SUBJECT MATTER OF SOCIOLOGY

1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 OBJECTIVES
It is hoped that by the end of this unit, you should be able to:
 Define extensively what Sociology is;
 Explain the origins of Sociology;
 Explain the scope of Sociology;
 Discuss some key concepts in sociological analysis, and
 Understand the practical significance of Sociology

1.3 MAIN CONTENT

1.3.1 Definition of Sociology

Like other social science disciplines, Sociology does not have one universally acceptable
definition. Indeed there are as many definitions of Sociology as there are Sociologists. We shall
examine a few of these definitions and thereafter, attempt a working definition of the subject.
 According to Harry M. Johnson (1962:2-4), Sociology is the science that "deals with social
groups: their internal forms or modes of organization, the processes that tend to maintain
or change these forms of organization, and the relations between groups." In his view
sociology is concerned with interaction itself. A social group is a system of social
interaction
 For Odetola and Ademola (1985:14) Sociology is the discipline which studies and analyzes
human behaviour, the pattern of interaction and relations in a social context. In other words,
Sociology studies group life and the pattern of relationships in the group as well as the
institutions that are produced by such relationships.
 Michael Hughes, Carolyn Kroehler and james Zanden (2002) defined Sociology as the
scientific study of social interactions and social organizations. In other words, Sociology
studies how our interactions with other people shape the way we think, feel; and what we
say and do.
 In the views of Nicholas S. Timasheff, “sociology is interested in what happens when man
meets man, when human beings form masses or groups, when they cooperate, fight
dominate one another, persuade or initiate others, develop or destroy culture. The unit of
sociological study is never an individual, but always at least two individuals somewhat
related to one another.

 Alex Inkeles (1964) holds that Sociology is the study of social order, the efforts to attain it
and departures from it. It seeks to define the units of human interaction, discover how they
are organized as systems of action, explain their continuity through time, and understand
how and why these units and relations change or cease to exist.

Different as these definitions may appear, they are saying basically the same thing which is that
Sociology is the systematic study of human society which are referred variously to as ‘social life’,
‘social group’, ‘social structure’, ‘social system’ etc., and the interactions of the members of the
groups that make up the society. The primary concern of Sociology is to discover, describe and
explain how order is maintained within groups – small or large- as a result of the inculcation in
man from childhood(socialization) of the rules of behaviour (norms) governing various group
activities whether they are economic, political or religious. It is these rules that make it possible to
predict behaviour with a reasonable degree of accuracy or the expectation that these rules will be
largely kept. And it is the search for such rules and the way they operate within groups that interests
the sociologist. May we add also that since no social systems functions flawlessly, Sociology is
also interested in studying manifestations of disorder.

1.3.2 The Sociological Perspective

Sociologists believe that there are many layers of meanings in the human experience. They also
believe that human behaviour is influenced by several networks of invisible rules and institutions
that are external to him. Consequently, to be able to reasonably understand why man behaves the
way he does in certain situations, the sociologist would have to look beyond the individual and the
obvious outward appearances of his life and turn his investigative eyes upon the social
arrangements that are external to the individual but that nonetheless structure his experiences and
place constraints on his behaviour. This approach to social reality is the thrust of the sociological
perspective. It is an invitation to take nothing on its face value, but to question even things that are
seemingly obvious. It is an invitation to go beyond the everyday, ordinary meanings of actions to
uncover hidden reasons and explanations. As we look beyond outer appearances and their
everyday ordinary meanings, we are likely to encounter new levels of reality or meanings. Social
policies and programmes that are based on this new understanding would have higher chances of
succeeding.

The popular American Sociologist – [Link] Mills calls this unique way of looking at reality by
the sociologists “Sociological Imagination”. By this he means the ability to see our private
experiences and personal difficulties as a reflection of the structural arrangements of society and
the times in which we live. His position was that the best way to understand man is first to try to
understand his society because there is a relationship between our experiences as individuals and
broader social and historical events.

1.3.3 Origin of Sociology

Sociology as a discipline developed as a response to the peculiar problems of order in the western
societies of the last century. We have in mind here the French revolution of 1789 and the Industrial
revolution in Britain of the 1800s. These events came with their own high points, but also brought
about profound distress to almost every aspect of the society. Specifically, the French Revolution
dramatically changed France’s class system. Aristocrats suddenly lost their money and status,
while peasants, who had been at the bottom of the social ladder, rose to more powerful and
influential positions. The Industrial Revolution which followed on the heels of the French
Revolution made people to abandon a life of agriculture and moved to cities to find factory jobs.
They worked long hours in dangerous conditions for low pay. New social problems emerged and,
for many decades, little was done to address the plight of the urban [Link] changes forced
scholars of the time like Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Max
Weber and several others to begin to seek for solutions to the problem of order. Their
preoccupation was with how to deal with the social disorder that ravaged their societies. The
outcome of these efforts was the emergence of a ‘science of society’ called Sociology. For being
the first to use the word “Sociology’, Auguste Comte became credited as the father of Sociology
far ahead of Ibn Khaldun an African, who had used the term “Al-Umran” translated as Sociology
several centuries before Comte.

For a better understanding of the origins of sociology, it may be necessary to take a closer look at
the contributions made by a few founding fathers of the discipline.

The contributions of Auguste Comte (1798- 1857)

Auguste Comte was a French Philosopher commonly credited with being the founder of Sociology
and as having coined the name “Sociology”. He was influenced by the extensive changes brought
about by the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution and tried to make sense of them. He
felt that the social sciences that existed at the time, including political science and history, couldn’t
adequately explain the chaos and upheaval he saw around him. He decided an entirely new science
was needed. He called this new science sociology, which comes from the root word socius, a Latin
word that means “companion” or “being with others.”

He observed that all societies develop and progress through the following stages: religious,
metaphysical, and scientific. He added that society would need to apply scientific knowledge based
on facts and evidence if it is going to be able to understand and solve its numerous problems.
Consequently, he urged sociologists to use systematic observation, experimentation, and
comparative historical analysis as their methods. He viewed the science of sociology as consisting
of two branches: dynamics, or the study of the processes by which societies change; and statics,
or the study of the processes by which societies endure. He also envisioned sociologists as
eventually developing a base of scientific social knowledge that would guide society into positive
directions.

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

Emile Durkheim was a French philosopher and Sociologist. He believed that it was possible and
important to apply scientific methods to sociology as a discipline. He stressed that Sociologists
should concern themselves with the study of social facts by which he meant the values, cultural
norms, and social structures which transcend the individual and are capable of exercising a social
constraint on him. Durkheim dealt with two types of social solidarity. By 'Solidarity', Durkheim
meant the moral beliefs and ideas which formed the 'common-sense' underlying social life.
Mechanical solidarity (characteristic of pre-industrial societies) was said to be based on agreement
and identity between people; organic solidarity derived from agreement to tolerate a range of
differences,

Max Weber (1864-1920)

Max Weber was a German Sociologist who made profound contribution to the development of
Sociology. In his own contribution, sociology is a science of social action. He made a clear
distinction between action and social action. To him, action has to do with all human behavior. It
becomes social if the actor attaches a subjective meaning to it and acts taking account of the
behaviour of others (1968: 1,4). Weber believed that individuals' behaviors cannot exist apart
from their interpretations of the meaning of their own behaviors, and that people tend to act
according to these interpretations. Thus, sociologists are expected as he argued, to inquire into
people's thoughts, feelings, and perceptions regarding their own behaviours. He recommended that
sociologists adopt his method of Verstehen (vûrst e hen), or empathetic understanding. Verstehen
allows sociologists to mentally put themselves into “the other person's shoes” and thus obtain an
“interpretive understanding” of the meanings of individuals' behaviors

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

Herbert Spencer was a 19th-century Englishman. He argued that society can be likened to a living
organism with interdependent parts. Change in one part of society causes change in the other parts,
so that every part contributes to the stability and survival of society as a whole. If one part of
society malfunctions, the other parts must adjust to the crisis and contribute even more to preserve
society. Family, education, government, industry, and religion comprise just a few of the parts of
the “organism” of society.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Karl marx was a German political philosopher and economist who contributed immensely to the
development of sociology. He was called a social conflict theorist because of his views that social
conflict, especially class conflict and competition markk all human societies. He argued that in all
human societies, the class of the poor is exploited by the rich and powerful. He was particularly
enraged by the capitalist class which he referred to as the bourgeoisie. These are the ones who own
the means of production and exploit the class of labourers, called the proletariat, who do not own
the means of production. Marx believed that the very natures of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
inescapably lock the two classes in conflict. He predicted that the labourers would one day gain
the consciousness that will be them join forces to overthrow the capitalists. Such a class revolution
would establish a “class-free” society in which all people work according to their abilities and
receive according to their needs. Marx believed that economics determines the differences between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He further claimed that a society's economic system decides
peoples' norms, values, mores, and religious beliefs, as well as the nature of the society's political,
governmental, and educational systems.

1.3.4 Scope of Sociology

Sociology can best be described as an all encompassing discipline. It covers nearly every field of
human endeavour beginning from studying and understanding interactions among individuals up
to the scientific analysis of global social processes such as globalisation and information
technology; globalisation and sustainable economic development. Some branches or fields of
Sociology include Sociology of Law, Sociology of Edcation, Political Sociology, Urban
Sociology, Rural Sociology, Gerontology, Sociology of Crime and Deviant Behaviour, Sociology
of Medicine, Sociology of work, Sociology of sports, Sociology of art etc.
1.3.5: Sociology and other Social Science Disciplines:
Sociology is just one field of study in the social science family. Other sister disciplines are
psychology, anthropology, geography, political science and parts of history. All Social Sciences
are concerned with human behavior and share same basic subject matter. However, each of them
focuses on a different aspect of behavior. For instance, while psychologist are more interested in
the internal sources of behavior such as the workings of the nervous system and the effects of
neurotransmitters, hormones, or stress on individual; the interest of the sociologist is more in the
external sources of behavior such as workings of society and the effects that social class, gender
roles, age, new technologies, changing attitude towards reckless behaviour, or political revolutions
have on people. More precisely put, while the interest of the psychologist is on individual’s
personality, i.e., the behaviour and attitudes that are characteristics of individuals regardless of the
situations, the Sociologist focuses on roles, i.e., on the behaviour and attitudes that are
characteristic of people in a given social position or situation regardless of their individual
personalities. Anthropology shares Sociology's interest in the impact of social structure and culture
on behaviour; however, the different between these two is that while the anthropologist studies
non-western societies, preliterate societies, local communities, or small groups, the Sociologist
studies both communities and small groups, and also examine modem industrial societies and
large-scale .

Sociology is also different from Economics and Political science. While the economist and the
Political scientist concern themselves with just particular kinds of social activity; the sociologist’s
attraction is in the nature of social action itself and the manner in which different kinds of activities
fit together to create the larger pattern of society. Sociologists are primarily interested in areas
where social structure and culture intersect. One of these is social institutions which are established
patterns of action and thought that organize important social activities -the family, education,
religion, the political and economic systems. These institutions provide ready-made answers to the
recurring problems of life; how to make community decisions (the political system), how to
produce and distribute goods and services (the economic system), how to arrange house-holds and
provide child-care (the family), and so on.

1.3.6: Values of Sociology

Sociology has many practical applications. Some of these are examined below.

 Sociology gives the student a better understanding of the cultural differences among
people. Policies based on such awareness have higher chances of working
 Sociological research helps us to assess the effects of policy initiatives
 Most importantly, sociology provides us with self enlightenment, that is, increased self
understanding. This makes it possible for groups and individuals to alter their conditions
of their lives.
 It provides more adequate and clearer understanding of social situations.

 Our world is beset with several social problems of great magnitude like poverty, beggary,
unemployment, prostitution, over population, family disorganization, community
disorganization, racial problems, crime, juvenile delinquency, gambling alcoholism, youth
 unrest, untouchability etc. A careful analysis of these problems is necessary in order to
solve them. Sociology provides such an analysis.

 Sociological knowledge is necessary for understanding and planning of society. Social

planning has been made easier by sociology. Sociology is often considered a vehicle of
social reform and social reorganization. It plays an important role in the reconstruction of
society.

Sociology is a profession in which technical competence brings its own rewards. Sociologists are
in increasing demand in business, Government, industry, city planning, ethnic relations, social
work, social welfare, supervision, advertising, communications, administration, and many other
areas of community life. A few years ago, sociologists could only teach sociology in schools and
colleges. But sociology has now become practical enough to be practiced outside of academic
halls. Today, sociologists work as industrial consultants, urban planners, personnel managers,
bankers, police officers, military and paramilitary personnel, and indeed in all places there are
human beings.

1.3.7: Key Concepts in Sociology

Socialization: This is a life- long process by which individuals learn the culture of their society.
It is the means through which the norms, values and beliefs of society are transmitted from
generation to generation. Primary socialization takes place at infancy, usually at home. Agents of
socialization include the family, school, worship places, work places, peer groups, political parties
etc.

Norms: A norm is a specific guide to action which defines acceptable and appropriate behaviour
in a particular situation. Usually, there are norms governing the way we dress, who we marry or
do other things in life. These norms vary from one society to another. Norms are often enforced
by positive or negative sanctions, that is, rewards and punishments which can be either informal
or informal.
Values: refer to important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about
what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person's
behaviour and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Values define what is
important, worthwhile and worth striving for. Like norms, values vary from society to society.

Status: This refers to the social positions which individuals occupy in society. Example of family
statuses include ones position as son or daughter, father or mother; gender statuses include being
a male or female, while occupational statuses may include being a teacher, drive, clerk etc. Statuses
are culturally defined. Some are relatively fixed (ascribed) such that there is nothing anybody about
them such as gender status of being a man or a woman. Some ascribed status can be changed in
very rare cases such as the status of a king. The second form of status is the one not fixed either
by inheritance; biological characteristics or any other criterion is referred to as achieved status.
Role: This refers to the behavioural expectations of individuals based on their statuses. Roles
provide social life with order and predictability.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Define sociology and relate it to other social sciences.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Describe the contributions of Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber to Sociology.

SUMMARY
This unit examined the subject matter of Sociology including the definition, origin, scope,
value and relationship of Sociology with other social science disciplines. It also discussed
common concepts in Sociology.

REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Giddens, A. (1994). Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Olurode, L and O. Soyombo (eds.) (2001), Sociology for Beginners. Ikeja: John West
Publications

Charon, J.M. (1999). The Meaning of Sociology: A Reader. New Jersey:Prentice Hall.