CHAPTER ONE

SOCIOLOGY: DEFINITION, SCOPE, AND SIGNIFICANCE

1. Introduction
Although throughout human history people had provided different explanations of the nature of
human behavior and of group life, the foundation for the scientific explanation of human behavior
and social life was laid by the discipline sociology which emerged in Europe in the 19 th century.
Sociology is one of the youngest disciplines within the social science stream. It was only in 1838 that
August Comte, a French social thinker, coined the term sociology from the Latin word „socius‟ and
from the Greek word „logus‟. However, since then sociology has been significant in uncovering the
facts about social life and human behavior. The knowledge of sociology has helped to assess the truth
of commonly held assumptions regarding human behavior and group life that are based on mere
speculative philosophies. Sociology has also helped us understand why we perceive the world the
way we do.

The other major contribution that sociology provided has been in its explanations of how and why
society changes. Today throughout the world, the knowledge of sociology is being used in order to
create a better world, in order to make families and schools effectively function and thus carry out
their roles in transmitting the mainstream culture and knowledge to the new generation and thus
generally contribute for the overall development of children and the whole society in general. The
knowledge of sociology is also used to make organizations and industries comfortable places for
work so that the workers will get the appropriate benefits to their work and will maintain their health.
Sociology is actually not restricted to investigating only these aspects of life. As will see later on in
the chapter the focus of sociology is wide-ranging. It investigates every aspect of social life and every
phenomenon that involves human group. It investigates about politics, economy, health, urban and
rural life, family, education, media, etc.

1.1. Sociology; Definition and Its Significance

1.1.1. What is sociology?
The study of sociology began from the basic premise that human behavior is socially shaped through
interaction and relationship. Thus, the families that we are born into as well as schools and religious
organizations that teach us about the world around us are all areas of concern for sociology. All these
social arrangements are arenas of social interaction whereby individual members who belong to them
derive the values, norms, and principles that guide their way of behaving. Generally, sociology
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investigates the genesis of these social arrangements, how they change and how they influence our
lives, opportunities, and options. Sociology as a scientific discipline assumes that there are
uniformities in nature and, therefore in human social nature and that these uniformities may be
detected and understood by using the scientific research method.

The word sociology was coined in 1838 by a social thinker named August Comte. The term was
derived from the Latin word „socius‟ meaning „companion‟,‟ collective‟ or „group‟ and from the
Greek word „logus‟ meaning „study of‟ (Stoley 2005).Thus sociology is most literally the study of
companionship or togetherness. However, various scholars and sociology textbooks have expanded
this literal definition. But since the focus of Sociology is so broad, it is very difficult to find a single
definition of the term Sociology that every sociologist can agree upon. As a field of study, Sociology
has an extremely broad scope: it studies all forms of social behavior and types of human
relationships.

Sociology deals with the interactions that take place in families, gangs, business firms, political
parties, schools, religious, and labor unions. It is also concerned with love, death, poverty,
conformity, discrimination, illness, alienation, overpopulation, homelessness and so on. All these
concepts attract the attention of Sociology equally and stretch its scope than ever expected. Sociology
sometimes goes beyond identifying patterns of social behavior; it also attempts to provide explanation
for the patterns of social life. And it has been difficult for one sociologist to focus on all these broad
areas. Therefore, sociologists tend to give definitions that reflect their own perspectives and their
separate areas of investigation. Nevertheless, in order to have a good understanding of the subject
matter of the discipline, we will see two important definitions of the term Sociology.


Sociology is the social scientific study of the development, interaction,
and collective behavior of social relationship (Stoley2005).

 Sociology is the study of human social life, groups, and societies. It is a dazzling
and compelling enterprise, having its subject matter our own behavior as social
beings. The scope of sociological investigation is extremely wide ranging from the
analysis of passing encounters between individualism in the street up to the
investigation of worldwide social processes”(Giddens1989).

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The definitions provided above tell us that the major goal of sociological investigation is to explain
and understand the nature of human behavior or group life. In fact, we can say that the two focal
points of sociological investigation are the human group and human behavior. And the major question
that sociology as a discipline tries to answer is „why and how people come to act the way they do?‟
And this question, obviously, requires an explanation of the causes of human behavior. But, besides
the sociological explanation there had been other explanations provided for the nature of human
behavior. These explanations include the religious and the philosophical explanations of the nature of
human behavior. The sociological explanation of human behavior is distinct from the other
explanations of human behavior in two important ways:

1. Sociology views human behavior as fundamentally social in nature. In other words, we derive
our values, norms (standards of behavior) and attitudes through interaction and relation with
other individuals. Thus, the sociological explanations of human behavior are tied to the idea
that social interactions among individuals cause or at least greatly influence human behavior.
2. Sociology relies on the scientific and objective research method in order to explain the
patterns of human behavior. The research methods that Sociology applies to investigate the
patterns of human behavior include observation, interview, survey, comparative studies, and
experiment.

The other basic task that Sociology addresses is explaining the nature of social order and social
disorder that characterize social life. Sociology tries to discover and explain social order as well as
the social rules and arrangements that create it just as physics and other natural sciences try to
discover the order that characterize the natural world. When we speak of order, we mean that events
occur in a more or less regular sequence so that we can make an empirically verifiable statement
about the relation of one event to another at a given point in time under a specified condition.

Consider our society‟s case for instance. There are hundreds of millions of social acts every day. Yet
the outcome is not confusion and disorder but a reasonable approximation of order. And sociology
tries to explain how this comes about; how some reasonable degree of coordination and integration of
social acts which permit them to occur in a way that produce order than chaos. Besides to explaining
the nature of social order, Sociology is also concerned with explaining the nature of social change. As
we will see it latter, the emergence and development of Sociology is strongly tied to the major social
changes that took place in Europe. These social changes that gave rise to the development of
sociology include industrial revolution, the enlightenment movement, religious changes, and political
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revolutions. Similarly today sociology is concerned with the ways to bring social change and thus
generally contributes for the overall improvement of human life in all areas.

1.1.2. What is Society?

Society is the largest, the most complex and inclusive human group that sociologists study. Its
members share a unique way of life or a culture, who occupy a definite territory and think of
themselves as having a separate identity. Society which surrounds us sets the stage for our
experiences. Not only does it lay the broad frame work for our behavior but also it influences the
ways we think and feel. Our society is so significant in our lives. Sharing a similar culture helps to
define the group or society we belong. A fairly large number of people are said to constitute a society
when they live in the same territory, are relatively independent of people outside their area, and
participate in a common way of life. Members of the society learn this culture and transmit it from
one distinctive culture through literature, art, video recordings, and other means of expression.

1.1.3. Significance of Sociology

A sociological look at the world provides a number of unique benefits and perspectives.

1. Sociology provides an understanding of social issues and patterns of behavior.It helps us

identify the social rules that govern our lives. Sociologists study how these rules are created,
maintained, changed, passed between generations, and shared between people living in
various parts of the world. They also study what happens when these rules are broken.

2. Sociology helps us understand the workings of the social systems within which we live
our lives. Sociologists put our interactions with others into a social context. This means they
look at not only behaviors and relationships, but also how the larger world we live in
influences these things. Social structures (the way society is organized around the regulated
ways people interrelate and organize social life) and social processes (the way society
operates) are at work shaping our lives in ways that often go unrecognized. Because of this
perspective, Sociologists will often say that, as individuals, we are social products. Even
though we recognize their existence, these structures and processes may “appear to people in
the course of daily life as through a mysterious fog”. Sociologists strive to bring these things
out of the fog, to reveal and study them, and to examine and explain their interrelationships
and their impacts on individuals and groups. By describing and explaining these social

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 arrangements and how they shape our lives, sociologists help us to make sense of the world
around us and better understand ourselves.
3. Sociology helps us understand why we perceive the world the way we do. We are
inundated with messages in a variety of forms about how we and the World around us, both
are and should be. These messages come in forms as diverse as guidance from parents and
teachers, laws handed down by religious and political entities, and advertisements ranging
from pitches for athletic shoes to feeding hungry children. Sociology helps us examine the
types of messages we are constantly receiving, their source, how and why they influence us,
and our own roles in producing, perpetuating, and changing them.
4. Sociology helps us identify what we have in common within, and between, cultures and
societies. Sociologists know that, although people in different parts of the city, country, or
world dress differently, speak differently, and have many different beliefs and customs, many
of the same types of social forces are at work shaping their lives. This is an especially
important perspective in a world where media headlines are often accused of focusing on
divisive issues. Sociologists look for what social structure and processes mean for various
groups. They look at how various groups shape, and are impacted, by society. Sociologists
can help groups find common concerns, understand other groups‟ perspectives, and find ways
to work together rather than work at odds with each other.
5. Sociology helps us understand why and how society changes. Sociologists have been
interested in social changes since the establishment of the discipline as a separate field of
study in the 19th century. Some of the social changes that attracted the attention of the earliest
sociologists include industrial revolution, religious change (secularization) and political
changes such as the French and the American revolutions. The works of the earliest
sociologist were actually based on these social changes. They wanted to explain how these
social changes came about and how they altered the lives of peoples. Many sociologists today
believe that sociology should not stop with only explaining society and how and why the
world changes. They argue that sociologists also have an obligation to act, using their unique
skills and perspectives to work to improve the world. Sociology, they argue, is a “field of
inquiry simultaneously concerned with understanding, explaining, criticizing, and improving
the human condition”. Armed with a sociological perspective, we can more effectively take
action if we don‟t like what is happening. We can better participate in shaping the future for
ourselves and for others.

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 6. Sociology provides us theoretical perspectives within which to frame these
understandings and research methods that allow us to study social life scientifically.
Sociology is a social science. That means sociologists work to understand society in very
structured, disciplined ways. Like scientists who study the physical world, sociologists follow
scientific guidelines that incorporate an assortment of theories and methods that provide for
accuracy in gathering, processing, and making sense of information. In the case of sociology,
theories focus on how social relationships operate. They provide a way of explaining these
relationships. Scientific methods provide ways of generating accurate research results.
7. Sociology is not just common sense. Results of sociological research may be unexpected.
They often show that things are not always, or even usually, what they initially seem. “People
who like to avoid shocking discoveries, who prefer to believe that society is just what they
were taught in Sunday School, who like the safety of the rules and maxims of what Alfred
Schultz . . . has called „the world-taken-for-granted‟, should stay away from sociology”. This
challenge means that sociological findings are often at odds with so-called common sense, or
those things that “everybody knows.” What we think of as common sense, or something that
everybody knows, is actually based on our own experiences and the ideas and stereotypes we
hold. This gives us a very limited view of how the larger world actually is. Taking a
sociological perspective requires that we look beyond our individual experiences to better
understand everyday life. It allows us to look for the social forces that impact our lives and
form those experiences. Once we have a solid understanding of these forces, we can better
address them. For example, a common perception is that suicide is an act of those with
individual psychological problems. However, an early sociological study of suicide by Emile
Durkheim (1858–1917) revealed the importance of social factors, including relationships
within church and family, in suicide.

1.2. The Sociological Imagination and Its Significance

In the previous section we have discussed about the subject matter of sociology and about the major
subfields of sociology. In this section, we will learn about a concept called the sociological
imagination. Sociological imagination is nothing but the „instrument‟ that sociologists use to have a
better understanding of human behavior and of our social world. This section will help you
understand what sociologists mean by sociological imagination and the benefits of this kind of
thinking.

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1.2.1. The Concept of Sociological Imagination
Learning to think sociologically–looking, in other words, at the broader view– means cultivating the
imagination. Studying sociology cannot be just a routine process of acquiring knowledge. A
sociologist is someone who is able to break free from the immediacy of personal circumstances and
put things in a wider context. The „instrument‟ that sociologists apply in order to better understand
the nature of human behavior and individual circumstances in groups is called the sociological
imagination. Sociological imagination which some sociologists call the sociological perspective was
first used by the American sociologist named Write Mills in his book entitled „The Sociological
Imagination’ which was published in 1959. According to Write Mills the sociological imagination is
the ability to recognize the influence of numerous social factors and complex framework of social
issues on an individual‟s life circumstances. It is the ability to understand the interplay between
history and biography.

The central theme of this kind of thinking is that an individual‟s life circumstances including the
positions that he/she occupies in the society, opportunities open to him/her and the constraints that
he/she faces are to a large extent influenced by what is going on in the society at a macro level. A
very simple example that illustrates this thinking is to look at what happened in Europe following
industrial revolution. When the European society underwent this social change, the lives of
individuals had been altered largely. Right after the social change landlords of the feudal era had
transformed into industrial owners in the new class structure. And the serfs become workers. This is
but one illustration of this way of thinking that sociologists call the sociological imagination. It shows
us how that social change, industrial revolution, which occurred at the macro-level had completely
changed the private lives of millions of individuals in Europe (Mills, 1959).

Similarly, today when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes a new heart or goes broke.
When wars happen, an insurance sales man becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar man; a
wife lives alone; a child grows up without a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of
a society can be understood without understanding both.

Mills proposed, "what the [people] need... is a quality of mind that will help
them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid

summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening
within themselves. The sociological imagination enables its possessor to
understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner
life and the external career of a variety of individuals" (Mills1959). 7
However, without a sociological perspective, we might tend to think of these personal experiences
primarily in individual terms. We might locate both the source of a problem and the solution to that
problem as lying within individuals and finally never get the solutions to the problem.
Unemployment, for example, is an individual problem for the unemployed person that may be due to
his or her characteristics such as work ethic, job skills, or opportunities. If this person is one of few
unemployed in a city, then employment might be secured if these factors change at the individual
level: the person decides to get up when the alarm rings and work hard enough to keep a job, gain job
training, or move to a different town where there is a demand for their existing skills. However, when
the unemployment rate soars and large numbers of people are unemployed, something is clearly
amiss in the structure of the society that results in inadequate employment opportunities.

Although there will certainly still be lazy or unskilled people among the unemployed, millions of
cases of unemployment cannot be explained at these individual levels, and individual solutions will
not solve the problem. Working harder, getting more training, or seeking different work venues will
not produce jobs when the economy is poor and there are no jobs to be had. As Mills puts it, “The
very structure of opportunities has collapsed” (1959: 9). Finding solutions to these large-scale
problems requires examining the structure of society (Mills 1959). Mills felt that developing a
sociological imagination will help us to avoid becoming “victims” of social forces and better control
our own lives. By understanding how social mechanisms operate, we can better work to bring about
change and influence history.

The sociological imagination requires us, above all, „to think ourselves away‟ from the familiar
routines of our daily lives in order to look at them anew. In attempting to understand social behavior
in society, sociologists rely on an unusual type of creative thinking i.e. the sociological imagination-
an awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society. A key element in the
sociological imagination is the ability to view one‟s own society as an outsider would, rather than
only from the perspective of personal experiences and cultural biases. For example, unemployment is
not only a personal hardship but also a social problem shared by millions of people. Divorce is a
social problem since it is the outcome of many marriages. Employing the sociological imagination is
appropriate to question the way that a society is organized or structured. The sociological imagination
or perspective can bring new understanding to daily life around us. Such critical thinking is typical of
sociologists.

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The sociological perspective stresses the social contexts in which people live. It examines how these
contexts influence people‟s lives. At the center of the sociological perspective or imagination is the
question of how groups influence people, especially how people are influenced by their society. To
find out why people do what they do, sociologists look at social location, the corners in life that
people occupy. The sociological perspective enables to grasp the connection between history and
biography the relations between the two within society. The societies in which we grow up, and our
particular location in that society, lie at the center of what we do and how we think.

Most of us see the world in terms of the familiar features of our own lives. Sociology demonstrates
the need to take a much broader view of why we are as we are, and why we act as we do. It teaches us
that what we regard as natural, inevitable, good or true may not be such, and that the „givens‟ of our
life are strongly influenced by historical and social facts. Understanding the subtle yet complex and
profound ways in which our individual lives reflect the contexts of our social experience is basic to
the sociological outlook.

In studying society, therefore, sociology employees its distinctive perspective which entails the
following three ways of looking:

1. Seeing the general in particular

2. Seeing the strange in the familiar
3. Seeing the individuality in social context

The sociological imagination according to Peter Berger means seeing the general in the particular.
This, according to Peter Berger, means that sociologists identify general patterns of social life in the
behavior of particular individuals. Even though every individual is unique sociologists acknowledge
that society acts differently on various categories of people. We begin to embrace the sociological
imagination when we start to realize that the general categories into which we fall shape our
particular ways of behaving.

Peter Berger stated the first wisdom of sociology as “things are not what they seem”. He asserts that
the sociological imagination tells us that things are not what they seem. For instance observing
sociologically requires giving up the familiar idea that human behavior is a matter of what people
decide to do and accepting instead the strange idea that society influences our thoughts and deeds.
Thinking sociologically means giving up or challenging the familiar idea that we live our lives in
terms of what we decided. Considering instead the initially strong notion that society shapes our
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experiences. Hence, sociology shows the patterns and processes by which society shapes what we do
ranging from preliminary social unit to the different social institutions of a particular society‟s notion
of social, political, and economic events of the world both historically and in contemporary sense.

Sociologists also examine individuality in social context in order to help us understand the principle
of sociological imagination. The sociological imagination often challenges common sense by
revealing that human behavior is not as individualistic as we may usually think. Hence the
perspective expresses the power of society to shape individual choices. For most of us, in common
sense, daily living is very individual which often carries a heavy load of personal responsibility so
that we get ourselves on the back when we enjoy success and kick ourselves when things go wrong.
Proud of our individuality, even in painful times, we resist the idea that we act in socially patterned
ways. The most compelling sociological investigation that shows us how social forces affect our
behavior is Durkheim‟s study on suicide in 1897. In this study Durkheim revealed that the kind of
group to which we belong as well as the social circumstances and situations going on at large scale
make suicide, an intensely individual act, more or less likely happen.

1.3. The Benefits of Sociological Imagination

In general terms, having the sociological imagination will provide the following benefits.

1. Sociological imagination helps us to critically assess the truth of commonly held assumptions.
This is because sociological imagination has to do with identifying new things about the
social world as in seeing the strange in the familiar. Having sociological imagination helps to
challenge the familiar understandings that we hold about the behavior of others and of
ourselves based on common sense.
2. Having the sociological imagination also helps to recognize both opportunities and constraints
that characterize our lives. We have said above that the sociological imagination is the ability
to understand the relationship between history and biography; it is the ability to recognize
how social factors that operate at macro level influence the overall life of an individual. This
kind of thinking equips its possessors with knowledge of how social changes might influence
their life either positively or negatively and thus fully become aware of both the constraints as
well as the opportunities that follow the societal changes. Mills felt that developing a
sociological imagination will help us to avoid becoming victims” of social forces and better
control our own lives.

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 3. Sociological imagination also helps us to become active participants in our society. Very
obviously this kind of thinking tells us how personal experiences are influenced by societal
structures. It helps us to critically analyze the causes of the major social problems that prevail
in societies such as poverty and unemployment. Finding solutions to these large-scale
problems requires examining the structure of society (Mills, 1959). By understanding how
social mechanisms operate, we can better work to bring about change and influence history.
4. It helps us to recognize human diversity and to confront the challenges of living in a diverse
world. Sociology allows us to see the social world from other viewpoints than our own. Quite
often, if we properly understand how others live, we also acquire a better understanding of
what their problems are. Practical policies that are not based on an informed awareness of the
ways of life of people they affect have little chance of success. Thus, a white social worker
operating in a predominantly black community will not gain the confidence of its members
without developing sensitivity to the differences in social experience that often-separate white
and black. Generally, sociological imagination enables us to see beyond our own ways of life
and to make sense of others‟ culture without prejudice and discrimination.
5. It also helps us to distinguish between personal troubles and societal issues. The sociological
imagination allows us to see that many events that seem to concern only the individual
actually reflect larger issues. Divorce, for instance may be a very difficult process for
someone who goes through it- what Mills calls a personal trouble. But divorce, he points out,
is also a public issue in most industrialized societies of the present day Europe and the United
States. Unemployment, to take another example, may be a personal tragedy for someone
thrown out of a job and unable to find another. Yet it goes far beyond a matter for private
despair when millions of people in a society are in the same situation: it is a public issue
expressing large social trends.

1.4. Levels of Sociological Analysis

There are generally two levels of analysis in sociology, which may also be regarded as branches of
sociology: micro-sociology and macro-sociology. Micro-sociology is interested in small scale level of
the structure and functioning of human social groups; whereas Macro-sociology studies the large
scale aspects of society.

Macro-sociology focuses on the broad features of society. The goal of macro sociology is to examine
the large scale phenomena that determine how social groups are organized and positioned with in the
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social structure. A micro sociological level of analysis focuses on social interaction. It analyzes
interpersonal relationships, and on what people do and how they behave when they interact. This
level of analysis is usually employed by symbolic interactionism perspective.

Some writers also add a third level of analysis called Meso-level analysis, which analyzes human
social phenomena in between the micro and macro levels. Reflecting their particular academic
interest sociologists may prefer one form of analysis to the other, but all levels of analysis are useful
and necessary for a fuller understanding of social life in society.

1.5. Origin and Development of Sociology

1.5.1. Factors contributing for the development of Sociology
Sociology is a relatively new science, emerging as a distinctive discipline in the 19 th century. By the
end of that century, the discipline was well established in most European and several U.S universities.
Although early development of sociology occurred in Europe, Sociology‟s maturation has taken place
largely in the USA. Certain developments in Europe paved the way for the emergence of Sociology.
The three most important were:

1) Enlightenment was an eighteen century intellectual movement. The enlightenment thinkers

started to ask question about society that sociologists eventually came to ask: why do people do
what they do? Why is there inequality? Wide spread poverty? Crime? Before the eighteen-
century, the answers to those questions had been religious.
The enlightenment altered a traditional explanation of human behavior .The central belief of
enlightenment is that society is created by people and people can determine what society becomes
as well as the belief that human individual action is strongly influenced by society‟s patterns, led
to the development of sociology as a science in 19th century.
Enlightenment thinkers rejected the notion that we could understand the world by explaining
events in religious terms. Instead, they said we must turn to reason and science, for everything in
society like everything in nature, was lawful.
The enlightenment was an important beginning to the study of society because it pointed the way,
and it asked the important question. The enlightenment also inspired the French Revolution, the
second powerful influence on the development of sociology.

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2) French Revolution: The 1789 French Revolution was quite different from the rebellions of
previous times. In the French Revolution, for the first time in history there took place the overall
dissolution of social order by a movement guided by secular ideas.
3) Industrial Revolution: The French Revolution grew out of many economic and political
developments as well as intellectual ones. Increasingly the European economy shifted from a
strictly agricultural one to an economy based on manufacturing, trading, and many scholars
sometimes called “The Industrial Revolution.”
Industrial Revolution began in England and spread out across Europe and the United States.
Western European societies were transformed from being agriculturally based to being
industrially based, along with the associated changes, that is, migration from rural to urban
societies. Industrialism and urbanism are at the heart of the transformation that has irretrievable
dissolved most traditional forms of society.
Sociology come into being as those caught up in the initial series of change brought about by the
two great revolutions, sought to understand the condition of their emergence and their likely
consequence.

1.5.2. Pioneers/Founders of Sociology

A. Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
The word “Sociology” was first coined in 1838 by Auguste Comte, French man, in his work Positive
Philosophy. His full name was Isidore Auguste Francois Marie Xavier Comte and he termed
sociology replacing social physics which was termed in 1824. Comte is generally referred to as the
father of Sociology. He believed that the science of sociology should be based on systematic
observation and classification, the same principle that governed the study of the natural sciences.
Comte said sociology would use empirical methods to discover basic laws of society, which would
benefit human kind by playing a major part in the improvement of the human condition.

According to Comte, society tends to evolve through three stages of human progress or development
that states each mental age of human kind is accompanied by a specific type of social organization
and political dominance. The Three Laws of human progress include:-

1. The Theological/ Fictious stage (Until 1300 AD)

According to Comte this stage refers to the period when everything in human living condition was
explained and understood through the supernatural powers. The period covered the earliest era of
human history extending through the medieval period to1300. Whatever happens to or for society was
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believed to be a curse or blessing from the super natural power. It was believed that some were
created good and others criminal. The lords were considered as elect of God. People regarded society
as an expression of external purpose and will on earth. The family was the prototypical social unit,
the standard to which others conform. Political dominance is held by priests and military personnel.

2. The Metaphysical/ Abstract stage (1300-1800 AD)

Explanation of human society developed by religion gradually changed in to metaphysical. Abstract
natural forces were believed to be the source of explanation and understanding. The explanation was
in influenced by the philosophical idea of Thomas Hobbes that state „society is not a reflection of
God rather the reflection of the selfishness of individuals. The state replaced the family as the
prototypical social unit and the political dominance was held by the clergy and lawyers.

3. The Scientific/Positive stage (Post 1800s)

Both physical and social world began to follow the scientific method to express the relationship
between the world and human being. Empirical evidence and rational reasoning became sources of
explanation. Comte said that through scientific methods people began to understand the different
things occur in the societies like crime, poverty, conflict and other social conditions. These scientific
methods led sociology to understand the cause of occurrence of different situations in the society.
Political dominance is held by individual administrators and scientific moral guides, and the whole
human race replaces the state as the operative social unit. Positivism is the idea of applying the
scientific method to the social world.

Comte divided Sociology into two main parts: Social Statics – the study of order and stability. It
studies the mechanism through which societies maintain themselves to the new generation and how
society is held together. Social Dynamics –is the study of factors contributing to progress and social
change. This division is still being debated by modern sociologists.

B. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

He was an English sociologist and philosopher and is usually called the second founder of sociology.
Spenser believed that society operates according to fixed laws. He believed that there exists a gradual
evolution of society from the primitive (militant) to the industrial. As generation pass, he said, the
most capable and intelligent (the fittest) members of a society survive, while the less capable die out.
Therefore, overtime societies steadily improve. Spencer called this principle “the survival of the
fittest”. Although Spencer coined this phrase, it is usually attributed to his contemporary Charles

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Darwin, who proposed that living organisms evolve over time as they survive the conditions of their
environment. Because of their similarities, Spencer‟s view of the evolution of societies became
known as “Social Darwinism”.

Unlike Comte, Spencer didn‟t think sociology should guide social reform. In fact he was convinced
that no one should intervene in the evolution of society. The fittest members did not need any help.
They would always survive on their own and produce a more advanced society. Consequently,
Spencer believed that ideas of charity and helping the poor were wrong, whether carried out by
individuals or by the government.

The subject matter of sociology as Spencer defined contains in order the family, politics, religion,
social control, industry or work. He stressed the obligation of sociology is to deal with the
interrelations between the different elements of society, to give an account of how the parts influence
the whole and are in turn reacted upon.

C. Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Marx was a German Philosopher who had a different conception with Herbert Spencer about the
nature of society and social change. Spencer describes society as a set of interrelated parts that
promoted its own welfare. Marx described society as a set of conflicting groups who have different
values and interests whose selfish and often ruthless competition harmed society. Spencer saw
progress coming from only non-interference with natural, evolutionary process. Marx, too, believed
in an unfolding, evolutionary pattern of social change. He envisioned a linear progression of modes of
production from ancient civilization through slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and communism.

Although recognizing the presence of several social classes in the 19th C industrial society, farmers,
factory workers, craft-people, owner of small businesses, wealthy capitalist, Marx predicted that all
industrial societies ultimately would contain only two social classes.

1. The bourgeoisie – those who own the means for producing wealth in industrial society and
2. The proletariat – those who labor for the bourgeoisie subsistence wages.

For Marx, the key to unfolding of history was class conflict between those controlling the means for
producing wealth and that laboring for them. Just as slave owners had been overthrown by the slaves
and land aristocracy revolted against by the peasants, the capitalist would fall to the wageworkers.
Out of the conflict would emerge a classless society without exploitation of the powerless by the
powerful.
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According to the principle of economic determinism (an idea often associated with Marx), the nature
of society is based on the society‟s economy. A society‟s economic system determines the society‟s
legal system, religion, art, literature and political structure – Marx himself did not use the term
economic determinism; the term was applied to his ideas by others, no doubt a consequence of his
concentration on the economic sphere in capitalist society. The mistake interpreters have made is to
assume that because Marx perceived the economic institution as having primacy in capitalist society,
he believed that all societies operated according to the same principles. Moreover, Marx recognized
that even in capitalist society economic institutions mutually affect each other. Marx even wrote that
sometimes the economy “conditions” rather than “determines” the historical process in capitalistic
society.

D. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Emile Durkheim was one of the most influential figures in the development of sociology in the 20thC.
Durkheim, in contrast to Marx, was a conservative in his approach. Durkheim sees society as a real
entity: society is order, a set of social force, a moral agreement, what he called a “collective
consciences” fragile, very real, and important, for determining much of what the individual does. One
of Durkheim‟s classic works, suicide, is an attempt to show that, in highly personal, individual
“choice” like suicide, the individual is profoundly influenced by social forces that he or she does not
even recognize. Society, to Durkheim, is more than the individuals who make it up. It is almost a
living thing, apart from the individual, developed over time, and influential in all action. To
Durkheim the ultimate justification of sociology is the study of these social forces (or what he called
“social facts”). Social phenomena such as conventions, social rules and beliefs, and institutions like
family, education, and law, were regarded by Durkheim as „social facts‟, i.e. they are external to the
individual, and exist independently of that person, exercising constraint on his or her behavior.

Suicide, one of Durkheim‟s major works, is still considered as an outstanding example of how
sociologists are able to test ideas scientifically. He compared the suicide rate of several European
countries. He found that each country‟s suicide rate is different and that it remained stable year after
year. He found that different groups within a country had different suicide rate. Especially Durkheim
found, Protestants, the wealthy, men and the unmarried killed themselves at a higher rate than did
Catholics and Jews, the poor, women and married people. Durkheim explained these differences by
reasoning that suicide varied according to people‟s social integration, the degree to which people are
tied to their social groups. Low suicide rates categorize people who have strong ties to others. By
contrast, high suicide rates were found among types of people who are typically individualistic.
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Durkheim was concerned about the tendency of modern society to produce what he called anomie,
and there by suicide. By anomie, Durkheim referred to the breaking down of the controlling influence
of society, which leaves people without the moral guidance that societies usually offer. People
become detached from society. They lack social support, and they are no longer regulated by clear
norms.

E. Max Weber (1864 – 1920)

Like Marx, Max Weber (pronounced „Vaber‟) (1864-1920) was a German sociologist whose interests
and concerns ranged across many areas. Born in Germany, where he spent most of his academic
career, Weber was an individual of wide learning. Much of his work was concerned with the
development of modern world of capitalism and the ways in which modern society was different from
earlier forms of social organizations. Through a series of empirical studies, Weber set forth some of
the basic modern industrial capitalist societies. He devoted the greater part of his observation on
sociology as a discipline to expounding the special method he advocated. He stressed that one cannot
understand human behavior simply by looking at statistics. He claimed that statistics must be
interpreted. To do so he said that we should use VERSTEHEN - i.e. to understand.

Weber believed that the best interpreter of human action is someone who has been there, someone
who can understand the feelings and motivations of the people they are studying. In short, we must
pay attention to what are called subjective meanings, the way in which people interpret their own
behavior. We can't understand what people do unless we look at how people view themselves and
explain their own behavior.

Weber sought to understand the nature and causes of social change. He was influenced by Marx but
also was strongly critical of some of Marx‟s major views. He rejected the material conception of
history and saw class conflict as less significant than did Marx. In Weber‟s view economic view,
economic factors are important, but ideas and values have just as much impact on social change.

Unlike other early sociological thinkers, Weber believed that sociology should focus on social action,
not structures. He argued that human motivation and ideas were the forces behind change-ideas,
values and beliefs had the power to bring about transformations. According to Weber, individuals
have the ability to act freely and to shape the future. He did not believe, as Durkheim and Marx did,
that structures existed external to or independent of individuals. Rather, structures in society were
formed by a complex interplay of actions. It was the job of sociology to understand the meanings
behind those actions.
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Max Weber and the Protestant Ethic

Some of Weber‟s most influential writings reflected this concern with social action in analyzing the
distinctiveness of Western societies compared with other major civilizations. He studied the religions
of China, India and the Near East, and in the course of these researches made major contribution to
sociology of religion. Comparing the leading religious systems in China and India with those of the
West, Weber concluded that certain aspects of Christian beliefs strongly influenced the rise of
capitalism. This outlook did not emerge, as Marx supposed, only from economic changes. In Weber‟s
view, cultural ideas and values help shape society and shape our individual action.

Weber (1904/1958) theorized that the Roman Catholic belief system encouraged followers to hold
onto traditional ways of life, while the Protestant belief system encouraged its members to embrace
change. Weber called the self-denying approach to life the Protestant ethic. He termed the readiness
to invest capital to make more money the spirit of capitalism. To test his theory, Weber compared the
extent of capitalism in Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. In line of his theory, he found that
capitalism was more likely to flourish in Protestant countries. Weber‟s conclusion in regard with the
key factor in the rise of capitalism was controversial when he made it, and it continues to be debated
today.

Rationalization

In Weber‟s view, the emergence of modern society was accompanied by important shifts in patterns
of social action. He believed that people were moving from traditional beliefs grounded in
superstition, religion, custom and long standing habit. Instead, individuals were increasingly engaging
in rational instrumental calculations that took into account efficiency and future consequences. In
industrial societies there was little room for and for doing things simply because they had been done
that way for generations. The development of science, modern technology and bureaucracy was
described by Weber collectively as rationalization.

Weber was not entirely optimistic about the outcome of rationalization, however. He was fearful of
modern society as a system that would crush the human spirit by attempting to regulate all spheres of
social life. Weber was particularly troubled by the potentially suffocating and the dehumanizing
effects of bureaucracy and its implications for the fate of democracy.

Weber also raised another issue that remains controversial among sociologists when he declared that
sociology should be value-free. By this he meant that a sociologist's values, personal beliefs about
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what is good or worthwhile in life and the way the world ought to be shouldn't affect his/her social
research. Weber wanted objectivity or total neutrality to be the whole mark of sociological research.
If values influence research, he said, sociological findings will be biased.

1.6. Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology

Theory and research are two things that help sociologists study and understand society. Theory is a
framework that guides our thinking about what is going on around us. A theory is “a statement of
how and why specific facts are related” (Macionis and Gerber 2002). Recall that Emile Durkheim
observed that some categories of people (men, Protestants, the wealthy, and the unmarried) have high
suicide rates than others (women, Catholics and Jews, the poor, and the married). He explained this
observation by creating a theory: A high risk of suicide results from a low level of social integration.
Ferrante (2006) indicated that Sociological theory is “a set of principles and definitions that tell how
societies operate and people in them relate to one another and respond to the environment.

Theoretical Perspectives are set of assumptions accepted as true by its advocates. In this section we
are going to learn the three major sociological perspectives that dominated the discipline of
Sociology. These are:

1. Functionalism,
2. Conflict Perspective, and
3. Symbolic Interactionism.

1.6.1. The Functionalist Perspective

Functionalists focus on questions related to order and stability in a society. They define society as a
system of interrelated and interdependent parts. Functionalists use the analogy of human body to
explain their view. Human body is composed of various parts or subsystems such as bones, nervous
system, digestive systems, circulatory system, and other systems. All of the body parts work together
in harmonious way. Each functions in a unique way to maintain the entire body, but it cannot be
separated from other body parts that it affects and that it in turn helps it function.

Society, like human body, is composed of parts. The parts of society include family, politics, religion,
education, medicine, and so on. Each of society‟s parts functions together to maintain a larger system.
Function is the contribution a part makes to order and stability within the system according to
functionalists. Functionalism views the parts of society as organized into an integrated whole;
consequently, a change in one part of a society leads to change in other parts. A major change in the

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economy, for example, may change the family. This is what happened as a result of the industrial
revolution. Before the industrial revolution, agriculture is the dominant economic system in European
countries. The industrial revolution changed this and the family structure, political system and so on.
The need for a large farm labor force (fulfilled by having many children) disappeared as
industrialization proceeded, and family size decreased.

Functionalists realize that societies are not perfectly integrated. A certain degree of integration is
necessary for the survival of a society, but the actual degree of integration varies. Another assumption
of functionalism is that societies tend to return to the state of stability or equilibrium after some
upheaval has occurred. A society may undergo change over time, but functionalists believe that it will
return to a state of stability by incorporation of these changes so that the society will again be similar
to what it was before any change occurred.

The most controversial argument of functionalists is that all parts of society such as poverty, crime,
illegal immigration and drug abuse contribute in some way to the stability and order of the larger
system. They believe that if a part has no function, it will cease to exist.

Because a society both changes and maintains most of its original structure over time, functionalists
refer to a dynamic equilibrium, a constantly changing balance among its parts. For example, the
student unrest on college and university campuses of USA during the 1960, this created some
changes. These changes, however, have been absorbed into it, leaving it only somewhat different
from the way it has been before the student unrest.

Critiques of Functionalism
The functionalist perspective has a number of shortcomings. The shortcomings are:
1. Critics argue that this perspective is by nature conservative in that it defends existing
arrangements (Merton, 1967). Functionalists justified the existence of poverty as
functional and legitimizing the status quo. Functionalists reject this criticism, claiming that
they are not justifying poverty‟s existence, but rather simply illustrating why such parts
continue to exist despite efforts to change and eliminate them.
2. The second critic is on the functionalists‟ claim that parts exist because they serve
function. The critiques argued that a part may not serve any function when it is first
introduced. Often people have to work to make parts useful. The functionalists assumed
that every part functions in some way to support smooth operation of society; this theory
has difficulty accounting for the origin of social instability. This assumption also lead
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 functionalists to overlook the fact that stability and order are frequently achieved at a cost
to some segment of the society, such as poor and powerless individuals.

The proponents of Functionalism, a sociologist Robert K Merton (1967), added some concepts to
functionalism to address some of the critiques. A contemporary American sociologist, Robert K.
Merton identified two types of functions that contribute to the stability and order. These are Manifest
and Latent Functions. The manifest functions are those consequences which are both intended and
recognized, and latent functions are those which are neither intended nor recognized. For example,
the manifest function of education is teaching writing skills, knowledge and so on. At the same time
the schools are providing a free „baby-sitting‟ service to parents and increasing the manpower
available for employment- these are some of the latent function of education.

Merton also identified that parts of a social system can have a dysfunction – undesirable effects on
the operation of society. For example, the dysfunction of the automobiles is for polluting the air.
Dysfunctions can also be either manifest or latent functions. Manifest dysfunctions are a part‟s
anticipated disruptions to order and stability. On the other hand, latent dysfunctions are unintended,
unanticipated disruptions to order and stability

1.6.2. The Conflict Perspective

Conflict theorists emphasized that conflict is inevitable and leads to social change. Society is
characterized by inequality and conflict that leads to social change. In this section you will be
acquainted to how conflict theorists conceive society and the way they interpret social change. They
explain the group that is benefiting from the existing social structure.

Karl Marx provided the foundation for conflict perspective. The theory is based on the work of Karl
Marx, class conflict. The conflict perspective is a theoretical framework based on the assumption that
society is a complex system characterized by inequality and conflict that generate social change. This
approach complements the structural functional paradigm by high lighting not integration but division
based on social inequality. So rather than identifying how social structure promotes the operation of
society as a whole, this approach focus on how these patterns benefits to some people while being
harmful to others.

Marx said that there are two classes- bourgeoisie and the proletariat-in capitalist system. According to
him, class membership is determined by the individual‟s relationship with the means of production.
Means of production includes the land, machinery, buildings, tools, and other technologies needed to

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produce and distribute goods and services. The bourgeoisie is the more powerful class that owns
means of production and able to purchase labor. The proletariats do not own anything of the
production process except their labor. On the other hand, workers‟ interests are to gain more income
and control over their work. As the result of divergences of interest and value, the two classes are in
struggle with each other.

The value and interest of the two classes are different. The bourgeoisie are interested to make profit.
They need constantly to expand markets for their products. They always search for ways that
maximize their profit and minimize their loss. This can be achieved by making production system
more efficient, less dependent on human labor, and by using cheap labor and raw materials. The
bourgeoisie consider the working class like machines or raw materials. In general, the owner class
want make more profit by lowering labor cost and getting workers to work hard.

Conflict exists between the two because the bourgeoisie, who owns the means of production, exploits
the workers. The bourgeoisie make profit without making any value but by paying small amount of
profit the working class make in the form of wage and forcing them to work hard to increase output.

The exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalist class is justified by a façade of legitimacy-an
explanation member of a dominant group provided to justify their actions. According to the
proponents of this perspective, these explanations are misleading, lack evidence and support the
activities of the dominant group. The first explanation they use to justify their activity is that workers
are free to take their labor elsewhere if they are not satisfied with their working conditions, salary, or
benefits. However, if disagreement occurred between the two, the capitalist/bourgeoisie can afford to
wait and live upon his capital. But the worker is unable to do so. The worker is handicapped by
hunger and his/her survival depends on the wage he/she earns. The worker has no power to select
when, where and on what wage he/she has to work.

The other mechanism used by the dominant group to legitimize their activities is blaming the struggle
the working class made as a factor impeding the success of the working class‟ success. In addition,
the bourgeoisie claims that the existing system benefits the working class.In this way, the social
conflict paradigm leads sociologist to view society as an arena in which conflict emerges from the
incompatible interest of various categories of people. This conflict leads to social change. The
proponents of this perspective believed that what holds society together is not interdependency of the
various parts of society. Rather, it is power that holds society together. The existing social structure
will be rearranged. This is ensured through struggle between the conflicting groups.
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Critiques of Conflict Theory
The conflict perspective is criticized for the following. The first critics are that it overstates the
importance of conflict and disregard the stability and order that do exist within societies. The
assumptions –those who own the means of production impose their wills on workers and the owner
exploits labor of the working class-are simplistic view of employee-employer relationship. The theory
ignores the contribution of industrialization in improving the wellbeing of humans. The theory is also
criticized for over emphasizing changing society rather than understanding how order and stability
can be maintained. Finally, the theory neglected situations in which consumers, citizens, or workers
use economic and other incentives to modify or control the way capitalist make profit. This includes
paying less attention to change in organizational structures aimed at improving the working
conditions, establishing labor unions and monitoring the working environment.

1.6.3. Symbolic Interactionism/ Interactionist Perspective

The third Sociological perspective introduced here is the Interactionist perspective. The two theories
described before provide us with a competing views of social life. The interactionist perspective tries
to explain social life from a different perspective. The theory focuses on everyday social interaction-
what people do when they come together. Their main areas of focus include: how people make sense
of the world, on how they experience and define what they and others are doing, and on how they
influence and influenced by others.

Symbolic interactionists drew much of their idea from American sociologists George Herbert Mead,
Charles Horton Cooley, and Herbert Blumer (who coined the term symbolic interactionism). The
theory is concerned with how the self develops, the meaning people attach to their own and others
action, how people learn these meanings and how meanings evolve. They said that we learn meanings
from others and adjust ourselves according to those meanings. Meanings are subject to change.

The symbolic interaction paradigm is a theoretical frame work based on the assumption that society is
the product of the everyday interaction of individuals. This approach is primarily concerned with
human behavior on a personal level. Interactionists reminded us that the different social institutions
are ultimately created, maintained, and changed by people interacting with one another. George
Herbert Mead devised a symbolic interaction approach that focuses on signs, gestures, shared rules
and written and spoken languages.

Symbols play an important role in interaction according to the symbolic interactionist perspective. A
symbol is “any kind of physical phenomena-word, object, color, sound, feeling, odor, movement, or
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taste-to which people attach a name, meaning or value” (White 1949 cited in Ferrante 2006). Symbols
are shared by people and used to communicate with one another.

Symbolic interactionism is concerned with the meanings that people place on another behavior.
Human beings are unique because most of what they do with one another has meaning beyond the
concrete act. According to Mead, people do not act or react automatically but carefully consider what
they are going to do. They take into account the other people involved and the situation in which they
found themselves. The expectations and interactions of other people greatly affect each individual‟s
actions in addition; people give things meanings and act or react on the bases of these meanings.
Because most human activities take place in social situations in the presence of other people, we must
fit what we as individuals do with other people in the same situation are doing. We go about our lives
under the assumption that most people share our definition of basic social situations.

Critiques of Symbolic Interactionism

The first criticism is that the mainstream of symbolic interactionism has too readily given up on
conventional scientific techniques. Eugene Weinstein and Judith Tanur expressed this point well:
“Just because the contents of consciousness are qualitative, does not mean that their exterior
expression cannot be coded, classified, even counted” (1976:105 cited in Ritzer 2011). Science and
subjectivism are not mutually exclusive. Second, Manford Kuhn (1964), William Kolb (1944),
Bernard Meltzer, James Petras, and Larry Reynolds (1975), and many others have criticized the
vagueness of essential Meadian concepts such as mind, self, I, and me. Most generally, Kuhn (1964)
spoke of the ambiguities and contradictions in Mead‟s theory. Beyond Meadian theory, they have
criticized many of the basic symbolic-interactionist concepts for being confused and imprecise and
therefore incapable of providing a firm basis for theory and research. Because these concepts are
imprecise, it is difficult, if not impossible, to operationalize them; the result is that testable
propositions cannot be generated (Sheldon Stryker 1980 cited in Ritzer 2011).

The third major criticism has been of its tendency to downplay or ignore large-scale social structures.
This criticism has been expressed in various ways. For example, Weinstein and Tanur argued that
symbolic interactionism ignores the connectedness of outcomes to each other: “It is the aggregated
outcomes that form the linkages among episodes of interaction that are the concern of sociology qua
sociology . . . . The concept of social structure is necessary to deal with the incredible density and
complexity of relations through which episodes of interaction are interconnected” (1976:106 cited in
Ritzer 2011).
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