The Nature and Uses of Sociology

SOCIOLOGY is defined as the study of social life and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. This chapter introduces the discipline of sociology by defining them, explaining the sociological perspective, comparing sociology and popular wisdom, contrasting sociology with the other social sciences, introducing the occupational and personal uses of sociology, and examining academic and professional sociologists in the workplace.

Sociologists use the sociological perspective to describe and explain social life at either the micro or macro level.

• Macrosociology deals with large-scale structures and processes such as institutions and social systems.
• Microsociology is concerned with the dynamics of social life at the interpersonal small group level.

A variety of occupational and personal uses of sociology are described and discussed. These includes careers as teachers, researchers, administrators and policy consultant.

Three primary uses of sociology:

• applied social research
• social engineering
• clinical sociology

Sociology is valuable to even those who do not pursue it as a career in preparation for other causes, as well as in one's own personal life.

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.

Introduction: What is a Sociology?

SOCIETY: a group of people who live within some type of bounded territory and who share a common way of life.

CULTURE: is common way of life shared by a society or a group.

Sociology may be generally defined as a social science that studies such kinds of phenomena as:

• The structure and function of society as a system.
• The nature, complexity and contents of human social behaviour
• The fundamentals of human social life
• Interaction of human beings with their external environment
• The indispensability of social interactions for human development.
• How the social world affects us, etc.

A more formal definition of sociology:
      it is a social science which studies the processes and patterns of human individual and group interaction, the forms of organization of social groups, the relationship among them, and group influences of individual behavior, and vice versa, and the interaction between one social group and the other (Team of Experts, 2000)

Sociology is interested in how we as human beings interact with each other(the pattern of social interaction); the laws and principles that govern social relationship and interactions; the influence of the social world on the individuals

"Sociology is a debunking science"; that is, it looks for levels of reality other than those presented in official interpretations of society and people's common sense explanations of he social world. Sociologist are interested in understanding what is and do not make value judgements.

The major conditions, societal changes, upheavals and social ferments that gave rise to the emergence and development of sociology as an academics science include the Industrial Revolution which began in Great Britain, the French Political Revolution of 1789, the Enlightenment and advance in natural sciences and technology. These revolutions had brought about significant societal changes and disorders in the way society lived in the aforementioned countries. Since sociology was born amidst the great socio-political and economic and technological changes of the western world, it is said to be the science of modern society. Exciting sciences could not help understand, explain, analyzer and interpret the fundamentals laws that govern the social phenomena. Thus sociology was born out of these revolutionary context.