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CH 1 Lec 2

Sociology has expanded in scope both across different places and time periods. Initially focused on macro-level understandings of society, its scope widened to include micro-level phenomena through thinkers like Weber. Two schools emerged - the synthetic school focusing on macro-level analyses and bringing all social sciences together, and the formal school emphasizing micro-level social actions and processes. Later, thinkers like Parsons and Merton blended the formal and synthetic approaches. In more recent decades, sociology's scope has further expanded through areas like health, technology, and the environment, as well as postmodern thought and multidisciplinary approaches.

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72 views9 pages

CH 1 Lec 2

Sociology has expanded in scope both across different places and time periods. Initially focused on macro-level understandings of society, its scope widened to include micro-level phenomena through thinkers like Weber. Two schools emerged - the synthetic school focusing on macro-level analyses and bringing all social sciences together, and the formal school emphasizing micro-level social actions and processes. Later, thinkers like Parsons and Merton blended the formal and synthetic approaches. In more recent decades, sociology's scope has further expanded through areas like health, technology, and the environment, as well as postmodern thought and multidisciplinary approaches.

Uploaded by

Martina Ruhil
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter -1

Sociology - The
Discipline

2. Scope of the subject


and comparison with
other social sciences.
Imagine it like this

Scope →
Increased Across Places
Increased Across Time Periods
Discuss up to Present Day

Let’s See How Scope Widened at Various Places


French Sociology

Start of Sociology
Saint Simon, Comte, Durkheim
Positivism, Empiricism, Society as Supreme, Structuralism, Functionalism

Later French Sociologists


(that we ought to know)
Pierre Bourdieu
Cultural Capital, Social Capital

Michel Foucault
Discourses as a source of Power

Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction
German Thinkers
Hegel
Dialectics (dynamic view, Thesis, Anti Thesis, Synthesis)
Idealism (emphaises the importance of mind and mental products)

Feuerbach
Materialism, Real people and not abstract ideas shall be discussed and probed

Marx
Dialectical Materialism

Weber
Interpretivism, Improvements on Marxist Ideas, Bureaucracy,

Simmel
Symbolic Interactionism, Influenced American Sociology

Habermas
Critical School
British Thinkers

Herbert Spencer
How the idea of evolution applied to sociology, biology, psychology, and
morality.
Social Darwinism
Organisimic Analogy

Thomas Bottomore
Marxism and its application on developing world

Michael Mann
Grand theory of Power

Anthony Giddens
Theory of Structuration
Analysing creation and reproduction of social systems
Analysis of both structure and agents (without giving primacy to either)

Italian Thinkers

Pareto
Theories on Elites

Mosca
Theories on Elites

Gramsci
Marxist, Hegemony
American Thinkers

Albion Small, Robert Park


Chicago School
Problems/Solutions of Urbanisation

Jane Addams
How organisations alleviate hunger, poverty and oppression, Nobel Peace Prize
Winner in 1931

Du Bois
Essays on race relations, Blending Sociology and Economics

GH Mead
Symbolic Interactionism

CW Mills
Sociological Imagination
It involves an individual developing a deep understanding of how their
existence and daily lives are a result of historical process and occurs within a
larger social context.

Talcott Parsons
Structural Functionalism, Bridge between Micro-Macro

Robert K. Merton
Middle Range Theories, Functionalism, Deviance, Reference Group - Relative
Deprivation
Imagine it like this

Let’s See How Scope Widened at Various Time Periods

Initial phase (1838-1880s)

Macro-ism
Understanding society in terms of
Macro units
August Comte – Social Statics, Social Dynamics
Saint Simon- Social Physics

Inductivism
Understanding social reality in terms of
Empiricism
August Comte- Social Positivism
Herbert Spencer – Organismic Analogy

Humanism
Understanding and finding solutions to social problem

2nd phase ( 1880s-1940s)


Widening of Scope

Macro School Continued


Durkheim
Social Facts

Micro Realities Introduced


Max Weber
Start of interpretative sociology

Sociology started to be taught in large no of universities.


Two schools Emerged

Synthetic
Focus on Macro
Bringing all social sciences together
Sociology can study everything (Socio Centrism)

Durkheim
3 divisions of Sociology
Social Morphism- density of population and other preliminary data which is likely
to influence the social aspects.
Social Physiology – dynamics processes as religion, morals, law, economic and
political aspects.
General Sociology- To discover the general social laws which may be derived
from the specialized social processes.

Pitirim Sorokin
General sociology- Same institutions in the World : Family, Religion found
everywhere
Specific sociology – Caste in India, Race in America

Karl Mannheim
Discusses structure and broader ideas
Book - Ideology and Utopia

Formal
Emphasis on Micro phenomenon like social action/social processes
Sociology to make abstract generalisations about concrete reality
Kantian influence - SUOR - Subjective Understanding of Objective Reality

Studies objective reality as subjective interpretation


Mostly German

Weber
Types of social action

George Simmel
Forms of interaction (formal & informal)
and
Types of interactants (whether known or strangers. Behaviour varies)

Alfred Vierkandt
Sociology is sum total of social and psychic behaviour of man which can be
explained by abstract conceptual design
Leopold Vanwiese
All human behaviour can be divided into associative and dissociative

Ferdinand Tonnies
Difference of social groups
Gameinschaft (community/small society) and Geselllschalft (society/industrial
society)

3rd phase (1940s to 1990s)


Blending of Formal and Synthetic Schools

Parsons
The SOSA (Structure of social action) and
The SS (social system)

Merton
Combined micro and macro
Latent and Manifest Functions

CW Mills
Sociological Imagination
Sociology of coffee. Discussing the chain.

Anthony Giddens
Theory of Structuration
Double Hermeneutics.
Observe and then Understand.
Why women wear sindoor or mangalsutra and what sense others make of it
Also emphasized blending

Extension of existing schools

Formal School
Ethnomethodology - Harold Garfinkel
Phenomenology - Alfred Schutz
Present Phase – 1980s onwards:
Wider varieties of interest
Health, IT, Biotech, Networking, Defence, Environment

Emergence of Post Modernist thought


Deal with Metanarratives
No way to differentiate between true and untrue stories.

Micheal foucoult
Discourse analysis. That discourses have power.

Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction.
Language can never truly represent an internal, objective reality.

Alan Bryman
Multidisciplinary Approach

Purposive research has removed limitation on scope


Scope has kept expanding throughout history
Conflict View
Marxian
Feminism

Scope can also be understood in comparing sociology with other social


sciences

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