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Sociology

Sociology is the study of society."Comte, Auguste, A Dictionary of Sociology (3rd Ed), John Scott & Gordon Marshall (eds), Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0198609868, ISBN 978-0198609865 It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter ranges from the micro level of agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and social structures.Giddens, Anthony, Duneier, Mitchell, Applebaum, Richard. 2007. Introduction to Sociology. Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company Sociology is both topically and methodologically a very broad discipline. Its traditional focuses have included social stratification (i.e., "class"), social mobility, religion, secularization, law, and deviance, while approaches have included both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. As all spheres of human activity are sculpted by social structure and individual agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such as medical, military and penal institutions, the Internet, and even the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge. The range of social scientific methods has also broadly expanded. 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 mathematically and computationally rigorous techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social network analysis.{{cite journal |doi=10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141117 |last1=Macy |first1=Michael |first2=Robb |last2=Willer |year=2002 |title=From Factors to Actors: Computational Sociology and Agent-Based Modeling |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |volume=28 |pages=143–66}}{{cite journal |url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5915/721 |title=Computational Social Science |journal=Science |date=February 6, 2009 |volume=323 |issue=5915 |pages=721–723 |doi=10.1126/science.1167742 |first1=David |last1=Lazer |first2=Alex |last2=Pentland |pmid=19197046 |last3=Adamic |first3=L |last4=Aral |first4=S |last5=Barabasi |first5=AL |last6=Brewer |first6=D |last7=Christakis |first7=N |last8=Contractor |first8=N |last9=Fowler |first9=J |pmc=2745217 }}

History

Origins

Sociological reasoning pre-dates the foundation of the discipline. 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. The origin of the survey can be traced back at least early as the Domesday Book in 1086,A. H. Halsey(2004),A history of sociology in Britain: science, literature, and society,p.34Geoffrey Duncan Mitchell(1970),A new dictionary of sociology,p.201 whilst ancient philosophers such as Confucius wrote on the importance of social roles. There is evidence of early sociology in medieval Islam. 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.H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the Arab World", Cooperation South Journal 1.Dr. S. W. Akhtar (1997). "The Islamic Concept of Knowledge", Al-Tawhid: A Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought & Culture 12 (3).Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357–377 375. The word (or "sociologie") is derived from the Latin: , "companion"; -ology, "the study of", and Greek , lógos, "word", "knowledge". It was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript.Des Manuscrits de Sieyès. 1773–1799, Volumes I and II, published by Christine Fauré, Jacques Guilhaumou, Jacques Vallier et Françoise Weil, Paris, Champion>, 1999 and 2007. See also Christine Fauré and Jacques Guilhaumou, Sieyès et le non-dit de la sociologie: du mot à la chose, in Revue d'histoire des sciences humaines, Numéro 15, novembre 2006: Naissances de la science sociale. See also the article in the French-language Wikipedia. Sociology was later defined independently by the French philosopher of science, Auguste Comte (1798–1857), in 1838.A Dictionary of Sociology, Article: Comte, Auguste 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 (1848). Comte believed a positivist stage would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, in the progression of human understanding.Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Article: Comte, Auguste Both Comte and Karl Marx (1818–1883) set out to develop scientifically justified systems in the wake of European industrialisation and secularisation, informed by various key movements in the philosophies of history and science. Marx rejected Comtean sociological 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."Berlin, Isaiah. 1967. Karl Marx: His Life and Environment. Time Inc Book Division, New York. pp130

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. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method.Gianfranco Poggi (2000). Durkheim. Oxford: Oxford University Press. In 1896, he established the journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst Roman Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy. It also marked a major contribution to the theoretical concept of structural functionalism. For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning".Durkheim, Émile 1895 "The Rules of Sociological Method" 8th edition, trans. Sarah A. Solovay and John M. Mueller, ed. George E. G. Catlin (1938, 1964 edition), pp. 45 He endeavoured to apply sociological findings in the pursuit of political reform and social solidarity. A course entitled "sociology" was taught in the United States at Yale in 1875 by William Graham Sumner. In 1890, the oldest continuing American course in the modern tradition began at the University of Kansas, lectured by Frank W. Blackmar. The Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago was established in 1892 by Albion Small. 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.Miller, David (2009). George Herbert Mead: Self, Language, and the World. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-72700-3. Their influence gave rise to social psychology and the symbolic interactionism of the modern Chicago School.1930: The Development of Sociology at Michigan. pp.3–14 in Sociological Theory and Research, being Selected papers of Charles Horton Cooley, edited by Robert Cooley Angell, New York: Henry Holt 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.Camic, Charles. 1992. "Reputation and Predecessor Selection: Parsons and the Institutionalists", American Sociological Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Aug., 1992), pp. 421-445 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.Morrison, Ken. 2006 (2nd ed.) "Marx, Durkheim, Weber", Sage, pp. 1-7 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 became a lecturer in the discipline at the University of London in 1907. Bookrags: Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse 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." Frankfurt School". (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online . Retrieved September 12, 2009. International co-operation in sociology began in 1893, when René Worms founded the , an institution later eclipsed by the much larger International Sociological Association (ISA), founded in 1949.http://www.isa-sociology.org/ International Sociological Association Website Sociology evolved as an academic response to the challenges of modernity, such as industrialization, urbanization, secularization, and a perceived process of enveloping rationalization.Habermas, Jürgen, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Modernity's Consciousness of Time, Polity Press (1985), paperback, ISBN 0-7456-0830-2, p2 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 enquiry, have significantly expanded and diverged.Giddens, Anthony, Duneier, Mitchell, Applebaum, Richard. 2007. Introduction to Sociology. Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Chapter 1. Durkheim, Marx and Weber are typically cited as the three principal architects of social science. Vilfredo Pareto, Alexis de Tocqueville, Werner Sombart, Thorstein Veblen, Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel and Karl Mannheim are occasionally included on academic curricula as further founding theorists. Harriet Martineau, an English translator of Comte, has been cited as the first female sociologist.Hill, Michael R. (2002) "Harriet Martineau: theoretical and methodological perspectives" Routledge. ISBN 0415945283 Each key figure is associated with a particular theoretical perspective and orientation.Harriss, John. The Second Great Transformation? Capitalism at the End of the Twentieth Century in Allen, T. and Thomas, Alan (eds) ''Poverty and Development in the 21st Century', Oxford University Press, Oxford. p325.

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. In the original Comtean usage, "positivism" roughly meant the use of scientific methods to uncover the laws according to which both physical and human events occur, while "sociology" was the overarching science that would synthesize all such knowledge for the betterment of society. The term has long since ceased to carry this meaning.Wacquant, Loic. 1992. "Positivism." In Bottomore, Tom and William Outhwaite, ed., The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought There are no fewer than twelve distinct epistemologies that are referred to as positivism.Halfpenny, Peter. Positivism and Sociology: Explaining Social Science. London:Allen and Unwin, 1982. 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 atheoretical empiricism. The extent of antipositivist criticism has also diverged, with many rejecting the scientifically driven social epistemology 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. Loic 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 amongst sociologists in advocating a formulation with such a restrictive epistemology and grandiose teleology.Fish, Jonathan S. 2005. 'Defending the Durkheimian Tradition. Religion, Emotion and Morality' Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. 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 suis 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 debates concerning clarity, replicability, reliability and validity.Gartell, David, and Gartell, John. 1996. "Positivism in sociological practice: 1967-1990". Canadian Review of Sociology, Vol. 33 No. 2. This positivism is more or less synonymous with quantitative research, and thus only resembles older positivist stances in practice: since it carries no explicit philosophical commitment, its practitioners may have any of a variety of viewpoints, including postpositivism and antipositivism. The institutionalization of this kind of sociology 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.Boudon, Raymond. 1991. "Review: What Middle-Range Theories are". Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 20 Num. 4 pp 519-522.

Antipositivism

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 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. 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.Rickman, H. P. (1960) The Reaction against Positivism and Dilthey's Concept of Understanding, The London School of Economics and Political Science. p307 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 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 nonpositivist, however, Weber sought relationships that are not as "ahistorical, 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").*Ferdinand Tönnies (ed. Jose Harris), Community and Civil Society, Cambridge University Press (2001), hardcover, 266 pages, ISBN 0-521-56119-1; trade paperback, Cambridge University Press (2001), 266 pages, ISBN 0-521-56782-3 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.Kaern, Phillips & Cohen. (1990) Georg Simmel and Contemporary Sociology. Springer Publishing. ISBN 9780792304074. p15. 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.Levine, Donald (ed) 'Simmel: On individuality and social forms' Chicago University Press, 1971. pxix. His sociology engaged in a neo-Kantian enquiry into the limits of perception, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?'Levine, Donald (ed) 'Simmel: On individuality and social forms' Chicago University Press, 1971. p6.

Theoretical frameworks

Functionalism

]] A broad 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.http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/function.htm Department of Anthropology College of Arts and Sciences The University of Alabama: Anthropological theories 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 analysing processes of evolution via mechanisms of adaptation ... functionalism strongly emphasises the pre-eminence of the social world over its individual parts (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects)."Giddens, Anthony "The Constitution of Society" in The Giddens Reader Philip Cassell (eds.) MacMillan Press pp.88 Functionalism shares a history and theoretical affinity with the empirical method. Latter functionalists such as Niklas Luhmann and Talcott Parsons, however, can be viewed as at least partially antipositivist.Bourricaud, F. 'The Sociology of Talcott Parsons' Chicago University Press. ISBN 0-226-067564. p. 94 Whilst one might regard functionalism merely as a logical extension of those organic analogies for society presented by Enlightenment philosophers such as Rousseau, sociology draws firmer attention to the institutions unique to industrialised capitalist society (or " modernity"). Parsons, in fact, came to regard "structural functionalism" as descriptive of a particular stage in the methodological development of the social sciences rather than a specific school of thought.Talcott Parsons, "The Present Status of "Structural-Functional" Theory in Sociology." In Talcott Parsons, Social Systems and The Evolution of Action Theory New York: The Free Press, 1975. Functionalism shares an affinity with 'grand theory' (e.g. systems theory) but emphasis may be placed on small units of socialization, such as the nuclear family. 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."

Conflict theory

Functionalism aims only toward a general perspective from which to conduct social science. Methodologically, its principles generally contrast those approaches that emphasise 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:

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 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-indespensible 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

]] Political sociology is the study of 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?"Piven, F. (1988) Why Americans Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want it That Way Pantheon. ISBN 0679723188 Questions of political opinion formation brought about some of the pioneering uses of statistical survey research by Paul Lazarsfeld. A major subfield of political sociolgy draws on comparative history to analyze socio-political trends. The field developed from the work of Max Weber and Moisey Ostrogorsky,Lipset, S.M. Introduction: Ostrogorski and the Analytical Approach to the Comparative Study of Political Parties in M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political (2 vol, 1964; 1982 ed.) whilst contemporary theorists include Robert A. Dahl, Seymour Martin Lipset, Theda Skocpol, Luc Boltanski and Nicos Poulantzas. Some of the main areas of research focus in contemporary political sociology are : (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).

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 is 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.Kevin J. Christiano, et al., (2nd ed., 2008), Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9780742561113 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".Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967). Anchor Books 1990 paperback: ISBN 0-385-07305-4 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 his rationalization thesis: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), (1915), (1915), and Ancient Judaism (1920). Contemporary debates often centre 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 nonlocal 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. 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). 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), (2) Prestige (status), and (3) Power (political party). 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.Dahrendorf, Ralf. (1959) Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Perspectives concerning globalization, such as dependency theory, suggest this effect owes to the shift of workers to the Third World.Bornschier V. (1996), 'Western society in transition' New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.

Urban and rural sociology

Urban sociology involves the analysis of social life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative 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".Sassen, Saskia - The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. (1991) - Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07063-6 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."Watson, Tony J. 2008 Sociology, Work, and Industry. Routledge. ISBN 0415435552. p392

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, film studies, media studies, 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.Sherif, M., and CW Sherif. An Outline of Social Psychology (rev. ed.). New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956 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.http://nos.org/331courseE/L-3%20SOCIOLOGY%20ITS%20RELATIONSHIP%20WITH%20OTHER%20SOCIAL%20SCIEN.pdf 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.Dugan, David. "NOVA: Lord of the Ants." NOVA: Lord of the Ants. Dir. David Dugan. Prod. David Dugan. PBS. WGBH, Boston, Massachusetts, 20 May 2008. Television. 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."Horowitz, Irving (1994) The Decomposition of Sociology Oxford University Press. p3-9 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 president of the American Sociological Association 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."Randall Collins, Cited in Horowitz, Irving (1994) The Decomposition of Sociology Oxford University Press. p3-9 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).

See also

References

Further reading

External links

;Professional associations ;Other resources
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This article based upon the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology, the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Further informations available on the list of authors and history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sociology&action=history
presented by: Ingo Malchow, Mirower Bogen 22, 17235 Neustrelitz, Germany