What Is Sociology

What Is Sociology

  • Submitted By: nat99
  • Date Submitted: 11/11/2008 3:00 PM
  • Category: Social Issues
  • Words: 910
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 1

What Is Sociology?

Sociology is the study of society and human behaviour. Sociology is part of the social sciences, which are subjects which attempt to offer and explanation of society, social life and social behaviour. A lot of these subjects are known as humanities. Sociology is unique in the way that it looks at the social ‘rules’ that join and separate people as individuals and also as parts of groups and communities. Other social sciences include economics, philosophy, psychology, anthropology and criminology. Economics is a social science that looks at and analyses the production, consumption and distribution of wealth through societies. Anthropology is the study of past or primitive societies where as criminology is the study of crime. Philosophy is the study of thought and psychology is the actual study of the mind, and behaviour. Psychology differs in the way that it studies actual mental states/behaviours of individuals where as the other social sciences rely on historical methods and field studies. Whilst each subject may be distinctively different, they are all related and often study similar issues. They all have their roots in an intellectual movement/era known as ‘The Enlightenment’ in the 18th Century.
The three founding fathers of sociology are Max Weber, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim. Karl Marx created a key theory of sociology; Marxism. Marxists focus on society as being based on class conflict and divided into two groups, the proletariats and the bourgeoisies who are set out to exploit eachother. Marxists also believe that institutions such as education function to maintain capitalism in society. Durkheim focussed on functionalism; functionalist see society based on value consensus and see society as a body with interdependent parts performing functions for the good of the whole. Like the human body, if one part of society fails it may result in problems such as conflict within a society. However Weber was split between more than one...

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