How is society organized?5:31
Explore how social institutions organize collective behavior to satisfy basic human needs, from family and religion to state and economic institutions.
Institutions
What are the origins of our economic institutions?6:25
Explore how economics and culture shape exchange, production, and distribution from food gathering to agriculture. Trace the origins of private property, division of labor, specialization, trade, and money.
Economic institutions
How was capitalism developed & what are its implications?6:48
Trace capitalism from feudal protection to modern corporations, detailing capital, production, and management, and examine its benefits, labor relations, unemployment, inequality, and regulatory responses.
Capitalism
What constitutes a family and how was it developed?5:49
Understand how early hunting cultures shaped family life, from nuclear and extended households to monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry, and how agricultural economies transformed affection and functions.
Family origins
What are the characteristics of modern families?6:47
Modern families
What are the origins of government & which are its functions?5:35
Explore the origins of government from tribes to the state through crisis, conquest, and competition, and examine its functions, welfare, justice, defense, and economic and social regulation, in democracies.
Government

Requirements

Willingness to enrich your knowledge.

Description

Have you ever wondered how social forces shape us and our culture?

Sociology can help us figure out how these forces operate, and the effect they have on our lives. The quest to understand society is urgent and important, because our welfare is tied up with what happens to it.

By understanding them we can make better decisions for our own and for our organizations.

At the same time sociology helps us not only better understand the world around us, but also sheds light on how our social environment influences the way we think, feel and act. Thus we will be better equipped to make connections between social events and their consequences on our everyday lives.

This knowledge in turn enables us to effectively influence others and improve the way we interact with others in groups. The deep understanding of group behavior can greatly enhance our social skills.

In this sociology course we will explore a wide range of topics and issues that are prevalent in our society.

Sociology may be a great aid to an understanding of social problems because of its interest in the broad basic aspects of social life.

While sociology is concerned with the general study of society, it deals also, practically and intensively, with a selected number of social problems.

Some of the social problems that sociologists study pertain to the family, government and economic organization.

Becoming aware of these issues will help you become a more informed citizen.

Apart from that we will learn how groups operate, how culture changes, and how culture affects personality.

Studying sociology is imperative, because it allows you to gain a better understanding of human nature and society.

So enroll now and let’s get started!

Who this course is for:

Anyone interested in sociology.

Sociology: Understanding our Society and Culture

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction to Sociology3 lectures • 14min

Culture2 lectures • 10min

Collective Behavior4 lectures • 23min

Communities1 lecture • 7min

Social Institutions6 lectures • 37min

Conclusion2 lectures • 16min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: