Download docx Sociology

1
Sociology
The word Sociology is derived from the Latin word “societus: Sociology is the study of society. A
social science involving the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies. The study of our
behavior as social beings, covering everything from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous
individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. The scientific study of social aggregations,
the entities through which humans move throughout their lives'. An overarching unification of all studies of
humankind, including history, psychology, and economics. People may not believe it,that there are
thousands of accomplished people with BA, MA, and PhD degrees in sociology. Most of them are
politicians, Artists, Sportsmen etc. The term sociology was coined by Auguste Comte, A French
Philosepher, in 1839. The teaching of sociology as a separate deiscipline started in 1876 in the United
States. In 1889 in France. In 1907 in great Britan, After 1st World was in Poland and India, in 1925 in
Egypt and Mexico, and in 1947 in Sweden. The most distinctive feature of human life is its social
character. All humanbeings interact with one another in order to survive. “Man is a social animal”
remarked by the Greek Philosepher, Aristotle. Both nature and necessity impel man to live in society.
Neverthless, man has been trying to take stock of his social enviorment and to understand the problems
created by it since ancient times. But in the early stages man carried on the study of the different aspect of
society, giving rise to different social sciences. Socilogy, on the on hand, a synthetic disciple, trying to
unify the results of,separate deciplines from a control point of view., and on the otherhand, an analystic
and specialized science with its own . Sociology is not only a science with its own subject matter but also
the mother of all social sciences. Some critics says that sociology doesnot have a subject matter of its own
and that it is hotchpotch of a different social sciences.
Scope of Sociology
It is maintained that ;Sociology Studies; everything and anything under the sun. This is rather too
vague to view about the scope of sociology. As a matter of fact Sociology has a limited field of enquiry
and deals with those problems that are not dealt with by other social sciences. In the broadest sense,
sociology is the study of human interactions and interrelations, their conditions and consequences. Thus,
Ideally sociology has for its field the whole life of man in society, all the activities whereby men
maintintained themselves in the stuggle for existence, the rules and regulations that define their relations
with each other. Te systems of knowledge and belief, art and morals, and anyother capacities and habits
acquired and developed in the course of their activities. As members of society. But this is too wide a
scope for any science to deal. With properly. A n attempt has therefore, been made to limit and demarcate
the field of sociology. There are two main schools of thought among sociologists on this issue.
According to Simmel one of the German sociologist , the distinction between sociology and other
sciences is that it deal with different modes of social relationships. The social relationships, such as,
competition, subordination and division of labour, are exemplified in different spheres of social life such as
economic, political and even, religious. Moral or artistic, but the business of sociology is disentangle these
forms of social relationships and to study them in abstraction. Thus according to Simmel, sociology is a
specific social science that describes, classifies, analyses, and delinates the forms of social relationships.
According to Small, another sociologist, sociology doesnot undertake to study all the activities of society.
Every science has a delimited scope. The scope of sociology is the study of generic forms of social
relatiohships, behavious and activities Vierkandt,another leading sociologist, maintains that the sociology
is a special branch of knowledge concerned with the ultimate form of mental and psychic relationships
that link men to one another in society. And according to Max Weber the aim of sociology is to interpret
or understand social behaviour. Thus according to the formalistic school, sociology studies one specific
aspect of social relationships that is, their forms in their abstact nature and not in any concret situation. The
forms of social relationship do not change with the change in the content of social relationships likewise a
comparison is drawn between the forms of social relationships and the bottle. Ie. A bottle may be either
of plastic or anyother material,it may contain milk, water but the contenst of the bottle do not change the
form of bottle. In brief the study of competition willnot make any difference whether we study it in the
political field or economic field.
(a) Durkheim’s views:- The synthetic school wants to make sociology a synthesis of social scisnces.
According to Durkheim,sociology have three principal divisions.
(i) Social Morphology (ii) Social
physiology (iii) General sociology. The first one, Social morphology is concerned with geographical or
territorial ,basis of the life of people. And its relation to types of social. organizations. It also deals with
the problems of populations such as its volume and destiny, local distribution and the like. The second
one social physiology is divided into a number of branches such as sociology of religion , morals, laws,
economic life and languages. Each branch of sociology deals with a set of social facts, that is activities
related to the various social groups. The function of the third one, General sociology is to discover the
general characteristics of these social facts and to determine whether there are any general social laws of
which the different laws established by the special social sciences are particular expressions.
(b)Hobhouse’s View:- Hobhouse also holds a view similar to that of Durkheim regarding the functions of
sociology, Ideally for him sociology is a synthesisi of numerous social studies.
(c) Sorokkin’s View:- According to Sorokkin the subject matter of sociology includes,
(i) The study of relationships between different aspects of social phenomena
(ii) The study of relationship between the social and nonsocial
(iii) The study of general features of social phenomena
(c) Ginsberg’s View:- Ginsberg has summed up the chief functions of sociology as follows. First
sociology seeks to provide a classifications of types and forms of social relationship especially of those
that have come to be defined as institutions and associations. Second, it tries to determine the relation
between the different parts of factors of social life. for example, the economic and the political, the moral
and the religious, the moral and the legal, the intellectual and the social elements. Third is the
endeavours to disentangle the fundamental condition of social change and persistence and to discover
sociological principles governing social life.
In conclusion the scope of sociology is very wide. It is a general science , but also a special science.
As a matter of fact the subject matter of all social sciences is society. What distinguishes them from one
another is their viewpoint. Thus the economics studies society from an economic viewpoint, political
science studies it from political viewpoint, history studies society from a historical viewpoint. Sociology
alone studies social relationships and society itself.
THE FIELDS OF SOCIOLOGY
(a)Sociological theory: includes the study of sociological concepts, principals and generalizations.
(b) Historical sociology : includes the past social institutions and the origin of the present ones,
(c) Sociology of family: studies the origin, growth,functions, kinds, nature of family and its problems
(d) Human ecology and demography: studies the influence of population geographical factors on society.
(e) Sociology of community: is the study ofthe community. It is divided in to two parts
(i) Rural sociology (ii) Urban sociology
(f) Special sociology: have benn developed to study the different aspects of social relationships.
SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIOLOGY
A study of the important concepts of sociology will convince us that this science is of immence value.
Sociology makes a scientific study of society. Prior to the emergence of sociology the story of society was
carried on in an unscienfic manner. And society had never been the central concern of any science. It is
through the study of sociology that the true scienfic study of the society has been made possible.
Sociology studies the role of the institution in the development of the individuals. It is through sociology
that scientific study of the great social institutions and the relations of the individual to each is being
made. The home and the family, the school and education, the church and religion, the state and
government, the industry and work, the community and association, all are the great institution through
which society functions. Sociology studies those institutions and their roles in the developments of the
individual and suggests suitable measure for strengthening them with a view to enable them to serve the
individual better.
The study of sociology is indispensable for understanding and planning of society. Society is a complex
Phenomenon with a multitude of intricacies. It is impossible to understand it and to solve its various
problems without the study of sociology. Sociology bears the same relation to the solutions of the social
problems as biology and bacteriology bear to medicine. Just like in the section mathematics and physics to
engeneering. Without the research done in the theoretical and experimental sciences, modern techniques
for curing a disease or those for building a bridge will be impossible.