Submitted by:

Imad Ud Din
BS English
1 Semester
st

Submitted to:
ALI AKBAR CHISHTI
Sociology:
Sociology is the study of human social relationships and institutions. Sociology’s subject matter
is diverse, ranging from crime to religion, from the family to the state, from the divisions of race
and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture, and from social stability to radical
change in whole societies. Unifying the study of these diverse subjects of study is sociology’s
purpose of understanding how human action and consciousness both shape and are shaped by
surrounding cultural and social structures.

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.

Sociologists emphasize the careful gathering and analysis of evidence about social life to
develop and enrich our understanding of key social processes. The research methods
sociologists use are varied. Sociologists observe the everyday life of groups, conduct large-scale
surveys, interpret historical documents, analyze census data, study video-taped interactions,
interview participants of groups, and conduct laboratory experiments. The research methods
and theories of sociology yield powerful insights into the social processes shaping human lives
and social problems and prospects in the contemporary world. By better understanding those
social processes, we also come to understand more clearly the forces shaping the personal
experiences and outcomes of our own lives. The ability to see and understand this connection
between broad social forces and personal experiences — what C. Wright Mills called “the
sociological imagination” — is extremely valuable academic preparation for living effective and
rewarding personal and professional lives in a changing and complex society.

Students who have been well trained in sociology know how to think critically about human
social life, and how to ask important research questions. They know how to design good social
research projects, carefully collect and analyze empirical data, and formulate and present their
research findings. Students trained in sociology also know how to help others understand the
way the social world works and how it might be changed for the better. Most generally, they
have learned how to think, evaluate, and communicate clearly, creatively, and effectively.
These are all abilities of tremendous value in a wide variety of vocational callings and
professions.

Sociology offers a distinctive and enlightening way of seeing and understanding the social world
in which we live and which shapes our lives. Sociology looks beyond normal, taken-for-granted
views of reality, to provide deeper, more illuminating and challenging understandings of social
life. Through its particular analytical perspective, social theories, and research methods,
sociology is a discipline that expands our awareness and analysis of the human social
relationships, cultures, and institutions that profoundly shape both our lives and human history.

Subject Matter of Sociology:

Sociology is a distinct science with its own subject matter. It has by now been able to establish

itself as a distinct science concerned with the scientific study of society. It has accumulated a

body of knowledge about society. It has been said surprisingly enough by some critics that
sociology does not have a subject matter of its own

There is no special field of sociology since its subject matter has been parcelled out to a number
of social science like political science, economics, psychology, anthropology, and history etc.
Another criticism against sociology is that it borrows from other social sciences. It is argued that
sociology is a hotch-potch of different social sciences.

Sociology is a special kind of abstraction, lit has its own perspective and its own system of
explanation of human behaviour. While discussing the position of sociology among other social
sciences, Maclver has rightly remarked that the social sciences have the spheres within
sociology just as associations have the spheres within community.

Historical Background Of Sociology:

Since ancient times, people have been fascinated by the relationship between individuals and
the societies to which they belong. Many topics studied in modern sociology were also studied
by ancient philosophers in their desire to describe an ideal society, including theories of social
conflict, economics, social cohesion, and power (Hannoum 2003).

In the thirteenth century, Ma Tuan-Lin, a Chinese historian, first recognized social dynamics as
an underlying component of historical development in his seminal encyclopedia, General Study
of Literary Remains. The next century saw the emergence of the historian some consider to be
the world’s first sociologist: Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) of Tunisia. He wrote about many topics of
interest today, setting a foundation for both modern sociology and economics, including a
theory of social conflict, a comparison of nomadic and sedentary life, a description of political
economy, and a study connecting a tribe’s social cohesion to its capacity for power (Hannoum
2003).

In the eighteenth century, Age of Enlightenment philosophers developed general principles that
could be used to explain social life. Thinkers such as John Locke, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and
Thomas Hobbes responded to what they saw as social ills by writing on topics that they hoped
would lead to social reform. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) wrote about women’s
conditions in society. Her works were long ignored by the male academic structure, but since
the 1970s, Wollstonecraft has been widely considered the first feminist thinker of
consequence.

Auguste Comte (1798–1857)—The

Father of Sociology:
The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès
(1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript (Fauré et al. 1999). In 1838, the term was
reinvented by Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Comte originally studied to be an engineer, but
later became a pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon
(1760–1825). They both thought that social scientists could study society using the same
scientific methods utilized in natural sciences. Comte also believed in the potential of social
scientists to work toward the betterment of society. He held that once scholars identified the
laws that governed society, sociologists could address problems such as poor education and
poverty (Abercrombie et al. 2000).

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)—the

First Woman Sociologist:
Harriet Martineau was a principles of economics (Johnson 2003).writer who addressed a wide
range of social science issues. She was an early observer of social practices, including
economics, social class, religion, suicide, government, and women’s rights. Her writing career
began in 1931 with a series of stories titled Illustrations of Political Economy, in which she tried
to educate ordinary people about the

Karl Marx (1818–1883):

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher and economist. In 1848 he and Friedrich
Engels (1820–1895) coauthored the Communist Manifesto. This book is one of the most
influential political manuscripts in history. It also presents Marx’s theory of society, which
differed from what Comte proposed.

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903):

In 1873, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer published The Study of Sociology, the first
book with the term “sociology” in the title. Spencer rejected much of Comte’s philosophy as
well as Marx’s theory of class struggle and his support of communism. Instead, he favored a
form of government that allowed market forces to control capitalism. His work influenced many
early sociologists including Émile Durkheim (1858–1917).

Georg Simmel (1858–1918):

Georg Simmel was a German art critic who wrote widely on social and political issues as well.
Simmel took an anti-positivism stance and addressed topics such as social conflict, the function
of money, individual identity in city life, and the European fear of outsiders (Stapley 2010).
Much of his work focused on the micro-level theories, and it analyzed the dynamics of two-
person and three-person groups. His work also emphasized individual culture as the creative
capacities of individuals. Simmel’s contributions to sociology are not often included in academic
histories of the discipline, perhaps overshadowed by his contemporaries Durkheim, Mead, and
Weber (Ritzer and Goodman 2004).

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917):

Durkheim helped establish sociology as a formal academic discipline by establishing the first
European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895 and by publishing
his Rules of the Sociological Method in 1895. In another important work, Division of Labour in
Society (1893), Durkheim laid out his theory on how societies transformed from a primitive
state into a capitalist, industrial society. According to Durkheim, people rise to their proper
levels in society based on merit.