'What is Sociology?\r'

'We as homophile beings encounter unendingly been curious about the sources of our ingest deportment. Attempts to empathize this relied on ways of opinion that were passed down from extension to generation. These ideas were often expressed in religious price or drew from well-known myths, superstition and traditionalistic beliefs. The objective and systematic study of human demeanor and baseb each(prenominal) club is a recent increment go out from the 1700’s. A key development was the intake of erudition to understand the world and this approach brought about a radical change in outlook and arrest.Just standardized physics, biology, chemistry and separate disciplines, sociology emerged as part of this primal intellectual process. The origins of sociology were the series of sweeping changes ushered in by the ‘two great revolutions’ of the 18th and 19th deoxycytidine monophosphate Europe. These events trans wee-weeed the way of spirit humans ha d hold for thousands of years. The French Revolution, 1789 marked the ideas and values, such(prenominal) as improperness and equality, over traditional hearty order.This was the Industrial Revolution, the across-the-board spectrum of tender and economic transformation that surrounded the development of new technical innovation. This ca gived an influx of migrants causing a rapid expansion of urban beas, forming new mixer relationships dramatically changing the face of the well-disposed world. at that place 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 asshole and should study society and social phenomena following the patterns and procedures of natural sciences. Another contributor was Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and he had a more lasting adjoin on modern sociology than that of Comte. Some regard Durkheim as the first sociologist to apply statistical methods to the study of social phenomena. Throughout his c beer, Durkheim was primarily concerned with how society would abide by integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things standardized religion could no longer be assumed.His admit Suicide (1897) is a very well-known slicing 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 variant 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, fairness and deviance.With all aspects of human activity it is affected by interplay between social structure and individual agency, which mean ing sociology, has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects such as health, internet and political economy. There ar two non-sociological explanations of human behaviour, representational and individual explanations. The naturalistic approach suggest that humans be ready as a product of inherited disposition; programmed by nature, e. g. / race, motherhood, gender (etc.)We take for granted that all women ar maternal and want to become mothers and be besides 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 play of the individual person, eg/ people who commit suicide have their own personalised reason for doing so. This persons suicide whitethorn not solely be a personal choice but may have other social factors associated like religion. This is what sociology is all about, challenging the foreigner and looking at things from a different perspective, â€Å"Sociology de long-famil iarises the familiar” (Z.Baumen 1990 Thinking Sociologically p15)Sociologist look at these behaviours from all different perspectives and challenges what we believe to common comprehend theories. To charter 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. â€Å"It send packing 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 information we use sociological methods called quantative and qualitative data. 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 through with(p) in the form of social surveys, questionnaires and structured interviews, e. g. / The Kinsey authorship on the sexuality of Americans (1948-1953) Qualitative data except is to tell us why and methods used are usually interviewing people to build up an understanding of a respondents point of view rather than a generalized opinion on their behaviour.There is also histrion observation and this is observing someone in their own environment and learning what life is like for them, e. g. / The Paulo Case. â€Å"Sociology deals with a factually observable subject matter, depends upon empirical research, and involves attempts to train theories and generalizations that will make sense of facts” (Giddens Scope of Sociology p6) The use of concepts are needed to describe things accurately and just now and to describe and address abstract and immaterial social phenomena such as individualism, social class and globalization, etc.As you can see from this essay sociology is a very outstanding study and without it we wouldn’t question huma n behaviours or the society surrounding us. It helps us to gain a better insight into who we are and why we are the way we are and how others can have an motion on each and every one of us.\r\n'