Sociology

III

Fields of Sociology

Sociology was long identified primarily with broad evolutionary reconstructions of historical change in Western societies, as well as with the exploration of relationships and interdependencies among their more specialized institutions and aspects of social life, such as the economy, the State, the family, and religion. Sociology, therefore, was thought of as a synthesizing field that attempted to integrate the findings acquired from other social sciences. Although such concepts concerning the scope and task of sociology are still prevalent, they now tend to be regarded as the province of sociological theory, which is only a part of the entire discipline of sociology.

Sociological theory also includes the discussion and analysis of basic concepts that are common to all the different spheres of social life studied by sociologists. An emphasis on empirical investigations carried out by standardized and often statistical research methods directed the attention of sociologists away from the abstract visions of 19th-century scholars towards more focused and concrete areas of social reality. These areas became the subfields and specialities of sociology that are today the subjects of academic courses, textbooks, and specialized journals. Much of the scholarly and scientific work of sociologists falls clearly within one of the many subfields into which the discipline is divided. In addition to basic concepts, research techniques are shared by most subfields; thus, sociological theory and research methods are both usually compulsory subjects for all who study sociology.

A

Subfields

The oldest subfields in the discipline of sociology are those that concentrate on social phenomena that have not previously been adopted as objects of study by other of the social sciences. These include marriage and the family, social inequality and social stratification, ethnic relations, “deviant” behaviour, urban communities, and complex or formal organizations. Subfields of more recent origin examine the social aspects of gerontology and the sociology of sex and gender roles.

Because nearly all human activities involve social relations, another major source of specialization within sociology is the study of the social structure of areas of human activity. These areas of teaching and research include the sociology of politics, law, religion, education, the military, occupations and professions, governmental bureaucracies, industry, the arts, science, language (or sociolinguistics), medicine, mass communications, and sport. These subfields differ widely in the extent to which they have accumulated a substantial body of research and attracted large numbers of practitioners. Some, such as the sociology of sport, are recent fields, whereas others, such as the sociology of religion and of law, have their roots in the earliest sociological studies. Certain subfields have achieved brief popularity, only to be later incorporated into a more comprehensive area. Industrial sociology, for example, was a flourishing field in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, but later it was largely absorbed into the study of complex organizations; in Great Britain, however, industrial sociology has remained a separate area of research. A more common sociological phenomenon is the splitting of a recognized subfield into narrower subdivisions; the sociology of knowledge, for instance, has increasingly been divided into individual sociologies of science, art, literature, popular culture, and language.

At least two subfields, demography and criminology, were distinct areas of study long before the formal field of sociology existed. In the past, they were associated primarily with other disciplines. Demography (the study of the size, growth, and distribution of human populations) retains close links to economics in some countries, but in most of the Western world it is considered a subdivision of sociology. Criminology has in recent decades been affected by general sociological concepts and perspectives, becoming more and more linked with the wider study of deviance, which is defined as any form of behaviour that is different from that considered socially acceptable or “normal”, and includes forms of behaviour that do not involve violations of the law.

B

Interdisciplinary Fields

The oldest interdisciplinary subfield of sociology is social psychology. It has often been considered virtually a separate discipline, drawing practitioners from both sociology and psychology. Whereas sociologists primarily concern themselves with social “norms”, roles, institutions, and the structure of groups, social psychologists concentrate on the impact of these various areas on individual personality. Social psychologists trained in sociology have pioneered studies of: interaction in small informal groups; the distribution of beliefs and attitudes in a population; and the formation of character and outlook under the influence of the family, the school, the peer group, and other socializing agencies. To a certain extent, psychoanalytic ideas, derived from the work of Sigmund Freud and later psychoanalysts, have also been significant in this last area of social psychology.

Comparative historical sociology, often strongly influenced by the ideas of both Marx and Weber, has shown much growth in recent years. Many historians have been guided by concepts borrowed from sociology; at the same time, some sociologists have carried out large-scale historical-comparative studies. The once-firm barriers between history and sociology have crumbled, especially in such areas as social history, demographic change, economic and political development, and the sociology of revolutions and protest movements.

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Research Methods

Sociologists use nearly all the methods of acquiring information that are used in the other social sciences and the humanities, from advanced mathematical statistics to the interpretation of texts. They also rely heavily on primary statistical information regularly collected by governments, such as censuses and vital statistics reports, and records of unemployment, immigration, the frequency of crime, and other phenomena.

A

Direct Observation

First-hand observations of some aspect of society have a long history in sociological research. Sociologists have obtained information through participant observation—that is, by temporarily becoming or by pretending to become members of the group being studied. Sociologists also obtain first-hand information by relying on knowledgeable informants from the group. Both methods have also been used by social anthropologists.

In recent years, detailed first-hand observation has been applied to smaller-scale settings, such as hospital wards, religious and political meetings, bars and casinos, and classrooms. The work of the Canadian-born American sociologist Erving Goffman has provided both models and a theoretical rationale for such studies. Goffman is one of several sociologists who insist that everyday life is the foundation of social reality, underlying all statistical and conceptual abstractions. This emphasis has encouraged intensive microsociological investigations using tape recorders and videocameras in natural rather than artificially contrived “experimental” social situations.

Sociologists, like historians, also make extensive use of second-hand source materials. These generally include life histories, personal documents, and clinical records.

Although popular stereotypes have sometimes pictured sociologists as people who bypass qualitative (direct) observation of human experiences by reducing them to quantitative (statistical) summaries, these have never been accurate. Even where quantitative social research has been admired and sociology has distanced itself from the humanistic disciplines of philosophy, history, and law, qualitative research has always had a strong tradition.