Deeper Meaning of Sociology

I. What is Sociology?
     A. Sociology is the study of social relationships, social institutions and society

1. the term itself- often credited to Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology - is derived from two root words: "socius" which means companion or associate and "logus" which means word. Basically, the term sociology means "words about human association or society:.
2. Sociologists investigate many areas, such as racial and ethnic relationships, prejudice and discrimination, power and politics, jobs and income, families and family life, school systems and the educational process, social control, organizations, bureaucracies, groups and group dynamics, leisure, health-care systems, military systems, women’s movements and labor movements. It is an extremely broad field.

 B. The SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE involves a conscious effort to question the obvious, to remove ourselves from familiar experiences and to examine them critically and objectively. This type of EMPIRICAL investigation enables sociologists to determine whether generalizations made about society are accurate. The sociological perspective operates at two levels:

•  MACROSOCIOLOGY deals with large-scale structures and processes, such as broad social categories, institutions and social systems.
• MICROSOCIOLOGY is concerned with small-scale units, such as individuals in small-group interaction.

C. Sociology allows us to distinguish between truth and popular wisdom. Social research provides the way to distinguish what is actually true from what our common sense tells us should be true.

D. Sociology is one of several disciplines in the social sciences. The SOCIAL SCIENCES all study human behavior, social organizations or society.

1. ECONOMICS is the study of how goods, services and wealth are produced, consumed, and distributed within societies.

2. POLITICAL SCIENCE is the study of power, governments and political processes.

3. ANTHROPOLOGY is the study of the physical, biological, social and cultural development of humans, often on a comparative basis. The two major fields of anthropologists consist of PHYSICAL and CULTURAL (or SOCIAL) anthropology.

4. PSYCHOLOGY is concerned primarily with human mental processes and individual human behavior. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY is the study of how individuals interact with other individuals or groups and how groups influence the individual.

5. HISTORY, considered either a social science or one of the humanities, is the descriptive study of the past.

6. GEOGRAPHY is the study of the physical environment and the distribution of plants and animals, including humans. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHERS investigate climate, agriculture, the distribution of plant species and oceanography. SOCIAL and CULTURAL GEOGRAPHERS investigate how the distribution of people in a particular area influences social relationships.

7. SOCIAL WORK is technically not a social science but is an APPLIED SCIENCE in which the principles of the social sciences are applied to actual social problems. The PURE SCIENCES seek knowledge for its own sake.