Sociology & Society

• Sociology, in its simplest meaning, is the study of society and the social institutions.

• Latin word “socius” means companion and ” logos” means “the study of”, hence
Sociology means study of society and the father of sociology is Auguste Comte. He
gave this term in 1838.

• Sociology attempts to explain and understand the behavior of human beings in society.

• Sociology studies human society as an interconnected whole.

• It does not confine itself to one particular area of social life. Sociologists have studied a
vast and diverse range of topics including poverty, health, science, music, religion, war,
etc.

• The task of sociology is to unravel the connection between personal problem and public
issue.

• Because the subjects it examines are so numerous and so varied, sociology cannot be
defined simply in terms of the subjects it studies.

• It is more useful to define sociology in terms of its approach to explaining social life
rather than its subject matter.

• Compared to psychology, sociology is much less concerned with the individual, and
much more concerned with humans in groups.

• The size of the groups studied in sociology can vary considerably.

• However, whatever the scale and scope of a sociological study, to be sociological it must
look beyond the individual to understand and explain human behavior.

• Empirical study (means based on facts) of societies is an important part of what

sociologists do. It only means that when a sociologist studies a society, the sociologist is
willing to observe and collect findings, even if they are not to her/his personal liking.

The Sociological Imagination

The Personal Problem & the Public Issue

• Sociological imagination is a concept given by C. Wright Mills that encourages people to

replace the lenses they're currently using to view their own lives and alter their
perspective. Mills encourages every member of society to stop boxing their personal
situations into isolated corners and open up to the wider landscape of the world.
 • The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history(our past) and biography(our
present) and the relations between the two within society. The facts of contemporary
history are also facts about the success and failure of individual men and women.

• He encouraged people to stop focusing on themselves alone and to look at the wider
landscape of society.
As soon as you start to think about various issues or activities in perspectives that differ
from your own, you're entering the realm of the sociological imagination.

Pluralities & Inequalities among Societies

Society- A society is a group of people who share a common culture, occupy a
territorial area and are bound to each other by common history. Society is mandatory
not only for mere survival but also good for a better life. The society provides us
security, relationship, identity and a sense of belongingness. Individual and society are
directly related to each other, both are complementary. Societies may be simple, may be
complex.

In contemporary world we live in more than one society, is called plurality of the
society.

Linguistic, ethnic, tribal, caste based society

i.e. we may exhibit our self as an Indian in a foreign country but in India, we may
exhibit our self as per language, culture, caste or even state.

Inequality in our society is a situation where the different individuals in society are from
different backgrounds and of different social class with different abilities to face the
challenges of life.

Sociology & Common Sense Knowledge

Common sense is defined as routine knowledge that people have of their everyday
world and activities. These explanations are generally based on what may be called
naturalistic and/or individualistic explanation based on taken for granted knowledge.
The problem is not that common sense knowledge is necessarily false, but that it is
unexamined.
Sociology is distinguished from common sense on various grounds :-

I. Common sense is based on assumptions while sociology is based upon evidences.

II. Sociology uses reason and logic while common sense uses stereotypical beliefs.
III. sociology has a body of concepts, methods and data, no matter how loosely coordinated, but
common sense is more or less based on personal judgments.

It is the way of looking at things which distinguishes sociology and common sense.
 The Making Of Sociology- Intellectual Ideas

• Sociologists and social anthropologists sought to categorise societies into types and to
distinguish stages in social development. These features reappear in the 19th century in
works of early sociologists, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer.

• Efforts were therefore made to classify different types of societies on that basis, for
instance: Types of pre-modern societies such as hunters and gatherers, pastoral and
agrarian, agrarian and non- industrial civilisations. Types of modern societies such as
the industrialised societies.

• Such an evolutionary vision assumed that the west was necessarily the most advanced
and civilised. Non- western societies were often seen as barbaric and less developed.
Indian sociology reflects this tension which go far back to the history of British
colonialism and the intellectual and ideological response to it.

• Darwin's ideas about organic evolution were a dominant influence on early sociological
thought. Society was often compared with living organisms and efforts were made to
trace its growth through stages comparable to those of organic life.

• This way of looking at society as a system of parts, each part playing a given function
influenced the study of social institutions like the family or the school and structures
such as stratification.

• The intellectual ideas that went into the making of sociology have a direct bearing on
how sociology studies empirical reality.

• The Enlightenment, an European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18 th

centuries, emphasised reason and individualism. There was also great advancement of
scientific knowledge and a growing conviction that the methods of the natural sciences
should and could be extended to the study of human affairs. For example poverty, so far
seen as a 'natural phenomenon', began to be seen as a 'social problem’ caused by human
ignorance or exploitation.

• Auguste Comte believed that sociology would contribute to the welfare of humanity.

The Making Of Sociology- Material Issues

• The Industrial Revolution was based upon a new, dynamic form of economic activity
capitalism. This system of capitalism became the driving force behind the growth of
industrial manufacturing.

• Capitalism involved new attitudes and institutions. Entrepreneurs now engaged in the
sustained, systematic pursuit of profit. The markets acted as the key instrument of
productive life. And goods, services and labour became commodities whose use was
determined by rational calculation.

• The change industrialization brought about was far-reaching and changed the structure of
the pre-industrial society. There was the degradation of labour, the wrenching of work
from the protective contexts of guild, village, and family.
• Both the radical and conservative thinkers were appalled at the decline of the status of the
common labourer, not to mention the skilled craftsman.

• Urban centers expanded and grew. It was not that there were no cities earlier. But the
industrial cities gave birth to a completely new kind of urban world. It was marked by
the soot and grime of factories, by overcrowded slums of the new industrial working
class, bad sanitation and general squalor. It was also marked by new kinds of social
interactions.

• The factory and its mechanical division of labour were often seen as a deliberate attempt
to destroy the peasant, the artisan, as well as family and local community.

• The factory was perceived as an archetype of an economic regimentation hitherto known

only in barracks and prisons.

• For some like Marx the factory was oppressive. Yet potentially liberating. Here workers
learnt both collective functioning as well as concerted efforts for better conditions.

• Another indicator of the emergence of modern societies was the new significance of
clock-time as a basis of social organization. A crucial aspect of this was the way in
which, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the tempo of agricultural and manufacturing
labour increasingly came to be set by the clock and calendar in a way very different
from pre-modern forms of work.

• Prior to the development of industrial capitalism, work-rhythms were set by factors such
as the period of daylight, the break between tasks and the constraints of deadlines or
other social duties.

• Factory production implied the synchronisation of labour it began punctually, had a

steady pace and took place for set hours and on particular days of the week. In addition,
the clock injected a new urgency to work.

Europe as the birth place of sociology

• For every student of sociology, it is significant to study the growth of sociology as a

discipline in Europe. This is due to the very fact that the subject matter of sociology
deals with issues and concerns developed in the new world order.

• These issues and concerns were developed during the rapid changes that occurred in
European societies in the 18th and 19th centuries.

• Capitalism and industrialization which developed in Europe undermined the old settled
order and gave rise to many issues like urbanization or factory production which are
pertinent to all modern societies in varied form. The global impact of capitalism has
been seen as the cause of uneven transformation of societies.

• In case of India, transformation of Indian society is linked to the history of British

capitalism.

• Thus, the work of the western sociologist on capitalism and other aspects of modern
society are important. It is relevant for understanding the social change in India.
 The Growth Of Sociology In India

• During the course of their rule in India, the British officials realised that for smooth
administration, it was important that they acquire knowledge of Indian society and
culture. This prompted the origin of Sociology in India.

• Western sociological writings about Indian society were sometimes misleading. For
instance, the understanding and portrayal of the Indian village was unchanging.

• Many Indian scholars thus, took to sociological studies to close such gaps. The
diversified nature of the Indian society in terms of region, language, religion, ethnicity,
caste, etc also led to the growth of sociology in India in connection with the discipline
of social anthropology. This is a characteristic feature different from that of the western
countries where both disciplines have been kept distinct from each other.

• Indian sociologist realised that the transformation process of contemporary Indian society
is different from that of the western society. Modernity as understood in the western
European society is the outcome of scientific process and democratic ideas.

• Whereas the same process of modernity was introduced in Indian society under the
colonial regime.

Scope Of Sociology

• The scope of sociology is extremely wide and it focuses its analysis on several aspects of
the society and can be about mere individual interactions to larger social issues.

• The scope of sociology and its focus of analysis can be broadly classified into three
categories:
• At the level of human interactions, the scope of study might focus its analysis on
interactions between two individuals at different social environment, such as between a
shopkeeper and customers or between friends and family members.
• National issues or issues impacting the larger public might include its focus of analysis
for instance on social phenomena such as unemployment, caste conflicts, rural
indebtedness, effects of forest policies on tribals’ rights, etc. These are issues specific to
one particular society or a nation.
• Global social processes are those which are impacting the larger human population.
While studying such phenomena, the focus of analysis for sociologists might include;
impact of flexible labour regulations, globalization of culture, entry of foreign
universities on education system of the country, etc.

Sociology and Other Social Science Disciplines

 Sociology & Economics
• Sociology and Economics as social sciences have close relations. Relationship between
the two is so close that one is often treated as the branch of the other, because society is
greatly influenced by economic factors, and economic processes are largely determined
by the environment of the society.

• Classical economics however, dealt with interrelations of pure economic variables such
as price, demand, supply, etc. Traditionally, it was focused on understanding of
economic activity such as allocation of scarce goods and services in a society and
activity in terms of ownership of land and relation to means of production. The
dominant trend in economic analysis is about how to formulate laws of economic
behaviour of a society.

• Sociology on the other hand looks at economic behaviour in a broader context of social
norms, values, practices and interests. For example; the large investments in
advertisements is directly linked to the need to reshape lifestyles and consumption
patterns. It provides questioning and critical perspectives on basic assumptions of
economic behaviour. It facilitates the need for a socially desirable goal. Sociology
provides an understanding based on factual knowledge.

Sociology & Political Science

• Sociology and political science are so closely and deeply related to each other that one
becomes meaningless without the other. According to Morris Ginsberg ''Historically,
Sociology has its main roots in politics and philosophy of history". The state, which is
the centre of political science in its early stage, was more of a social than political
institution.

• However, conventional studies of political science focused on political theory and

government administration. It restricted itself to the study of power embodied in formal
organisation. It pays attention to the formal structure and processes within the
government.

• Sociology on the other hand studies the actual operation of the government. It studies all
aspects of society including government and stresses the interrelationships between
different institutions. It focuses on the actual study of political behaviour such as
process of decision making, role of gender in politics, etc.

Sociology & History

• Sociology and History are closely and intimately related to each other. Sociology cannot
be separated from History and History cannot be isolated from sociology. That is why
Professor G.E. Howard remarked "History is the past Sociology and Sociology is the
present History", John Seely says that "History without Sociology has no fruit,
Sociology without History has no root”. However, there is difference between the two
in terms of selective interests.

• History, as a rule studies mostly the past. Conventional studies delineate the actual events
or fail to establish how things actually happened. It studies concrete details of events.
Conventional history was also about the history of kings and war. It is systematic record
of the story of mankind. It presents a chronological account of past events of the human
society.
• Sociology on the other hand seeks to establish causal relationship between events. It is
more likely to derive abstract from concrete reality, categorise and generalise. Areas
like history of less glamorous events such as changes in land or gender relations formed
the core area of sociologists interest.

Sociology & Psychology

• Sociology and Psychology are closely related with each other. Both are interrelated and
interdependent. Often defined as the science of behaviour, it involves individual and
his/her intelligence, learning process, motivation, personality, etc. Psychology is
concerned with the exploration of the depth of man's mind and behaviour in society. It
is said that psychology shows the significance of the relationship between the organism
(individual) and environment and the response of the former to the latter. It is defined as
"the study of man’s mental life and behaviour". It is the science of mind of mental
processes.

• Sociology attempts to understand behaviour as it is organised in society, how personality

is shaped by different aspects of society. It studies man's social relationships.

Sociology & Anthropology

• Anthropologists and sociologists are social scientists concerned with understanding the
human condition, past and present, and equipped with the skills of developing rapport in
unfamiliar situations, collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data, thinking
analytically at the macro and micro levels, and communicating effectively, both orally
and in writing. However, these disciplines differ in terms of their selective interests.

• Anthropology studies all aspects of life in “simple societies” as whole in a neutral

scientific fashion. Anthropology is often characterised by tradition of long field work,
living in community and uses ethnographic research methods.

• Sociology on the other hand studies complex societies and therefore focuses on part of
societies like religion, bureaucracy or social processes such as social mobility.
Sociology often relies on survey method and quantitative data using statistics and
questionnaire mode.