What is Sociology?

We as kind beings have got always been curious about the sources of our hold behaviour. Attempts to understand this relied on ways of thinking that were passed down from generation to generation. These ideas were often expressed in apparitional terms or drew from well-known myths, superstition and traditional beliefs. The objective and systematic study of man behaviour and fiat is a recent development dating from the 1700s. A key development was the subprogram of intuition to understand the creation and this approach brought about a radical change in learning ability and understanding.Just bid physics, biology, chemistry and other disciplines, sociology emerged as part of this important intellectual process. The origins of sociology were the series of sweeping changes ushered in by the two great revolutions of the 18th and 19th century Europe. These events transformed the way of life domain had maintained for thousands of years. The French Revolution, 1789 marked the idea s and values, such as liberty and equality, over traditional favorable order.This was the industrial Revolution, the broad spectrum of neighborly and economic transformation that surrounded the development of new technical innovation. This caused an influx of migrants causing a rapid expansion of urban areas, forming new social relationships dramatically changing the face of the social world. There were a few individuals who contributed to early sociological thinking one in particular was a French author, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who actually coined the word sociology.He argued that sociology can and should study society and social phenomena following the patterns and procedures of natural sciences. other contributor was Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and he had a more lasting impact on modern sociology than that of Comte. Some bear on Durkheim as the first sociologist to apply statistical methods to the study of social phenomena. Throughout his career, Durkheim was primarily conc erned with how society would maintain integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things like religion could no longer be assumed.His book Suicide (1897) is a truly well-known piece of literature. These sociologist developed ideas into how we could study humans and the world in which we live. Sociology is seen as being the study of human social behaviour and its origins, development, organizations and institutions. It is a social science which uses various methods of investigation and is to develop a body of knowledge about human social actions, social structures and functions. The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, law and deviance.With all aspects of human activity it is unnatural by interplay between social structure and individual agency, which means sociology, has gradually expanded its focus to save subjects such as health, internet and political economy. There are two non-sociological explanations of human behaviour, naturalistic and individual explanations. The naturalistic approach suggest that humans behave as a product of inherited angle of dip programmed by nature, e. g. / race, motherhood, gender (etc.)We dupe for granted that all women are maternal and want to become mothers and be just like their own mothers but this is not always the case. The individual approach is on that sees human behaviour as a result of psychological slay-up of the individual person, eg/ people who commit felo-de-se have their own individualised reason for doing so. This persons suicide may not solely be a personal choice but may have other social factors associated like religion. This is what sociology is all about, contend the unknown and looking at things from a different perspective, Sociology defamiliarises the familiar (Z.Baumen 1990 Thinking Sociologically p15)Sociologist look at these behaviours from all different perspectives and challenges what we believe to common sense theories . To make sense of human reality sociology attempts to make sense of the human condition through analysing the manifold webs of human interdependency as opposed to the naturalistic or individualistic approach. It disturbs the comforting quiet way of life by questioning what we usually take for granted. It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this things are not what they seem (P Berger 1963 Invitation to Sociology p34)To gather entropy we use sociological methods called quantative and qualitative entropy. Quantative data is presented in the form of numbers and statistics macro-sociological perspective. This helps to go beyond personal impressions and opinions and is done in the form of social surveys, questionnaires and structured interviews, e. g. / The Kinsey report on the sexuality of Americans (1948-1953) Qualitative data however is to tell us why and methods used are usually interviewing people to build up an understanding of a respondents point of view rather th an a generalized opinion on their behaviour.There is also participant observation and this is observing someone in their own environment and learning what life is like for them, e. g. / The Paulo Case. Sociology deals with a factually observable subject matter, depends upon empirical research, and involves attempts to formulate theories and generalizations that will make sense of facts (Giddens mount of Sociology p6) The use of concepts are needed to describe things accurately and precisely and to describe and address abstract and apathetic social phenomena such as individualism, social class and globalization, etc.As you can see from this essay sociology is a very important study and without it we wouldnt question human behaviours or the society surrounding us. It helps us to amplification a better insight into who we are and why we are the way we are and how others can have an effect on each and every one of us.