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Sociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science (with which it is informally synonymous) that uses various methods of empirical investigation^[1][2] and critical analysis^[3] to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Its subject matter ranges from the micro level of face-to-face interaction to the macro level of societies at large.

Sociology is a broad discipline in terms of both methodology and subject matter. Its traditional focuses have included social stratification (class relations), social interaction, religion, secularization, modernity, culture and deviance, and its approaches have included both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. As much of what humans do fits under the category of social structure or social activity, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such as medical, military and penal organizations, the mass media, and even the role of social activity in the creation of scientific knowledge. The range of social scientific methods has also been broadly expanded. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and "postmodern" approaches to the study of society. Conversely, recent decades have seen the rise of new mathematically rigorous approaches, such as social network analysis.

Contents 1 Foundations 1.1 History 1.2 Key figures 1.3 Institutionalizing the academic discipline 1.4 Positivism and anti-positivism 1.5 Functionalism and conflict theory 2 Twentieth-century developments 3 Research methods 3.1 Overview 3.2 Sampling 3.3 Types of method 3.4 Practical applications 4 Epistemology and ontology 5 Scope and topics 5.1 Culture 5.2 Criminality and deviance 5.3 Economics 5.4 Environment 5.5 Education 5.6 Family and childhood 5.7 Gender and sexuality 5.8 Internet 5.9 Knowledge 5.10 Law and punishment 5.11 Media 5.12 Medical sociology 5.13 Military 5.14 Political sociology 5.15 Race and ethnic relations 5.16 Religion 5.17 Scientific knowledge and institutions 5.18 Social psychology 5.19 Stratification 5.20 Urban and rural spaces 5.21 Work 6 Sociology and other academic disciplines 7 See also 7.1 Related theories, methods and fields of inquiry 8 Footnotes 9 Bibliography 10 Further reading 11 External links

[edit] Foundations

[edit] History

Sociological reasoning predates the origin of the term. Social analysis has origins in the common stock of Western knowledge and philosophy, and has been carried out from at least as early as the time of Plato. It may be said that the first sociologist was Ibn Khaldun, a 14th century Arab scholar from North Africa, whose Muqaddimah was the first work to advance social-scientific theories of social cohesion and social conflict.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

The word "sociologie" was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript.^[9] It was later established by Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in 1838.^[10] Comte had earlier used the term "social physics", but that had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet. Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the scientific understanding of the social realm. Writing shortly after the malaise of the French Revolution, he proposed that social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism, an epistemological approach outlined in The Course in Positive Philosophy [1830–1842] and A General View of Positivism [1844]. Comte believed a 'positivist stage' would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, in the progression of human understanding.^[11] Though Comte is often regarded as the "Father of Sociology",^[11] the discipline was formally established by another positivist thinker, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who founded the first European academic department and developed positivism further. Since then, sociological epistemologies, methodologies, and frames of enquiry, have significantly expanded and diverged.

[edit] Key figures

Sociology evolved as an academic response to the challenges of modernity, such as industrialization, urbanization, secularization, and the process of 'rationalization'.^[12] The discipline predominated in continental Europe, with British anthropology generally following on a separate trajectory. By the turn of the 20th century, however, many leading sociologists lived and worked within the Anglo-American world. Classical sociologists and major figures include Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Herbert Spencer, Vilfredo Pareto, Ludwig Gumplowicz, Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Gabriel Tarde, Thorstein Veblen, Georg Simmel, George Herbert Mead, Charles Cooley, Werner Sombart, Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, Moisey Ostrogorsky, Robert Michels, Charlotte Gilman, Antonio Gramsci, Florian Znaniecki, György Lukács, Maurice Halbwachs, Theodor W. Adorno, and Talcott Parsons. Their works interact with economics, jurisprudence, psychology and philosophy, with theories having been appropriated in a variety of academic disciplines.

Latter-20th century and contemporary figures include Louis Althusser, Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman, Simone de Beauvoir, Ulrich Beck, Howard S. Becker, Daniel Bell, Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, Andre Béteille, Herbert Blumer, Pierre Bourdieu, Michael Burawoy, Ernest Burgess, Judith Butler, Manuel Castells, Dieter Claessens, Ralf Dahrendorf, Guy Debord, Terry Eagleton, Michel Foucault, Gilberto Freyre, Steve Fuller, Herbert Gans, Ernest Gellner, Anthony Giddens, Paul Gilroy, Barney Glaser, Erving Goffman, Jürgen Habermas, Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart, Bell Hooks, Luce Irigaray, Fredric Jameson, Julia Kristeva, Bruno Latour, Gerhard Lenski, Seymour Martin Lipset, Niklas Luhmann, Michel Maffesoli, Herbert Marcuse, Marcel Mauss, Robert K. Merton, Ralph Miliband, C. Wright Mills, Antonio Negri, Nicos Poulantzas, John Rex, George Ritzer, Edward Said, Alfred Schütz, Dorothy Smith, Pitirim Sorokin, M.N. Srinivas, Anselm Strauss, John Thompson, Barry Wellman, Edvard Westermarck, and Raymond Williams.

Each key figure is associated with a particular theoretical perspective and orientation. Durkheim, Marx and Weber are typically cited as the three principal founders of sociology; their works may be fittingly attributed to discourses of functionalism, conflict theory and anti-positivism respectively. Simmel and Parsons are occasionally included on academic curricula as "fourth" major figures.

Marx and Engels associated the emergence of modern society above all with the development of capitalism; for Durkheim it was connected in particular with industrialization and the new social division of labour which this brought about; for Weber it had to do with the emergence of a distinctive way of thinking, the rational calculation which he associated with the Protestant Ethic (more or less what Marx and Engels speak of in terms of those 'icy waves of egotistical calculation'). Together the works of these great classical sociologists suggest what Giddens has recently described as 'a multidimensional view of institutions of modernity' and which emphasizes not only capitalism and industrialism as key institutions of modernity, but also 'surveillance' (meaning 'control of information and social supervision') and 'military power' (control of the means of violence in the context of the industrialization of war).

– John Harriss The Second Great Transformation? Capitalism at the End of the Twentieth Century 1992, ^[13]

[edit] Institutionalizing the academic discipline

The discipline was in the United States taught under its own name for the first time in 1890, at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. The course, whose title was Elements of Sociology, was first taught by Frank Blackmar. It is the oldest continuing sociology course in the United States. The Department of History and Sociology at the University of Kansas, the first fully fledged independent university in the United States, was established in 1891.^[14][15] The department of sociology at the University of Chicago was established in 1892 by Albion W. Small, who, in 1895, founded the American Journal of Sociology.^[16]

The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895, at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). The first sociology department to be established in the United Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology) in 1904.^[17] In 1919, a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber, and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki.

International co-operation in sociology began in 1893, when René Worms founded the Institut International de Sociologie, which was later eclipsed by the much larger International Sociological Association (ISA), founded in 1949.^[18] In 1905, the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded, and in 1909 the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (German Society for Sociology) was founded by Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber, among others.

[edit] Positivism and anti-positivism

The methodological approach toward sociology by early theorists was to treat the discipline in broadly the same manner as natural science. An emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method was sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields such as philosophy. This perspective, called positivism, is based on the assumption that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can come only from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific and quantitative methods. Émile Durkheim was a major proponent of theoretically grounded empirical research,^[19] seeking correlations between "social facts" to reveal structural laws. His position was informed by an interest in applying sociological findings in the pursuit of social reform and the negation of social "anomie". Today, scholarly accounts of Durkheim's positivism may be vulnerable to exaggeration and oversimplification: Comte was the only major sociological thinker to postulate that the social realm may be subject to scientific analysis in the same way as noble science, whereas Durkheim acknowledged in greater detail the fundamental epistemological limitations.^[20][21]

Reactions against positivism began when German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel voiced opposition to both empiricism, which he rejected as uncritical, and determinism, which he viewed as overly mechanistic.^[22] Karl Marx's methodology borrowed from Hegel dialecticism but also a rejection of positivism in favour of critical analysis, seeking to supplement the empirical acquisition of "facts" with the elimination of illusions.^[23] He maintained that appearances need to be critiqued rather than simply documented. Marx nonetheless endeavoured to produce a science of society grounded in the economic determinism of historical materialism.^[23] Other philosophers, including Heinrich Rickert and Wilhelm Dilthey, argued that the natural world differs from the social world because of those unique aspects of human society (meanings, signs, and so on) which inform human cultures.

At the turn of the 20th century the first generation of German sociologists formally introduced methodological antipositivism, proposing that research should concentrate on human cultural norms, values, symbols, and social processes viewed from a subjective perspective. Max Weber argued that sociology may be loosely described as a 'science' as it is able to identify causal relationships—especially among ideal types, or hypothetical simplifications of complex social phenomena.^[24] As a nonpositivist, however, one seeks relationships that are not as "ahistorical, invariant, or generalizable"^[25] as those pursued by natural scientists. Ferdinand Tönnies presented Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (lit. community and society) as the two normal types of human association. Tönnies drew a sharp line between the realm of conceptuality and the reality of social action: the first must be treated axiomatically and in a deductive way ('pure' sociology), whereas the second empirically and in an inductive way ('applied' sociology).^[26]

[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent that the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.

– Max Weber The Nature of Social Action 1922, ^[27]

Both Weber and Georg Simmel pioneered the Verstehen (or 'interpretative') approach toward social science; a systematic process in which an outside observer attempts to relate to a particular cultural group, or indigenous people, on their own terms and from their own point-of-view. Through the work of Simmel, in particular, sociology acquired a possible character beyond positivist data-collection or grand, deterministic systems of structural law. Relatively isolated from the sociological academy throughout his lifetime, Simmel presented idiosyncratic analyses of modernity more reminiscent of the phenomenological and existential writers than of Comte or Durkheim, paying particular concern to the forms of, and possibilities for, social individuality.^[28] His sociology engaged in a neo-Kantian critique of the limits of perception, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?'^[29]

The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life. The antagonism represents the most modern form of the conflict which primitive man must carry on with nature for his own bodily existence. The eighteenth century may have called for liberation from all the ties which grew up historically in politics, in religion, in morality and in economics in order to permit the original natural virtue of man, which is equal in everyone, to develop without inhibition; the nineteenth century may have sought to promote, in addition to man's freedom, his individuality (which is connected with the division of labor) and his achievements which make him unique and indispensable but which at the same time make him so much the more dependent on the complementary activity of others; Nietzsche may have seen the relentless struggle of the individual as the prerequisite for his full development, while socialism found the same thing in the suppression of all competition - but in each of these the same fundamental motive was at work, namely the resistance of the individual to being levelled, swallowed up in the social-technological mechanism.

– Georg Simmel The Metropolis of Modern Life 1903, ^[30]

[edit] Functionalism and conflict theory

Structural functionalism is a broad paradigm, both in sociology and anthropology, which addresses the social structure in terms of the necessary function of its constituent elements. A common analogy (popularized by Herbert Spencer) is to regard norms, values and institutions as 'organs' that work toward the proper-functioning of the entire 'body' of society.^[31] The perspective is implicit in the original sociological positivism of Comte, but was theorized in full by Durkheim, again with respect to observable, structural laws. Although functionalism shares an history and theoretical affinity with the empirical method, later functionalists, such as Bronisław Malinowski and Talcott Parsons, are to some extent antipositivist.^[32] Similarly, whilst functionalism shares an affinity with 'grand theory' (e.g. systems theory in the work of Niklas Luhmann), one may distinguish between structural and non-structural conceptions. It is also simplistic to equate the perspective directly with conservative ideology.^[33] In the most basic terms functionalism concerns "the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system."^[32]

To aim for a civilization beyond that made possible by the nexus of the surrounding environment will result in unloosing sickness into the very society we live in. Collective activity cannot be encouraged beyond the point set by the condition of the social organism without undermining health.

– Émile Durkheim The Division of Labor in Society 1883, ^[34]

Conflict theories, by contrast, are perspectives which critique the overarching socio-political system, which emphasize the inequality of a particular social group, or which otherwise detract from structural functionalism and conservatism. Conflict theories draw attention to power differentials, such as class conflict, and generally contrast traditional or historically-dominant ideologies.^[35] The term is most commonly associated with Marxism, but as a reaction to functionalism and the scientific method may be associated with critical theory, feminist theory, queer theory, postmodern theory, post-structural theory, postcolonial theory, and a variety of other perspectives.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

– Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto 1848, ^[36]

[edit] Twentieth-century developments

In the early 20th century, sociology expanded in the U.S., including developments in both macrosociology, concerned with the evolution of societies, and microsociology, concerned with everyday human social interactions. Based on the pragmatic social psychology of George Herbert Mead, Herbert Blumer and, later, the Chicago school, sociologists developed symbolic interactionism.^[37] In the 1930s, Talcott Parsons developed action theory, integrating the study of social order with the structural and voluntaristic aspects of macro and micro factors, while placing the discussion within a higher explanatory context of system theory and cybernetics. In Austria and later the U.S., Alfred Schütz developed social phenomenology, which would later inform social constructionism. During the same period members of the Frankfurt school developed critical theory, integrating the historical materialistic elements of Marxism with the insights of Weber, Freud and Gramsci —in theory, if not always in name— often characterizing capitalist modernity as a move away from the central tenets of enlightenment.

In Europe, particularly during the Interwar period, sociology was undermined by totalitarian governments for reasons of ostensible political control, but also by conservative universities in the West. This was due, in part, to perceptions of the subject as possessing an inherent tendency, through its own aims and remit, toward liberal or left wing thought. Given that the discipline was founded by structural functionalists; concerned with organic cohesion and social solidarity, this view was somewhat groundless (though it was Parsons who had introduced Durkheimian theory to American audiences, and his interpretation has been criticized for a latent conservatism beyond that which was intended).^[38] In the mid-20th century there was a general—but not universal—trend for U.S.-American sociology to be more scientific in nature, due to the prominence at that time of action theory and other system-theoretical approaches.

In the second half of the 20th century, sociological research became increasingly employed as a tool by governments and businesses. Sociologists developed new types of quantitative and qualitative research methods. In 1959 C. Wright Mills presented The Sociological Imagination, encouraging humanistic discourse and a rejection of abstracted empiricism and grand theory. Parallel with the rise of various social movements in the 1960s, particularly in Britain, the cultural turn saw a rise in conflict theories emphasizing social struggle (such as neo-Marxism, second-wave feminism and ethnic relations) which countered functionalist perspectives.^[35] The sociology of religion saw a renaissance in the decade with new debates on secularisation thesis, the interaction of religion with globalization, and the very definition of religious practise. Theorists such as Lenski and Yinger formulated 'functional' definitions of religion; enquiring as to what a religion does rather than what it is in familiar terms. Thus, various new social institutions and movements could be examined for their religious role. Marxist theorists in the tradition of Lukács and Gramsci continued to scrutize consumerism in analogous terms.

In the 1960s and 1970s so-called post-structuralist and postmodernist theory, drawing upon structuralism and the phenomenologists as much as the classical social scientists, made a considerable impact on frames of sociological enquiry. Often understood simply as a cultural style 'after-Modernism' marked by intertextuality, pastiche and irony, sociological analyses of postmodernity have presented a distinct era relating to (1) the dissolution of metanarratives (particularly in the work of Lyotard), and (2) commodity fetishism and the 'mirroring' of identity with consumption in late capitalist society (Debord; Baudrillard; Jameson).^[39] Postmodernism has also been associated with the rejection of enlightenment conceptions of the human subject by thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss and, to a lesser extent, in Louis Althusser's attempt to reconcile Marxism with anti-humanism. Most theorists associated with the movement actively refused the label, preferring to accept postmodernity as a historical phenomenon rather than a method of analysis, if at all. Nevertheless, self-consciously postmodern pieces continue to emerge within the social and political sciences in general. Sociologists working in the Anglo-Saxon world, such as Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman, have tended to focus on theories of globalisation, communication, and agential reflexivity in terms of a 'high phase' of modernity, rather than propose a distinct "new" era per se.

The positivist tradition remains ubiquitous in sociology, particularly in the United States.^[40] The discipline's two most widely cited American journals, the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review, primarily publish research in the positivist tradition, with ASR exhibiting greater diversity (the British Journal of Sociology, on the other hand, publishes primarily non-positivist articles).^[40] The twentieth century saw improvements to the quantitative methodologies employed in sociology. The development of longitudinal studies that follow the same population over the course of years or decades enabled researchers to study long-term phenomena and increased the researchers' ability to infer causality. The increase in the size of data sets produced by the new survey methods was followed by the invention of new statistical techniques for analyzing this data. Analysis of this sort is usually performed with statistical software packages such as SAS, Stata, or SPSS. Social network analysis is an example of a new paradigm in the positivist tradition. The influence of social network analysis is pervasive in many sociological sub fields such as economic sociology (see the work of J. Clyde Mitchell, Harrison White, or Mark Granovetter, for example), organizational behavior, historical sociology, political sociology, or the sociology of education. There is also a minor revival of a more independent, empirical sociology in the spirit of C. Wright Mills, and his studies of the Power Elite in the United States of America, according to Stanley Aronowitz.^[41]

[edit] Research methods

[edit] Overview

Sociological research methods may be divided into two broad categories:

• Quantitative designs attempt to quantify social phenomena and analyse numerical data, focusing on the links among a smaller number of attributes across many cases.

• Qualitative designs emphasise personal experiences and interpretation over quantification, are concerned with understanding the meaning of social phenomena, and focus on links among a larger number of attributes across relatively few cases.

Sociologists are divided into camps of support for particular research techniques. These disputes relate to the historical core of social theory (positivism and antipositivism; structure and agency). While very different in many aspects, both qualitative and quantitative approaches involve a systematic interaction between theory and data.^[42] The choice of method often depends largely on what the researcher intends to investigate. For example, a researcher concerned with drawing a statistical generalization across an entire population may administer a survey questionnaire to a representitive sample population. By contrast, a researcher who seeks full contextual understanding of an individuals' social actions may choose ethnographic participant observation or open-ended interviews. Studies will commonly combine, or 'triangulate', quantitative and qualitative methods as part of a 'multi-strategy' design. For instance, a quantitative study may be performed to gain statistical patterns or a target sample, and then combined with a qualitative interview to determine an agents' own reflexivity.^[42]

[edit] Sampling

Typically a population is very large, making a census or a complete enumeration of all the values in that population infeasible. A 'sample' thus forms a manageable subset of a population. In positivist research, statistics derived from a sample are analysed in order to draw inferences regarding the population as a whole. The process of collecting information from a sample is referred to as 'sampling'. Sampling methods may be either 'random' (random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling, cluster sampling) or non-random/nonprobability (convenience sampling, purposive sampling, snowball sampling).

[edit] Types of method

The following list of research methods is neither exclusive nor exhaustive:

• Archival research or the Historical method: draws upon the secondary data located in historical archives and records, such as biographies, memoirs, journals, and so on.
• Content analysis: The content of interviews and other texts are systematically analysed. Often data is 'coded' as a part of the 'grounded theory' approach using qualitative data analysis (QDA) software, such as NVivo.^[43].
• Experimental research: The researcher isolates a single social process or social phenomena and uses the data to either confirm or construct social theory. Participants (also referred to as "subjects") are randomly assigned to various conditions or "treatments", and then analyzes are made between groups. Randomization allows the researcher to be sure that the treatment is having the effect on group differences and not any extraneous factors.
• Survey research: The researcher produces data using interviews, questionnaires, or similar feedback from a set of people chosen (including random selection) to represent a particular population of interest. Survey items from an interview or questionnaire may be open-ended or closed-ended. Quantitative data may be tested using statistical software such as PASW (SPSS).
• Life history: A study of the personal life experiences and trajectories of a participant. Through semi-structured interviews, the researcher may probe into the decisive moments or various influences in their life.
• Longitudinal study: An extensive examination of a specific person or group over a long period of time.
• Observation: Using data from the senses, the researcher records information about social phenomenon or behavior. Observation techniques can be either participant observation or non-participant observation. In participant observation, the researcher goes into the field (such as a community or a place of work), and participates in the activities of the field for a prolonged period of time in order acquire a deep understanding of it. Data acquired through these techniques may be analyzed either quantitatively or qualitatively.

[edit] Practical applications

Social research informs economists, politicians and public policy, educators, planners, lawmakers, administrators, developers, business magnates, managers, social workers, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations, and people interested in resolving social issues in general. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields.

[edit] Epistemology and ontology

The extent to which the discipline may be characterized as a science remains a salient issue with respect to basic ontological and epistemological questions. Controversies continue to rage on how to emphasize or integrate subjectivity, objectivity, intersubjectivity and practicality in the conduct of theory and research. Though essentially all major theorists since the late 19th century have accepted that sociology is not a science in the traditional sense of the word, the ability to determine causal relationships invokes the same fundamental philosophical discussions held in science meta-theory. Whereas positivism has sometimes met with caricature as a breed of naive empiricism, the word has a rich history of applications stretching from Comte to the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and beyond. By the same token, successful positivism would be open to the same critical rationalist non-justificationism presented by Karl Popper ^[44], which is itself disputed through Thomas Kuhn's conception of epistemic paradigm shift.^[45] In recent years sociologists have frequently engaged with figures such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Richard Rorty, just as social philosophy has often met with social theory. One notable critique of the human sciences is found in Peter Winch's Wittgensteinian text The Idea of Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (1958). The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to a rise in abstracted philosophic and hermeneutic material in sociology, as well as so-called "postmodern" perspectives on the social acquisition of knowledge.^[46]

Structure and agency forms an enduring debate in social theory: "Do social structures determine an individual's behaviour or does human agency?" In this context 'agency' refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and make free choices, whereas 'structure' refers to factors which limit or affect the choices and actions of individuals (such as social class, religion, gender, ethnicity, and so on). Discussions over the primacy of either structure and agency, and the possibility of agential reflexivity, relate to the core of social ontology ("What is the social world made of?", "What is a cause in the social world, and what is an effect?").^[47] One attempt to reconcile postmodern critiques with the overarching project of social science has been the development, particularly in Britain, of critical realism. For critical realists such as Roy Bhaskar, traditional positivism commits an 'epistemic fallacy' by failing to address the ontological conditions which make science possible: that is, structure and agency itself.^[48] A general outcome of incredulity toward overly-structural or agential thought has been the development of multidimensional theories, most notably the Action Theory of Talcott Parsons and Anthony Giddens's Theory of Structuration.

Despite meta-theoretical criticisms of sociological positivism, statistical quantitative methods remain extremely common in practise. Michael Burawoy has contrasted public sociology, emphasising strict practical applications, with academic or professional sociology, which largely concerns dialogue amongst other social/political scientists and philosophers.^[49]

[edit] Scope and topics

[edit] Culture

Cultural sociology involves a critical analysis of the words, artefacts and symbols which interact with forms of social life, whether within subcultures or societies at large. For Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history".^[50] Culture was a prevalent object of historical materialist analysis for members of the Frankfurt School, such as Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin. Loosely-distinct to culture as a general object of sociological enquiry is the discipline of Cultural Studies.^[51] Birmingham School cultural theorists such as Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams emphasized the reciprocity in how mass-produced cultural texts are used, questioning the valorized division between 'producers' and 'consumers' evident in earlier neo-Marxist theory. Cultural Studies aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and their relation to power. For example, a study of a subculture (such as white working class youth in London) would consider the social practices of the youth as they relate to the dominant classes.

[edit] Criminality and deviance

'Deviance' describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms. It is the remit of sociologists to study how these norms are created; how they change over time; and how they are enforced. The sociology of deviance involves a number of theorems that seek to accurately describe trends and patterns that lie within social deviance, to help better understand societal behaviour.

[edit] Economics

Economic sociology is the sociological analysis of economic phenomena; the role economic structures and institutions play upon society, and the influence a society holds over the nature of economic structures and institutions. The relationship between capitalism and modernity is a salient issue. Marx's historical materialism attempted to demonstrate how economic forces have a fundamental influence on the structure of society. Max Weber also, though less deterministically, regarded economic processes as key to social understanding. Georg Simmel, particularly in his Philosophy of Money, was important in the early development of economic sociology, as was Emile Durkheim with works such as The Division of Labour in Society. Economic sociology is often synonymous with socioeconomics. In many cases, however, socioeconomists focus on the social impact of specific economic changes, such as the closing of a factory, market manipulation, the signing of international trade treaties, new natural gas regulation, and so on.

[edit] Environment

Environmental sociology is the study of societal-environmental interactions, typically placing emphasis on the social factors that cause environmental problems, the impacts of those issues, and the efforts to resolve them. Attention is paid to the processes by which environmental conditions become defined and known to a society. (See also: sociology of disaster)

[edit] Education

The sociology of education is the study of how educational institutions determine social structures, experiences, and other outcomes. It is particularly concerned with the schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.^[52]

[edit] Family and childhood

The sociology of the family examines the family unit by means of various theoretical perspectives, particularly with regard to the modern historical emergence of the nuclear family and its distinct gender roles. The family is a popular topic on introductory and pre-university academic curricula.

[edit] Gender and sexuality

Sociological analyses of gender and sexuality observe and critique these categories, particularly with respect to power and inequality, both at the level of small-scale interaction and in terms of the broader social structure. At the historical core of such work is feminist theory and the concern for patriarchy: the systematic oppression of women apparent in many societies. Feminist thought may be divided into three 'waves' relating to (1) the initial democratic Suffrage movement of the late-19th century, (2) the second-wave feminism of the 1960s and the development of increasingly complex academic theory, and (3) the current, 'third wave', which has tended to do-away with all generalizations regarding sex and gender and is closely linked with postmodernism, antihumanism, posthumanism and queer theory. Marxist feminism and black feminism are also important perspectives. Studies of gender and sexuality developed side-by-side with sociology rather than strictly within it. As the great majority of universities do not possess a distinct school dedicated to the area, however, it is most commonly taught from within sociology departments.

[edit] Internet

The Internet is of interest to sociologists in various ways. The Internet can be used as a tool for research (for example, conducting online questionnaires), a discussion platform, and as a research topic. Sociology of the Internet in the broad sense includes analysis of online communities (e.g. newsgroups, social networking sites) and virtual worlds. Organizational change is catalyzed through new media like the Internet, thereby influencing social change at-large. This creates the framework for a transformation from an industrial to an informational society (see Manuel Castells and, in particular his turn of the century account of "The Internet Galaxy"). Online communities can be studied statistically through network analysis and at the same time interpreted qualitatively through virtual ethnography. Social change can be studied through statistical demographics, or through the interpretation of changing messages and symbols in online media studies.

[edit] Knowledge

The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. The term first came into widespread use in the 1920s, when a number of German-speaking theorists, most notably Max Scheler, and Karl Mannheim, wrote extensively on it. With the dominance of functionalism through the middle years of the 20th century, the sociology of knowledge tended to remain on the periphery of mainstream sociological thought. It was largely reinvented and applied much more closely to everyday life in the 1960s, particularly by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality (1966) and is still central for methods dealing with qualitative understanding of human society (compare socially constructed reality). The "archaeological" and "genealogical" studies of Michel Foucault are of considerable contemporary influence.

[edit] Law and punishment

The sociology of law refers to both a sub-discipline of sociology and an approach within the field of legal studies. Sociology of law is a diverse field of study which examines the interaction of law with other aspects of society, such as the effect of legal institutions, doctrines, and practices on other social phenomena and vice versa. Some of its areas of inquiry include the social development of legal institutions, the social construction of legal issues, and the relation of law to social change. Sociology of law also intersects with the fields of jurisprudence, economic analysis of law and more specialized subjects such as criminology.^[53] A law is formal and therefore not the same as a 'norm'. The sociology of deviance, by contrast, examines both formal and informal deviations from normality; both crime and purely cultural forms of deviance. The sociology of punishment examines, without normative or moral judgements, the nature of punitive actions.

[edit] Media

As with cultural studies, media studies is a distinct discipline which owes to the convergence of sociology and other social sciences and humanities, in particular, literary criticism and critical theory. Though the production process or the critique of aesthetic forms is not in the remit of sociologists, analyses of socializing factors, such as ideological effects and audience reception, stem from sociological theory and method. Thus the 'sociology of the media' is not a subdiscipline per se, but the media is a common and often-indespensible topic.

[edit] Medical sociology

Medical sociology examines social interactions within medical organizations and clinical institutions, as well as the social effects of, and public attitudes toward, illnesses, diseases, disabilities and the ageing process. In Britain, sociology was introduced into the medical curriculum following the Goodenough Report (1944).^[54]

[edit] Military

Military sociology aims toward the systematic study of the military as a social group rather than as an organization. It is a highly specialized subfield which examines issues related to service personnel as a distinct group with coerced collective action based on shared interests linked to survival in vocation and combat, with purposes and values that are more defined and narrow than within civil society. Military sociology also concerns civilian-military relations and interactions between other groups or governmental agencies. See also: sociology of terrorism. Topics include:

1. the dominant assumptions held by those in the military,
2. changes in military members' willingness to fight,
3. military unionization,
4. military professionalism,
5. the increased utilization of women,
6. the military industrial-academic complex,
7. the military's dependence on research, and
8. the institutional and organizational structure of military.^[55]

[edit] Political sociology

Political sociology is the study of the relations between state and society.^[56] The discipline uses comparative history to analyze systems of government and economic organization to understand the political climate of societies. By comparing and analyzing history and sociological data, political trends and patterns emerge. Political sociology also concerns the play of power and personality, for instance, the impact of globalization upon identity: "The fragmentation and pluralization of values and life-styles, with the growth of mass media and consumerism and decline of stable occupations and communities, all means that previously taken for granted social identities have become politicized."^[57]

There are four main areas of research focus in contemporary political sociology:

1. The socio-political formation of the modern state.
2. "Who rules"? How social inequality between groups (class, race, gender, etc.) influences politics.
3. How public personalities, social movements and trends outside of the formal institutions of political power affect politics, and
4. Power relationships within and between social groups (e.g. families, workplaces, bureaucracy, media, etc).

[edit] Race and ethnic relations

Race and ethnic relations is the area of sociology that studies the social, political, and economic relations between ethnicities at all levels of society. It encompasses the study of race and racism, and of complex political interactions between members of different groups. At the level of immigration policy, the issue is usually discussed in terms of either assimilationism or multiculturalism. Anti-racism and postcolonialism are also integral concepts. Major theorists include Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, John Rex and Tariq Modood.

[edit] Religion

The sociology of religion concerns the practices, social structures, historical backgrounds, developments, universal themes and roles of religion in society. There is particular emphasis on the recurring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history. Crucially the sociology of religion does not involve an assessment of the truth-claims particular to a religion, though the process of comparing multiple conflicting dogmas may require what Peter L. Berger has described as inherent 'methodological atheism'. Sociologists of religion attempt to explain the effects of society on religion and the effects of religion on society; in other words, their dialectical relationship. It may be said that the discipline of sociology began with the analysis of religion in Durkheim's 1897 study of suicide rates amongst Catholic and Protestant populations.

[edit] Scientific knowledge and institutions

The sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity."^[58] Theorists include Gaston Bachelard, Karl Popper, Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, Martin Kusch, Bruno Latour, Michel Foucault, Anselm Strauss, Lucy Suchman, Sal Restivo, Karin Knorr-Cetina, Randall Collins, Barry Barnes, David Bloor, Harry Collins, and Steve Fuller.

[edit] Social psychology

Social psychology traverses the boundary between sociology and psychology. It typically rejects concerns of the social structure and focuses on micro or agential factors; symbolic interactionism and social exchange theory are common components.

[edit] Stratification

Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into social classes, castes, and divisions within a society. In modern Western societies stratification traditionally relates to cultural and economic classes comprising of three main layers: upper class, middle class, and lower class, but each class may be further subdivided into smaller classes (e.g. occupational).^[59] Social stratification is interpreted in radically different ways within sociology. Proponents of structural functionalism suggest that, since social stratification exists in most state societies, hierarchy must be beneficial in helping to stabilize their existence. Conflict theorists, by contrast, critique the inaccessibility of resources and lack of social mobility in stratified societies. Karl Marx distinguished social classes by their connection to the means of production in the capitalist system: the bourgeoisie own the means, but this includes the proletariat itself as the workers can only sell their own labour power (forming the base of the material superstructure). Other thinkers, such as Max Weber, have critiqued Marxist economic determinism, noting that social stratification is not based purely on economic inequalities, but also on status and power differentials (e.g. patriarchy). Theorists such as Ralf Dahrendorf have noted the tendency toward an enlarged middle-class in modern Western societies, particularly in relation to the necessity of an educated work force in technological or service-based economies. Perspectives concerning globalization, such as dependency theory, suggest this effect owes to the shift of workers to the third world.

[edit] Urban and rural spaces

Urban sociology involves the analysis of social life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline, seeking to study the structures, processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing so providing inputs for planning and policy making. Like most areas of sociology, urban sociologists use statisticial analysis, observation, social theory, interviews, and other methods to study a range of topics, including migration and demographic trends, economics, poverty, race relations, economic trends, and etc. After the industrial revolution theorists such as Georg Simmel in The Metropolis and Mental life (1903) focused on the process of urbanization and the effects it had on social alienation and anonymity. In the 1920s and 1930s The Chicago School produced a major body of works specializing in urban sociology, utilising symbolic interactionism as a method of field research. Rural sociology, by contrast, is a field of sociology associated with the study of social life in non-metropolitan areas.

[edit] Work

The sociology of work examines the actions of people within industry as well as the impact of industrialization on a macro scale. Thus it relates to the core theoretical concerns of the field (modernity, rationalization, and so on). In practice, research in this area focuses on the complex interactions within corporate or government organizations, e.g. boss-subordinate, inter-departmental, management-union, etc.

[edit] Sociology and other academic disciplines

Sociology overlaps with a variety of disciplines that study society; in particular, political science, economics and social philosophy. Many comparatively new social sciences, such as communication studies, critical theory, cultural studies, demography, film studies, media studies, and literary theory, draw upon methods that originated in classical sociology. The distinct field of social psychology emerged from the many intersections of sociological and psychological interests, and is further distinguished in terms of sociological or psychological emphasis.^[60]

Sociobiology is the study of how social behavior and organization have been influenced by evolution and other biological process. The field blends sociology with a number of other sciences, such as anthropology, biology, zoology, and others. Sociobiology has generated controversy within the sociological academy for giving too much attention to gene expression over socialization and environmental factors in general (see 'nature or nurture').

[edit] See also

Wikipedia:Books has a book on: Sociology

[edit] Related theories, methods and fields of inquiry

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Bibliography

• Aby, Stephen H. Sociology: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources, 3rd edn. Littleton, CO, Libraries Unlimited Inc., 2005, ISBN 1-56308-947-5 . OCLC 57475961. 
• Calhoun, Craig (ed) Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-19-512371-5. OCLC 45505995. 
• Macionis, John J. 2004. Sociology (10th Edition). Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-184918-2. OCLC 52846261. 
• Nash, Kate. 2000. Contemporary Political Sociology: Globalization, Politics, and Power. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20660-4 . OCLC 41445647. 
• Scott, John & Marshall, Gordon (eds) A Dictionary of Sociology (3rd Ed). Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-860986-8, . OCLC 60370982. 

[edit] Further reading

• Wikibooks: Introduction to sociology
• Ankerl, Guy.Experimental Sociology of Architecture. A Guide to Theory, Research, and Literature, 1983 Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 90-279-3440-1
• Babbie, Earl R.. 2003. The Practice of Social Research, 10th edition. Wadsworth, Thomson Learning Inc., ISBN 0-534-62029-9 . OCLC 51917727. 
• Collins, Randall. 1994. Four Sociological Traditions. Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-508208-7 . OCLC 28411490. 
• Coser, Lewis A., Masters of Sociological Thought : Ideas in Historical and Social Context, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. ISBN 0-15-555128-0.
• Giddens, Anthony. 2006. Sociology (5th edition), Polity, Cambridge. ISBN 0-7456-3378-1 . OCLC 63186308. 
• Merton, Robert K.. 1959. Social Theory and Social Structure. Toward the codification of theory and research, Glencoe: Ill. (Revised and enlarged edition) . OCLC 4536864. 
• Mills, C. Wright, The Sociological Imagination,1959. OCLC 165883. 
• C. Wright Mills, Intellectual Craftsmanship Advices how to Work for young Sociologist
• Mitchell, Geoffrey Duncan (2007, originally published in 1968). A Hundred Years of Sociology: A Concise History of the Major Figures, Ideas, and Schools of Sociological Thought. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0-202-36168-0. OCLC 145146341. 
• Nisbet, Robert A. 1967. The Sociological Tradition, London, Heinemann Educational Books. ISBN 1-56000-667-6 . OCLC 26934810. 
• Ritzer, George and Douglas J. Goodman. 2004. Sociological Theory, Sixth Edition. McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-281718-6 . OCLC 52240022. 
• Wallace, Ruth A. & Alison Wolf. 1995. Contemporary Sociological Theory: Continuing the Classical Tradition, 4th ed., Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-036245-X . OCLC 31604842. 
• White, Harrison C.. 2008. Identity and Control. How Social Formations Emerge. (2nd ed., Completely rev. ed.) Princeton, Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13714-8 . OCLC 174138884. 
• Willis, Evan. 1996. The Sociological Quest: An introduction to the study of social life, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2367-2 . OCLC 34633406. 

[edit] External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Introduction to Sociology

• Social and Spatial Inequalities

Professional associations

• African Sociological Association (AfSA)
• American Sociological Association (ASA)
• Australian Sociological Association (TASA)
• British Sociological Association (BSA)
• Brazilian Sociological Society (SBS) - Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia
• Canadian Sociological Association (CSA)
• European Sociological Association (ESA)
• German Sociological Association (DGS)
• International Sociological Association (ISA)
• Indian Sociological Society (Insoso)
• Portuguese Sociological Association (APS) - Associação Portuguesa de Sociologia
• Sociological Association of Ireland (SAI)
• South African Sociological Association (SASA)

Other Resources

• Sociology OpenCourseWare from the University of Notre Dame
• Internet Sociologist, a free online tutorial teaching Internet research skills for sociology students
• SocioLog, a directory of sociology resources
• SocioSite, a directory of sociology resources
• Sociology Today, an e-forum on professionals and students of Sociology
• Social Sciences and Humanities
• Sociology at the Open Directory Project
• Sociologically.net, an international sociological community
• International Internet Sociology group, an internet based social behavior studies group
• The Group for the Study of International Social Science
• London East Research Group

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