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.
[26] 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.
[27]
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.
[28] Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the
University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his
Rules of the Sociological Method (1895).
[29] For Durkheim, sociology could be described as the "science of
institutions, their genesis and their functioning".
[30]
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.
[28]
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".
[31] 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.
[4]
Durkheim, Marx, and the German theorist
Max Weber (1864-1920) are typically cited as the three principal architects of social science.
[32] 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.
[33]
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).
— John Harriss
The Second Great Transformation? Capitalism at the End of the Twentieth Century 1992,
[33]
Other developments
The first college course entitled "Sociology" was taught in the United States at
Yale in 1875 by
William Graham Sumner.
[34] 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.
[27]
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.
[36] 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.
[37] Their influence gave rise to
social psychology and the
symbolic interactionism of the modern
Chicago School.
[38] The
American Journal of Sociology was founded in 1895, followed by the
American Sociological Association (ASA) in 1905.
[36] 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.
[39]
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.
[40]
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.
[41] Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse and
Edvard Westermarck became the lecturers in the discipline at the
University of London in 1907.
[42][43] Harriet Martineau, an English translator of Comte, has been cited as the first female sociologist.
[44] 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.
[45] 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.
[46] 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.
[47]
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.
[28][49]
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
[28] 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.
[28]
Loic Wacquant distinguishes three major strains of positivism:
Durkheimian, Logical, and Instrumental.
[28]
None of these are the same as that set forth by Comte, who was unique
in advocating such a rigid (and perhaps optimistic) version.
[50][51]
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.
[28] He developed the notion of objective
sui generis "social facts" to delineate a unique empirical object for the science of sociology to study.
[28]
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.
[52] 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,
[28]
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.
[53]
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.
[54] 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.
[55] 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.
[56]
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.
[57] As a non-positivist, however, Weber sought relationships that are not as "historical, invariant, or generalizable"
[58] 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").
[59]
[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.
[61]
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.
[62]
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?'
[63]
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.
[65]
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.
[65]
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.
[66]
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.
[67] 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)."
[68]
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.
[71] By the 1980s, functionalism in Europe had broadly been replaced by
conflict-oriented approaches.
[72]
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."
[73]
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."
[74]
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.
[75]
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.
[77][78]
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?").
[79]
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.
[80] Quantitative methodologies hold the dominant position in sociology, especially in the United States.
[28]
In the discipline's two most cited journals, quantitative articles have
historically outnumbered qualitative ones by a factor of two.
[81] (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,
[82] 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,
[83] though this judgment continues to be challenged by antipositivists.
[83]
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.
[80]
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.
[80]
Methods
The following list of research methods is neither exclusive nor exhaustive:
- Archival research or the Historical method: draws upon the secondary data located in historical archives and records, such as biographies, memoirs, journals, and so on.
- Content analysis: The content of interviews and other texts is systematically analyzed. Often data is 'coded' as a part of the 'grounded theory' approach using qualitative data analysis (QDA) software, such as NVivo,[84] 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.[86] 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.[87] Data from surveys is usually analyzed statistically on a computer.
Computational sociology
A
social network diagram: individuals (or 'nodes') connected by relationships.
Sociologists increasingly draw upon computationally intensive methods to analyze and model social phenomena.
[88] Using
computer simulations,
artificial intelligence,
text mining, complex statistical methods, and new analytic approaches like
social network
analysis, computational sociology develops and tests theories of
complex social processes through bottom-up modeling of social
interactions.
[89]
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.
[90][91]
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.
[92] Social complexity concepts such as
complex systems,
non-linear interconnection among macro and micro process, and
emergence, have entered the vocabulary of computational sociology.
[93] 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.
[94][95]
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.[96]
Scope and topics
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".
[62] 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.
[dubious – discuss] 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, which 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".
[97]
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.
[98]
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.
[99]
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.
[100] 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.
[101] 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).
[102]
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.
[103]
"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.
[104]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.
[105]
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.
[106]
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).
[107]
Internet
The
Internet is of interest to sociologists in various ways; most practically as a tool for
research and as a discussion platform.
[108] 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."
[110] 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
Main article:
Media studies
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.
[111]
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?"
[112] 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.
[113]
Contemporary political sociology includes these areas of research,
but it has been opened up to wider questions of power and politics.
[114]
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.
[115]
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.
[116] 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.
[117]
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".
[118] 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),
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.
[119]
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.
[120] 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.
[120]
Stratification
Social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into social classes,
castes, and divisions within a society.
[121] 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).
[122] 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.
[123]
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
[124] 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.
[125] Perspectives concerning globalization, such as
dependency theory, suggest this effect owes to the shift of workers to the
Third World.
[126]
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".
[127] 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."
[128]
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.
[129]
Sociology and
applied sociology are connected to the professional and academic discipline of
social work.
[130]
Both disciplines study social interactions, community and the effect of
various systems (i.e. family, school, community, laws, political
sphere) on the individual.
[131]
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.
[132] 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.
[131]
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.
[133][134]
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.
[135]
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."
[136]
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."
[136] 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."
[137]
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).
[138]
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.
[139] The
Annual Review of Sociology, which publishes literature reviews, is also highly ranked.
[139] Many other generalist and specialized journals exist.
See also
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Further reading
- Aby, Stephen H. Sociology: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources, 3rd edn. Littleton, Colorado, Libraries Unlimited Inc., 2005, ISBN 1-56308-947-5 OCLC 57475961
- Babbie, Earl R.. 2003. The Practice of Social Research, 10th edition. Wadsworth, Thomson Learning Inc., ISBN 0-534-62029-9 OCLC 51917727
- Collins, Randall. 1994. Four Sociological Traditions. Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-508208-7 OCLC 28411490
- Coser, Lewis A., Masters of Sociological Thought : Ideas in Historical and Social Context, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. ISBN 0-15-555128-0.
- Giddens, Anthony. 2006. Sociology (5th edition), Polity, Cambridge. ISBN 0-7456-3378-1 OCLC 63186308
- Landis, Judson R (1989). Sociology: Concepts and Characteristics (7th ed.). Belmont, California: Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-10158-5.
- Lipset, Seymour Martin and Everett Carll Ladd. "The Politics of American Sociologists," American Journal of Sociology (1972) 78#1 pp. 67-104 in JSTOR
- Macionis, John J (1991). Sociology (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-820358-X.
- Merton, Robert K.. 1959. Social Theory and Social Structure. Toward the codification of theory and research, Glencoe: Ill. (Revised and enlarged edition) OCLC 4536864
- Mills, C. Wright, The Sociological Imagination,1959OCLC 165883
- C. Wright Mills, Intellectual Craftsmanship Advices how to Work for young Sociologist
- Mitchell, Geoffrey Duncan (2007, originally published in 1968). A Hundred Years of Sociology: A Concise History of the Major Figures, Ideas, and Schools of Sociological Thought. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0-202-36168-0. OCLC 145146341.
- Nisbet, Robert A. 1967. The Sociological Tradition, London, Heinemann Educational Books. ISBN 1-56000-667-6 OCLC 26934810
- Ritzer, George and Douglas J. Goodman. 2004. Sociological Theory, Sixth Edition. McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-281718-6 OCLC 52240022
- Scott, John & Marshall, Gordon (eds) A Dictionary of Sociology (3rd Ed). Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-860986-8, OCLC 60370982
- Wallace, Ruth A. & Alison Wolf. 1995. Contemporary Sociological Theory: Continuing the Classical Tradition, 4th ed., Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-036245-X OCLC 31604842
- White, Harrison C.. 2008. Identity and Control. How Social Formations Emerge. (2nd ed., Completely rev. ed.) Princeton, Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13714-8 OCLC 174138884
- Willis, Evan. 1996. The Sociological Quest: An introduction to the study of social life,