what is sociology?
explain it.
Answers
Sociology is the study of human behavior. Sociology refers to social behavior, society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture that surrounds everyday life. Wikipedia
Answer:
Despite the fact there is significant disagreement among practitioners regarding the goals and status of sociology as a scientific discipline, I'll base my definition and description on what I was taught during my sociology studies.
Sociology is the systematic study of the development, structure, and functioning of institutions, culture, and relationships on a group level. Social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior are investigated to get a better understanding of human societies. Generally speaking, the following four questions are considered when studying social phenomena:
Who does what? (Division of labor)
Who is the boss over whom? (Hierarchy)
Who belongs to whom? (Solidarity)
Who owns what? (Property)
These may seem as simple questions, but it has been difficult to come up with new substantive theories within this field as human societies are complex and getting more complex over time with the growth of the human population and new (technological) developments. One has to take into account that sociology is still a relatively young science which is one of the reasons it hasn’t achieved the overall level of formalization yet that is common in the natural sciences. To get a better understanding of even one of the four questions requires theories of other fields. Theories in the field of economy, politics, and history can, for example, help explain social and economic inequality, the cause of the economic crises as well as how to deal with the up-rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and how this affects the job market, to name a few.
Even though humans are studied on a group level within the field of sociology, it's still important to have an understanding of humans on an individual level as well to see how individual perspectives fit within the trends that are observed within society as a whole. How does one's gender, age, race and/or ethnicity influence their position within society for example? Theories of other fields of study, like psychology and biology can help to get a better understanding of those kinds of questions.
On a final note, everyone has their opinions on what is wrong and right with a society and how it should function. But sociology as a discipline tries to differentiate itself from the opinions of people by looking beyond the taken-for-granted views of our social reality. By using qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups, observations, and action research) as well as quantitative methods (statistical modeling of polls, questionnaires, and survey data), sociologists strive to provide a deeper, more illuminating and challenging understanding of social life. It's an important field because a better understanding of social processes can help us influence them in an effective and meaningful manner.