Sociology

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•Sociology (from Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from
Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" [1]) is the scientific or systematic study of society,
including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and cultureHYPERLINK \l
"cite_note-1"[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts
between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social interaction.
Numerous fields within the discipline concentrate on how and why people are organized
in society, either as individuals or as members of associations, groups, and institutions.
Sociology is considered a branch of social science.
Sociological research provides educators, planners, lawmakers, administrators,
developers, business leaders, and people interested in resolving social problems and
formulating public policy with rationales for the actions that they take.

==History==
{{main|History of sociology}}
[[Image:Auguste Comte.jpg|thumb|right|[[Auguste Comte]]]]
Sociology, including economic, political, and cultural systems, has origins in
the common stock of human [[knowledge]] and [[philosophy]]. [[Social
analysis]] has been carried out by scholars and [[philosophy|philosophers]] at
least as early as the time of [[Plato]].
There is evidence of early [[Greek]] (e.g. [[Xenophanes]]<ref>''The
[[Ethopians|Ethiops]] say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,<br>While
the [[Thrace|Thracians]] say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.<br>Yet if
cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,<br>And could sculpture
like men, then the horses would draw their gods<br>Like horses, and cattle
like cattle; and each they would shape<br>Bodies of gods in the likeness, each
kind, of their own.''<br>(Hermann Diels and W. Kranz (eds.), ''Die Fragmente
der Vorsokratiker'', 6th edn. Zurich)</ref>, [[Xenophon]]<ref>cf.
''[[Cyropaedia]]''</ref> , [[Polybios]]<ref>cf. ''The Histories''</ref>) and [[early
Muslim sociology|Muslim sociological contribution]]s, especially by [[Ibn
Khaldun]],<ref> in his ''[[Muqaddimah]]'' from the [[14th century]], later
translated as ''Prolegomena'' in [[Latin]]), the introduction to a seven volume
analysis of [[universal history]], in which he advanced theories of [[structural
cohesion|social cohesion]] and [[social conflict]]</ref> whose
''[[Muqaddimah]]'' is viewed as the earliest work dedicated to sociology as a
[[social science]].<ref name=Mowlana>H. Mowlana (2001). "Information in the
Arab World", ''Cooperation South Journal'' '''1'''.</ref><ref name=Akhtar>Dr.
S. W. Akhtar (1997). "The Islamic Concept of Knowledge", ''Al-Tawhid: A
Quarterly Journal of Islamic Thought & Culture'' '''12''' (3).</ref> Several other
forerunners of sociology, from [[Giambattista Vico]] up to [[Karl Marx]], are
nowadays considered classical sociologists.

Sociology later emerged as a scientific discipline in the early [[19th century]] as

an academic response to the challenges of [[modernity]] and [[modernization]],
such as [[industrialization]] and [[urbanization]]. Sociologists hope not only to
understand what holds social groups together, but also to develop responses to
[[social disintegration]] and [[exploitation]].

The term "sociologie" was first used in 1780 by the [[France|French]]

[[essayist]] [[Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès]] (1748-1836) in an unpublished
manuscript.<ref>''Des Manuscrits de Sieyès. 1773-1799'', Volumes I and II,
published by Christine Fauré, Jacques Guilhaumou, Jacques Vallier et
Françoise Weil, Paris, Champion, 1999 and 2007 See also Christine Fauré and
Jacques Guilhaumou, ''Sieyès et le non-dit de la sociologie : du mot à la chose,''
in ''Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines'', Numéro 15, novembre 2006:
Naissances de la science sociale; see also the article 'sociologie' in the French-
language Wikipedia.</ref>. The term was used again and popularized by the
French thinker [[Auguste Comte]] <ref>''A Dictionary of Sociology'', Article:
Comte, Auguste</ref> in 1838. Comte had earlier used the term 'social physics',
but that term had been appropriated by others, notably [[Adolphe Quetelet]].
Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind - including history,
psychology and economics. His own sociological scheme was typical of the
19th century; he believed all human life had passed through the same distinct
historical stages (theology, metaphysics, [[positive science]]) and that, if one
could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills.
Sociology was to be the 'queen of positive sciences'.<ref
name="comte">''Dictionary of the Social Sciences'', Article: Comte,
Auguste</ref> Thus, Comte has come to be viewed as the "Father of
Sociology".<ref name="comte"/>

"Classical" theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries
include [[Ferdinand Tönnies]], [[Émile Durkheim]], [[Karl Marx]], [[Herbert
Spencer]], [[Vilfredo Pareto]], [[Ludwig Gumplowicz]], [[Georg Simmel]] and
[[Max Weber]]. Like Comte, these figures did not consider themselves only
"sociologists". Their works addressed [[religion]], [[education]], [[economics]],
[[law]], [[psychology]], [[ethics]], [[philosophy]] and [[theology]], and their
theories have been applied in a variety of academic disciplines. Their
influence on sociology was foundational.

===Institutionalizing sociology===
The discipline was taught by its own name for the first time at the [[University
of Kansas]], [[Lawrence,_Kansas|Lawrence]] in 1890 by Frank Blackmar, under
the course title ''Elements of Sociology''. It remains the oldest continuing
sociology course in the United states. The Department of History and
Sociology at the University of Kansas was established in 1891
<ref>http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/about/ University of Kansas Sociology
Department Webpage</ref>
<ref>http://www.news.ku.edu/2005/June/June15/sociology.shtml University of
Kansas News Story</ref>, and the first full-fledged independent university.
The department of sociology was established in 1892 at the [[University of
Chicago]] by [[Albion W. Small]], who in 1895 founded the ''[[American
Journal of
Sociology]]''.<ref>http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJS/home.html American
Journal of Sociology Website</ref>

The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the

[[University of Bordeaux]] by [[Émile Durkheim]], founder of ''[[Année
Sociologique|L'Année Sociologique]]'' (1896). The first sociology department
to be established in [[United Kingdom|the United Kingdom]] was at the
[[London School of Economics|London School of Economics and Political
Science]] (home of the ''British Journal of Sociology'')
<ref>http://www.lse.ac.uk/serials/Bjs/ British Journal of Sociology
Website</ref> in 1904. In 1919 a sociology department was established in
Germany at the [[Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich]] by [[Max
Weber]], and in 1920 in [[Poland]] by [[Florian Znaniecki]].

International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when [[René Worms]]

founded the ''[[Institut International de Sociologie]]'', which was later eclipsed
by the much larger [[International Sociological Association]] (ISA), founded in
1949.<ref>http://www.isa-sociology.org/ International Sociological Association
Website </ref> In 1905, the [[American Sociological Association]], the world's
largest [[Voluntary association|association]] of professional sociologists, was
founded, and in 1909 the ''Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie'' ([[German
Society for Sociology]]) was founded by [[Ferdinand Tönnies]] and [[Max
Weber]], among others.

===Positivism and anti-positivism===

:''Articles: [[Positivism]], [[Sociological positivism]], and [[Antipositivism]].''

[[Image:Max Weber 1894.jpg|thumb|right|[[Max Weber]].]]

Early theorists' approach to sociology, led by Comte, was to treat it in much the
same manner as [[natural science]], applying the same methods and
[[methodology]] used in the natural sciences to study [[Social phenomenon|
social phenomena]]. The emphasis on [[empiricism]] and the [[scientific
method]] sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological
claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields such
as [[philosophy]]. This methodological approach, called [[Sociological
positivism|positivism]] assumes that the only authentic knowledge is
scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive
affirmation of theories through strict scientific method.

One push away from positivism was philosophical and political, such as in the
[[dialectical materialism]] based on Marx' theories. A second push away from
scientific positivism was cultural, becoming sociological. As early as the 19th
century, [[positivist]] and [[Natural science|naturalist]] approaches to studying
[[Social relation|social life]] were questioned by scientists like [[Wilhelm
Dilthey]] and [[Heinrich Rickert]], who argued that the natural world differs
from the [[Social reality|social world]] because of unique aspects of human
society such as meanings, [[symbol]]s, [[rule]]s, [[Norm (sociology)|norm]]s,
and [[Value (personal and cultural)|values]]. These elements of society inform
human [[culture]]s. This view was further developed by [[Max Weber]], who
introduced [[antipositivism]] ([[humanistic sociology]]). According to this
view, which is closely related to [[antinaturalism]], sociological research must
concentrate on humans' cultural values (see also: [[French Pragmatism]]).
<!-- need some wording about subjectivity, postmodernism, and feminist
epistemological answers to positivism -->

===Twentieth century developments===

In the early 20th century, sociology expanded in the [[United States]],
including developments in both [[macrosociology]] interested in [[evolution of
societies]] and [[microsociology]]. Based on the [[pragmatism|pragmatic]]
social psychology of [[George Herbert Mead]], [[Herbert Blumer]] and others
(later [[Chicago school]]) inspired sociologists developed [[symbolic
interactionism]].

In Europe, in the [[Interwar period|Interwar period]], sociology generally was

both attacked by increasingly totalitarian governments and rejected by
conservative universities. At the same time, originally in Austria and later in
the U.S., [[Alfred Schütz]] developed social [[phenomenology]] (which would
later inform [[social constructionism]]). Also, members of [[Frankfurt School|
the Frankfurt school]] (most of whom moved to the U.S. to escape Nazi
persecution) developed [[critical theory (Frankfurt School)|critical theory]],
integrating critical, idealistic and historical materialistic elements of the
[[dialectics|dialectical]] philosophies of [[Hegel]] and [[Marx]] with the
insights of [[Freud]], [[Max Weber]] (in theory, if not always in name) and
others. In the 1930s in the U.S., [[Talcott Parsons]] developed [[structural-
functional theory]] which integrated the study of [[social order]] and
"objective" aspects of macro and micro structural factors.

Since [[World War II]], sociology has been revived in Europe, although during
the [[Stalin]] and [[Mao]] eras it was suppressed in the [[communist]]
countries. In the mid-20th century, there was a general (but not universal)
trend for US-American sociology to be more scientific in nature, due partly to
the prominent influence at that time of [[Functionalism (sociology)|structural
functionalism]]. Sociologists developed new types of [[quantitative research|
quantitative]] and [[qualitative research]] methods. In the second half of the
[[20th century]], sociological research has been increasingly employed as a tool
by governments and businesses. Parallel with the rise of various [[social
movements]] in the 1960s, theories emphasizing social struggle, including
[[conflict theory]] (which sought to counter [[Functionalism (sociology)|
structural functionalism]]) and [[neomarxist]] theories, began to receive more
attention.

In the [[Late 20th Century|late 20th century]], some sociologists embraced

[[postmodern]] and [[poststructuralism|poststructuralist]] philosophies.
Increasingly, many sociologists have used [[qualitative]] and [[ethnographic]]
methods and become critical of the positivism in some social scientific
approaches.{{Fact|date=November 2007}} Much like [[cultural studies]], some
contemporary sociological studies have been influenced by the cultural
changes of the [[1960s]], 20th century [[Continental philosophy]], [[literature|
literary]] studies, and [[interpretivism]]. Others have maintained more
objective empirical perspectives, such as by articulating [[neofunctionalism]],
[[social psychology]], and [[rational choice theory]]. Others began to debate the
nature of [[globalization]] and the changing nature of social institutions. These
developments have led some to reconceptualize basic sociological categories
and theories. For instance, inspired by the thought of [[Michel Foucault]],
[[Power (sociology)|power]] may be studied as dispersed throughout society
in a wide variety of disciplinary cultural practices. In [[political sociology]],
the power of the nation state may be seen as transforming due to the
globalization of trade (and cultural exchanges) and the expanding influence of
[[international organization]]s (Nash 2000:1-4).

However, the [[positivist]] tradition is still alive and influential in sociology.

In the U.S., the most commonly cited journals, including the [[American
Journal of Sociology]] and [[American Sociological Review]], primarily
publish research in the positivist tradition. There is also a minor revival for a
more independent, empirical sociology in the spirit of [[C Wright Mills]], and
his studies of the [[Power Elite]] in the USA, according to
[http://www.logosjournal.com/aronowitz.htm Stanley Aronowitz].

[[social networks|Social network analysis]] is an example of a new

[[paradigm]] in this tradition which can go beyond the traditional micro vs.
macro or agency vs. structure debates. The influence of [[social network]]
analysis is pervasive in many sociological subfields such as [[economic
sociology]] (see the work of [[J. Clyde Mitchell]], [[Harrison White]], or [[Mark
Granovetter]] for example), [[organizational behavior]], [[historical sociology]],
[[political sociology]], or the [[sociology of education]].

Throughout the development of sociology, controversies have raged about

how to emphasize or integrate concerns with [[subjectivity]], [[objectivity
(science)|objectivity]], [[intersubjectivity]] and practicality in theory and
research. The extent to which sociology may be characterized as a '[[science]]'
has remained an area of considerable debate, which has addressed basic
[[ontological]] and [[epistemological]] [[philosophical]] questions. One
outcome of such disputes has been the ongoing formation of
multidimensional theories of society, such as the continuing development of
various types of [[critical theory]]. Another outcome has been the formation of
[[public sociology]], which emphasizes the usefulness of sociological analysis
to various social groups.