Sociology is the study of human society, its origins, functions, and problems.

It focuses
on relations among people, groups, classes, organizations, and cultures. Sociology is the
study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human
behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies,
and how people interact within these contexts. Since all human behavior is social, the
subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to the hostile mob; from
organized crime to religious cults; from the divisions of race, gender and social class to
the shared beliefs of a common culture; and from the sociology of work to the sociology
of sports. In fact, few fields have such broad scope and relevance for research, theory,
and application of knowledge.

Sociology provides many distinctive perspectives on the world, generating new ideas
and critiquing the old. The field also offers a range of research techniques that can be
applied to virtually any aspect of social life: street crime and delinquency, corporate
downsizing, how people express emotions, welfare or education reform, how families
differ and flourish, or problems of peace and war. Because sociology addresses the most
challenging issues of our time, it is a rapidly expanding field whose potential is
increasingly tapped by those who craft policies and create programs. Sociologists
understand social inequality, patterns of behavior, forces for social change and
resistance, and how social systems work. As the following pages convey, sociology is an
exciting discipline with expanding opportunities for a wide range of career paths.
Sociology is an exciting and illuminating field of study that analyzes and explains
important matters in our personal lives, our communities, and the world. At the
personal level, sociology investigates the social causes and consequences of such things
as romantic love, racial and gender identity, family conflict, deviant behavior, aging,
and religious faith. At the societal level, sociology examines and explains matters like
crime and law, poverty and wealth, prejudice and discrimination, schools and
education, business firms, urban community, and social movements. At the global level,
sociology studies such phenomena as population growth and migration, war and peace,
and economic development.

The sociological imagination is a concept used by the American sociologist C.

Wright Mills to describe the ability to “think yourself away from the familiar routines of
everyday life” and look at them from an entirely new perspective.
The sociological imagination is the ability to look beyond one’s own everyday life as a
cause for daily successes and failures and see the entire society in which one lives as
potential cause for these things. It is described by C. Wright Mills in 1959 as a enabling
“its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the
inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals”. Mills goes on to describe
people as being “Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their
own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually know what
this connection means for the kinds of people they are becoming and for the kinds of
history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind
essential to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography and history, of
self and world.”
Having sociological imagination is critical for individual people and societies at large to
understand. It is important that people are able to relate the situations in which they
live their daily lives to the local, national, and global societal issues that affect them.
Without the ability to make these relations, people are unable to see societal issues that
affect them and are unable to determine if these issues require change to better their
everyday lives.
Throughout history different societies and nations have obtained different levels of
social imagination. Some societies have never had it, others have obtained and lost it,
while others have obtained it and thrived on it. The societies that have not obtained it or
that have lost it are usually within nations that have suffered ongoing persecution,
poverty, and social injustice. The societies that have obtained it and thrived on it are
usually within the nations with the most freedoms and with the most advanced
cultures. This theme is discussed in Linda Schneider and Arnold Silverman’s book
Global Sociology: Introducing Five Contemporary Societies Fourth Edition.
Sociological Inquiry is the systematic analysis of the motivations and behaviour of
individual within a group; the study of social as a whole and of such social institution
as the family, the church, the branches of the government, the school and the
community.
The basic goal of sociological inquiry is to obtain an understanding of the observable
social world. To understand aspects of this social world, one has to observe phenomena
in relation to particular point of time and place and realize how they were, how they are
and how and why they have or have not changed.
Social investigation is an activity wherein a people or a group of people study how
people in a community live for example. This includes their life style, major income and
other norms in a community.

Social analysis is the practice of systematically examining a social problem, issue or

trend, often with the aim of prompting changes in the situation being analyzed.

7 Areas of Sociology
Sociological social psychology emphasizes the relationship between individual people
and the larger social structures and processes in which they participate. While the study
of social organization and structure is the defining core of sociology, all social structure
comes out of interactions between individuals. So, to understand the significance,
nature, and effects of social structure, we need to understand the people whose
behavior constitutes that structure.
Major areas of study include deviance, socialization, group dynamics, health, race and
ethnicity, and gender. Sociologists in this field have studied some really interesting
subjects, such as obedience and disobedience during the Holocaust, the psychological
consequences of work and family life, and the attitudes of minority groups to the
cultural mainstream.
Social psychology examines the way groups and social structures shape individuals—
their perceptions, beliefs, identities, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors—and how
individuals acting together create, maintain, and change social structures.
Research includes how individuals’ locations in social structures, such as class, race, or
gender, impact their behavior, perspectives, emotions, and even health. It also examines
how individuals interact with one another, influence and are influenced by each other’s
actions and communications, and develop social selves and identities that guide their
future behavior. By coordinating behavior through interactions, individuals create
group structures such as hierarchies and roles, as well as solidarity and shared
identities among group members.
Human Ecology is the study of the nature and behavior of a given population and its
interaction with the surrounding environment. Specifically, it focuses on how social
structures adapt to the quality and quantity of natural resources and to the existence of
other human groups
Studies of this kind have shown the prevalence of mental illness, criminality,
delinquency, prostitution, and drug addiction in urban centers and other modern,
developed locales.
Demographic and Population is area of study is concerned with the study of
population number, composition, change, and quality and how these factors influence
the larger economic, social, and political systems.
This area also focuses on things such as fertility and mortality rates, the impact of
migration on the distribution of certain populations. Examples of topics that sociologists
in this field study include trends in population growth and how those trends are
affected by fertility, mortality, and migration rates, how population is distributed over a
particular area (for example, segregation), poverty and inequality.

Sociological Research is the field which is concerned with the applicability of

sociological principles and insights to study and regulate peoples' social environment. It
represents an effort to build and develop theories that can explain people's actions and
behaviors. It makes use of existing research data to solve social problems and apply
sociological concepts in fields such as family counseling, industrial relations and
economic development.
Sociological theory is a set of ideas that provides an explanation for human
society. Theories are selective in terms of their priorities and perspectives and the data
they define as significant. As a result they provide a particular and partial view of
reality. Sociological theories can be grouped together according to a variety of criteria.
The most important of these is the distinction between Structural and Social action
theories. The main differences between functionalist and Marxist perspectives then, is
the way they characterize the social structure. Functionalists stress the extent to which
the different elements of the social structure fit together harmoniously. Marxists stress
the lack of fit between the different parts, particularly social classes, and so emphasize
the potential for social conflict.
Collective behavior is a term sociologists use to refer to a miscellaneous set of
behaviors in which large numbers of people engage. More specifically, collective
behavior refers to relatively spontaneous and relatively unstructured behavior by large
numbers of individuals acting with or being influenced by other individuals. Relatively
spontaneous means that the behavior is somewhat spontaneous but also somewhat
planned, while relatively unstructured means that the behavior is somewhat organized
and predictable but also somewhat unorganized and unpredictable. As we shall see,
some forms of collective behavior are more spontaneous and unstructured than others,
and some forms are more likely than others to involve individuals who act together as
opposed to merely being influenced by each other. As a whole, though, collective
behavior is regarded as less spontaneous and less structured than conventional
behavior, such as what happens in a classroom, a workplace, or the other settings for
everyday behavior with which we are very familiar.
Social organization refers to a pattern of relationships between and among different
groups and individual people. Social organization could be said to the fundamental
basis of modern society, as it allows for the carrying out of very complex activities that
other members of society either participate in or are affected by.
Identifying and classifying different groupings of people is a crucial job for sociologists.
Typically, sociologists define a group as consisting of at least two members who:

 interact with each other,

 have a sense of identity or belonging,

 share norms or expectations that those outside the group do not.

While the larger society of a particular nation is itself an example of social organization,
that society is in turn made up of a collection of organized groups of interacting
individuals. It is precisely how those groups interact and organize that sociologists
study.
Typically, when sociologists discuss social organizations, they are referring to:

 Social institutions, such as the family or school.

 Social groups, such as professional associations, or voluntary organizations like

the Kiwanis Club or neighborhood associations.

 Social inequality, which groups people according to class, such as the middle-
class, working class, underclass, upper class, etc.

 Religious groups, such as churches and affiliated charities.

 Bureaucracies, including government agencies administrative units