A Look into Sociology
Article by Jake Rose
Sociology is an intricate study of humankind on many forms. Whether it be focused on the individual, the family, or a city, sociology takes an in depth look at humanity itself and analyzes it from many different angles. These are just a few examples of how sociology can analyze the subject. This article will examine six significant factors and give a better look on sociology itself.
First there are general basics. Sociology has its roots in the Enlightenment. With the want for more information, more understanding of the world, man started to focus on the very thing he created himself: society. Humankind began to analyze everything and anything that they could. It wasn’t surprising when they started to really analyze themselves. This, in a way, is what sociology is. Sociology is the study of human behavior, from its origins to its evolutions. It is the analysis of the development of mankind.
With the increase in human development, there became a higher variety of human-life. It changed form as it moved across the world, from rural to urban, from one religion to another, from one race to another. This is why sociology is important to the world. It breaks down all the information and reorganizes it most effectively.
Sociology is a science like many others, though it is quite different in the same way. Closest to it might be psychology, though different on many levels. What makes sociology an unique science is its focus on humanity. Though seemingly easy at first, after a good look one can recognize the complex behavior of mankind that has evolved over thousands of years from having a society. This makes sociology important both to the present and the future, for it takes what has happened in the past and present and uses the information effectively in understanding groups, individuals, and society itself.
Like a science, there are many different ways one can study and record this information. Surveys are one of the major ones. There are also observational studies and experiments. Sociological experiments can be like other scientific ones, with variables for scientific research, but lots of the times the answers aren’t so simple. It takes a good eye and mind to analyze the data, making sociology a more delicate process in the long run.
The second item to focus on is culture. Culture is the grouping of specific mindsets that have developed over time in certain parts of the world, allowing any scientist or onlooker to realize general differences between groups and make general recognitions this way. Thus said, it is an important factor to take into account when dealing with sociological information. There are so many different cultures in the world that they act like variables in giant analytic experiments for the sociologist.
Culture can be broken down into many different aspects or parts. One important one to note is language. Language both creates barriers and brings worlds together. Different languages cause speed bumps in scientific or any form of study throughout the world. It is but one way people can be so different from each other. But the very act of language, or the development of it both psychologically and historically have a strong impact on sociology. It brings insight further into the culture of the people being studying and allows the sociologist more key and individual information. Almost like religion and politics, language has a unique way of developing that reflects both on the culture and history of those that use it, finding its roots being mixed and interwoven like many of the people who make use of it.
A third important item to focus on is the social structure. The social structure is the creation of different levels in society throughout the world to better define and understand how society itself works. It is not man made in that people can decide how many layers there are to society or the different reactions between different levels. It is an evolution of society itself, changing from culture to culture or place to place.
Social structure can be broken down into looking at society as having different statuses and different roles. Individuals are not all equal as much as humankind would like to think it sometime. Through hard work, misfortune, or pure luck people find themselves on different levels of society compared to the person standing next to them or even the person they were a month, week, or day ago. Status can be looked at as the person’s worth through society’s eyes. People tend to use this as the way to judge others quickly. Though not necessarily negative in that there are different statuses, it has for the most part been associated with a negative, almost snooty view when used to analyze others. Role is much deeper, though, and can defy status in many different ways. While status can be looked at as almost just a term or some physical measurement of humans in society, the role is a much deeper, more personal experience. This is to say that it is not so clear what everyone’s role is on first glance. Through careful study and critiquing, one could evaluate another or a whole group and come to a logical assumption or even answer to what their role is, but for the most part it is more of a show and tell kind of deal. It is not evident always, nor is the level of evidence equal from one to another. Simply, it is the bond that an individual has with society, telling their purpose on how they hold the society together.
A good part of culture, sociology, and society are groups. Not everything is on the individual level. The size of the group affects the effectiveness of productivity. Too small of a group might lead to too many unanswered questions, while too large could grow so complex that many overlooked factors have been uncounted for. The perfect size, this balance between small and large, between answerable and countable, is not clear. It is dependent on the answers and topic that is being questioned at the time. One might need a large group to make references about a whole city, province or even country. On the other hand, a smaller group might give better information about a specific area or classing or even status in a certain place or time.
These groups could be societies themselves. Societies are merely just humans grouped by distinguishable differences in culture, mind, history, relationship, and teachings. It appears to be a complicated system of organization, but it is no different in culture, religion, or role/status in its way of defining and dedicating answers to truth. It can be used to find common grounds and further separate viewpoints and information from larger groupings. Societies are very important groups of people, both to the real world and to sociology.
The fourth important item is socialization. Socialization is the way of converting or forming into the very definitions of society. This is a great way to show how humans differentiate from other animals. The complexity of our societies and groups is what defines us as humans, accounted with our rationality of course. Our interaction with each other is at a much more vital and intricate level. We go beyond the instinctive world and step into rationality. This is what makes our forms of communication, our languages, our social behaviors the way they are. This is what makes us so easily adaptable in the world. We are so heavily reliant on some form of socialization, that to think of world without it would mean thinking of a world without humans. Without it there would be no structure, no balance, nor order to our ways. We would be almost like primitive homo sapiens and other ancient races of man, only worse because we would be going from socialization and not towards it.
The fifth major factor in sociology is race and ethnicity. Like culture and religion, race can play an important role to a society and its social structure. A certain race can bring benefits to itself in one place while another can be discriminated against with equality. Even still, one race can experience both extremes throughout the world and even in the same proximity. Races, ethnicities and groups can be broken down into majority and minority. This is like most social classing. Majority refers to the more populace or the ones that have the most power in that given area. Minority is just in the opposite, referring to the weaker of the two either size/numbers or politics/power.
It is important to note the difference between race and ethnicity here. Race refers to the grouping of people through biological similarities and histories while ethnicity is created from both racial and cultural ties, making it not necessarily inherit in that it’s physically in a person’s blood, but inherit in that it is so tightly woven to the history of the person and his/her people that it has been a kind of grouping. Though there are some that will deny races exist at all, scientists have generally agreed on there being only three races. Humans in general assume or at least say there are many more, confusing both races and ethnicity with each other and other groups. By the common human’s understanding of the word race, it is so misunderstood that it has no biological reference whatsoever. But on scientific terms, race would require an evolutionary viewpoint to accept it as been true.
The sixth item and factor is gender. Gender plays an important part in sociology like any of the humane sciences. There is a definite difference between man and woman. This is the case both physically and mentally (though in some instances the two are interrelated by definition in psychology). Sex is the more scientific look upon the situation, while gender is the social. While both imply the two different forms of sexual creatures, male and female, the word sex tends to just refer to this while gender also implies the identity created by this distinction in both society and cultures.
There are numerous other factors to sociology, but these are six of the most important and first focused on when researching across the world. In truth, the structure of society, of mankind and all things it has created, is a complex and delicate one. Each piece is carefully placed, woven, tied and held there by another. So tight they are that if one falls it is hard to tell how many will follow suit. Just as much as we can not say what event will move us in the next direction, we can not know what event will slow us down, stop us, or even be our downfall. Sociology can only understand the here and now.
