What is Sociology?
Sociology is the extensive study of the human social relationships and the institutions. The science which focusses on the patterns of social relationships, society and human social behaviour, social interaction and the various aspects associated with the culture of everyday life is thus included in the subject of sociology. The subject of sociology includes the diverse matter of family to state, crime to religion, social class division and race, shared beliefs of a culture and the social stability or radical changes witnessed in societies. The sociology subject aims at comprehending the consciousness and human actions shaping and being shaped by the social and cultural structures (Kanungo, 2021). Sociology is considered as the analysis of the evidence considering the social life and the key social processes involved in the society. The global level of sociology includes the study of population growth, war, migration, peace as well as economic development. The examination of the dynamics of the constituents of the communities, institutions, populations, racial, gender and age groups constitutes the sociology. The social changes, social stratification, social movements and the societal disorder in the form of revolutions, deviance and crime constitutes sociology. Since the social life of humans controls the behaviour of humans, it is important to understand the impact of the social institutions and the organisations on the actions and the decisions of humans. The effect of the organisation on the behaviour of the humans, the establishment of the impact and the decay of the same is studies via sociology (Stepnisky 2018). The institutions which impact human behaviour are classified as general institutions for instance as religious, economic, political and educational institutions and specialised institutions including peer groups, families, social clubs and the volunteer associations.
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What are Types of Sociology?
There are various types of sociology including rural sociology, urban sociology, and sociology of religion, sociology of economy, historical sociology, theoretical sociology and sociology of knowledge. However the three main perspectives by which sociology is classified includes the functionalist perspective, the symbolic interactionist perspective and the conflict perspective. The four theoretical perspective of sociology includes feminism, structural-functional, symbolic interaction and social conflict. However, the branches of sociology include the theoretical sociology (under which are functional sociology, macro and micro sociology, conflict and interaction), historical sociology, criminology sociology, knowledge sociology, economy sociology, religion sociology, demography sociology, political sociology, education sociology, family sociology and industrial sociology (Mills and Tropf 2020).
Historical Development of Sociology
The historical development of sociology began from the Western tradition of rational inquiry which was established originally by the ancient Greeks. Sociology is considered as the ward of 18th to 19th century philosophy and is considered as an impact of political science, economics, folklore and speculative philosophy. The term sociology was coined by the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Sociology became a separate and specialised discipline much later as the founders spent years trying to search for the proper direction of the new discipline. The highly divergent pathways were analysed while some of them were driven bur the contents and methods which are borrowed from the sciences (Caforio and Hong 2018). The development of the sociology discipline has thus been divided into four time periods including late 19th century to Word War I, then came the interwar consolidation, growth from the years 1945 to 1975 and finally the subsequent period of segmentation. The earliest development of the sociology discipline is based on the Darwinian evolutionary theory. The sociologists finally considered the economic theory in thee geographic, psychological and the cultural theory in the order as presented. The economic determinism as well as the human ecology in the domain of sociology was later considered along with the social psychology. The cultural theory as well as the early functionalism involved in the sociological perspectives in early days were also responsible for the shaping of this discipline (McCormack et al. 2018).
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What is sociological Imagination?
The term sociological imagination is utilised by sociologists to identify the social reality which places the individual experiences within a broader historical or social context. The term was coined by C. Wright Mills in his book The Sociological Imagination. The concepts or individual and the society is included in the term and a better or deeper understanding of the incidences being influenced or impacting a broader social context. The personal challenges of an individual and their interacting with the larger social context is what constitutes the sociological imagination (Kanungo 2021). The term troubles was identified as personal challenges and the term issues as social challenges by Mills. The individuals who are able to identify the relationship between these issues and challenges are said to possess sociological imagination.
What is Sociology Methods and Tips?
Sociology is studied through mainly five methods or methodology which include surveys, ethnography, experiments, participant observations, secondary data analysis and unobtrusive observations. The historical method of study, field observation method and the statistical method are identified as the three main sociology methods, each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. The utilisation of the existing resources and performing individual surveys are generally combined for a better understanding of the sociological events or events of interest (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2019). The philosophical method, comparative method, deductive method are thus identified as some of the significant sociology methods of study.
What Does a Sociologist Do?
Sociologists emphasise the collection and analysis of the evidence about the social life which is required to understand the key processes of social behaviour and impact off the same. Sociologists use a variety of research methods which are to be included in the analysis of the results obtained. Sociologists are responsible for observing the everyday lives of groups and conduct surveys in large scales. The analysis of census data and interpretation of historical documents are also part of the functions of sociologists. The research methods, as well as theories of the sociology discipline, consists of the powerful insights necessary for the understanding of the social processes and the social prospects as well as problems which are affecting the human behaviour (Jenkins 2018). The outcomes of these factors in the lives of humans is better understood through these processes. Thus sociologists use a variety of methodologies and analytical skills to identify the relationships between sociological events.
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References
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L.J., 2019. Epilogue: on the possibility of a field of world sociology. In Social theory for a changing society (pp. 373-387). Routledge.
Caforio, G. and Hong, D.S., 2018. Some historical notes. In Handbook of the Sociology of the Military (pp. 9-31). Springer, Cham.
Jenkins, R., 2018. Foundations of sociology: Towards a better understanding of the human world. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Kanungo, D.A., 2021. What is Sociology. Available at SSRN.
McCormack, M., Anderson, E., Jamie, K. and David, M., 2018. Discovering sociology. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Mills, M.C. and Tropf, F.C., 2020. Sociology, genetics, and the coming of age of sociogenomics. Annual Review of Sociology, 46, pp.553-581.
Nichols, L.T., 2022. Editor’s Introduction: Altruism, Theory and the Future of Sociology. The American Sociologist, pp.1-4.
Stepnisky, J., 2018. Types of sociological theory. Core concepts in sociology, 295.
