NATURE AND SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY

 

 

Nature of Sociology:

In nature of sociology we investigate, what type of subject Sociology is? Is sociology a science, or an art or what? To answer this question Robert Bierstedt enlisted the following characteristics of sociology in his book “The Social Order”:

 

·         Sociology is an independent science. Sociology like any other discipline have its own area of study and not fully dependent on other discipline.

·         Sociology is a social science not a physical science. Social sciences focus on various aspect of human society while physical sciences deal with natural phenomena. Thus Sociology is a social science as it deals with man and his social activities.

·         Sociology is a categorical and not a normative discipline. Sociology is value-free. It is only interested in ‘what is’ and not ‘what should be’ or ‘ought to be’.

·         Sociology is pure science and not an applied science. As a Pure science it is only interested in acquisition of knowledge, it has nothing to do with application of that knowledge. Like Physics is a pure science while engineering is its application.

·         Sociology is relatively an abstract science and not a concrete science. It studies the society in an abstract (Theoretical not physical) way. Like, Sociology is not interested in particular families but in family as a social institution that exists in all societies.

·         Sociology is a generalising science and not a particularising science. Sociology is not interested in particular events rather it studies events in a general way. Example: History study French Revolution but Sociology will be interested in revolutions in general.

·         Sociology is a general science and not a special social science. Like Economy or Political Science, Sociology does not focus on only one aspect of human activity. As it has to deal with society it includes all aspects of human life in a general way.

·         Sociology is both a rational and an empirical science. It studies the social phenomena in scientific way. It is based on reason (logic), observation and experimentation.

Scope of Sociology:

Scope means the subject matter or the areas of study or the boundaries of a subject. 

Every science has its own field of inquiry. It becomes difficult to study a science systematically unless its boundary or scope is determined precisely.

Sociology as a social science has its own scope or boundaries. But there is no one opinion about the scope of Sociology.

However, there are two main schools of thought regarding the scope of Sociology:

(1) The Specialistic or Formalistic school and (2) the Synthetic school.

There is a good deal of controversy about the scope of Sociology between the two schools.

1.      Specialistic school:

          The supporters of this school of thought are George Simmel, Vierkandt, Max Weber, Von Wiese, Small and F. Tonnies. They believe that Sociology is a specific, pure and independent science and thus its scope should be limited. The main views of the school regarding the scope of Sociology are –

·         Scope of Sociology is very narrow and limited. It need not study all the events connected with social science.

·         Sociology studies the social relationships. Furthermore only forms of social relationships are to be studied and not its content.

·         Sociology also focuses on the mental and psychic relationship which links men together in society.

·         Aim of sociology is to interpret and understand social behaviour.

 

      2. Synthetic school:

The supporters of synthetic school are the sociologists like Durkheim, Ginsberg, Comte, Sorokin, Spencer, F. Ward, and L.T. Hobhouse. According to this School Sociology is closely related with other social sciences. It is a synthesis of social sciences. Thus its scope is very vast. According to this school Sociology should deal with following areas of study:

·         Social Morphology: deals with population (social structure, social groups and institutions)

·         Social Control: deals with formal and informal means of social control such as customs, traditions, morals, religion, law, court etc.

·         Social Process: different modes of social interaction (conflict, cooperation, isolation, integration etc.)

·         Social Pathology: social mal-adjustment and social problems like poverty, beggary, unemployment, overpopulation etc.

·         General Sociology: philosophical part of sociology. Its function is formulation of general social laws.

Broadly speaking, Sociology studies all aspects of Human society, viz.,

·         Social Behavior

·         Social Relationships

·         Social Structure

·         Social Institutions

·         Social Processes

·         Social Control

·         Social Change

·         Social Stratification

·         Social System etc.

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