Sociology is the scientific study of human
social
behavior and its origins, development, organizations, and
institutions.
It is a
social science that uses various methods of
empirical
investigation and
critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge
about human
social actions,
social
structure and
functions. A goal for many sociologists is
to conduct research which may be applied directly to
social
policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining the
theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the
micro
level of individual
agency and interaction to the
macro
level of systems and the
social structure.
The traditional focuses of sociology include
social stratification,
social
class,
social mobility,
religion,
secularization,
law,
sexuality
and
deviance. As all spheres of human activity are
affected by the interplay between
social structure and individual agency,
sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such as
health,
medical,
military and
penal institutions,
the Internet,
education, and the role of social activity
in the development of
scientific knowledge.
The range of social scientific methods has also expanded.
Social
researchers draw upon a variety of
qualitative and
quantitative techniques. The
linguistic
and
cultural
turns of the mid-twentieth century led to increasingly
interpretative,
hermeneutic,
and
philosophic
approaches to the analysis of society. Conversely, recent decades have seen the
rise of new
analytically,
mathematically and
computationally rigorous techniques, such
as
agent-based modelling and
social
network analysis.
Classification
Sociology should not be confused with various general
social
studies courses which bear little relation to
sociological theory or social science research
methodology.
The US
National Science Foundation, classifies
Sociology as a
STEM Field.
History
Origins
Sociological reasoning predates the foundation of the discipline. Social
analysis has origins in the common stock of
Western
knowledge and
philosophy, and has been carried out from as far back as
the time of
ancient Greek philosopher Plato if not before.
The origin of the
survey, i.e., the collection of information from
a sample of individuals, can be traced back to at least the
Domesday
Book in 1086, while ancient philosophers such as
Confucius
wrote on the importance of social roles. There is evidence of early sociology
in medieval
Islam.
Some consider
Ibn Khaldun, a 14th-century
Arab Islamic scholar
from North Africa, to have been the first sociologist and father of sociology;
his
Muqaddimah
was perhaps the first work to advance social-scientific reasoning on
social
cohesion and
social conflict. Concerning the discipline of
sociology, he conceived a theory of social conflict. He developed the dichotomy
of sedentary life versus nomadic life as well as the concept of a
"generation", and the inevitable loss of power that occurs when
desert warriors conquer a city. Following a contemporary Arab scholar, Sati'
al-Husri, the Muqaddimah may be read as a sociological work: six books of
general sociology. Topics dealt with in this work include politics, urban life,
economics, and knowledge. The work is based around Ibn Khaldun's central
concept of 'asabiyyah, which has been translated as "social
cohesion", "group solidarity", or "tribalism". This
social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other small kinship groups;
it can be intensified and enlarged by a religious ideology. Ibn Khaldun's
analysis looks at how this cohesion carries groups to power but contains within
itself the seeds – psychological, sociological, economic, political – of the
group's downfall, to be replaced by a new group, dynasty or empire bound by a
stronger (or at least younger and more vigorous) cohesion.
The word
sociology (or
"sociologie")
is derived from both Latin and Greek origins. The
Latin word:
socius,
"companion"; the suffix
-logy, "the study of" from
Greek
-λογία from
λόγος,
lógos, "word",
"knowledge". It was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist
Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) in an
unpublished
manuscript.
Sociology was later defined independently by the French
philosopher of science,
Auguste
Comte (1798–1857), in 1838. Comte used this term to describe a new way of
looking at society. Comte had earlier used the term "social physics",
but that had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian
statistician
Adolphe Quetelet. Comte endeavored 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
(1848). Comte believed a
positivist stage would mark the final era,
after conjectural
theological and
metaphysical
phases, in the progression of human understanding.In observing the circular
dependence of theory and observation in science, and having classified the
sciences, Comte may be regarded as the first
philosopher of science in the modern sense
of the term.
Comte gave a powerful impetus to the development of sociology, an impetus
which bore fruit in the later decades of the nineteenth century. To say this is
certainly not to claim that French sociologists such as
Durkheim were
devoted disciples of the high priest of positivism. But by insisting on the
irreducibility of each of his basic sciences to the particular science of
sciences which it presupposed in the hierarchy and by emphasizing the nature of
sociology as the scientific study of social phenomena Comte put sociology on
the map. To be sure, [its] beginnings can be traced back well beyond
Montesquieu,
for example, and to
Condorcet, not to speak of
Saint-Simon, Comte's
immediate predecessor. But Comte's clear recognition of sociology as a
particular science, with a character of its own, justified Durkheim in regarding
him as the father or founder of this science, in spite of the fact that
Durkheim did not accept the idea of the three states and criticized Comte's
approach to sociology.
Both
Auguste Comte and
Karl Marx
(1818-1883) set out to develop scientifically justified systems in the wake of
European
industrialization and
secularization,
informed by various key movements in the
philosophies of history and science. Marx rejected Comtean positivism
but in attempting to develop a
science of society nevertheless came to
be recognized as a founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaning. For
Isaiah
Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the "true father" of modern
sociology, "in so far as anyone can claim the title."
To have given clear and unified answers in familiar empirical terms to those
theoretical questions which most occupied men's minds at the time, and to have
deduced from them clear practical directives without creating obviously
artificial links between the two, was the principle achievement of Marx's
theory. The sociological treatment of historical and moral problems, which
Comte and after him,
Spencer and
Taine,
had discussed and mapped, became a precise and concrete study only when the
attack of militant Marxism made its conclusions a burning issue, and so made
the search for evidence more zealous and the attention to method more intense.
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December
1903) was one of the most popular and influential 19th century sociologists. It
is estimated that he sold one million books in his lifetime, far more than any
other sociologist at the time. So strong was his influence that many other 19th
century thinkers, including
Émile
Durkheim, defined their ideas in relation to his. Durkheim’s
Division of Labour in Society
is to a large extent an extended debate with Spencer from whose sociology, many
commentators now agree, Durkheim borrowed extensively.
[ Also a
notable
biologist,
Spencer coined the term "
survival of the fittest". Whilst
Marxian ideas defined one strand of sociology, Spencer was a critic of
socialism as well as strong advocate for a
laissez-faire
style of government. His ideas were highly observed by conservative political
circles, especially in the
United States and
England.
Foundations of the academic discipline
Formal academic sociology was established by Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who
developed positivism as a foundation to practical
social
research. While Durkheim rejected much of the detail of Comte's philosophy,
he retained and refined its method, maintaining that the social sciences are a
logical continuation of the natural ones into the realm of human activity, and
insisting that they may retain the same objectivity, rationalism, and approach
to causality. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the
University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing
his
For Durkheim, sociology could be
described as the "science of
institutions,
their genesis and their functioning".
Durkheim's seminal monograph,
Suicide
(1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst
Catholic and
Protestant
populations, distinguished sociological analysis from
psychology
or philosophy. It also marked a major contribution to the theoretical concept
of
structural functionalism. By carefully
examining suicide statistics in different police districts, he attempted to
demonstrate that Catholic communities have a lower suicide rate than that of
Protestants, something he attributed to social (as opposed to individual or
psychological)
causes. He developed the notion of objective
sui generis
"social facts" to delineate a unique empirical object for the science
of sociology to study. Through such studies he posited that sociology would be
able to determine whether any given society is 'healthy' or 'pathological', and
seek social reform to negate organic breakdown or "social
anomie".
Sociology quickly evolved as an academic response to the perceived
challenges of
modernity,
such as
industrialization,
urbanization,
secularization,
and the process of "
rationalization". The field
predominated in
continental Europe, with British
anthropology
and
statistics
generally following on a separate trajectory. By the turn of the 20th century,
however, many theorists were active in the
Anglo-Saxon
world. Few early sociologists were confined strictly to the subject,
interacting also with
economics,
jurisprudence,
psychology and
philosophy, with theories being appropriated in a variety
of different fields. Since its inception, sociological epistemologies, methods,
and frames of inquiry, have significantly expanded and diverged.
Durkheim, Marx, and the German theorist
Max Weber
(1864-1920) are typically cited as the three principal architects of social
science.
Herbert Spencer,
William Graham Sumner,
Lester
F. Ward,
Vilfredo Pareto,
Alexis de Tocqueville,
Werner
Sombart,
Thorstein Veblen,
Ferdinand Tönnies,
Georg
Simmel and
Karl Mannheim are occasionally included on academic
curricula as founding theorists. Each key figure is associated with a
particular theoretical perspective and orientation.
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 labor 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).
Other developments
The first college course entitled "Sociology" was taught in the
United States at
Yale
in 1875 by
William Graham Sumner. In 1883
Lester
F. Ward, the first president of the American Sociological Association,
published
Dynamic Sociology—Or Applied social science as based upon statical
sociology and the less complex sciences and attacked the laissez-faire
sociology of
Herbert Spencer and Sumner. Ward's 1200 page book
was used as core material in many early American sociology courses. In 1890,
the oldest continuing American course in the modern tradition began at the
University of Kansas, lectured by
Frank
W. Blackmar.
[35]
The Department of Sociology at the
University of Chicago was established in 1892
by
Albion Small, who also published the first
sociology textbook: An introduction to the study of society 1894.
George Herbert Mead and
Charles
Cooley, who had met at the
University of Michigan in 1891 (along with
John Dewey),
would move to Chicago in 1894. Their influence gave rise to
social
psychology and the
symbolic interactionism of the modern
Chicago School. The
American Journal of Sociology
was founded in 1895, followed by the
American Sociological Association
(ASA) in 1905. The sociological "canon of classics" with Durkheim and
Max Weber
at the top owes in part to
Talcott
Parsons, who is largely credited with introducing both to American
audiences. Parsons consolidated the sociological tradition and set the agenda
for American sociology at the point of its fastest disciplinary growth.
Sociology in the United States was less historically influenced by
Marxism than its
European counterpart, and to this day broadly remains more statistical in its
approach.
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.
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and
Edvard Westermarck became the lecturers in the
discipline at the
University of London in 1907.
Harriet
Martineau, an English translator of Comte, has been cited as the first
female sociologist. In 1909 the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (
German Sociological Association)
was founded by
Ferdinand Tönnies and Max Weber, among others.
Weber established the first department in Germany at the
Ludwig Maximilian University of
Munich in 1919, having presented an influential new
antipositivist
sociology. In 1920,
Florian Znaniecki set up the first department
in Poland. The
Institute for Social Research
at the
University of Frankfurt (later to
become the
Frankfurt School of
critical
theory) was founded in 1923. International co-operation in sociology began
in 1893, when
René Worms founded the
Institut
International de Sociologie, an institution later eclipsed by the much
larger
International Sociological
Association (ISA), founded in 1949.
Positivism and anti-positivism
Positivism
The overarching
methodological principle of
positivism
is to conduct sociology in broadly the same manner as
natural
science. An emphasis on
empiricism and the
scientific
method is sought to provide a tested foundation for sociological research
based on the assumption that the only authentic knowledge is scientific
knowledge, and that such knowledge can only arrive by positive affirmation
through scientific methodology.
"Our main goal is to extend scientific rationalism to human conduct...
What has been called our positivism is but a consequence of this
rationalism."
The term has long since ceased to carry this meaning; there are no fewer
than twelve distinct epistemologies that are referred to as positivism. Many of
these approaches do not self-identify as "positivist", some because
they themselves arose in opposition to older forms of positivism, and some
because the label has over time become a term of abuse by being mistakenly
linked with a theoretical
empiricism. The extent of antipositivist criticism has also
diverged, with many rejecting the scientific method and others only seeking to
amend it to reflect 20th century developments in the philosophy of science.
However, positivism (broadly understood as a scientific approach to the study
of society) remains dominant in contemporary sociology, especially in the
United States.
Loïc Wacquant distinguishes three major strains of
positivism:
Durkheimian, Logical, and Instrumental. None of these are
the same as that set forth by Comte, who was unique in advocating such a rigid
(and perhaps optimistic) version. While Émile Durkheim rejected much of the
detail of Comte's philosophy, he retained and refined its method. Durkheim
maintained that the social sciences are a logical continuation of the natural
ones into the realm of human activity, and insisted that they should retain the
same objectivity, rationalism, and approach to causality. He developed the
notion of objective
sui generis "social facts" to delineate a
unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study.
The variety of positivism that remains dominant today is termed
instrumental
positivism. This approach eschews epistemological and metaphysical concerns
(such as the nature of social facts) in favor of methodological clarity,
replicability,
reliability
and
validity.
This positivism is more or less synonymous with
quantitative research, and so only resembles
older positivism in practice. Since it carries no explicit philosophical
commitment, its practitioners may not belong to any particular school of
thought. Modern sociology of this type is often credited to
Paul
Lazarsfeld, who pioneered large-scale survey studies and developed
statistical techniques for analyzing them. This approach lends itself to what
Robert
K. Merton called
middle-range theory: abstract
statements that generalize from segregated hypotheses and empirical
regularities rather than starting with an abstract idea of a social whole.
Anti-positivism
Reactions against social empiricism began when German philosopher
Hegel voiced
opposition to both empiricism, which he rejected as uncritical, and
determinism, which he viewed as overly mechanistic.
Karl Marx's
methodology borrowed from
Hegelian 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. He
maintained that appearances need to be critiqued rather than simply documented.
Early hermeneuticians such as
Wilhelm
Dilthey pioneered the distinction between natural and social science ('
Geisteswissenschaft'). Various
neo-Kantian
philosophers,
phenomenologists and
human
scientists further theorized how the analysis of the
social
world differs to that of the
natural
world due to the irreducibly complex aspects of human society,
culture, and
being.
At the turn of the 20th century the first generation of German sociologists
formally introduced methodological
anti-positivism,
proposing that research should concentrate on human cultural
norms,
values,
symbols, and social
processes viewed from a resolutely
subjective perspective. Max Weber argued that
sociology may be loosely described as a science as it is able to identify
causal
relationships of human "
social
action"—especially among "
ideal types",
or hypothetical simplifications of complex social phenomena. As a
non-positivist, however, Weber sought relationships that are not as
"historical, invariant, or generalizable" as those pursued by natural
scientists. Fellow German sociologist,
Ferdinand Tönnies, theorized on two crucial
abstract concepts with his work on "
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft"
(lit.
community and
society). Tönnies marked a sharp line between
the realm of concepts and the reality of social action: the first must be
treated axiomatically and in a deductive way ("pure sociology"),
whereas the second empirically and inductively ("applied sociology").
Max Weber
[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 behavior 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
prior discipline, such as jurisprudence,
logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter
'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
Both Weber and
Georg Simmel pioneered the "
Verstehen"
(or 'interpretative') method in social science; a systematic process by 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. His sociology engaged in a
neo-Kantian inquiry into the limits of perception, asking 'What is society?' in
a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?'
Georg Simmel
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 leveled, swallowed up in the social-technological mechanism.
Theoretical frameworks
The contemporary discipline of sociology is theoretically
multi-paradigmatic. Modern sociological theory descends from the historical
foundations of functionalist (Durkheim) and conflict-centered (Marx) accounts
of social structure, as well as the micro-scale structural (
Simmel)
and
pragmatist
(
Mead) theories of social interaction.
Contemporary sociological theory retains traces of these approaches.
Presently, sociological theories lack a single overarching foundation, and
there is little consensus about what such a framework should consist of.
However, a number of broad paradigms cover much present sociological
theorizing. In the humanistic parts of the discipline, these paradigms are
referred to as
social theory, and are often shared with the humanities.
The discipline's dominant scientifically oriented areas generally focus on a
different set of theoretical perspectives, which by contrast are generally
referred to as
sociological theory. These include
sociological field theory,
new institutionalism,
social
networks,
social identity,
social
and
cultural capital, toolkit and
cognitive
theories of
culture,
and
resource mobilization.
Analytical sociology is an ongoing effort to
systematize many of these
middle-range theories.
Functionalism
A broad historical paradigm in both sociology and
anthropology,
functionalism addresses the
social
structure as a whole and in terms of the necessary function of its
constituent elements. A common analogy (popularized by
Herbert
Spencer) is to regard
norms and
institutions
as 'organs' that work toward the proper-functioning of the entire 'body' of
society. The perspective was implicit in the original sociological positivism
of Comte, but was theorized in full by Durkheim, again with respect to
observable, structural laws. Functionalism also has an anthropological basis in
the work of theorists such as
Marcel
Mauss,
Bronisław Malinowski and
Radcliffe-Brown.
It is in Radcliffe-Brown's specific usage that the prefix 'structural' emerged.
Classical functionalist theory is generally united by its tendency towards
biological analogy and notions of
social evolutionism. As
Giddens
states: "Functionalist thought, from Comte onwards, has looked
particularly towards biology as the science providing the closest and most
compatible model for social science. Biology has been taken to provide a guide
to conceptualizing the structure and the function of social systems and to
analyzing processes of evolution via mechanisms of adaptation ... functionalism
strongly emphasizes the pre-eminence of the social world over its individual
parts (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects)."
Conflict theory
Functionalism aims only toward a general perspective from which to conduct
social science. Methodologically, its principles generally contrast those
approaches that emphasize the
"micro",
such as
interpretivism
or
symbolic interactionism. Its emphasis on
"cohesive systems", however, also holds political ramifications.
Functionalist theories are often therefore contrasted with "conflict
theories" which critique the overarching socio-political system or emphasize
the inequality of particular groups. The works of Durkheim and Marx epitomize
the political, as well as theoretical, disparities, between functionalist and
conflict thought respectively:
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.
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.
20th century social theory
The functionalist movement reached its crescendo in the 1940s and 1950s, and
by the 1960s was in rapid decline. By the 1980s, functionalism in Europe had
broadly been replaced by
conflict-oriented approaches. While some of the
critical approaches also gained popularity in the United States, the mainstream
of the discipline instead shifted to a variety of empirically oriented
middle-range theories with no
single overarching theoretical orientation. To many in the discipline,
functionalism is now considered "as dead as a dodo."
As the influence of both functionalism and Marxism in the 1960s began to
wane, the
linguistic and
cultural
turns led to myriad new movements in the social sciences: "According
to Giddens, the orthodox consensus terminated in the late 1960s and 1970s as
the middle ground shared by otherwise competing perspectives gave way and was
replaced by a baffling variety of competing perspectives. This third
'generation' of social theory includes phenomenologically inspired approaches,
critical theory, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, structuralism,
post-structuralism, and theories written in the tradition of hermeneutics and
ordinary language philosophy."
The
structuralist movement originated from the
linguistic
theory of
Ferdinand de Saussure and was later expanded
to the social sciences by theorists such as
Claude Lévi-Strauss. In this context,
'structure' refers not to 'social structure' but to the
semiotic
understanding of human culture as a
system of signs. One may delineate four central
tenets of structuralism: First, structure is what determines the structure of a
whole. Second, structuralists believe that every system has a structure. Third,
structuralists are interested in 'structural' laws that deal with coexistence
rather than changes. Finally, structures are the 'real things' beneath the
surface or the appearance of meaning.
Post-structuralist thought has tended to
reject
'humanist' assumptions in the conduct of
social theory.
[76] Michel
Foucault provides a potent critique in his
archaeology of the human sciences,
though Habermas and
Rorty have both argued that Foucault merely replaces
one such system of thought with another. The dialogue between these
intellectuals highlights a trend in recent years for certain schools of
sociology and philosophy to intersect. The
anti-humanist
position has been associated with "
postmodernism,"
a term used in specific contexts to describe an
era or
phenomena,
but occasionally construed as a
method.
Structure and agency
Structure and agency form an enduring ontological 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'
relates 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 relate to the core of
sociological
epistemology ("What is the social world made
of?", "What is a cause in the social world, and what is an
effect?"). A general outcome of incredulity toward 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.
Research methodology
Sociological research methods may be divided into two broad categories:
- Quantitative designs approach social
phenomena through quantifiable evidence, and often rely on statistical
analysis of many cases (or across intentionally designed treatments in an
experiment) to create valid and reliable general claims
- Qualitative designs emphasize
understanding of social phenomena through direct observation,
communication with participants, or analysis of texts, and may stress
contextual and subjective accuracy over generality
Sociologists are divided into camps of support for particular research
techniques. These disputes relate to the epistemological debates at the
historical core of social theory. While very different in many aspects, both
qualitative and quantitative approaches involve a systematic interaction
between
theory and data. Quantitative methodologies hold the
dominant position in sociology, especially in the United States. In the
discipline's two most cited journals, quantitative articles have historically
outnumbered qualitative ones by a factor of two. (Most articles published in
the largest British journal, on the other hand, are
qualitative.) Most textbooks on the
methodology of social research are written from the quantitative perspective,
and the very term "methodology" is often used synonymously with
"
statistics."
Practically all sociology PhD program in the United States require training in
statistical methods. The work produced by quantitative researchers is also
deemed more 'trustworthy' and 'unbiased' by the greater public, though this
judgment continues to be challenged by antipositivists.
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 representative sample population. By contrast, a
researcher who seeks full contextual understanding of an individual's
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 the play of
agency.
Sampling
Quantitative methods are often used to ask questions about a population that
is very large, making a
census or a complete
enumeration
of all the members in that population infeasible. A 'sample' then forms a
manageable
subset
of a
population. In quantitative research,
statistics are used to draw
inferences from this sample regarding the population as a
whole. The process of selecting a sample is referred to as
'sampling'. While it is usually best to
sample
randomly, concern with differences between specific subpopulations
sometimes calls for
stratified sampling. Conversely, the
impossibility of random sampling sometimes necessitates
nonprobability sampling, such as
convenience sampling or
snowball
sampling.
Methods
- 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 is systematically analyzed. Often data is 'coded' as a
part of the 'grounded theory' approach using qualitative
data analysis (QDA) software, such as NVivo, Atlas.ti,
or QDA
Miner.
- Experimental research: The researcher
isolates a single social process and reproduces it in a laboratory (for
example, by creating a situation where unconscious sexist judgments are
possible), seeking to determine whether or not certain social variables can cause, or
depend upon, other variables (for instance, seeing if people's feelings
about traditional gender roles can be manipulated by the activation of
contrasting gender stereotypes).[85]
Participants are randomly assigned to different groups which
either serve as controls—acting as reference points because
they are tested with regard to the dependent variable, albeit without
having been exposed to any independent variables of interest—or receive
one or more treatments. Randomization allows the researcher to be sure
that any resulting differences between groups are the result of the
treatment.
- 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 may or may not feature
participation. 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 to acquire a deep understanding of it. Data acquired through
these techniques may be analyzed either quantitatively or qualitatively.
- Survey
research: The researcher gathers data using interviews,
questionnaires, or similar feedback from a set of people sampled from a
particular population of interest. Survey items from an interview or
questionnaire may be open-ended or closed-ended. Data from surveys is
usually analyzed statistically on a computer.
Computational sociology
Sociologists increasingly draw upon computationally intensive methods to
analyze and model social phenomena. Using
computer simulations,
artificial intelligence,
text mining,
complex statistical methods, and new analytic approaches like
social
network analysis and
social sequence analysis, computational
sociology develops and tests theories of complex social processes through
bottom-up modeling of social interactions.
Although the subject matter and methodologies in social science differ from
those in natural science or
computer
science, several of the approaches used in contemporary social simulation
originated from fields such as
physics and artificial intelligence. By the same token, some
of the approaches that originated in computational sociology have been imported
into the natural sciences, such as measures of
network
centrality from the fields of social network analysis and
network
science. In relevant literature, computational sociology is often related
to the study of
social complexity. Social complexity concepts
such as
complex systems,
non-linear
interconnection among macro and micro process, and
emergence,
have entered the vocabulary of computational sociology. A practical and
well-known example is the construction of a computational model in the form of
an "
artificial society", by which researchers
can analyze the structure of a social system.
Practical applications of social research
Social research informs
politicians and
policy
makers,
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.
Areas of sociology
- Social
organization is the study of the various institutions, social groups,
social stratification, social mobility, bureaucracy, ethnic groups and
relations, and other similar subjects such as education, politics,
religion, economy and so forth.
- Social
psychology is the study of human nature as an outcome of group life,
social attitudes, collective behavior, and personality formation. It deals
with group life and the individual's traits, attitudes, beliefs as
influenced by group life, and it views man with reference to group life.
- Social
change and disorganization is the study of the change in culture and
social relations and the disruption that may occur in society, and it
deals with the study of such current problems in society such as juvenile
delinquency, criminality, drug addiction, family conflicts, divorce,
population problems, and other similar subjects.
- Human
ecology deals with the nature and behavior of a given population and
its relationships to the group's present social institutions. For
instance, studies of this kind have shown the prevalence of mental
illness, criminality, delinquencies, prostitution, and drug addiction in
urban centers and other highly developed places.
- Population
or demography is the study of population number, composition, change,
and quality as they influence the economic, political, and social system.
- Sociological
theory and method is concerned with the applicability and usefulness
of the principles and theories of group life as bases for the regulation
of man's environment, and includes theory building and testing as bases
for the prediction and control of man's social environment.
- Applied
sociology utilizes the findings of pure sociological research in
various fields such as criminology, social work, community development,
education, industrial relations, marriage, ethnic relations, family
counseling, and other aspects and problems of daily life.
Scope and topic
Culture
For
Simmel,
culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of
external forms which have been objectified in the course of history".
Whilst early theorists such as
Durkheim and
Mauss
were influential in
cultural anthropology, sociologists of
culture are generally distinguished by their concern for
modern
(rather than
primitive or ancient) society. Cultural sociology
is seldom empirical, preferring instead the
hermeneutic
analysis of words, artifacts and symbols. The field is closely allied with
critical
theory in the vein of
Theodor
W. Adorno,
Walter Benjamin, and other members of the
Frankfurt
School. Loosely distinct to sociology is the field of
cultural
studies.
Birmingham School
theorists such as
Richard Hoggart and
Stuart Hall questioned the division
between "producers" and "consumers" evident in earlier
theory, emphasizing the reciprocity in the production of texts. 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 group as they relate to the dominant class. The "
cultural
turn" of the 1960s ushered in
structuralist and so-called
postmodern approaches to social science and
placed culture much higher on the sociological agenda.
Criminality, deviance, law and punishment
Criminologists analyze the nature, causes, and control of criminal activity,
drawing upon methods across sociology,
psychology,
and the
behavioural sciences. The sociology of
deviance focuses on actions or behaviors that violate
norms, including both formally enacted rules
(e.g.,
crime) and
informal violations of cultural norms. It is the remit of sociologists to study
why these norms exist; how they change over time; and how they are enforced.
The concept of deviance is central in contemporary structural functionalism and
systems theory.
Robert K. Merton produced a
typology of deviance, and also established the
terms "
role
model", "
unintended consequences", and
"
self-fulfilling prophecy".
The study of law played a significant role in the formation of classical
sociology. Durkheim famously described law as the "visible symbol" of
social solidarity. 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 development of legal
institutions
and the effect of laws on social change and vice versa. For example, an
influential recent work in the field relies on statistical analyses to argue
that the increase in incarceration in the US over the last 30 years is due to
changes in law and policing and not to an increase in crime; and that this
increase significantly contributes to maintaining racial
stratification.
Economic sociology
The term "economic sociology" was first used by
William Stanley Jevons in 1879, later to be
coined in the works of Durkheim, Weber and Simmel between 1890 and 1920.
Economic sociology arose as a new approach to the analysis of economic
phenomena, emphasizing class relations and
modernity as
a philosophical concept. The relationship between
capitalism
and
modernity
is a salient issue, perhaps best demonstrated in Weber's
The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) and Simmel's
The Philosophy of Money (1900). The
contemporary period of economic sociology, also known as
new economic
sociology, was consolidated by the 1985 work of
Mark
Granovetter titled "Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem
of Embeddedness". This work elaborated the concept of
embeddedness,
which states that economic relations between individuals or firms take place
within existing social relations (and are thus structured by these relations as
well as the greater social structures of which those relations are a part).
Social
network analysis has been the primary methodology for studying this phenomenon.
Granovetter's theory of the
strength of weak ties and
Ronald Burt's
concept of structural holes are two best known theoretical contributions of
this field.
Environment
Environmental sociology is the study of human interactions with the natural
environment, typically emphasizing human dimensions of environmental problems,
social impacts of those problems, and efforts to resolve them. As with other
subfields of sociology, scholarship in environmental sociology may be at one or
multiple levels of analysis, from global (e.g. world-systems) to local,
societal to individual. Attention is paid also to the processes by which
environmental problems become
defined and
known to humans.
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. A classic 1966 study in this field by
James Coleman, known as the "Coleman
Report", analyzed the performance of over 150,000 students and found that
student background and socioeconomic status are much more important in
determining educational outcomes than are measured differences in school
resources (
i.e. per pupil spending).The controversy over "school
effects" ignited by that study has continued to this day. The study also
found that socially disadvantaged black students profited from schooling in
racially mixed classrooms, and thus served as a catalyst for
desegregation busing in American public
schools.
Family, gender, and sexuality
Family, gender and sexuality form a broad area of inquiry studied in many
subfields of sociology. The sociology of the family examines the family, as an
institution
and unit of
socialization, with special concern for the
comparatively modern historical emergence of the
nuclear
family and its distinct
gender roles. The notion of "
childhood"
is also significant. As one of the more basic institutions to which one may
apply sociological perspectives, the sociology of the family is a common
component on introductory academic curricula.
Feminist sociology, on the other hand, is a
normative subfield that observes and critiques the cultural categories of
gender and sexuality, particularly with respect to power and inequality. The
primary concern of feminist theory is the
patriarchy
and the systematic oppression of women apparent in many societies, both at the
level of small-scale interaction and in terms of the broader social structure.
Feminist sociology also analyses how gender
interlocks with race and class to produce and perpetuate social inequalities.
"How to account for the differences in definitions of femininity and
masculinity and in sex role across different societies and historical
periods" is also a concern.
Social
psychology of gender, on the other hand, uses experimental methods to
uncover the microprocesses of gender stratification. For example, one recent
study has shown that resume evaluators penalize women for motherhood while
giving a boost to men for fatherhood. Another set of experiments showed that
men whose sexuality is questioned compensate by expressing a greater desire for
military intervention and sport utility vehicles as well as a greater
opposition to gay marriage.
Health and illness
The sociology of health and illness focuses on the social effects of, and
public attitudes toward,
illnesses,
diseases,
disabilities and the
aging process.
Medical sociology, by contrast, focuses on the inner-workings of medical
organizations and clinical institutions. In Britain, sociology was introduced
into the medical curriculum following the Goodenough Report (1944).
Internet
The
Internet
is of interest to sociologists in various ways; most practically as a tool for
research
and as a discussion platform. The sociology of the Internet in the broad sense
regards the analysis of
online communities (e.g.
newsgroups,
social networking sites) and
virtual
worlds. Online communities may be studied statistically through
network
analysis or interpreted qualitatively through
virtual ethnography. Organizational change is
catalyzed through
new media, thereby influencing social change at-large,
perhaps forming the framework for a transformation from an
industrial to an
informational society. One notable text is
Manuel
Castells'
The Internet Galaxy—the title
of which forms an inter-textual reference to
Marshall
McLuhan's
The Gutenberg Galaxy.
[109] Knowledge and science
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.
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."
Important theorists in the sociology of science include
Robert
K. Merton and
Bruno Latour. These branches of sociology have
contributed to the formation of
science and technology studies.
Literature
Sociology of literature is a subfield of sociology of culture. It studies
the social production of literature and its social implications. A notable
example is Pierre Bourdieu's 1992
Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure
du Champ Littéraire, translated by Susan Emanuel as
Rules of Art:
Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (1996). None of the founding
fathers of sociology produced a detailed study of literature, but they did
develop ideas that were subsequently applied to literature by others. Marx's
theory of ideology was directed at literature by Pierre Macherey, Terry
Eagleton and Fredric Jameson. Weber's theory of modernity as cultural
rationalisation, which he applied to music, was later applied to all the arts,
literature included, by Frankfurt School writers such as Adorno and Jürgen
Habermas. Durkheim's view of sociology as the study of externally defined
social facts was redirected towards literature by Robert Escarpit. Bourdieu's
own work is clearly indebted to Marx, Weber and Durkheim.
Media
As with
cultural studies, media study 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
socialising
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-indispensable topic.
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.
Topics include the dominant assumptions held by those in the military, changes
in military members' willingness to fight, military unionization, military
professionalism, the increased utilization of women, the military
industrial-academic complex, the military's dependence on research, and the
institutional and organizational structure of military.
Political sociology
Historically political sociology concerned the relations between political
organization and society. A typical research question in this area might be:
"Why do so few American citizens choose to vote?" In this respect
questions of political opinion formation brought about some of the pioneering
uses of statistical
survey research by
Paul
Lazarsfeld. A major subfield of political sociology developed in relation
to such questions, which draws on comparative history to analyze
socio-political trends. The field developed from the work of Max Weber and
Moisey Ostrogorsky.
Contemporary political sociology includes these areas of research, but it
has been opened up to wider questions of power and politics.Today political
sociologists are as likely to be concerned with how identities are formed that
contribute to structural domination by one group over another; the politics of
who knows how and with what authority; and questions of how power is contested
in social interactions in such a way as to bring about widespread cultural and
social change. Such questions are more likely to be studied qualitatively. The
study of social movements and their effects has been especially important in
relation to these wider definitions of politics and power.
Race and ethnic relations
The sociology of race and of ethnic relations is the area of the discipline
that studies the
social, political, and economic relations between
races and
ethnicities
at all levels of society. This area encompasses the study of
racism,
residential segregation, and other complex
social processes between different racial and ethnic groups. This research
frequently interacts with other areas of sociology such as
stratification and
social psychology, as well as with
postcolonial theory. At the level of political
policy, ethnic relations are discussed in terms of either
assimilationism
or
multiculturalism.
Anti-racism
forms another style of policy, particularly popular in the 1960s and 70s.
Religion
The sociology of religion concerns the practices, 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. The sociology of religion is distinguished from
the
philosophy of religion in that sociologists
do not set out to assess the validity of religious truth-claims, instead
assuming what
Peter L. Berger has described as a position of
"methodological atheism". It may be said that the modern formal
discipline of sociology
began with the analysis of religion in
Durkheim's 1897
study of suicide rates amongst
Roman
Catholic and
Protestant populations. Max Weber published four major
texts on religion in a context of
economic sociology and
social stratification:
The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905),
The Religion of
China: Confucianism and Taoism (1915),
The
Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism (1915), and
Ancient Judaism (1920). Contemporary debates
often center on topics such as
secularization,
civil
religion, and the role of religion in a context of
globalization
and
multiculturalism.
Social networks
A social network is a
social structure composed of individuals (or
organizations) called "nodes", which are tied (connected) by one or more
specific types of
interdependency, such as
friendship,
kinship,
financial exchange, dislike,
sexual
relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige. Social
networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and
play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations
are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.
Social network analysis makes no assumption that groups are the building blocks
of society: the approach is open to studying less-bounded social systems, from
non-local
communities
to networks of exchange. Rather than treating individuals (persons,
organizations, states) as discrete units of analysis, it focuses on how the
structure of ties affects individuals and their relationships. In contrast to
analyses that assume that socialization into norms determines behavior, network
analysis looks to see the extent to which the structure and composition of ties
affect norms. Unlike most other areas of sociology, social network theory is
usually defined in
formal mathematics.
Social psychology
Sociological social psychology focuses on micro-scale
social
actions. This area may be described as adhering to "sociological
miniaturism", examining whole societies through the study of individual
thoughts and emotions as well as behavior of small groups. Of special concern
to psychological sociologists is how to explain a variety of demographic,
social, and cultural facts in terms of human social interaction. Some of the
major topics in this field are social inequality,
group
dynamics, prejudice, aggression, social perception, group behavior, social
change, nonverbal behavior, socialization, conformity, leadership, and social
identity. Social psychology may be taught with
psychological emphasis. In
sociology, researchers in this field are the most prominent users of the
experimental
method (however, unlike their psychological counterparts, they also
frequently employ other methodologies). Social psychology looks at social
influences, as well as social perception and social interaction.
Stratification
Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into
social classes,
castes,
and divisions within a society. Modern
Western
societies stratification traditionally relates to cultural and economic
classes arranged in three main layers:
upper class,
middle
class, and
lower class, but each class may be further subdivided
into smaller classes (e.g.
occupational). Social stratification is
interpreted in radically different ways within sociology. Proponents of
structural functionalism suggest that,
since the stratification of classes and castes is evident in all societies,
hierarchy must be beneficial in stabilizing 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 effectively includes the
proletariat
itself as the workers can only sell their own
labour
power (forming the
material base of the cultural superstructure).
Max Weber critiqued Marxist
economic determinism, arguing that social
stratification is not based purely on economic inequalities, but on other
status and power differentials (e.g.
patriarchy).
According to Weber, stratification may occur amongst at least three complex
variables: (1) Property (class): A person's economic position in a society,
based on birth and individual achievement. Weber differs from Marx in that he
does not see this as the supreme factor in stratification. Weber noted how
managers of corporations or industries control firms they do not own; Marx
would have placed such a person in the proletariat. (2) Prestige (status): A
person's prestige, or popularity in a society. This could be determined by the
kind of job this person does or wealth. and (3) Power (political party): A
person's ability to get their way despite the resistance of others. For
example, individuals in state jobs, such as an employee of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, or a member of the United States Congress, may hold little
property or status but they still hold immense power
Pierre
Bourdieu provides a modern example in the concepts of
cultural
and
symbolic capital. 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.
Urban and rural sociology
Urban sociology involves the analysis of social life and human interaction
in metropolitan areas. It is a discipline seeking to provide advice for
planning and policy making. After the
industrial revolution, works such as
Georg
Simmel's
The Metropolis and Mental Life
(1903) focused on urbanization and the effect it had on alienation and
anonymity. In the 1920s and 1930s The
Chicago School produced a major body of
theory on the nature of the city, important to both urban sociology and
criminology, utilising
symbolic interactionism as a method of field
research. Contemporary research is commonly placed in a context of
globalization,
for instance, in
Saskia Sassen's study of the "
Global city".
Rural sociology, by contrast, is the analysis of non-metropolitan areas.
Work and industry
The sociology of work, or industrial sociology, examines "the direction
and implications of trends in
technological
change,
globalization, labour markets, work organization,
managerial
practices and
employment relations to the extent to which
these trends are intimately related to changing patterns of inequality in
modern societies and to the changing experiences of individuals and families
the ways in which workers challenge, resist and make their own contributions to
the patterning of work and shaping of work institutions."
Sociology and the other academic disciplines
Sociology overlaps with a variety of disciplines that study society, in
particular
anthropology,
political
science,
economics,
and
social philosophy. Many comparatively new fields
such as
communication studies,
cultural
studies,
demography and
literary
theory, draw upon methods that originated in sociology. The terms "
social
science" and "
social
research" have both gained a degree of autonomy since their
origination 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.
Sociology and
applied sociology are connected to the
professional and academic discipline of
social work.
Both disciplines study social interactions, community and the effect of various
systems (i.e. family, school, community, laws, political sphere) on the
individual. However, social work is generally more focused on practical
strategies to alleviate social dysfunctions; sociology in general provides a
thorough examination of the root causes of these problems.For example, a
sociologist might study
why a community is plagued with poverty. The
applied
sociologist would be more focused on practical strategies on
what
needs to be done to alleviate this burden. The social worker would be focused
on
action; implementing theses strategies
"directly" or
"indirectly" by means of
mental
health therapy,
counseling,
advocacy,
community organization or
community mobilization.
Social anthropology is the branch of
anthropology
that studies how contemporary living human beings behave in
social
groups. Practitioners of social anthropology, like sociologists,
investigate various facets of
social organization. Traditionally, social
anthropologists analysed non-industrial and non-Western societies, whereas
sociologists focused on industrialized societies in the Western world. In
recent years, however, social anthropology has expanded its focus to modern
Western societies, meaning that the two disciplines increasingly converge.
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, and
zoology.
Sociobiology has generated controversy within the sociological academy for
allegedly giving too much attention to gene expression over socialization and
environmental factors in general (see '
nature versus nurture').
Entomologist
E. O.
Wilson is credited as having originally developed and described
Sociobiology. Besides Sociobiology the biocommunication theory investigates
interactions between non-human organisms such as animal communication, plant
communication, fungal communication and communication in microorganisms on the
basis of rule-governed sign-use. In this respect any coordination of behavior
between at least two organisms is sign-mediated that underlies combinatorial
(syntactic), context-dependent (pragmatic) and content-relevant (semantic)
rules.
Irving Louis Horowitz, in his
The
Decomposition of Sociology (1994), has argued that the discipline, whilst
arriving from a "distinguished lineage and tradition", is in decline
due to deeply ideological theory and a lack of relevance to policy making:
"The decomposition of sociology began when this great tradition became
subject to ideological thinking, and an inferior tradition surfaced in the wake
of totalitarian triumphs." Furthermore: "A problem yet unmentioned is
that sociology's malaise has left all the social sciences vulnerable to pure
positivism—to an empiricism lacking any theoretical basis. Talented individuals
who might, in an earlier time, have gone into sociology are seeking
intellectual stimulation in business, law, the natural sciences, and even
creative writing; this drains sociology of much needed potential."
Horowitz cites the lack of a 'core discipline' as exacerbating the problem.
Randall
Collins, the
Dorothy Swaine Thomas
Professor in Sociology at the
University of Pennsylvania and a member
of the Advisory Editors Council of the
Social Evolution & History
journal, has voiced similar sentiments: "we have lost all coherence as a
discipline, we are breaking up into a conglomerate of specialities, each going
on its own way and with none too high regard for each other."
In 2007,
The Times Higher Education Guide
published a list of 'The most cited authors of books in the Humanities'
(including philosophy and psychology). Seven of the top ten are listed as
sociologists:
Michel Foucault (1),
Pierre
Bourdieu (2),
Anthony Giddens (5),
Erving
Goffman (6),
Jürgen Habermas (7),
Max Weber
(8), and
Bruno Latour (10).
Journals
The most highly ranked general journals which publish original research in
the field of sociology are the
American Journal of Sociology
and the
American Sociological Review.
The
Annual Review of Sociology, which
publishes literature reviews, is also highly ranked. Many other generalist and
specialized journals exist.
SUBSCRIBERS - ( LINKS) :FOLLOW
/ REF / 2 /
findleverage.blogspot.com
Krkz77@yahoo.com
+234-81-83195664
