Sociology – The Science of Society

• Men have always lived in societies, from primitive Polynesian to modern American societies, and all exhibit common elements and constant features.
• These elements give society its form, shape, and structure, comprising the social order.
• General sociology aims to discover these constants, describe them concisely, and explain their inter-relations.
• Sociology is the science of society and uniquely studies society in its entirety, unlike other sciences.
• Economics focuses on man as a wealth-getter and wealth-disposer and studies relations of wealth and welfare.
• History deals with the human past in a time order.
• Cultural Anthropology studies primitive man and his culture, particularly in primitive communities.
• Psychology studies the individual as a behaving individual.
• Social Psychology explores how the individual reacts to social conditions.
• Political Science studies man as a citizen, ruler, or ruled.
• Religion deals with man as a spiritual being and his faith in the supernatural.
• Sociology alone studies social relationships and society itself.
• Sociology’s focus distinguishes it from other social sciences.
• Sociology studies social relationships because they are social, not due to their economic, political, religious, legal, or educational nature.
• Society is the intricate, ever-changing pattern of the totality of these relationships.
• Sociology does not study everything in society but focuses on how elements like culture, religion, art, and inventionsshed light on social relationships.
• Sociology studies how relations combine, build systems, and respond to changes, making it an analytical study.

DEFINITION OF SOCIOLOGY

• Sociology emerged as an independent social science in the 19th century, previously treated as social philosophy or the philosophy of history.
• Auguste Comte, a Frenchman, is considered the father of sociology and coined the term sociology in 1839.
• The word “sociology” is derived from socius (companion/associate) and logos (science/study), meaning the science of society.
• John Stuart Mill proposed the term ethology for the new science, but Herbert Spencer popularized the term sociology.
• Despite various contributions, sociology became the permanent name for the new science.
• The question “What is sociology?” pertains to the definition of sociology, which is difficult to define comprehensively and briefly.
• There is no single satisfactory definition of sociology, with many definitions proposed by different sociologists.
• Some notable definitions:
  1. Auguste Comte: Sociology is the science of social phenomena subject to natural and invariable laws.
  2. Kingsley Davis: Sociology is a general science of society.
  3. Harry M. Johnson: Sociology is the science that deals with social groups.
  4. Emile Durkheim: Sociology is the science of social institutions.
  5. Park: Sociology is the science of collective behaviour.
  6. Small: Sociology is the science of social relations.
  7. Marshal Jones: Sociology is the study of man-in-relationship-to-men.
  8. Ogburn and Nimkoff: Sociology is the scientific study of social life.
  9. Franklin Henry Giddings: Sociology is the science of social phenomena.
  10. Henry Fairchild: Sociology is the study of man and his human environment in their relations.
  11. Max Weber: Sociology is the science of interpretative understanding of social action to explain its course and effects.
  12. Alex Inkeles: Sociology is the study of systems of social action and their inter-relations.
  13. Kimball Young and Raymond W. Mack: Sociology is the scientific study of the social aspects of human life.
  14. Morris Ginsberg: Sociology is the study of human interactions and inter-relations, their conditions and consequences.
• Divergence in the definitions shows different approaches to sociology.
• Despite variations, all definitions share the common focus on man, social relations, and society.

• Sociology is an independent science, distinct from other sciences like philosophy, political philosophy, or history, with its own field of study, boundary, and method.
• Sociology is a social science, not a physical science, focusing on man, social behaviour, social activities, and social life.
• It is related to other social sciences like history, political science, economics, psychology, anthropology, etc., but it studies the social universe as opposed to physical sciences like astronomy, physics, chemistry, and mathematics.
• Sociology is a categorical science, not a normative discipline. It does not make value judgments or provide recommendations on moral issues or social policies.
• Sociology is a pure science, not an applied science. Its main goal is the acquisition of knowledge about human society, not its direct application.
• The knowledge from sociology is useful for administrators, legislators, diplomats, social workers, but sociologists themselves do not apply it directly in practice.
• Sociology is a relatively abstract science, focusing on the forms and patterns of human events rather than specific occurrences like wars or revolutions.
• It studies general phenomena, like types of social conflict, rather than specific events or individual cases.
• Sociology is a generalising science, aiming to find general laws or principles about human interaction and social structures. It makes generalisations based on selected events.
• Sociology studies human activities in general, unlike specialised social sciences like political science, economics, or history, which focus on specific aspects of human activity.
• Sociology is both a rational and empirical science, requiring both theories and facts. Theories without facts are empty, and facts without theories are blind.
• Sociology combines both empirical (fact-based) and rational (theory-based) approaches to construct knowledge.
• Sociology is an independent, social, categorical, pure, abstract, generalising, rational, and empirical social science.

SUBJECT-MATTER AND SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY

• Sociology has always been concerned with man and the dynamics of society, with emphasis oscillating between the two.
• Sociology does not focus on man as an individual, but rather on society and its major units and dynamics.
• The primary goal of sociology is to answer three fundamental questions: How and why societies emerge, persist, and change.
• Sociology has developed different approaches over time, but certain topics remain widely agreed upon as the subject-matter of sociology.
• One major concern is sociological analysis, focusing on understanding human society and culture from a sociological perspective.
• Sociology also analyzes the evolution of society, reconstructing the major stages in its evolutionary process and examining the factors and forces behind historical transformations.
• Scientific methods are highly valued in sociological analysis, ensuring an objective approach.
• Another key area of focus is the study of primary units of social life, such as social acts, social relationships, individual personality, groups, communities (urban, rural, tribal), associations, organizations, and populations.
• Sociology also examines the development, structure, and function of fundamental social institutions like family, kinship, religion, property, economic, political, legal, educational, scientific, recreational, welfare, and aesthetic institutions.
• Sociologists must consider social processes like cooperation, competition, accommodation, assimilation, social conflict, war, revolution, communication, opinion formation, expression, social differentiation, stratification, socialisation, indoctrination, social control, deviance (including crime and suicide), social integration, and social change.
• Research methods are crucial in sociology, with contemporary sociology focusing on rational and empiricalapproaches rather than philosophical or idealistic ones.
• Sociologists employ scientific methods in social research, starting with a problem, formulating it into a researchable proposition, collecting data, establishing connections, and arriving at meaningful concepts, propositions, and generalizations.
• Concepts are derived from concrete experience to represent a class of phenomena (e.g., social stratification, differentiation, conformity, deviance).
• A proposition reflects a relationship between categories of data or concepts (e.g., “lower-class youths are more likely to commit crimes than middle-class youths”).
• Theories are systematically related propositions explaining social phenomena, grounded in factual rather than philosophical reasoning.
• Sociological theories become more meaningful when insights are derived from concepts, propositions, and theories.
• In the era of knowledge explosion, sociology has ventured into specializations such as sociology of knowledge, sociology of history, sociology of literature, sociology of culture, sociology of religion, sociology of family, etc.
• The vast field of sociology allows for new dimensions to be added by students with genius and sociological imagination.

SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY

The Specialistic or Formalistic School

• Every science has its own areas of study and fields of inquiry, and the boundaries and scope need to be demarcated for systematic study.
• There is no consensus among sociologists about the scope of sociology.
• V.F. Calberton argues that sociology is an elastic science, making it difficult to define its boundaries clearly, and distinguishing it from other fields like social psychology, economic theory, and biological theory.
• There are two main schools of thought regarding the scope of sociology: (1) Specialistic or formalistic school and (2) Synthetic school.
• The formalistic school is led by German sociologist George Simmel, with other advocates including Vierkandt, Max Weber, Small, Von Wiese, and Tonnies.
• According to the formalistic school, sociology is a pure and independent science with a limited scope.
• Sociology should study certain aspects of human relationships, focusing on the forms of social relationships (e.g., competition, subordination, division of labor), but not their contents.
• The forms of social relationships are expressed in various fields like economic, political, religious, moral, artisticdomains. Sociology should disentangle and study these forms in abstraction.
• Vierkandt states that sociology focuses on the ultimate form of mental or psychic relationships linking people in society and should focus only on the fundamental forces of change and persistence in culture, not on the historical studyof concrete societies.
• Max Weber emphasizes that the aim of sociology is to interpret or understand social behavior, but this does not encompass all human relations. Sociology should analyze and classify types of social relationships.
• Small, Von Wiese, and Tonnies share the view that sociology has a limited field.
• Criticism of the formalistic school:
  • The formalistic school is criticized for narrowing the field of sociology, as it should study both the forms and the concrete contents of social relationships.
  • The distinction between forms and contents is unworkable since social forms change when the contents change. Sorokin argues that social institutions’ forms change when their members change.
  • Sociology is not the only science studying the forms of social relationships; political science, economics, and international law also study social relationships like conflict, war, opposition, agreement, and contract.
  • Establishing pure sociology is impractical, and no sociologist has been able to develop a pure sociology. No science can be studied in isolation, and the inter-disciplinary approach is now emphasized.

The Synthetic School

• The synthetic school of thought views sociology as a synthesis of the social sciences, aiming to make it a general social science rather than a pure or specialized one.
• This school has made sociology synoptic or encyclopaedic in character.
• Durkheim, Hob House, Ginsberg, and Sorokin are the main exponents of the synthetic school.
• The key argument of the synthetic school is that all parts of social life are intimately inter-related, and studying only one aspect is insufficient to understand the entire phenomenon.
• Sociology should study social life as a whole, contributing to the creation of a general and systematic sociology.
• Durkheim identified three main divisions of sociology: Social Morphology, Social Physiology, and General Sociology.
  • Social Morphology studies the territorial basis of people’s lives and population issues such as volume, density, and local distribution.
  • Social Physiology includes various branches like sociology of religion, morals, law, economic life, and language.
  • General Sociology deals with the philosophical part of sociology, focusing on the general character of social factsand formulating general social laws.
• Morris Ginsberg categorized the main tasks of sociology into four branches: Social Morphology, Social Control, Social Processes, and Social Pathology.
  • Social Morphology deals with the quantity and quality of population, studying social structure, social groups, and institutions.
  • Social Control focuses on formal and informal means of social control, such as custom, tradition, morals, religion, convention, and law, as well as the regulating agencies of society.
  • Social Processes studies modes of interaction such as cooperation, competition, conflict, accommodation, assimilation, isolation, integration, differentiation, development, arrest, and decay.
  • Social Pathology studies social mal-adjustment and disturbances, including issues like poverty, beggary, unemployment, over-population, prostitution, and crime.
• Ginsberg outlined the chief functions of sociology:
  • To provide a classification of types and forms of social relationships.
  • To determine the relation between different factors of social life, such as economic and political, moral and religious, moral and legal, intellectual and social elements.
  • To disentangle the fundamental conditions of social change and persistence, discovering sociological principlesgoverning social life.
• The scope of sociology is vast, studying all social aspects like social processes, social control, social change, social stratification, social systems, social groups, and social pathology.
• It is neither possible nor essential to delimit the scope of sociology, as it is a vast and complex field, with efforts to do so being compared to a brave attempt to simplify a vast amount of slippery material into a simple system.

USE OF SOCIOLOGY

• Sociology is considered the youngest of the social sciences but has made remarkable progress and is widely recognized today.
• There is a growing realization of the importance of the scientific study of social phenomena and its role in promoting human welfare.
• The study of sociology holds great value, particularly in modern, complex societies.
• Sociology studies society in a scientific way, providing a systematic approach to understanding human society and its complexities.
• Sociology reveals the social nature of man, explaining why humans are social animals and live in groups, communities, and societies.
• Sociology explores the relationship between the individual and society, and the impact of society on individuals.
• The study of sociology improves our understanding of society, increasing the power of social action, and helps individuals adjust to their environment by understanding their capacities, talents, and limitations.
• Sociology allows us to understand not only our own society but also other societies, their motives, aspirations, status, traditions, customs, institutions, and culture.
• Sociology enriches culture by promoting a rational approach to questions about religion, customs, values, and ideologies, encouraging critical thinking, objectivity, and broad-mindedness.
• It has helped individuals overcome prejudices, misconceptions, egoistic ambitions, and class and religious hatreds.
• Sociology contributes to the study of major social institutions such as family, school, government, religion, industry, and law, and their influence on society.
• Knowledge of sociology strengthens these institutions, helping them serve humanity better.
• Sociology is a teaching subject and provides opportunities for sociologists in various fields like business, government, city planning, social work, advertising, and communications.
• Careers in applied sociology are growing in importance at local, state, national, and international levels.
• Sociology is especially useful in underdeveloped countries to highlight social factors contributing to economic backwardness and has led economists to recognize its importance in analyzing economic affairs.
• Sociology plays a crucial role in solving social problems like poverty, unemployment, crime, juvenile delinquency, family disorganization, and racial issues through careful analysis.
• Sociological knowledge is essential for understanding and planning society, making social planning easier and contributing to social reform and reconstruction.
• Sociological techniques, such as social surveys, are widely used in fields like market research and political polling.
• Sociology helps in promoting the welfare of tribal societies, addressing their socio-economic and cultural problemsthrough research conducted by sociologists and anthropologists.
• Sociology encourages a broader outlook and greater tolerance, focusing on the intrinsic worth and dignity of man.
• Sociology keeps us up-to-date on modern social developments and alerts us to changes in societal roles, expectations, and responsibilities.
• As Prof. Giddings states, sociology teaches us how to become what we want to be.
• The value of sociology lies in how it is applied, offering both individual and social advantages.

• Social Sciences deal with the social universe or phenomena, focusing on human interaction, groups, society, and the social environment.
• Social phenomena are as natural as magnetism, gravitation, and electricity.
• A modern city is considered as natural as an ocean in the context of social sciences.
• Different social sciences study various aspects of the same reality, i.e., the social milieu.
• History, Anthropology, Social Psychology, Economics, Political Science, etc., focus on different facets of social life.
• These social sciences are interrelated, and Sociology joined this family recently.
• Sociology emerged at a time when no other social science existed to study human society in its entirety.
• A student of sociology needs to understand how it differs from and relates to other social sciences.
• It is difficult to distinguish sociology from other social sciences as they often study the same content with different emphases.
• Some thinkers, like Comte, Spencer, and Hobhouse, argue that sociology is the basic or sole social science, with others being subdivisions.
• Thinkers like Giddings view sociology as a common sister to other social sciences, not the sole or mother science.
• Some regard sociology as a specialized science of social phenomena, akin to economics and political science.
• Certain sociologists emphasize the close relationship between sociology and psychology, and between sociology and anthropology.
• Others suggest that sociology is more interrelated with history than with other social sciences.
• The interdisciplinary approach is gaining currency in social sciences today.
• Understanding one social science requires some understanding of others.
• As a young science, sociology has borrowed from other sciences and enriched them with sociological knowledge.
• It is essential to understand the interrelation between sociology and history, economics, political science, anthropology, social psychology, and education.

Political Science

• Political Science and Sociology are closely related and have an intimate relationship.
• Political Science: Studies political activities of man, focusing on social groups under state sovereignty, the dynamics of rulers and the ruled.
  • Covers the origin, evolution, and functions of the state, types of government, constitution, administration, law, international relations, elections, voting, political movements, and political ideologies.
  • Described as “an historical investigation of what the state has been, an analytical study of what the state is, and a politico-ethical discussion of what the state should be.”

Sociology’s Roots in Politics:

• • Morris Ginsberg: “Sociology has its main roots in politics and the philosophy of history.”
  • Classical works like Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, and Kautilya’s Arthashastra once treated as works of political science.
  • The distinction between the two is a recent development.

Relationship Between Political Science and Sociology:

• • Garner: The “political is embedded in the social,” suggesting the inseparable link between political science and sociology.
  • Political activity is only a part of social activity, making political science a branch of sociology.
  • Political activity is influenced by the social context; politics is a reflection of society.
  • Political Science gives sociology facts about the state and government, and sociology provides a knowledge of the origin of political authority.
  • Political science is concerned with the state, but sociology studies the state as a social institution.
  • A political scientist must be a sociologist since laws (a concern of political science) are based on customs and traditions (concerns of sociology).

Common Foci:

• • Both fields share topics such as war, mass movements, revolutions, government control, public opinion, leadership, elections, voting, social legislation, and more.
  • Many social problems also have deep political implications, like communal riots, racial tensions, and issues of poverty, unemployment, and crime.

Views of Thinkers:

• • Prof. Giddings: Suggests it’s essential to learn sociology before studying the theory of state.
  • F.G. Wilson: Difficult to distinguish between sociologists, political theorists, and philosophers.
  • Comte and Spencer: Believed no distinction exists between the two fields.
  • G.E.C. Catlin: Political science and sociology are two facets of the same figure.

Differences Between Sociology and Political Science:

• Sociology:

  1. 1. Science of society.
     2. Studies both organised and unorganised societies.
     3. Has a wider scope.
     4. Studies man as a fundamentally social animal.
     5. A general social science, studying all forms of social relations.
     6. Follows a sociological approach, with its own methods and scientific methods.
     7. A relatively young science, less than two centuries old.

• Political Science:

  1. 1. Science of state and government.
     2. Studies only politically organised societies.
     3. Has a narrower field.
     4. Studies man as a political animal.
     5. A specialised social science focusing on political relationships.
     6. Follows a political approach, with methods like historical, philosophical, comparative, and statistical.
     7. An older science, with roots going back to Plato and Cicero.

• Psychology is defined as the study of human behaviour, and Thouless defines it as the positive science of human experience and behaviour.
• The relationship between sociology and psychology is debated; Durkheim believed sociology should study social facts, not psychological facts, while Ginsberg argued sociology could benefit from psychological laws.
• Social psychology serves as a bridge between psychology and sociology, focusing on the individual in society and studying mental processes and social behaviour.
• Social psychology examines social interaction, the relationship between the individual and the group, and how personality is influenced by both physiological and social factors.
• Karl Pearson asserts that social psychology and sociology are not separate sciences.
• McDougall and Freud believed social life could be reduced to psychological forces, but this view is rejected, as political, economic, biological, and geographic factors also affect social behaviour.
• Social psychology relies on sociology to understand human nature and behaviour, as sociology provides material on the structure, organisation, and culture of societies.
• Sociologists use social psychology to understand psychological factors in changes to social structure.
• Common topics of interest for both sciences include individual disorganisation, crime, juvenile delinquency, social disorganisation, public opinion, propaganda, leadership, war conflicts, socialisation, suggestion, imitation, and fashion.
• Social psychology helps address social problems such as racial conflict, religious prejudices, communal tensions, juvenile delinquency, prostitution, gambling, and alcoholism.
• Deviant patterns like stealing, suicide, and divorce are also considered normal consequences of social institutions, and social psychologists apply their knowledge to solve these issues.
• Lapiere compares social psychology to bio-chemistry in its relationship with sociology and psychology.
• MacIver emphasizes the mutual aid between sociology and psychology, while Murphy sees social psychology as the study of how the individual functions in social groups.
• T.B. Bottomore views social psychology as focusing on the psychological aspects of social life, while Robert Bierstedt sees it as a bridge between psychology and sociology.
• MacIver and Page explain that individual consciousness is studied from a psychological perspective, while relationships are studied from a sociological perspective.
• Sociology studies society and social groups but does not primarily focus on the individual or individual behaviour.
• Sociology analyses social processes and is interested in the social forms and structures where behaviour occurs.
• Sociology focuses on groups and the larger social structure.
• Social psychology focuses on the behaviour of the individual in group situations.
• Social psychology analyses mental processes of the individual, focusing on psychological factors in social groups.
• Psychology and social psychology are primarily concerned with the individual’s behaviour.
• Social psychology studies the individual’s behaviour in social groups from a psychological perspective.

• Sociology and economics are closely related, and some view one as a branch of the other. Thomas described economics as a branch of sociology, while Silverman called it an offshoot of sociology studying social relations.
• Economics focuses on economic activities, and Dr. Alfred Marshall defined it as studying wealth and its relationship to man. Prof. Lionel Robbins defined economics as the science of human behaviour concerning ends and scarce meanswith alternative uses.
• Economics deals with wealth through its stages of production, distribution, and consumption.
• Economics studies man as a wealth-getter and wealth disposer, focusing on economic factors like price-supply relations, money flows, and input-output ratios.
• Economic organisations like banks, factories, markets, and business firms are part of economic studies, with growing interest in motivations behind economic actions.
• Sociology and economics are mutually helpful, as economic relationships are closely tied to social activities, and vice versa.
• Economic changes are often interpreted as social changes by economists like Sombart, Max Weber, Pareto, Oppenheimer, and Schumpeter, who argue that economics is incomplete without understanding society.
• Economic systems are embedded in social structures, influencing economic activities.
• Max Weber, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, showed how religious beliefs and ethics shaped economic activities, with Protestant ethics promoting capitalism in the West, unlike Hinduism or Buddhism in the East.
• Environmentalists like Karl Marx and Veblen argued that social phenomena are determined by economic forces, with Marx describing society’s infrastructure as economic relations.
• Social scientists now recognize the interplay between economic and non-economic forces in society.
• Sociologists contribute to understanding economic organisations, including property systems, division of labour, occupations, and industrial organisation.
• Areas like labour relations, standard of living, social classes, and socio-economic planning are shared by both sociology and economics.
• Cooperation between sociology and economics is increasing, especially in analyzing social factors affecting economic growth and studying economic development in underdeveloped countries.
• Economists are incorporating sociological concepts and generalisations to study economic problems.
• Combined studies of socio-economic issues like poverty, unemployment, overpopulation, and unregulated industrialisation are essential for addressing these challenges.
• Differences between the two sciences include:
  • Sociology studies all kinds of social relationships, while economics focuses on economic relationships.
  • Sociology is a general social science, whereas economics is a special social science.
  • Sociology has a wider scope, with a comprehensive viewpoint, while economics is narrower in focus.
  • Sociology is a recent discipline, while economics has achieved maturity.
  • Sociology is abstract and less precise, with variables harder to measure, while economics is concrete and uses quantifiable variables.

• Sociology and History are closely interrelated, with some writers, like G. Von Bulow, refusing to separate sociology from history.
• History is the reconstruction of humanity’s past, focusing on events and achievements over time.
• It provides a systematic record of human life from the past to the present.
• Historians study significant events in chronological order, focusing on what happened at a specific time.
• A historian goes beyond description and seeks to understand the causes of events and how they came to be.
• Historians are interested in the past for its own sake, wanting to know everything about these events and describe their unique individuality.
• Historians concentrate only on the past, not interested in the present or future.
• However, history connects the past, present, and future, often described as a microscope of the past, horoscope of the present, and telescope of the future.
• Sociology, in contrast, focuses on the present, analyzing human interactions and interrelations with complexity and diversity.
• Sociology also studies the historical development of societies, stages of human life, customs, manners, and expressions through social institutions and associations.
• Sociology depends on history for material, as history provides data and facts that sociologists use for analysis.

History Supplies Information to Sociology

• History is a storehouse of records and a treasury of knowledge, providing materials to various social sciences, including sociology.
• It contains records related to social matters, such as stages of human life, modes of living, customs, manners, and social institutions.
• This historical information is valuable for sociologists, as they make use of historical records to understand social phenomena.
• For instance, when studying marriage and family as social institutions, a sociologist must examine their historical development.
• Similarly, to understand the impact of Islamic culture on Hindu culture, sociologists must refer to the Muslim conquests of India, relying on historical records.
• A sociologist is primarily concerned with present-day society, but understanding the present is enhanced by knowledge of the past, as history shapes the present.
• Sociologists often use the comparative method in their studies, which requires historical data.
• Historical sociology, a subfield of sociology, heavily relies on historical data for analysis.
• Sociologists may sometimes need to be their own historians, gathering information from all available sources to conduct research.

Sociology Helps History Too

• Historians also use sociology, which has become an increasingly important source of clues for important problems, concepts, and ideas in history.
• Traditionally, philosophy provided the foundation for historical concepts, but now these concepts are drawn more from sociology.
• Modern historiography and sociology have both been influenced similarly by the philosophy of history.
• Sociology provides the social background for the study of history, helping interpret historical events from a sociological perspective.
• History is often seen as meaningless without the appreciation of socially significant events.
• It is remarked that history would be boring, monotonous, and uninteresting without the narration of social events.
• Historical facts without reference to socially important matters would be like a body without life—lacking significance and vitality.

• The mutual dependence of history and sociology is reflected in remarks by scholars:
  • G.E. Howard: “History is past Sociology, and Sociology is present History.”
  • Peter Worsley: “The best history is in fact sociology: the sociology of the past.”
  • T.B. Bottomoré: Emphasizes the importance of the close relationship between history and sociology, where each borrows from the other.
  • Robert Bierstedt: Compares history and sociology to threads and patterns in a continuous cloth, where history focuses on individual threads, and sociology looks at the patterns.

Differences Between History and Sociology:

Sociology:

1. 1. Interested in the study of present social phenomena with their complexity.
   2. A relatively young social science with a history of less than two centuries.
   3. An analytical science.
   4. Abstract in nature, studying regular, recurrent, and universal phenomena (e.g., studying war as a social phenomenon, not individual wars).
   5. A generalising science, aiming to establish generalisations after careful study.
   6. Follows a sociological approach, studying events from the perspective of social relationships.

History:

1. 1. Deals with the past events of humanity, and does not focus on the present.
   2. An age-old science with a history of over 2000 years.
   3. A descriptive science.
   4. Concrete in nature, focusing on the unique, particular, and individual events (e.g., studying each war as unique and significant).
   5. An individualising science, rarely making generalisations, focusing on sequences of events.
   6. Studies human events in time order, following a historical approach.

The Concept of “Theoretical Perspective”

• Sociologists have different ways of understanding society and its dynamics, approaching it from various theoretical perspectives.
• Some sociologists view society as a stable and ongoing unity, emphasizing the endurance of social institutions like family, organized religion, and others. This represents the “functionalist perspective”.
• Other sociologists see society as composed of competing groups in conflict, competing for scarce resources. This denotes the “conflict perspective”.
• Some sociologists focus on everyday life and routine interactions among individuals, which are often taken for granted. This represents the “interactionist perspective”.
• The same society or social phenomenon can be approached and studied from different theoretical perspectives.
• Theoretical perspectives refer to broad assumptions about society and social behavior that provide a point of view for the study of specific problems.

Types of Major Perspective in Sociology

The Functionalist Perspective

• Sociological imagination helps employ various theoretical perspectives to study human behavior.
• Sociologists develop theories to explain specific types of behavior based on these perspectives.
• Three main general perspectives in modern sociology are: (1) functionalism, (2) conflict, and (3) interactionism.
• The functionalist perspective draws inspiration from Herbert Spencer and Durkheim.
• Functionalists view society as a living organism with interrelated parts that contribute to its survival and stability.
• Spencer compared society to a living organism, with parts like the family, religion, state, education, and economy, each contributing to the stability of the social system.
• Modern structural-functionalism focuses on society as a system of interrelated parts, without insisting on the organism analogy.
• Durkheim‘s analysis of religion was crucial in understanding the role of religion in reinforcing solidarity and unitywithin group life.
• Talcott Parsons, influenced by Durkheim and Max Weber, advocated for functionalism and saw society as a network of connected parts that maintain the system as a whole.
• Parsons argued that if an aspect of social life does not serve a useful function or promote value consensus, it will not be passed on to the next generation.
• Functionalism assumes society is an organized, stable, and well-integrated system, with most members agreeing on basic values.
• Functionalism views society as having an underlying tendency toward equilibrium or balance. Social change is seen as disruptive unless it occurs gradually.
• Social change in one part of the system leads to changes elsewhere in the system.
• Functionalism distinguishes between manifest functions (obvious and intended) and latent functions (unrecognized and unintended).
• Criticism of the functional perspective: It is seen as inherently conservative, failing to account for change and conflict in the system.

The Conflict Perspective

• The conflict perspective is based on the work of Karl Marx, who emphasized the struggle between social classes as the major factor in history.
• In contrast to functionalism, which focuses on stability and consensus, conflict sociologists view the social world as in continual struggle.
• Conflict theorists believe that societies are in a constant state of change, with conflict being a permanent feature.
• Conflict does not necessarily imply violence but includes tension, hostility, competition, and disagreement over goalsand values.
• Conflict is seen as a constant process and an inevitable part of social life.
• Karl Marx viewed the struggle between social classes as inevitable due to the exploitation of workers under capitalism.
• Sociologists have expanded on Marx’s work, viewing conflict not only as a class issue but a part of everyday life in all societies.
• Conflict theorists are concerned with questions like who benefits, who suffers, and who dominates at the expense of others.
• Sociologists study conflicts between women and men, parents and children, cities and villages, rich and poor, upper castes and lower castes, and other groups.
• Conflict theorists examine how social institutions (e.g., family, government, religion, education, media) may maintain the privileges of some groups and subjugate others.
• The conflict perspective dominated Western European sociology but was largely neglected in American sociologyuntil the 1960s.
• Modern conflict theory (e.g., C. Wright Mills, Lewis Coser) does not focus solely on class conflict, but also examines conflicts between other groups like Whites and Negroes, Asians and Europeans, etc.
• Conflict theorists focus on the changes that conflict can bring, whereas functionalists emphasize stability and consensus.
• The conflict perspective is considered more radical and activist due to its focus on social change and redistributionof resources.
• In contrast, the functionalist perspective is viewed as more conservative due to its focus on stability.
• The conflict perspective is accepted in sociology as a valid way to gain insight into society.
• One significant contribution of conflict theory is that it encourages sociologists to view society from the perspective of those who are marginalized or have little influence on decision-making (e.g., Blacks in America, untouchables in India, feminist scholars).
• Feminist scholarship has helped to understand social behavior by considering a gender-balanced study of society, highlighting the experiences and contributions of women alongside those of men.
• The conflict perspective has limitations and is criticized for focusing too narrowly on competition and change, neglecting more orderly, stable, and less politically controversial aspects of social reality.

The Interactionist Perspective

• The functionalist and conflict perspectives analyze society at the macro-level, attempting to explain society-wide patterns of behavior.
• Many contemporary sociologists focus on understanding society through an examination of social interactions at the micro-level (e.g., small groups, casual conversations, families).
• This approach is called the interactionist perspective, which generalizes about fundamental or everyday forms of social interaction.
• Interactionists seek to explain both micro and macro-level behavior through these social interactions.
• The interactionist perspective was initially influenced by Max Weber, who emphasized understanding the social world from the viewpoint of individuals.
• Later developments were influenced by social psychology and early leaders of the Chicago School of Sociology, particularly George Herbert Mead.
• The interactionist perspective focuses on social behavior in everyday life, trying to understand how people create and interpret the situations they experience.
• It emphasizes how countless instances of social interaction produce larger structures of society, such as government, the economy, and other institutions.
• The perspective assumes that society is created, maintained, and changed by the social interaction of its members.
• The interactionist perspective includes several loosely linked approaches:
  • Erving Goffman (1959): Dramaturgical approach, sees social life as a form of theatre, where people play different roles and manage impressions.
  • George Homans (1961): Exchange approach, stresses how people control each other’s behavior through rewardsand punishments for approved or disapproved behavior.
  • Harold Garfinkel (1967): Ethnomethodological approach, focuses on how people understand the routines of daily life and how they explain shared meanings in social life.
  • Blumer (1969): Symbolic Interaction, builds on Mead’s approach, focusing on interaction through symbols such as gestures, signs, shared rules, and language.
• Symbolic interaction happens face-to-face or through other forms, like interactions with written symbols or traffic signals.
• People attach symbolic meaning to things (e.g., words, traffic lights), and these meanings shape their lives.
• The interactionist perspective invites questions like:
  • What kinds of interaction are taking place between people?
  • How do they understand and interpret what is happening?
  • Why do they act toward others as they do?
• This perspective focuses on minute, personal aspects of everyday life, such as how someone becomes a beggar, prostitute, or criminal, or how a college lecturer maintains class control.
• The interactionist perspective offers insights into basic social processes often ignored by other perspectives.

An Evaluation of these Three Perspectives

• The functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives represent three different ways of understanding the same social phenomenon.
• Each perspective starts from different assumptions, asks different types of questions, and leads to different types of conclusions.
• These perspectives may seem contradictory, but none is inherently “better” than the others or always incompatible.
• Each perspective focuses on a different aspect of reality:
  • Functionalism focuses on social order and stability.
  • Conflict theory focuses on tension and change.
  • Interactionism focuses on ordinary experiences of everyday life.
• All three perspectives play a role in the analysis of society.
• For example, each perspective could be applied to the study of education:
  • A functionalist approach emphasizes the functions that education plays in maintaining the social system.
  • A conflict approach highlights how education is an important avenue for social and financial success, focusing on how a student’s social class background affects academic achievement.
  • An interactionist approach focuses on the daily activities within schools, such as the interactions between teachers and pupils, and the influence of peer groups.
• None of these approaches can claim to be the only true one. Taken together, they offer a broader and deeper understanding of the education system.
• Sociology uses all three perspectives because each offers unique insights into the same problem being studied.
• These perspectives overlap as their interests overlap.