What is Sociology?

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social study (a term with which it is sometimes synonymous) which uses various techniques of scientific investigation and critical analysis to create a body of information about personal social action. For many sociologists, the goal is to perform analysis which may be used straight to social policy and welfare, while others concentrate mainly on improving the theoretical understanding of social procedures. Topic varies from the small stage of personal organization and connections to the macro stage of systems and the social framework.

The traditional focuses of sociology have included social stratification, social class, lifestyle, social flexibility, belief, secularization, law, and deviance. As all areas of personal action are affected by the connections between social framework and personal organization, sociology has progressively extended its focus to further topics, such as health, medical, army and penal organizations, the Internet, and the part of social action in the development of medical information.

The range of social scientific techniques has also extended. Social scientists sketch upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The language and social changes of the mid-twentieth century led to progressively interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic techniques to the analysis of community. On the other hand, recent years have seen the rise of new analytically, in past statistics and computationally extensive techniques, such as agent-based acting and online community analysis. Sociology should not be puzzled with various general social studies programs which keep little regards to sociological concept or social science analysis technique.