We explain what sociology is, its history, object of study, branches and other characteristics. Also, its relationship with anthropology.
What is Sociology?
sociology is the social science dedicated to the study of societies human: their collective phenomena, interactions and processes of change and conservation, taking into account the historical and cultural context in which they are inserted.
In its approach to the phenomenon of human society, sociology employs scientific research techniques and methods coming from various disciplines and areas of knowledge, which provides an interdisciplinary perspective for analysis and interpretation. Sociological research has both qualitative and quantitative methods.
The sociological perspective is fundamental in the contemporary understanding of human processes. It is always generalizing: it tries to form a broad and complex perspective around social events and dynamics. Therefore, it is common for sociology to venture into the fields of economics, political science, geography, education, law and psychology.
Characteristics of sociology
Broadly speaking, sociology is characterized by:
- It deals with the study of the constituent parts and internal dynamics of human societies, to understand the ways in which social life changes or is maintained.
- It is a social science, apply the scientific method to the social or human areas of knowledge.
- It has a necessarily broad, generalizing perspective, which makes it a transdisciplinary science capable of borrowing knowledge from other nearby areas.
- It is a modern discipline whose reasoning precedes the founding of its formal field of study. Furthermore, it has historically been very close in its approach to anthropology and economic sciences.
- It contemplates both theoretical perspectives to understand and explain social phenomena, as practices to aim for the improvement of society in different aspects.
Object of study of sociology
The object of study of sociology is human society. This encompasses theoretical approaches that seek to explain the causes and meanings of certain collective behaviors but also the practical application of said knowledge for the active modification of society, seeking to obtain greater well-being through the design of social policies.
These studies can be based on two different perspectives:
- Microsociology. Focused on everyday, small-scale social interaction, that is, face to face. It deals with individuals, their families and the minimum units in which a society can be conceived.
- Macrosociology. Instead, it aims at large-scale social and population systems, making large theoretical abstractions and paying attention to social structure, more than anything. In this way it addresses issues such as war, poverty, development, etc.
History of sociology
From classical European antiquity or Asian Confucianism, evidence of sociological thought can be found. For example, surveys, one of the main instruments of any sociological study, were born around the year 1086, judging by the records of the reign of William I of England.
For Western thought, the social and Human activities gained special interest following the French Revolution of 1789 and the emergence of the Enlightenment. Various European social and political institutions were analyzed in depth by writers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu or Giambattista Vico. However, sociology It was born as a discipline as a result of the positivist thought of the 19th century under the premise of building a “social physics” (in the sense of a science of societies), as part of the positivist projects of the time.
Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was the main defender of these ideas and is considered the father of the discipline along with his then secretary, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), also the creator of positivist thought and to whom is attributed having coined the term “sociology”. This name was used for the first time in his Positive philosophy course of 1838.
During the beginning of the 20th century, sociology had sustained development and growth, especially due to the efforts of Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). This follower of Comte set out to differentiate sociology from the fields of psychology and philosophy. For this, Auguste Comte postulated the bases of sociological scientific thought with The rules of the sociological method (1895) and The division of social labor (1893), works in which he proposed to design a scientific method that distanced itself from all possible subjectivity.
Other important thinkers of the 20th century contributed greatly to the rise of sociology. Among them stands out Karl Marx (1818-1883), founder of Marxist doctrine, who had an enormous influence on the social thought of the 20th century, taken up by the Frankfurt School.
Another important author was Max Weber (1864-1920), a contemporary of Durkheim, who preferred to borrow tools from political science, economics, law and the philosophy of culture, disciplines which he called “the sciences of culture.” ”.
Importance of sociology
Sociology quickly became a useful tool for diagnosing societies that is, to understand in a deeper and more comprehensive way what problems a society faces, and from what different perspectives it can be analyzed.
This is not a minor contribution, especially for a science that was born within the framework of positivism and its desire for science and objectivity: thanks to sociology Today we know that the affairs of society respond to certain patterns and causes that can be analyzed objectively, and are not simply random or capricious, nor are they entirely subjective.
Branches of sociology
Sociology has a numerous set of branches or applications, among which the following stand out:
- Economic sociology. It is the study of the social configurations that accompany economic phenomena, such as production, consumption, exchange. It is an attempt to address typical economic issues from a social perspective.
- Sociology of art. It consists, obviously, of the study of art from a sociological perspective, which translates into its understanding as the fruit of a specific human society. That is, studying the social processes that generated a specific work of art and that, therefore, are reflected in it.
- Political sociology. As can be deduced, it is about addressing purely political elements and themes, such as political power, mass movements, citizenship, etc., from a sociological perspective; combining both areas to weave an interdisciplinary perspective. It generally consists of a historical comparison of sociopolitical systems.
- Sociology of gender. It studies human societies, emphasizing gender roles and the way in which people think or imagine their conditions as a man, woman or other possible genders, to understand how social differentiations occur around the issue of biological sex and gender. .
Sociology and anthropology
Although for a long time these two disciplines were practically the same, and despite the fact that Both fundamentally study human beings and their societies. the truth is that these are two very different approaches from each other.
Perhaps the main difference in their approaches to human society is that anthropology not only uses other social sciences for its studies, but also certain pure sciences, such as biology, extracting notions such as biological evolution or ecology to base their perspectives. This way, anthropologists prefer qualitative to quantitative approaches perhaps because they aspire to be a science of human beings, in general, that analyzes their cultural or linguistic productions with a view to humanity as a whole.
Sociology, on the other hand, is framed within a specific society. Although they aspire to draw conclusions about how human societies operate and are structured, they will do so in a less broad and encompassing way than anthropology.
Continue with: Anthropology
References
- “Sociology” on Wikipedia.
- “What is sociology?” (video) at Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.
- “What is sociology for?” in Clarín newspaper (Argentina).
- “How are anthropology and sociology different?” at Universia México.
- “What is Sociology?” in American Sociological Association (USA).
- “Sociology” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.