A Sociological View of Community

In the small town where I come from in Pennsylvania everyone knows every one. My teachers in eighth and ninth grade taught a majority of my family and often asked how my mother and her siblings were doing. My teachers in the fifth and sixth grade were even friends with my parents and they often came to the house for a drink on the weekends or to simply talk. Walking down the street in my hometown could almost be considered awkward, I don't know many of the people personally but I know their names and they know me. I even knew the local street lady who I am certain may know me as well, Barb is the only homeless person in the whole town.

Ferdinand Tonnies called places like my hometown a Gemeinschaft community, the word which is German translates to 'intimate community' (Henslin 91). The opposite of this type of community is considered a Gesellschaft community which is less personal and could be considered they type of community that Atlanta it is where impossible to know everyone and you care less about the ties that you have with other people (Henslin 91). Inside of each of these communities there are two levels of sociological thinking, micro and macro.

Macrosociology is how a person's social class affects other social classes and how each of these groups are related (Henslin 80). In macrosociology sociologists look at social structures to see how people interact through culture, social class, social status, and look at what roles and groups a person plays or belongs to. Sociologists also look at what type of society a person belongs to weather it be a simple hunting and gathering society or a postindustrial society, even the more modern bioeconomic society (Henslin 87).

Microsociology on the other hand concerns small groups of people and how they interact with each other; a prime example would be how Barb talks to her close friends and family (Henslin 80). Microsociology also looks at how people communicate when face to face whereas macrosociology simply looks as how people indirectly affect each other. This type of sociology concerns how people look at stereotypes, how a person presents themselves and personal space. For example a South American may like to be closer to a person they don't know when speaking to them while someone from North America would like to maintain at the least eighteen inches from a stranger that they are speaking with (Henslin95).

In sum people can affect others either directly or indirectly through macro or microsociology, and throughout the years society has changed from small but simple groups of people in to larger, less personal, high tech societies. Either way during our everyday lives people experience both forms of sociological thinking just by buying groceries or chatting with friends and each are very important for truly understanding human sociology.

This chapter clearly explained the two ways that sociologists explore and investigate sociology and it was very interesting to learn how different groups and societies affect each other everyday. However, I have one disagreement with the book, which is concerned the example that the book used to o a Gemeinschaft community, the book used a picture of a bar in Munich (a very large city similar to Atlanta that is the capital of the state of Bayern in Germany). This bar is called the Haufsbrau Haus, and is an attraction to many national and international tourists alike, and therefore it is an invalid example of a Gemeinschaft community; mainly because it is located in downtown Munich a city very similar to big American cities (definitely not a village) where people don't know everyone and where many have broken strong personal and family ties associated with a Gemeinschaft community.

Bibliography

Henslin, James M. Essentials of Sociology With Additional Readings. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2006.