What is sociology?
I get asked a lot, “What is sociology exactly?” (Or more often, “What do you do with a Sociology degree?”, but that’s a question for another time.) The definition of sociology that I work with the most in my classes is, “the study of the impact that social structures have on individuals”. That sums it up. Of course, in there is exploration of issues like class, race, gender, culture, media, deviance, globalization, activism/movements, etc.
Why would someone be motivated to study sociology? In my Sociological Inquiry class we’re reading an anthology and I want to quote from Peter L. Berger’s “The Craft of Sociology”. (I’ve changed “men” to [people]; please mentally insert /her after all the “his”-es):
We would say then that the sociologist … is a person intensively, endlessly, shamelessly interested in the doings of [people]. His natural habitat is all the human gathering places of the world, wherever [people] come together … He will know reverence, but this reverence will not prevent him from wanting to see and to understand. He may sometimes feel revulsion or contempt. But this also will not deter him from wanting to have his questions answered. The sociologist, in his quest for understanding, moves through the world of [people] without respect for the usual lines of demarcation. Nobility and degradation, power and obscurity, intelligence and folly - these are equally interesting to him, however unequal they may be in his personal values or tastes.
Katxena said,
June 30, 2004 @ 7:50 am
This is a nice definition of sociology, but I think it does come up a little bit shy (with an emphasis on little). Sociology is not only the study of the impact social structures have on individuals, but also the study of how individuals create and maintain social structures.
It’s like that MC Escher drawing, where one hand draws another — we create society and society creates us, in a never-ending circle of causality. This is not to say that we choose our own fate, or that we create society out of whole cloth, but we do play a role in maintaining and sometimes changing the social structures in which we are embedded.
Without this added bit, great swaths of the political sociology, social movements and historical sociology subfields would be excised from the field. Which some may view as a good thing, but I (as a political sociologist), do not.
On another topic: The world needs more sociologist bloggers!
I’m glad I found your site.
Ryan said,
June 30, 2004 @ 8:08 am
Man, reading this just makes me want to go back to school more. Though I am an engineer by (first) training, I’ve always felt a need for more, and a comfortability and excitement in observing others in their habits and actions. Thanks for sharing and helping me clarify what I want a little bit. Honestly, I’m jealous of your classes sometimes. Someday…
Emily said,
June 30, 2004 @ 11:26 am
Thanks, Katxena, for rounding out the definition - I concur. Obviously social structures would not be there if people did not create them. In fact, a lot of my sociological study has been around why social structures are created and maintained as they are.