Are you thinking of studying sociology or becoming a sociologist?
Sociologists are researchers and scholars who study society and social behavior. They use a variety of research methods to investigate social phenomena, including surveys, experiments, observations, and interviews. Sociologists may work in academic settings, government agencies, non-profit organizations, or the private sector.
What Is Sociology?
- A social science - a term used to describe the study of society and the manner in which people behave and influence the world around us.
- The study of society - a term used to describe a discipline that examines esthetic, social, physical, cultural, spiritual, and personal dimensions of human life.
- The study of social relationships using scientific methods - a term used to describe research that uses logic and critical thinking to develop theories about social behavior by examining cause and effect relationships between different variables (elements) within society.
Sociologists consider the world from a perspective that is different from our own. They see society as an external force that affects our behaviors and attitudes. Sociology is based on the assumption that we do not act according to reason alone; rather, our actions are shaped by our social context.
Sociologists are interested in all sorts of topics: what determines your gender identity; how much control you have over getting married or divorced; whether or not you'll become a criminal; how religious beliefs become popular; what makes some people more likely than others to vote in elections; why racial and ethnic minorities continue to experience discrimination in education and employment opportunities; why some societies support more equal distributions of wealth while others are more stratified by class (and if such differences matter); how people learn to trust one another; how scientific knowledge comes to be accepted as fact.
The academic discipline of sociology is broadly divided into a few sub-disciplines:
- Sociological theory
- Social stratification
- Social psychology
- Sociology of culture
- Political sociology
- Sociology of education
- Sociology of health and illness
- Environmental sociology
- Urban sociology (including community studies)
- Rural sociology (including agricultural economics)
- Mathematical sociology
- Network analysis (including ethnomethodology)
Sociologists use both qualitative techniques, such as interviews, observations, and participant observation to discover local meanings; and quantitative techniques, such as large-scale survey research, structured interviews, questionnaires, official statistics, or economic data to test hypotheses about society-wide processes.
Sociologists can specialize in a wide range of subfields within the discipline. Some focus on the study of social inequality, while others may specialize in the sociology of religion, education, or gender.
Some sociologists study social movements, while others may focus on the sociology of health and medicine. The field of sociology is diverse, and there are many different areas of study and research within it.
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