1.
Sociology
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Sociology is the study of social behaviour or society, including its origins, development, organisation, networks, and institutions. It is a science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, disorder. Many sociologists aim to research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare. Subject matter ranges from the level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems. The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, the range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques, the linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-twentieth century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields, Sociology is distinguished from various general social studies courses, which bear little relation to sociological theory or to social-science research-methodology. The US National Science Foundation classifies sociology as a STEM field, Sociological reasoning pre-dates the foundation of the discipline. Social analysis has origins in the stock of Western knowledge and philosophy. The origin of the survey, i. e, there is evidence of early sociology in medieval Arab writings. The word sociology is derived from both Latin and Greek origins, the Latin word, socius, companion, the suffix -logy, the study of from Greek -λογία from λόγος, lógos, word, knowledge. It was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in an unpublished manuscript, Sociology was later defined independently by the French philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, in 1838. Comte used this term to describe a new way of looking at society, Comte had earlier used the term social physics, but that had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet. Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the understanding of the social realm. Comte believed a positivist stage would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, Comte gave a powerful impetus to the development of sociology, an impetus which bore fruit in the later decades of the nineteenth century. To say this is not to claim that French sociologists such as Durkheim were devoted disciples of the high priest of positivism. To be sure, beginnings can be traced back well beyond Montesquieu, for example, Marx rejected Comtean positivism but in attempting to develop a science of society nevertheless came to be recognized as a founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaning. For Isaiah Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the father of modern sociology
Sociology
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Ibn Khaldun statue in
Tunis,
Tunisia (1332–1406)
Sociology
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Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
Sociology
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Karl Marx (1818–1883)
Sociology
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Émile Durkheim
2.
History of sociology
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Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged primarily out of enlightenment thought, shortly after the French Revolution, as a positivist science of society. Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science, Social analysis in a broader sense, however, has origins in the common stock of philosophy and necessarily pre-dates the field. Modern academic sociology arose as a reaction to modernity, capitalism, urbanization, rationalization, secularization, colonization, an emphasis on the concept of modernity, rather than the Enlightenment, often distinguishes sociological discourse from that of classical political philosophy. Various quantitative social research techniques have become common tools for governments, businesses and organizations, divorced from theoretical explanations of social dynamics, this has given social research a degree of autonomy from the discipline of sociology. Similarly, social science has come to be appropriated as a term to refer to various disciplines which study humans, interaction. Sociological reasoning may be traced back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, proto-sociological observations are to be found in the founding texts of Western philosophy, as well as in the non-European thought of figures such as Confucius. The characteristic trends in the thinking of the ancient Greeks can be traced back to their social environment. Because there was rarely any extensive or highly centralized political organization within states this allowed the tribal spirit of localism and provincialism to have free play and this tribal spirit of localism and provincialism pervaded most of the Greek thinking upon social phenomena. The origin of the survey can be traced back to the Domesday Book ordered by king William I in 1086, there is evidence of early Muslim sociology from the 14th century. He is thus considered by some to be the forerunner of sociology, concerning the discipline of sociology, he conceived a dynamic theory of history that involved conceptualizations of social conflict and social change. He developed the dichotomy of sedentary life versus nomadic life as well as the concept of a generation, following a contemporary Arab scholar, Sati al-Husri, the Muqaddimah may be read as a sociological work, six books of general sociology. Topics dealt with in this work include politics, urban life, economics, the work is based around Ibn Khalduns central concept of asabiyyah, which has been translated as social cohesion, group solidarity, or tribalism. This social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other kinship groups. The term was first coined by the French essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, from the Latin, socius, companion, and the suffix -ology, in 1838, the French-thinker Auguste Comte ultimately gave sociology the definition that it holds today. Comte had earlier expressed his work as physics, but that term had been appropriated by others, most notably a Belgian statistician. He argued that scientists could distract groups from war and strife, in turn, this would bring multiple cultures and societies together and prevent conflict. Saint-Simon took the idea that everyone had encouraged from the Enlightenment, which was the belief in science, saint-Simons main idea was that industrialism would create a new launch in history. He saw that people had been seeing progress as an approach for science, Society was making a crucial change at the time since it was growing out of a declining feudalism
History of sociology
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Auguste Comte
History of sociology
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The Positivist temple in Porto Alegre
History of sociology
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Karl Marx rejected the positivist sociology of Comte but was of central influence in founding structural social science.
History of sociology
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Vilfredo Pareto
3.
Outline of sociology
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Sociology can be described as all of the following, The study of society. Academic discipline – body of knowledge given to - or received by - a disciple, a branch or sphere of knowledge, or field of study, field of science – widely recognized category of specialized expertise within science, and typically embodies its own terminology and nomenclature. Such a field will usually be represented by one or more scientific journals, there are many sociology-related scientific journals. Social science – field of scholarship that explores aspects of human society. He is thus considered by some to be the forerunner of sociology
Outline of sociology
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Sociology
4.
Sociological theory
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Sociological theories are statements of how and why particular facts about the social world are related. They range in scope from concise descriptions of a social process to paradigms for analysis. Some sociological theories explain aspects of the world and enable prediction about future events. Kenneth Allan proposed the distinction between theory and social theory. In Allans usage, sociological theory consists of abstract and testable propositions about society and it often heavily relies on the scientific method, which aims for objectivity, and attempts to avoid passing value judgments. In contrast, social theory, according to Allan, focuses on commentary, Social theory is often closer to Continental philosophy, thus, it is less concerned with objectivity and derivation of testable propositions, and more likely to pass normative judgments. Sociological theory is created only by sociologists, while social theory can frequently come from other disciplines. Prominent social theorists include, Jürgen Habermas, Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault, Dorothy Smith, Alfred Schütz, Jeffrey Alexander, the field of sociology itself—and sociological theory by extension—is relatively new. Both date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, the drastic social changes of that period, such as industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of democratic states caused particularly Western thinkers to become aware of society. The oldest sociological theories deal with broad historical processes relating to these changes, since then, sociological theories have come to encompass most aspects of society, including communities, organizations and relationships. Overall, there is a consensus regarding the central theoretical questions. Sociological theory attempts to answer the three questions, What is action. In the myriad attempts to answer questions, three predominately theoretical problems emerge. These problems are largely inherited from the classical theoretical traditions, the first deals with knowledge, the second with agency, and the last with time. The problem of subjectivity and objectivity can be divided into a concern over the possibilities of social actions. In the former, the subjective is often equated with the individual, the objective is often considered any public or external action or outcome, on up to society writ large. A primary question for social theorists, is how knowledge reproduces along the chain of subjective-objective-subjective, while, historically, qualitative methods have attempted to tease out subjective interpretations, quantitative survey methods also attempt to capture individual subjectivities. Also, some qualitative methods take an approach to objective description in situ
Sociological theory
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American Civil Rights Movement is one of the most famous social movements of the 20th century. Here,
Martin Luther King is giving his "
I Have a Dream " speech, in front of the
Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Sociological theory
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Criminology - The scientific study of crime and criminals.
5.
Positivism
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Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from experience, interpreted through reason and logic. Positivism holds that knowledge is found only in this derived knowledge. Verified data received from the senses are known as empirical evidence, Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology, Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society, and further developed positivism into a Religion of Humanity. The English noun positivism was re-imported in the 19th century from the French word positivisme, the corresponding adjective has been used in similar sense to discuss law since the time of Chaucer. Wilhelm Dilthey popularized the distinction between Geisteswissenschaft and Naturwissenschaften, the consideration that laws in physics may not be absolute but relative, and, if so, this might be more true of social sciences, was stated, in different terms, by G. B. Vico, in contrast to the positivist movement, asserted the superiority of the science of the human mind, Positivism asserts that all authentic knowledge allows verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific. Émile Durkheim reformulated sociological positivism as a foundation of social research, Wilhelm Dilthey, in contrast, fought strenuously against the assumption that only explanations derived from science are valid. Dilthey was in part influenced by the historicism of Leopold von Ranke, at the turn of the 20th century the first wave of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel, rejected the doctrine, thus founding the antipositivist tradition in sociology. Later antipositivists and critical theorists have associated positivism with scientism, science as ideology, but can any one conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing. If we omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely uninteresting, Logical positivists rejected metaphysical speculation and attempted to reduce statements and propositions to pure logic. Strong critiques of this approach by philosophers such as Karl Popper, Willard Van Orman Quine and Thomas Kuhn have been highly influential, in historiography the debate on positivism has been characterized by the quarrel between positivism and historicism. Arguments against positivist approaches in historiography include that history differs from sciences like physics and ethology in subject matter and that much of what history studies is nonquantifiable, and therefore to quantify is to lose in precision. Experimental methods and mathematical models do not generally apply to history, Positivism in the social sciences is usually characterized by quantitative approaches and the proposition of quasi-absolute laws. A significant exception to this trend is represented by cultural anthropology, in psychology the positivist movement was influential in the development of operationalism. Economic thinker Friedrich Hayek rejected positivism in the sciences as hopelessly limited in comparison to evolved and divided knowledge. For example, much legislation falls short in contrast to pre-literate or incompletely defined common or evolved law, in contemporary social science, strong accounts of positivism have long since fallen out of favour
Positivism
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Auguste Comte
Positivism
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Positivist temple in
Porto Alegre
Positivism
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Émile Durkheim
Positivism
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Moritz Schlick, the founding father of logical positivism and the
Vienna Circle.
6.
Antipositivism
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Antipositivism is the belief within social science that the social realm is not subject to the same methods of investigation as the natural world. The social realm requires a different epistemology in which academics do not use the method of the natural sciences. Antipositivists hold that researchers need to be, first, aware that our concepts, ideas, therefore, antipositivists focus on understanding the interpretative method employed. Beginning with Giambattista Vico in the eighteenth century, and later with Montesquieu. The former is not directly under mans control whereas the latter is in mans creation. As such, a distinction is made between the natural world and the social realm which informs antipositivism. The natural world can only be understood with regard to its characteristics, whereas the social realm can be understood externally and internally. The internal focus is seen fully developed in antipositivist methods, in the early nineteenth century, various intellectuals, led by the Hegelians, questioned the prospect of empirical social analysis. The enhanced positivism presented by Emile Durkheim would serve to found modern academic sociology and social research, edmund Husserl, meanwhile, negated positivism through the rubric of phenomenology. As an antipositivist, however, one seeks relationships that are not as ahistorical, invariant, the interaction between theory and data is always fundamental in social science and this subjection distinguishes it from physical science. Durkheim himself noted the importance of constructing concepts in the abstract in order to form workable categories for experimentation. The science whose object is to interpret the meaning of action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds. By action in this definition is meant the human behaviour when, in neither case is the meaning thought of as somehow objectively correct or true by some metaphysical criterion. Through the work of Simmel, in particular, sociology acquired a possible character beyond positivist data-collection or grand and his sociology engaged in a neo-Kantian critique of the limits of human perception. One may say Michel Foucaults critiques of the human sciences take Kantian scepticism to its extreme over half a century later. Antipositivism thus holds there is no unity of the sciences. Science aims at understanding causality so control can be exerted, if this succeeded in sociology, those with knowledge would be able to control the ignorant and this could lead to social engineering. The base concepts of antipositivism have expanded beyond the scope of science, in fact
Antipositivism
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Sociology
7.
Postpositivism
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In philosophy and models of scientific inquiry, postpositivism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism. However, like positivists, postpositivists pursue objectivity by recognizing the effects of biases. Postpositivists believe that knowledge is based not on unchallengeable, rock-solid foundations. However, postpositivism is not a form of relativism, and generally retains the idea of objective truth, postpositivists believe that a reality exists, like positivists do, though they hold that it can be known only imperfectly and probabilistically. One of the first thinkers to criticize logical positivism was Sir Karl Popper and he advanced falsification in lieu of the logical positivist idea of verifiability. Postpositivism is an amendment to positivism that recognizes these and other critiques against logical positivism and it is not a rejection of the scientific method, but rather a reformation of positivism to meet these critiques. It reintroduces the basic assumptions of positivism, ontological realism, the possibility and desirability of objective truth, the work of philosophers Nancy Cartwright and Ian Hacking are representative of these ideas. Postpositivism of this type is common in the sciences for both practical and conceptual reasons. There is a controversy as to whether the work which best represents the origins of Postpositivism is that of Thomas Kuhn or that of Karl Popper. Whereas the work of those following Kuhn has led to a sociology of scientific knowledge, fin De Siecle Social Theory, Relativism, Reductionism and The Problem of Reason, London, Verso. Lanham & Boulder, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, john H. Zammito, A Nice Derangement of Epistemes. Post-positivism in the study of Science from Quine to Latour, Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press. Conjectures and Refutations, The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London, moore, R. Towards the Sociology of Truth, London, Continuum
Postpositivism
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Karl Popper
8.
Structural functionalism
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Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society through an orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole. This approach looks at both social structure and social functions, Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements, namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer, presents these parts of society as organs that work toward the proper functioning of the body as a whole. For Talcott Parsons, structural-functionalism came to describe a stage in the methodological development of social science. Biology has been taken to provide a guide to conceptualizing the structure, Functionalism strongly emphasises the pre-eminence of the social world over its individual parts. Functionalism also has a basis in the work of theorists such as Marcel Mauss, Bronisław Malinowski. It is in Radcliffe-Browns specific usage that the prefix structural emerged, Radcliffe-Brown proposed that most stateless, primitive societies, lacking strong centralized institutions, are based on an association of corporate-descent groups. Structural functionalism also took on Malinowskis argument that the building block of society is the nuclear family. Émile Durkheim was concerned with the question of how certain societies maintain internal stability and he proposed that such societies tend to be segmented, with equivalent parts held together by shared values, common symbols or, as his nephew Marcel Mauss held, systems of exchanges. Durkheim used the mechanical solidarity to refer to these types of social bonds, based on common sentiments & shared moral values. In modern, complex societies, members perform very different tasks and these views were upheld by Durkheim, who, following Comte, believed that society constitutes a separate level of reality, distinct from both biological and inorganic matter. Explanations of social phenomena had therefore to be constructed within this level, the central concern of structural functionalism is a continuation of the Durkheimian task of explaining the apparent stability and internal cohesion needed by societies to endure over time. All social and cultural phenomena are seen as functional in the sense of working together. They are primarily analyzed in terms of this function, the individual is significant not in and of himself, but rather in terms of his status, his position in patterns of social relations, and the behaviours associated with his status. Therefore, the structure is the network of statuses connected by associated roles. It is simplistic to equate the perspective directly with political conservatism, the tendency to emphasize cohesive systems, however, leads functionalist theories to be contrasted with conflict theories which instead emphasize social problems and inequalities. Auguste Comte, the Father of Positivism, pointed out the need to keep society unified as many traditions were diminishing and he was the first person to coin the term sociology
Structural functionalism
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Émile Durkheim
Structural functionalism
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Herbert Spencer
Structural functionalism
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Talcott Parsons
9.
Conflict theories
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Conflict theories draw attention to power differentials, such as class conflict, and generally contrast historically dominant ideologies. It is therefore a macro level analysis of society, Karl Marx is the father of the social conflict theory, which is a component of the four paradigms of sociology. Certain conflict theories set out to highlight the ideological aspects inherent in traditional thought, of the classical founders of social science, conflict theory is most commonly associated with Karl Marx. Based on a dialectical materialist account of history, Marxism posited that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, Marx ushered in radical change, advocating proletarian revolution and freedom from the ruling classes. At the same time, Karl Marx was aware that most of the living in capitalist societies did not see how the system shaped the entire operation of society. Marx rejected this type of thinking and termed it false consciousness, in general, Marx wanted the proletarians to rise up against the capitalists and overthrow the capitalist system. Two early conflict theorists were the Polish-Austrian sociologist and political theorist Ludwig Gumplowicz, Gumplowicz, in Grundriss der Soziologie, describes how civilization has been shaped by conflict between cultures and ethnic groups. Gumplowicz theorized that large complex human societies evolved from the war, the winner of a war would enslave the losers, eventually a complex caste system develops. Horowitz says that Gumplowicz understood conflict in all its forms, class conflict, race conflict and ethnic conflict, Ward directly attacked and attempted to systematically refute the elite business classs laissez-faire philosophy as espoused by the hugely popular social philosopher Herbert Spencer. Wards Dynamic Sociology was a thesis on how to reduce conflict and competition in society. At the most basic level Ward saw human nature itself to be deeply conflicted between self-aggrandizement and altruism, between emotion and intellect, and between male and female. These conflicts would be reflected in society and Ward assumed there had been a perpetual. Ward was more optimistic than Marx and Gumplowicz and believed that it was possible to build on, durkheim saw society as a functioning organism. Durkheim saw crime as a factor in health, an integral part of all healthy societies. The collective conscience defines certain acts as criminal, crime thus plays a role in the evolution of morality and law, implies not only that the way remains open to necessary changes but that in certain cases it directly prepares these changes. Webers approach to conflict is contrasted with that of Marx, C. Wright Mills has been called the founder of modern conflict theory. In Millss view, social structures are created through conflict between people with differing interests and resources, individuals and resources, in turn, are influenced by these structures and by the unequal distribution of power and resources in the society. The power elite of American society, had emerged from the fusion of the elite, the Pentagon
Conflict theories
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Sociology
10.
Social constructionism
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The theory centers on the notions that human beings rationalize their experience by creating models of the social world and share and reify these models through language. A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and it involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans. In terms of background, social constructionism is rooted in symbolic interactionism, with Berger and Luckmans The Social Construction of Reality published in 1966, this concept found its hold. More than four decades later, a number of theory. It is a viewpoint that uproots social processes simultaneously playful and serious and it provides a substitute to the Western intellectual tradition where the researcher earnestly seeks certainty in a representation of reality by means of propositions. Rather, there can be multiple realities that compete for truth, Social constructionism understands the fundamental role of language and communication and this understanding has contributed to the linguistic turn and more recently the turn to discourse theory. The majority of social constructionists abide by the belief that language does not mirror reality, rather, a broad definition of social constructionism has its supporters and critics in the organizational sciences. A constructionist approach to organizational and managerial phenomena appear to be more commonplace. Berger and Luckmann give credit to Max Scheler as an influence as he created the idea of Sociology of knowledge which influenced social construction theory. Social construction may mean many things to many people, X need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the nature of things, Hacking adds that the following claims are also often, though not always, implied by the use of the phrase social construction, X is quite bad as it is. We would be better off if X were done away with. Thus a claim that gender is socially constructed probably means that gender, as understood, is not an inevitable result of biology. In addition, depending on who is making the claim, it may mean that our current understanding of gender is harmful, according to Hacking, social construction claims are not always clear about exactly what isnt inevitable, or exactly what should be done away with. Consider a hypothetical claim that quarks are socially constructed, on one reading, this means that quarks themselves are not inevitable or determined by the nature of things. Hackings distinction is based on metaphysics, with a split between things out in the world, on one hand, and ideas thereof in our minds. Hacking is less advocating a serious, particular metaphysics than he is suggesting a way to analyse claims about social construction. Hacking is much more sympathetic to the second reading than the first, furthermore, he argues that, if the second reading is taken, there need not always be a conflict between saying that quarks are socially constructed and saying that they are real
Social constructionism
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Sociology
11.
Structuralism
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It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel. Alternatively, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, structuralism is the belief that phenomena of life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface there are constant laws of abstract culture. Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 1900s, in the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was arguably the first such scholar, sparking a widespread interest in structuralism, the structuralist mode of reasoning has been applied in a diverse range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, economics and architecture. The most prominent thinkers associated with structuralism include Claude Lévi-Strauss, linguist Roman Jakobson, as an intellectual movement, structuralism was initially presumed to be the heir apparent to existentialism. Though elements of their work necessarily relate to structuralism and are informed by it, in the 1970s, structuralism was criticized for its rigidity and ahistoricism. The term structuralism is a term that describes a particular philosophical/literary movement or moment. The origins of structuralism connect with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics, along with the linguistics of the Prague, in brief, de Saussures structural linguistics propounded three related concepts. De Saussure argued for a distinction between langue and parole and he argued that the sign was composed of both a signified, an abstract concept or idea, and a signifier, the perceived sound/visual image. Because different languages have different words to describe the objects or concepts. Signs thus gain their meaning from their relationships and contrasts with other signs, as he wrote, in language, there are only differences without positive terms. Blending Freud and de Saussure, the French structuralist Jacques Lacan applied structuralism to psychoanalysis and, in a different way, in this foreword Althusser states the following, Despite the precautions we took to distinguish ourselves from the structuralist ideology. Despite the decisive intervention of categories foreign to structuralism, the terminology we employed was too close in many respects to the structuralist terminology not to give rise to an ambiguity. Our interpretation of Marx has generally been recognized and judged, in homage to the current fashion and we believe that despite the terminological ambiguity, the profound tendency of our texts was not attached to the structuralist ideology. In a later development, feminist theorist Alison Assiter enumerated four ideas that she says are common to the forms of structuralism. First, that a structure determines the position of each element of a whole, second, that every system has a structure. Third, structural laws deal with co-existence rather than change, fourth, structures are the real things that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning
Structuralism
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Sub-fields
Structuralism
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Sociology
12.
Interactionism
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In sociology, interactionism is a theoretical perspective that derives social processes from human interaction. It is the study of how individuals shape society and are shaped by society through meaning that arises in interactions, interactionist theory has grown in the latter half of the twentieth century and has become one of the dominant sociological perspectives in the world today. George Herbert Mead, as an advocate of pragmatism and the subjectivity of reality, is considered a leader in the development of interactionism. Herbert Blumer expanded on Meads work and coined the term symbolic interactionism, the social interaction is a face-to-face process consisting of actions, reactions, and mutual adaptation between two or more individuals. It also includes animal interaction such as mating, the interaction includes all language and mannerisms. The goal of the interaction is to communicate with others. If the interaction is in danger of ending before one intends to it, it can be conserved by conforming to the others expectations, erving Goffman underlines the importance of control in the interaction. One must attempt to control the others behaviour during the interaction, in order to attain the information one is seeking, important concepts in the field of interactionism include the social role and Goffmans presentation of self. Interactionists are interested in how people see themselves in the social context. Interactionists want to understand each individual, and how they act within society, in extreme cases, they would deny class as an issue, and would say that we cannot generalize that everyone from one social class thinks in one way. Instead they believe everyone has different attitudes, values, culture, therefore, it is the duty of the sociologist to carry out the study within society. They set out to gather qualitative data, Interactionists reject statistical data, a method preferred by structuralists. These methods include, experiments, structured interviews, questionnaires, non-participant observation and they have a few basic criticisms, namely, Statistical data is not valid. This is to say that these methods dont provide us with a picture of society on the topic being researched. Research is biased and therefore not objective, whilst the sociologist would be distant, it is argued that a hypothesis means the research is biased towards a pre-set conclusion. This is again rejected by Interactionists, who claim it is artificial, interactionist methods generally reject the absolute need to provide statistics. Statistics allows cause and effect to be shown, as well as isolating variables so that relationships, instead, interactionists want to go deep to explain society. This draws criticisms such as, Information and sociological research cannot be compared or contrasted, the information that is gathered is interpreted by a sociologist, therefore it isnt objective, but biased
Interactionism
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Sociology
13.
Structure and agency
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In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behavior. Structure is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available, Agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. What is a cause of the world, and what is an effect. Do social structures determine an individuals behavior or does human agency, structural functionalists such as Émile Durkheim see structure and hierarchy as essential in establishing the very existence of society. Theorists such as Karl Marx, by contrast, emphasize that the structure can act to the detriment of the majority of individuals in a society. In both these instances structure may refer to something both material and cultural, some theorists put forward that what we know as our social existence is largely determined by the overall structure of society. The perceived agency of individuals can also mostly be explained by the operation of this structure, on the other hand, other theorists stress the capacity of individual agents to construct and reconstruct their worlds. They see structure and agency as complementary forces - structure influences human behaviour, Structuration is one prominent example of this view. The first approach dominated in classical sociology, theorists saw unique aspects of the social world that could not be explained simply by the sum of the individuals present. Émile Durkheim strongly believed that the collective had emergent properties of its own, the second approach, however, also has a well-established position in social science. Many theorists still follow this course, the central debate, therefore, pits theorists committed to the notions of methodological holism against those committed to methodological individualism. Georg Simmel was one of the first generation of German nonpositivist sociologists and his studies pioneered the concepts of social structure and agency. His most famous today include The Metropolis and Mental Life. Norbert Elias was a German sociologist whose work focused on the relationship between power, behavior, emotion, and knowledge over time and he significantly shaped what is called process sociology or figurational sociology. Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist and the main theorist of action theory in sociology from the 1930s in the United States, for Parsons there is no structure- agency problem. His book Distinction, A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, was named as one of the 20th centurys 10 most important works of sociology by the International Sociological Association, the key concepts in Bourdieus work are habitus, field, and capital. The agent is socialized in a field, an set of roles and relationships in a social domain. As the agent accommodates to his or her roles and relationships in the context of his or her position in the field and these internalised relationships and habitual expectations and relationships form, over time, the habitus
Structure and agency
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Sociology
14.
Social research
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Social Research is a quarterly academic journal of the social sciences, published by The New School for Social Research, the graduate social science division of The New School. The journal has published continuously since 1934. It has featured over 2,000 authors, including Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss and it is edited by Arien Mack. The managing editor is Cara Schlesinger, guest editors are often invited for thematic issues. Most issues are theme-driven, combining historical analysis, theoretical explanation, articles cover various fields of the social sciences and the humanities and thus promote the interdisciplinary aims that have characterized The New School for Social Research since its inception. The themes selected are current, often pressing issues in world society, the themes often include a political angle, keeping in the tradition of the New School for Social Researchs politically conscious history. Since 1988, the journal publishes the proceedings of a series it organizes. The conferences aim to enhance understanding of critical and contested issues by exploring them in broad historical and cultural contexts. Social Research Official webpage The New School for Social Research - Social Research
Social research
15.
Quantitative research
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In natural sciences and social sciences, quantitative research is the systematic empirical investigation of observable phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, the process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships. Quantitative data is any data that is in numerical form such as statistics, percentages, the researcher analyzes the data with the help of statistics. The researcher is hoping the numbers will yield a result that can be generalized to some larger population. Qualitative research, on the hand, asks broad questions. The researcher looks for themes and describes the information in themes, research in mathematical sciences such as physics is also quantitative by definition, though this use of the term differs in context. In the social sciences, the term relates to empirical methods, qualitative research produces information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses. Quantitative methods can be used to verify which of such hypotheses are true, a comprehensive analysis of 1274 articles published in the top two American sociology journals between 1935 and 2005 found that roughly two thirds of these articles used quantitative methods. Although a distinction is drawn between qualitative and quantitative aspects of scientific investigation, it has been argued that the two go hand in hand. For example, based on analysis of the history of science, qualitative research is often used to gain a general sense of phenomena and to form theories that can be tested using further quantitative research. For instance, in the social sciences qualitative research methods are used to gain better understanding of such things as intentionality. Positivism emphasized the use of the method through observation to empirically test hypotheses explaining and predicting what, where, why, how. Positivist scholars like Comte believed only scientific methods rather than previous spiritual explanations for human behavior could advance, statistical methods are used extensively within fields such as economics, social sciences and biology. Quantitative research using statistical methods starts with the collection of data, usually a big sample of data is collected – this would require verification, validation and recording before the analysis can take place. Software packages such as SPSS and R are typically used for this purpose, causal relationships are studied by manipulating factors thought to influence the phenomena of interest while controlling other variables relevant to the experimental outcomes. Quantitatively based opinion surveys are used in the media, with statistics such as the proportion of respondents in favor of a position commonly reported. In opinion surveys, respondents are asked a set of structured questions, in the field of climate science, researchers compile and compare statistics such as temperature or atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Empirical relationships and associations are also studied by using some form of general linear model, non-linear model
Quantitative research
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Sociology
16.
Qualitative research
–
Qualitative research is a broad methodological approach that encompasses many research methods. Qualitative methods examine the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when, or who, Qualitative research is popular among political science, social work, and special education and education searchers. In the conventional view of statisticians, qualitative methods produce information only on the cases studied. Quantitative methods can then be used to seek support for such research hypotheses. To help navigate the landscape of qualitative research, one can further think of qualitative inquiry in terms of means. In the early 1900s, some researchers rejected positivism, the idea that there is an objective world which we can gather data from. Most theoretical constructs involve a process of analysis and understanding. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ubiquity of computers aided in qualitative analyses, several journals with a qualitative focus emerged. In the late 1980s, questions of identity emerged, including issues of race, class, gender, also, during this time, researchers began to use mixed-method approaches, indicating a shift in thinking of qualitative and quantitative methods as intrinsically incompatible. However, this history is not apolitical, as this has ushered in a politics of evidence and what can count as scientific research in scholarship, Qualitative methods are used in various methodological approaches, such as action research which has sociological basis, or actor-network theory. The most common used to generate data in qualitative research is an interview which may be structured, semi-structured or unstructured. Other ways to generate data include group discussions or focus groups, observations, reflective field notes, texts, pictures, to analyse qualitative data, the researcher seeks meaning from all of the data that is available. The data may be categorized and sorted into patterns as the basis for organizing and reporting the study findings. The ways of participating and observing can vary widely from setting to setting as exemplified by Helen Schwartzmans primer on Ethnography in Organizations, or Anne Copeland and Kathleen Whites Studying Families. Participant observation is a strategy of learning, not a single method of observing. And has been described as a continuum of between participation and observation, in participant observation researchers typically become members of a culture, group, or setting, and adopt roles to conform to that setting. In doing so, the aim is for the researcher to gain an insight into the cultures practices, motivations. It is argued that the ability to understand the experiences of the culture may be inhibited if they observe without participating
Qualitative research
–
Sociology
17.
Historical sociology
–
Historical sociology is a branch of sociology focusing on how societies develop through history. It looks at how social structures that many regard as natural are in fact shaped by social processes. The structure in turn shapes institutions and organizations, which affect the society - resulting in phenomena ranging from gender bias, contemporary historical sociology is primarily concerned with how the state has developed since the Middle Ages, analyzing relations between states, classes, economic and political systems. As time has passed, history and sociology have developed two different specific academic disciplines. Historical data was used and is used today in mainly three ways. The first one is, Examining a theory through a Parallel investigation, to correspond with the natural-science conceptions of laws, and to look at, or apply various historical material where you gather your resources in order to prove the theory that is applied. Analyzed by their specific, or what makes them in unique quality of a composition, for interpretive sociologists it is very common for them to use the Verstehen tradition. And lastly, the third way sociologists typically relate is by taking a look at the causalities from a point of view. However, sociologist James Mahoney has a different definition of path dependence and his theory suggests that process, sequence, and temporality have a valid reason for affecting path dependence and the meaning of past historical events. There are three path-dependent analyses with an explanation to how each theory works, James Mahoney revisited the debate over general theory in historical sociology. General theories are defined as postulates about causal agents and causal mechanisms that are linked to empirical analysis through bridging assumptions and these theories can contribute to substantive knowledge by helping analysts derive new hypotheses, integrate existing findings, and explain historical outcomes. A key conclusion that emerges is that scholars must evaluate both the merits of general theory and the individual merits of specific general theories. Giovanni Arrighi Randall Collins Emile Durkheim Norbert Elias Michel Foucault John A.2005, ISBN 0-19-927118-6, p. 276–278 Charles Tilly, Historical Sociology, in Scott G. McNall & Gary N. Howe, eds. Greenwich, Connecticut, JAI Press, online Charles Tilly, Historical Sociology, in International Encyclopedia of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Amsterdam, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society,2010. George Steinmetz, The Historical Sociology of Historical Sociology, Germany, online George Steinmetz, The Relations between Sociology and History in the United States, The Current State of Affairs, Journal of Historical Sociology 20, 1-2, 1-12. David Baronov, The Dialectics of Inquiry Across the Historical Social Sciences, scientific Prediction in Historical Sociology, Ibn Khaldun meets Al Saud
Historical sociology
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Sociology
18.
Comparative historical research
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Generally, it involves comparisons of social processes across times and places. While the disciplines of history and sociology have always been connected and this form of research may use any of several theoretical orientations. It is distinguished by the types of questions it asks, not the theoretical framework it employs, some commentators have identified three waves of historical comparative research. The first wave of historical comparative research concerned how societies came to be modern, i. e. based on individual and rational action, with exact definitions varying widely. Some of the researchers in this mode were Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber. The second wave reacted to a perceived ahistorical body of theory and sought to show how social systems were not static, notable authors of this wave include Barrington Moore, Jr. Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly, Michael Mann, and Mark Gould. Some have placed the Annales school and Pierre Bourdieu in this general group, the current wave of historical comparative research sociology is often but not exclusively post-structural in its theoretical orientation. Influential current authors include Julia Adams, Anne Laura Stoler, Philip Gorski, studies of comparative nature have taken place in recent years, comparing communities and minorities and social groups. His comparative study gave a clearer picture on the status of the minorities and their relationships with the ruling elites in. His PhD dissertation and the book upon which it was based have been spread and translated into the local languages in Kurdistan. There are four major methods that use to collect historical data. These are archival data, secondary sources, running records, the archival data, or primary sources, are typically the resources that researchers rely most heavily on. Archival data includes official documents and other items that would be found in archives, museums, secondary sources are the works of other historians who have written history. Running records are ongoing series of statistical or other sorts of data, such as data, ships registries, property deeds. Finally recollections include sources such as autobiographies, memoirs or diaries, there are four stages, as discussed by Schutt, to systematic qualitative comparative historical studies, develop the premise of the investigation, identifying events, concepts, etc. Historical data is a set of data to work with due to multiple factors. In this way the data can be corrupt/skewed, Historical data regardless or whether it may or may not be biased is also vulnerable to time. Hence, data is incomplete and can lead social scientists to many barriers in their research
Comparative historical research
–
Sociology
19.
Mathematical sociology
–
Mathematical sociology is the area of sociology that uses mathematics to construct social theories. Mathematical sociology aims to take sociological theory, which is strong in content but weak from a formal point of view. The benefits of this include increased clarity and the ability to use mathematics to derive implications of a theory that cannot be arrived at intuitively. In mathematical sociology, the style is encapsulated in the phrase constructing a mathematical model. This means making specified assumptions about social phenomenon, expressing them in formal mathematics. It also means deducing properties of the model and comparing these with relevant empirical data, Social network analysis is the best-known contribution of this subfield to sociology as a whole and to the scientific community at large. The models typically used in mathematical sociology allow sociologists to understand how predictable local interactions are, moreover, acquaintanceship is a positive tie, but what about negative ties such as animosity among persons. A signed graph is called balanced if the product of the signs of all relations in every cycle is positive and this effort led to Hararys Structure Theorem, which says that if a network of interrelated positive and negative ties is balanced, e. g. The imagery here is of a system that splits into two cliques. There is, however, a case where one of the two subnetworks is empty, which might occur in very small networks. In another model, ties have relative strengths, acquaintanceship can be viewed as a weak tie and friendship is represented as a strong tie. Like its uniform cousin discussed above, there is a concept of closure, a graph satisfies strong triadic closure If A is strongly connected to B, and B is strongly connected to C, then A and C must have a tie. In these two developments we have mathematical models bearing upon the analysis of structure, other early influential developments in mathematical sociology pertained to process. A formal study of the led to theorems about the dynamics. This suggests deriving the equations from assumptions about the chances of an individual changing state in an interval of time. This argument provided impetus for the emergence of a deal of effort to link rational choice thinking to more traditional sociological concerns involving social structures. Meanwhile, structural analysis of the type indicated earlier received an extension to social networks based on institutionalized social relations. The linkage of mathematics and sociology here involved abstract algebra, in particular and this, in turn, led to a focus on a data-analytical version of homomorphic reduction of a complex social network
Mathematical sociology
–
Sociology
20.
Computational sociology
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Computational sociology is a branch of sociology that uses computationally intensive methods to analyze and model social phenomena. It involves the understanding of social agents, the interaction among these agents, in relevant literature, computational sociology is often related to the study of social complexity. Social complexity concepts such as systems, non-linear interconnection among macro and micro process. A practical and well-known example is the construction of a model in the form of an artificial society. However, these models did not permit individuals to interact or adapt and were not intended for basic theoretical research. This cellular automata paradigm gave rise to a wave of social simulation emphasizing agent-based modeling. Like micro-simulations, these models emphasized bottom-up designs but adopted four key assumptions that diverged from microsimulation, autonomy, interdependency, simple rules, agent-based models are less concerned with predictive accuracy and instead emphasize theoretical development. The automatic parsing of textual corpora has enabled the extraction of actors and their networks on a vast scale. Content analysis has been a part of social sciences and media studies for a long time. The automation of content analysis has allowed a big data revolution to take place in field, with studies in social media. Gender bias, readability, content similarity, reader preferences, in 2008, Yukihiko Yoshida did a study called Leni Riefenstahl and German expressionism, research in Visual Cultural Studies using the trans-disciplinary semantic spaces of specialized dictionaries. The analysis of vast quantities of historical newspaper content has been pioneered by Dzogang et al. which showed how periodic structures can be discovered in historical newspapers. A similar analysis was performed on social media, again revealing strongly periodic structures, the most relevant journal of the discipline is the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. of Michigan, Minor in Complex Systems Systems Sciences Programs List, Portland State. List of other related programs. Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, Center for Complex Systems Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. Center for Social Complexity, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. Center of the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, human Complex Systems, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Boston, MA, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL USA
Computational sociology
–
Historical map of research paradigms and associated scientists in
sociology and complexity science.
21.
Ethnography
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Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study, an ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. The word can thus be said to have a double meaning, the resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group. The typical ethnography is a study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader. An ethnography records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations, the word ethnography is derived from the Greek ἔθνος, meaning a company, later a people, nation and -graphy meaning field of study. Ethnographic studies focus on large groups of people who interact over time. Ethnography is a design, where the researcher explains about shared learnt patterns of values, behaviour, beliefs. The field of anthropology originated from Europe and England designed in late 19th century and it spread its roots to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the main contributors like EB Tylor from Britain and Lewis H Morgan, franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, were a group of researchers from United States who contributed the idea of cultural relativism to the literature. He gives the point of the native and this became the origin of field work. Since Malinowski was very firm with his approach he applied it practically and he was interested in learning the language of the islanders and stayed there for a long time doing his field work. The field of ethnography became very popular in the late 19th century, again, in the latter part of the 19th century, the field of anthropology became a good support for scientific formation. Though the field was flourishing it had a lot of threat to encounter, post colonialism, the research climate shifted towards post-modernism and feminism. Therefore, the field of anthropology moved into discipline of social science, gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated Völker-Beschreibung as an area of study. This became known as ethnography, following the introduction of the Greek neologism ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin, there are different forms of ethnography, confessional ethnography, life history, feminist ethnography etc. Two popular forms of ethnography are realist ethnography and critical ethnography, realist ethnography, is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists
Ethnography
–
A picture of the Izmir Ethnography Museum (İzmir Etnografya Müzesi) from the courtyard.
Ethnography
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Ethnography museum
Ethnography
–
Bronisław Malinowski among
Trobriand tribe
Ethnography
–
Part of the ethnographic collection of the
Međimurje County Museum in
Croatia
22.
Ethnomethodology
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Ethnomethodology is the study of methods people use for understanding and producing the social order in which they live. It generally seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream sociological approaches, in its most radical form, it poses a challenge to the social sciences as a whole. On the other hand, its investigations led to the founding of conversation analysis. According to Psathas, it is possible to five major approaches within the ethnomethodological family of disciplines. Ethnomethodology provides methods which have used in ethnographic studies to produce accounts of peoples methods for negotiating everyday situations. It is a fundamentally descriptive discipline which does not engage in the explanation or evaluation of the social order undertaken as a topic of study. However, applications have found within many applied disciplines, such as software design. The terms etymology can be broken down into its three constituent parts, ethno - method - ology, for the purpose of explanation. The focus of the used in our example is the social order of surfing. The approach was developed by Harold Garfinkel, who attributed its origin to his work investigating the conduct of jury members in 1954. His interest was in describing the common sense methods through which members of a jury produce themselves in a room as a jury. Such methods serve to constitute the order of being a juror for the members of the jury, as well as for researchers and other interested parties. This interest developed out of Garfinkels critque of Talcott Parsons attempt to derive a theory of society. This critique originated in his reading of Alfred Schutz, though Garfinkel ultimately revised many of Schutzs ideas, for the ethnomethodologist, participants produce the order of social settings through their shared sense making practices. Thus, there is an essential natural reflexity between the activity of making sense of a setting and the ongoing production of that setting. Furthermore, these practices are witnessably enacted, making available for study. This opens up a broad and multi-faceted area of inquiry. ”Ethnomethodology has perplexed commentators, due to its approach to questions of theory. It also has a correspondence with the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ethnomethodology
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Sociology
23.
Social network analysis
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Social network analysis is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes and the ties, edges and these networks are often visualized through sociograms in which nodes are represented as points and ties are represented as lines. Social network analysis has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology, in the 1930s Jacob Moreno and Helen Jennings introduced basic analytical methods. Even in the study of literature, network analysis has been applied by Anheier, Gerhards and Romo, Wouter De Nooy, indeed, social network analysis has found applications in various academic disciplines, as well as practical applications such as countering money laundering and terrorism. Homophily, The extent to which actors form ties with similar versus dissimilar others, similarity can be defined by gender, race, age, occupation, educational achievement, status, values or any other salient characteristic. Homophily is also referred to as assortativity, multiplexity, The number of content-forms contained in a tie. For example, two people who are friends and also work together would have a multiplexity of 2, multiplexity has been associated with relationship strength. Mutuality/Reciprocity, The extent to which two actors reciprocate each others friendship or other interaction, Network Closure, A measure of the completeness of relational triads. An individuals assumption of network closure is called transitivity, transitivity is an outcome of the individual or situational trait of Need for Cognitive Closure. Propinquity, The tendency for actors to have ties with geographically close others. Bridge, An individual whose weak ties fill a structural hole and it also includes the shortest route when a longer one is unfeasible due to a high risk of message distortion or delivery failure. Centrality, Centrality refers to a group of metrics that aim to quantify the importance or influence of a node within a network. Examples of common methods of measuring centrality include betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, alpha centrality, density, The proportion of direct ties in a network relative to the total number possible. Distance, The minimum number of required to connect two particular actors, as popularized by Stanley Milgrams small world experiment and the idea of six degrees of separation. Structural holes, The absence of ties between two parts of a network, finding and exploiting a structural hole can give an entrepreneur a competitive advantage. This concept was developed by sociologist Ronald Burt, and is referred to as an alternate conception of social capital. Tie Strength, Defined by the combination of time, emotional intensity, intimacy. Strong ties are associated with homophily, propinquity and transitivity, while ties are associated with bridges
Social network analysis
–
A
social network diagram displaying friendship ties among a set of
Facebook users.
Social network analysis
24.
Subfields of sociology
–
Sociology can be described as all of the following, The study of society. Academic discipline – body of knowledge given to - or received by - a disciple, a branch or sphere of knowledge, or field of study, field of science – widely recognized category of specialized expertise within science, and typically embodies its own terminology and nomenclature. Such a field will usually be represented by one or more scientific journals, there are many sociology-related scientific journals. Social science – field of scholarship that explores aspects of human society. He is thus considered by some to be the forerunner of sociology
Subfields of sociology
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Sociology
25.
Social conflict
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Social conflict is the struggle for agency or power in society. It is a social relationship wherein the action is oriented intentionally for carrying out the own will against the resistance of other party or parties. Conflict theory emphasizes interests, rather than norms and values, in conflict, the pursuit of interests generates various types of conflict. Thus conflict is seen as an aspect of social life rather than an abnormal occurrence. Competition over resources is often the cause of conflict, the three tenets of this theory are the following, 1) Society is composed of different groups that compete for resources. 2) While societies may portray a sense of cooperation, a power struggle exists between social groups as they pursue their own interests. Within societies, certain groups control specific resources and means of production, 3) Social groups will use resources to their own advantage in the pursuit of their goals. This often means that those who lack control over resources will be taken advantage of, as a result, many dominated groups will struggle with other groups in attempt to gain control. The majority of the time, the groups with the most resources will gain or maintain power, the idea that those who have control will maintain control is known as The Matthew Effect. One branch of conflict theory is critical criminology and this term is based upon the view that the fundamental causes of crime is oppression, resulting from social and economic forces operating within a given society. Another branch of conflict theory is the theory of aging. This came about in the 1980s due to a setback in federal spending and a loss of jobs across the nation, among those that were the worst affected were women, low-income families, and minorities. The mode of production of material life conditions the process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, from forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution, the changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the development of society. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation, http, //www. marxists. org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface. htm Karl Marx, a German revolutionary, emphasized his materialist views on ownership and means of production. He argued that what is most valued is a result of labour and founded his ideas based on a capitalistic community
Social conflict
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Sociology
26.
Criminology
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Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, management, causes, control, consequences, and prevention of criminal behavior, both on the individual and social levels. The term criminology was coined in 1885 by Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo as criminologia, later, French anthropologist Paul Topinard used the analogous French term criminologie. In the mid-18th century criminology arose as social philosophers gave thought to crime, over time, several schools of thought have developed. There were three schools of thought in early criminological theory spanning the period from the mid-18th century to the mid-twentieth century, Classical, Positive. The Classical School, which developed in the century, was based on utilitarian philosophy. Cesare Beccaria, author of On Crimes and Punishments, Jeremy Bentham, thus, it ignores the possibility of irrationality and unconscious drives as motivators. Punishment can deter people from crime, as the costs outweigh benefits, the more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective it is in deterring criminal behavior. The Classical school of thought came about at a time when major reform in penology occurred, also, this time period saw many legal reforms, the French Revolution, and the development of the legal system in the United States. The Positivist school presumes that criminal behavior is caused by internal and external factors outside of the individuals control, the scientific method was introduced and applied to study human behavior. Positivism can be broken up into three segments which include biological, psychological and social positivism, Cesare Lombroso, an Italian sociologist working in the late 19th century, is regarded as the father of criminology. He was one of the key contributors to biological positivism and founded the Italian school of criminology, Lombroso took a scientific approach, insisting on empirical evidence for studying crime. This approach, influenced by the theory of phrenology and by Charles Darwin. Criminologists have since rejected Lombrosos biological theories, with groups not used in his studies. Sociological positivism suggests that factors such as poverty, membership of subcultures. Adolphe Quetelet made use of data and statistical analysis to gain insight into the relationship between crime and sociological factors and he found that age, gender, poverty, education, and alcohol consumption were important factors related to crime. Lance Lochner conducted three different research experiments that shared the same conclusion, schooling reduces crime by a significant margin, Rawson W. Rawson utilized crime statistics to suggest a link between population density and crime rates, with crowded cities creating an environment conducive for crime. Joseph Fletcher and John Glyde also presented papers to the Statistical Society of London on their studies of crime, Henry Mayhew used empirical methods and an ethnographic approach to address social questions and poverty, and presented his studies in London Labour and the London Poor. Émile Durkheim viewed crime as an aspect of society, with uneven distribution of wealth
Criminology
–
Criminology and
penology
Criminology
–
Three women in the
pillory,
China, 1875
Criminology
–
The self-assessment of the perpetrator of the
Bath School disaster
Criminology
–
Cesare Beccaria
27.
Sociology of culture
–
For Georg Simmel, culture referred to the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been objectified in the course of history. Culture in the field is analyzed as the ways of thinking and describing, the ways of acting. Contemporary sociologists approach to culture is divided between a sociology of culture and cultural sociology - the terms are similar, though not interchangeable. The sociology of culture is a concept, and considers some topics. By way of contrast, Jeffrey C. Alexander introduced the cultural sociology. As opposed to the field of studies, cultural sociology does not reduce all human matters to a problem of cultural encoding and decoding. For instance, Pierre Bourdieus cultural sociology has a clear recognition of the social and the economic as categories which are interlinked with, but not reducible to, Cultural sociology first emerged in Weimar Germany, where sociologists such as Alfred Weber used the term Kultursoziologie. Cultural sociology was then reinvented in the English-speaking world as a product of the turn of the 1960s. This type of cultural sociology may loosely be regarded as an approach incorporating cultural analysis, in the beginning of the cultural turn, sociologists tended to use qualitative methods and hermeneutic approaches to research, focusing on meanings, words, artifacts and symbols. Part of the legacy of the development of the field is still felt in the methods in the theories. For instance, relationships between culture, political control, and social class were early and lasting concerns in the field. As a major contributor to conflict theory, Marx argued that culture served to justify inequality, the ruling class, or the bourgeoisie produce a culture that promotes their interests, while repressing the interests of the proletariat. His most famous line to this effect is that Religion is the opium of the people, for this reason, Marx is a considered a materialist as he believes that the economic produces the cultural, which stands Hegel on his head, who argued the ideal produced the material. Durkheim held the belief that culture has many relationships to society include, Logical- Power over individuals belongs to certain cultural categories. Functional- Certain rites and myths create and build up social order by having more people create strong beliefs, the greater the number of people who believe strongly in these myths more will the social order be strengthened. Historical- Culture had its origins in society, and from those experiences came evolution into things such as classification systems, Weber innovated the idea of a status group as a certain type of subculture. Status groups are based on such as, race, ethnicity, religion, region, occupation, gender, sexual preference. These groups live a lifestyle based on different values and norms
Sociology of culture
–
Sociology
28.
Deviance (sociology)
–
In sociology, deviance describes an action or behavior that violates social norms, including a formally enacted rule, as well as informal violations of social norms. It is the purview of criminologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists to study how these norms are created, how they change over time, norms are rules and expectations by which members of society are conventionally guided. Deviance is an absence of conformity to these norms, social norms differ from culture to culture. For example, a deviant act can be committed in one society that breaks a social norm there, Deviance can be relative to place and time because what is considered deviant in one social context may be non-deviant in another. Killing another human is considered wrong, except when governments permit it during warfare or for self defense, deviant actions can be mala in se or mala prohibita. Three broad sociological classes exist that describe deviant behavior, namely, structural functionalism, symbolic interaction, social integration is the attachment to groups and institutions, while social regulation is the adherence to the norms and values of the society. Those who are very integrated fall under the category of altruism, similarly, those who are very regulated fall under fatalism and those who are very unregulated fall under anomie. Durkheims theory attributes social deviance to extremes of the dimensions of the social bond, altruistic suicide, egoistic suicide, and anomic suicide are the three forms of suicide that can happen due to extremes. Durkheim claimed that deviance was in fact a normal and necessary part of social organization, when he studied deviance he stated four important functions of deviance. Deviance affirms cultural values and norms, any definition of virtue rests on an opposing idea of vice, There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime. Deviance defines moral boundaries, people learn right from wrong by defining people as deviant, a serious form of deviance forces people to come together and react in the same way against it. Deviance pushes societys moral boundaries which, in turn leads to social change, robert K. Merton discussed deviance in terms of goals and means as part of his strain/anomie theory. He postulated that a response to societal expectations and the means by which the individual pursued those goals were useful in understanding deviance. Often, non-routine collective behavior is said to map onto economic explanations, Merton described 5 types of deviance in terms of the acceptance or rejection of social goals and the institutionalized means of achieving them,1. Innovators accept societys goals, but reject socially acceptable means of achieving them, conformists accept societys goals and the socially acceptable means of achieving them. Ritualism refers to the inability to reach a cultural goal thus embracing the rules to the point where the people in question lose sight of their goals in order to feel respectable. Ritualists reject societys goals, but accept societys institutionalised means, ritualists are most commonly found in dead-end, repetitive jobs, where they are unable to achieve societys goals but still adhere to societys means of achievement and social norms. Retreatism is the rejection of both goals and means, letting the person in question drop out
Deviance (sociology)
–
Criminology and
penology
29.
Demography
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Demography is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. As a very general science, it can analyse any kind of dynamic living population, Demography encompasses the study of the size, structure, and distribution of these populations, and spatial or temporal changes in them in response to birth, migration, ageing, and death. Based on the research of the earth, earths population up to the year 2050 and 2100 can be estimated by demographers. Demographics are quantifiable characteristics of a given population, demographic analysis can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion, and ethnicity. Educational institutions usually treat demography as a field of sociology, though there are a number of independent demography departments, demographic thoughts can be traced back to antiquity, and were present in many civilizations and cultures, like Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, India and China. In ancient Greece, this can be found in the writings of Herodotus, Thucidides, Hippocrates, Epicurus, Protagoras, Polus, Plato and Aristotle. In Rome, writers and philosophers like Cicero, Seneca, Pliny the elder, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Cato, in the Middle ages, Christian thinkers devoted much time in refuting the Classical ideas on demography. Important contributors to the field were William of Conches, Bartholomew of Lucca, William of Auvergne, William of Pagula, and Ibn Khaldun. One of the earliest demographic studies in the period was Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality by John Graunt. Among the studys findings were that one third of the children in London died before their sixteenth birthday, mathematicians, such as Edmond Halley, developed the life table as the basis for life insurance mathematics. Richard Price was credited with the first textbook on life contingencies published in 1771, followed later by Augustus de Morgan, at the end of the 18th century, Thomas Robert Malthus concluded that, if unchecked, populations would be subject to exponential growth. He feared that population growth would tend to outstrip growth in production, leading to ever-increasing famine. He is seen as the father of ideas of overpopulation. Later, more sophisticated and realistic models were presented by Benjamin Gompertz, the period 1860-1910 can be characterized as a period of transition wherein demography emerged from statistics as a separate field of interest. There are two types of data collection—direct and indirect—with several different methods of each type, direct data comes from vital statistics registries that track all births and deaths as well as certain changes in legal status such as marriage, divorce, and migration. In developed countries with good registration systems, registry statistics are the best method for estimating the number of births and deaths, a census is the other common direct method of collecting demographic data. A census is conducted by a national government and attempts to enumerate every person in a country. Analyses are conducted after a census to estimate how much over or undercounting took place and these compare the sex ratios from the census data to those estimated from natural values and mortality data
Demography
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Sociology of education
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The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect education and its outcomes. It is mostly concerned with the schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult. Education has often been very much so seen as a fundamentally optimistic human endeavour characterised by aspirations for progress and it is understood by many to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality, and acquiring wealth and social status. Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and it is also perceived as one of the best means of achieving greater social equality. Many would say that the purpose of education should be to every individual to their full potential. Few would argue that any education system accomplishes this goal perfectly, some take a particularly critical view, arguing that the education system is designed with the intention of causing the social reproduction of inequality. Sociological studies showed how schooling patterns reflected, rather than challenged, class stratification, after the general collapse of functionalism from the late 1960s onwards, the idea of education as an unmitigated good was even more profoundly challenged. Neo-Marxists argued that school education simply produced a labour force essential to late-capitalist class relations. The sociology of education contains a number of theories, some of the main theories are presented below. Important works in this tradition have been, and, all of these works were concerned with the way in which school structures were implicated in social class inequalities in Britain. More recent work in this tradition has broadened its focus to include gender, ethnic differentials, the political arithmetic tradition was attacked by the New Sociology of Education of the 1970s which rejected quantitative research methods. This heralded a period of division within the sociology of education. However, the political tradition, while rooted in quantitative methods, has increasingly engaged with mixed methods approaches. Structural functionalists believe that society leans towards social equilibrium and social order and they see society like a human body, in which institutions such as education are like important organs that keep the society/body healthy and well. Social health means the same as social order, and is guaranteed when nearly everyone accepts the general values of their society. Hence structural functionalists believe the aim of key institutions, such as education, is to socialize children, socialization is the process by which the new generation learns the knowledge, attitudes and values that they will need as productive citizens. Students learn these values because their behavior at school is regulated until they gradually internalize, Education must also perform another function, As various jobs become vacant, they must be filled with the appropriate people. Therefore, the purpose of education is to sort and rank individuals for placement in the labor market
Sociology of education
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Sociology
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