Sociology

Nature & Scope

• Sociology is the scientific study of human
social life, groups and societies. Its
subject matter is our own behaviour as
social beings.
• Scope is wide– range is wide starting
from passing encounters between
individuals on streets to investigation of
global social presences like the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism
 “The Sociological Imagination”
• Learning to think sociologically means
adopting the ‘sociological imagination’~
coinage by C Wright Mills
• How? By learning to think ourselves away
from the familiar routines of our daily life
• Ex: The everyday act of drinking a cup of
tea/coffee. What will be the sociological
perspective??
Coffee Plantation of Wayanad,
Kerala
Can you guess this iconic photo?
• Sociological imagination allows us to see
many events that may seem to affect an
individual as being a part of ‘a system’.
• It helps us to understand the concept of
social structure or structuration. This is
not a physical structure but one that is
built through human behaviour.
• Social structuration helps in building
social theories (Let’s go back to the
concept of drinking coffee/tea, shall we?)
 Sociology Theory
• Early Sociology:: August Comte coined the
term ‘sociology’ wanted to create a ‘science’
of society that would explain laws of social
world just like natural science which
explained laws of physical world believed
that despite being in different disciplines,
every subject matter had a common logic and
scientific method sociology should be
treated as ‘positive science’ where positivism
must apply to the discipline …to be contd…
 Which means production of knowledge on
society based on empirical evidence
‘law of three stages’ in society (theological,
meaning belief that society was an
expression of God’s belief; metaphysical,
meaning Renaissance society or natural
society not supernatural society; positivist,
meaning changes ushered in society by
scientific discoveries by Galileo,
Copernicus, etc)
• Modern Sociology:: Emily Durkheim treated
sociology as ‘new science’ which could help
elucidate traditional philosophical questions
in an empirical manner sociology should
be the study of ‘social facts’, doing fact-based
enquiry of the state of the economy or the
influence of religion emphasised on social
facts over individual action as he believed
that people often don’t act out of free
choice…to be contd…
But due to coercive nature of society or
social facts social facts difficult to
study as they are invisible, their properties
are analysed based on the effects they
have was interested more in studying
what keeps society together
• Modern Sociology II:: Karl Marx unlike
Durkheim, believed in a hierarchical
understanding of society and therefore the
idea of society coming together futile. His
ideas were shaped by 18 Century
th

industrialisation in Europe and the birth of

capitalism. Proposed ‘class society’.
• Max Weber economic factors are important
but also are social values for social change, it
today helps us to understand other societal
categories other than ‘class’.
 Practical Approaches that
Sociology teaches us
• Functionalism: Social activities make up society.
Theories teach us that the functions of these social
activities are primarily of two kinds; manifest (that which
social individuals intend to do and are visible) and latent
(that which social individuals don’t intend to do and are
not visible).
• Symbolic Interactionism: exchange of symbolic
interactions among individuals in society. They are
generally small-scale in nature and do not pertain to the
society as a whole.
• Conflict Management: Theories teach us that society is
full of structures and these structures are power
hierarchies. Often these hierarchies come in conflict
with one another. When we can spot the reason behind
the conflict by identifying the hierarchy,
 Sociology and Other Sciences
Sociology and HISTORY
• Sociologists study the contemporary
society and for understanding social and
cultural change, they always refer to the
historical material available on it.
• History takes support of sociology to
analyse historical phenomenon. It primarily
looks into social aspects of past human
lives. Now, history has also become far
sociological.
Differences between Sociology and History
• Sociology is concerned with present day
societies but History is concerned with the
past.
• Sociology attempts to generalize about
human societies but History confines
itself with specific societies.
Sociology and POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Political Science is a branch of social science that deals
with systematic study of the state, government and
other organs of power. It studies the nature of the
distribution of power in a society and the nature of the
government and its functions. For sociology, political
institution is one of the institutions of society and should
be analysed in relationship with other institutions. The
specialized study of political institution that sociologists
undertake is known as political sociology.
• Sociology shares many characteristics in common with
political science, but it emphasizes more on exploring
the social bases of the distribution of power, control
mechanisms, and the system of law.
Differences between Sociology and Political
Science
• Sociology believes that man is a political
being but Pol Sc. tries to explain the social
aspect of man as a political being.
• Sociology begin with macro units and
generalise about them but Pol Sc. studies
micro units, systematically compare them
and then reach common propositions.
Sociology and ECONOMICS
• Sociologist studies economic institution as
one of the several institutions of human
society. It examines the functioning of the
economic institution in relationship with
other institutions.
• Sociologists submit that social factors
exercise a tremendous impact on the
decisions people make with respect to
resources, their use and distribution unlike
economics which primarily look at economic
factors.
Differences between Sociology and
Economics
• Economics follows DEDUCTIVE
APPROACH through Census Reports,
Survey Reports, Balance Sheets
• Sociology follows INDUCTIVE APPROACH
through intensive field work, and study at
macro level.
Sociology and ANTHROPOLOGY
• Anthropology is a study of the biological and socio-cultural aspects of human
beings. It is a scientific study of man in all its dimensions, both biological and
socio-cultural. It is social anthropology that studies the cultural and social
aspects of society. Sociology studies aspects of both human and non-
human society, biologically and socio-culturally.
Sociology and SOCIAL WORK
• The relation between sociology and social work is like the relation between a
`pure science' and an 'applied science'. Social work is concerned with the
`technology of application' of ideas for improving human life. Social work is
dependent upon sociological insights. Sociology generates holistic
knowledge about society. It also discusses the possibility of applying this
knowledge.
Sociology and PSYCHOLOGY
• Psychology is the study of psychic facts, the facts that pertain to the mental
structure of the individual. Sociology is the study of social facts, which are of
a continuing entity called society. They are the ones according to which
people behave in relation to others.