Subject Matter, Scope and Concerns of Sociology

Subject Matter, Scope and Concerns of Sociology 

• The scope of sociology is extremely wide ranging, from the analysis of passing encounter between individuals on the street up to the investigation of global social processes.
• Sociologist are primarily interested in human beings as they appear in social interaction and the effects of this interaction on human behavior.
• The major systems or units of interaction that interest sociologists are social groups such as the family or peer groups; social relationships, such as social roles and dyadic relationships, and organizations such as government, corporations and school systems to such territorial organizations as communities and schools. (Broom and Selzinki, 1973) 

Sociology may be divided into specific sub-fields on the basis of certain criteria:

• The Field of Social Organization and Theory of Social Order: focuses on institutions and groups, their formation and change, manner of functioning, relation to individuals and to each other.
• Social Control: focuses on the ways in which members of a society influence one another so as to maintain social order.
• Social Change: focuses on the way society and institutions change over time through technical inventions, cultural diffusion and cultural conflict, and social movements, among others.
• Social Processes: focuses on the pattern in which social change takes place and the modes of such processes.
• Social Groups: focuses on how social groups are formed, structured, and how they function and change.
• Social Problems: focuses on the social conditions which cause difficulties for a large number of persons and which the society is seeking to eliminate.

 Currently, sociology has got quite several specific subdivisions or fields of specialization in it; some of these include the following: criminology, demography, human ecology, political sociology, medial sociology, sociology of the family, sociology of sports, sociology of development, social psychology, socio-linguistics, sociology of education and ETC.