Subject Matter Of Sociology Research Articles

Role and Challenges of Objectivity in the Sociological Research: An Overview

Sociology starts with positive philosophy, founding fathers of sociology like Auguste Comte, Durkheim and Spencer strenuously advocated that methods applied to the natural sciences such as physics should be applied to the study of social behavior (Benton and Craib, 2001). As far as ‘objectivity’ is concerned, positivist methodological approaches claim that ‘objectivity’ is an ideal that is attainable, as the social reality of society can be observed it without any antecedents. Objectivity is a goal of scientific investigation. Science involves use of systematic methods of empirical investigation, the analysis of data, theoretical thinking and logical assessment of argument to develop a body of knowledge about a particular subject matter (Giddens and Sutton, 2013). So sociology is a scientific study of human behavior because both quantitative and qualitative research involved systematic method of investigation and s on. However, the concept of objectivity has increasingly been held within the field as problematic and it is still questionable because the subject matter of sociology which is not exactly as subject matter of natural science and since researchers are also part of the society, it is difficult to do research as value-free that is why Max Weber takes middle position and explain the importance of objectivity in social science with value relevance and also develop some methodological or conceptual tool to understand society. Yet still objectivity in sociological research takes a very suspicious or debatable place. In this paper I am dealing with the explanation of the roles and challenges of objectivity in sociological research and my research questions are - 1. What are the role and status of objectivity in the sociological research, 2. What are the most challenges faced while establishing objectivity. 3. What is an alternative of objectivity in sociological research, 4. Identify and distinguish theories for supporting or rejecting objectivity in sociology. This paper is based on secondary sources and descriptive in nature.

The methodology and subject matter in sociology of the founding fathers of Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte: A comparative study

AbstractThis study provides a discussion about the contributions and efforts made by Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte to develop sociology in terms of subject matter and methodology. Since they are the founding fathers of this science, this paper shows their interpretation of the social phenomena. The study is also exposed to the reasons that led Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte to study sociology. Accordingly, the research peculiarity required using historical, comparative, and critical approaches.The central problem of this study is how Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte deal with the development of sociology and its independence from other sciences. The study results showed the accordance of both Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte in terms of the methodology of sociology as being a positive approach consisting of observation and induction. Ibn Khaldoun's distinction, due to his five-century precedence, is vivid though. The results of the study also showed that Ibn Khaldoun and Auguste Comte differed greatly in terms of the divisions of sociology (subject matter of sociology): where Ibn Khaldoun divided the subject of sociology into multiple sections, each section includes a set of homogeneous social phenomena in peculiarity. Ibn Khaldoun studied the phenomenon by mingling the static aspect and dynamic one together, analyzing its parts, elements, and functions and at the same time studying its development and the laws to which it is subject to development. However, Auguste Comte has divided the social phenomenon into two main parts: Social dynamics and social statics.

CULTURE RECOGNITION THROUGH SOCIOLOGY LEARNING FOR TIMOR LESTE STUDENTS

This paper aims to describe the introduction of culture through sociology learning for Timor Leste students. In essence, every society has a different culture with other communities. The culture serves to regulate and meet the needs of the people living their owners. The people of Timor Leste have different cultures from other communities. This difference is due to differences in the environment and subsystems of communities in Timor-Leste. Every member of the community needs to understand and live the culture in order to overcome the problems faced in life. In the world of education, cultural understanding can be obtained through learning Sociology. Therefore, sociology subject matter that is filled with community culture can provide significant benefits to the students.

Potreba održivosti društvenih i humanističkih nauka u svjetlu društvenih promjena - osvrt na sociologiju

The paper analyses in which way the Bologna education reform has influenced the reduction of the role and significance of humanistic and social sciences, contributing to the dehumanization of society in general, which in time has led to the need for their rehabilitation. Particular attention is focused on pointing out the objective social circumstances that have affected the bad effects of the application of the Bologna reforms, which were particularly reflected in the weakening of the value component of education. Contribution to the understanding of this problem, give different theoretical approaches to education as well as the critical examination of the subject issue of social sciences in accordance with the contemporary needs of society. The problem within the subject matter of sociology, in the paper, is analysed with the aim of considering possible concepts of rehabilitation of sociological discourse and its active inclusion in concrete social events and processes, thus enabling it to rationalize and objectify its existence.

On Sociological Writing*

It is widely thought, both inside and outside our profession, that sociologists do not express themselves very well. The critic Malcolm Cowley complained years ago that the wisdoms of sociology, such as they are, tend to be conveyed "in a language that has to be learned almost like Esperanto." And Edmund Wilson, who once toyed with the idea that the writing of every specialist in the university should be reviewed by professors of English, doubted that sociologists would ever be able to survive such a test. Exposing the defects of sociological writing is a literary sport of long standing.

Embodying Sociological Mindfulness: Learning about Social Inequality through the Body

THIS PAPER REPORTS on a teaching and learning technique that uses the power of everyday body language and proxemics to illustrate forms of social inequality. More significantly, the active learning exercises assist students to feel the fact that the making and maintaining of power relations is an intimate and visceral matter. In keeping with classroom approaches that attempt to bring sociology to life in unconventional ways (Bailey 1993; Mayer 1986; Schmid 1993) and to acknowledge an increasingly diverse student population (Hartung 1991), the exercises provide opportunities for students to actively engage their bodies in the subject matter of sociology. A number of approaches have been developed to facilitate the teaching of social inequality (for a summary see Davis 1992). Simulation games and role-play exercises create firsthand experiences of inequality to illustrate the structural barriers that maintain social stratification (Bell and Bradburn 1996; Brezina 1996). These approaches

Social Engineering: Is This Really As Bad As It Sounds?

Sociological practice and clinical sociology need to be supplemented by an engineering wing in the discipline. Engineering is, ultimately, the application of general theoretical principles to concrete problems, and there is no reason why sociology cannot also be an engineering discipline. There is nothing inherent in the subject matter of sociology that prevents this engineering orientation from emerging. Rather, the prospects for an engineering approach in sociology depend upon the development of more precise theories, the testing of such theories, and the willingness of practitioners to use theoretical ideas when addressing the problems of clients.

Shifting Gender Boundaries

Using a queuing framework, the authors investigate explanations for women's inroads into academic sociology since 1970. Women's entry has occurred most dramatically among sociology doctorates, with women now representing about half of all those awarded PhDs. Access to faculty positions has been more modest: Approximately one in four faculty members are currently women. From a systematic review of research on women's achievements in sociology, publications produced by sociology's professional association, and other statistical sources, the authors focus on three major explanations for women's increased access to academic sociology. First, men eschewed graduate training in sociology as research and development funding dropped, real earnings declined, and the academic labor market contracted. Second, in the 1970s academic employers increasingly turned to women, in part because of the salience of anti-discrimination legislation and also because women sociologists generated pressure for change. Third, women themselves increasingly chose graduate training in sociology because sociology's subject matter lent itself to the inclusion of issues central to their lives. Although the numbers studying for advanced degrees in sociology (and the number of sociology PhDs) are once again increasing, it is too early to tell whether women will make further inroads, or whether their numbers will remain stable or decline.

Society and Space in Durkheim's Social Morphology

It is challenging for social geographers to scrutinize the role of space in social theory. The author examines the significance of space in the development of Durkheim's conception of social morphology.The origin of social morphology is found in Durkheim's earlier presentation of the system of sociology. Durkheim, influenced by organicist theory prevailing in the 19th century, elaborated the system of sociology by analogy with that of biology and recognized the presence of‘morphology’inquiring into the way in which society is composed, i.e. into‘structure.’In The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), social morphology was regarded as a branch concerned with the classification of‘social types’in terms of differences in structure. However, at that time, it was to‘function’of society, such as morality or the law, that Durkheim attached much importance as subject matter. In fact social morphology, in the Rules, was assigned to provide for sociological explanations the‘laboratories’(social types) furnished with the value of alleged independent variables, i.e.‘dynamic density’and‘social volume.’On the other hand, Durkheim made his own distinction between the‘base’and‘superstructure’ of society. In his view, the‘base’means social groups from which the‘superstructure’ i.e.‘function’originates, which are called the‘substratum.’In the Rules Durkheim regarded as the subject matter of sociology‘social facts, ’which were classified into two major categories: substratum (morphological facts) and social life (physiological facts). In this classification system the elements of space (dwellings and the network of communications) were incorporated into the concept of substratum for the first time. Durkheim thought that the substratum was social life consolidated while it was a visible vehicle through which invisible social life might be approached.The above significance of the substratum became a precondition for the renewal of social morphology as an explanatory analysis of the substratum. This renewal was completed probably in response to Friedrich Ratzel's conception of geography. In this stage Durkheim incorporated into the substratum various kinds of space connected with society, especially Ratzelian concepts of‘Raum’and‘Grenzen.’Thus it is considered that space is a visible‘social form, ’a visible manifestation of society. The task of social morphology was to explain from the category of‘collective representations’the shaping of the substratum as an amalgam of social groups and space.Durkheim, however, went in the direction of distinguishing analytically between social groups and space. He utilized Georg Simmel's‘form-content’-dichotomy for this distinction. Further, the category of social group was given the term‘population’while that of space was called‘social space.’In the end social morphology was conceived to include a double task of explaining the formation of population distribution and of social space.

Critical Issues in Social Theory.

Critical Issues in Social Theory is an analytical survey of persistent controversies that have shaped the field of sociology. It defines, clarifies, and proposes solutions to these critical through commentary on the writings of such influential social theorists as Hobbes, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Mead, Merton, Parsons, and Schutz. Instead of being just another history, or another classification of theories, Rhoads's four-part model allows him to focus attention on issues that remain at the core of sociological theory today. First, Rhoads analyzes the controversy over positivism as the proper methodological model for the study of human society. Is there one science, of which sociology is a branch, or do the peculiarities of sociology's subject matter require a modification of the scientific method borrowed from the natural sciences? Rhoads next considers the relationship of individuals to society and its structures. Does society have a mode of existence distinct from its members, or is it merely an abstraction derived from the characteristics of individuals? Third, a discussion of social order raises the question of whether social order is the consequence of rules and their underlying moral values, or the product of continuous construction based on self-interest. Finally, the relative importance of consensus and conflict in social relationships is addressed. Is society better understood as a community united by beliefs, values, and rules, or is the social dynamic of continual conflict over beliefs, values, and rules more fundamental? In coming to grips with these issues, the author in some instances takes sides and in others arrives at a synthesis of diverse perspectives. In the final chapter he points to the limitations on the possibility of rational action that come to light in the clashes over these basic issues.

Interaction situations and societal spheres of activity

Since the sixties the division of sociology's subject matter into two different contexts—the context of interpersonal and the context of societal (or institutional) phenomena—has become more and more evident. This division often takes the form of an opposition between theories which stress the fact that we are continuously constituting our life world in our interactions with each other, and theories which emphasise the pregiven and determining nature of social structure. This article is an attempt to overcome this division in social theory by examining the relation that exists between interaction situations and societal spheres of activity. This relation, it is argued, is best conceived of as an indexical relation, which means that the immediate context of interaction (the situation) always points to the more encompassing societal context in which it is embedded (the sphere of activity). But since a societal sphere of activity only exists paradigmatically as a set of congruent interaction situations, the more encompassing context that a specific interaction situation refers to, comprises the set of situations which are thematically bound to it, yet temporarilly and spatially lying outside of it. This suggests that an important difference between interpersonal and societal phenomena is based on a spatial-temporal distinction.

From the Sacred Collectivity to the Sacred Individual: The Misunderstood Durkheimian Legacy

Abstract Durkheim is often depicted both as philosophically an anti-individualist and as a sociologist committed to value free science. His work, particularly Suicide, is seen by many as a polemic with Spencerian laissez-faire individualism as well as the epitome of sociology as a science. This view is but a simplistic evaluation of Durkheim. While he was opposed to egoistic and anomic individualism, he should, however, be considered an important promulgator of the doctrine of liberal-democratic individualism. His commitment to and view of moral individualism is commensurate with other important, contextual aspects of his thought. Of these, first and foremost is his view that all sciences, including sociology, should be practical and committed to the solving of social problems. Second, that sociology's subject matter should be the study of morality, particularly the principles of justice and freedom. These views reflect both the influence the eighteenth century Philosophes had on Durkheim as well as his c...

The Origins of Sociology as a Discipline

My general argument in this presentation will be that the origin of sociology as a discipline was a bad thing, in that it led us systematically away from the study of humans acting in society. Obviously this means that I think the subject matter of sociology is important and interesting. I will argue that the internal prestige system of sociology as a discipline, however, diverts us from studying the people involved in a social system, and leads us to study instead abstractions of people, people who are culturally shaped by our sociological mental operation into the sorts of things that fit better with our prestige system. So the basic argument is that the higher prestige of a piece of sociological work, the less people in it are sweaty, laughing, ugly or pretty, dull at parties, or have warts on their noses. Field work is the lowest status in methodology, because surprising humans keep popping out and bewildering us by doing things we do not understand; much better to have people answering closed ended questions so that they fall neatly into cross classifications to be analyzed by loglinear methods. Similarly, the highest prestige theory for many years, that of Talcott Parsons, started off with its people and their actions reduced to a cross-classification of five pattern variables (or perhaps different numbers at different times). No room for laughter or embarassing burps in the middle of a lecture here. If we range theories from the prolix fashion of Herbert Blumer who knows how people will define the situation and consequently what they will do to the lean and spare rational actors models that allow us to use maximization mathematical methods to specify at least one feature of the behavior exactly (e.g. what the net

Changing Patterns of Women's Employment in Sociology: 1950-80

This paper looks at changing patterns of women's employment in sociology over the last thirty years since the foundation of the British Sociological Association. Starting with an examination of early studies of the sexual division of labour in sociology, we go on to look at the adequacy or otherwise of explanations in these studies. Moving on to more recent surveys of the profession, it becomes clear that there has not been a substantial improvement in the employment prosl)ects for women in sociology, although the subjective situation of women sociologists has probably been improved through the support of the Women's Caucus and increased attention to sexism in the subject matter of sociology. Finally we suggest that improvement in women 's employment prospects in sociology would not only affect the construction of the labour market in sociology, but would be likely to go further, and would also affect the construction of knowledge. The last decade has witnessed a revival of the women's liberation movement which has fostered the efforts of feminist academics to expose the critical absence of women as both theorists and subjects (or objects) of codified knowledge. The cumulative evidence of the invisibility of women in knowledge which has been constructed primarily by men, from a male perspective and about men, makes salutary reading.2 In all the social sciences and some of the physical and natural sciences there has been documentation of the way in which women have been omitted and excluded from the production of knowledge.3 An attention to the exclusion of women from the codification of knowledge is not a new idea. As early as 19 7 2 in her paper 'My Four Revolutions', Jessie Bernard4 was asking not what sociology can do for wome n, but rather what women ( and sympathetic male colleagues) can do for sociology. It is of course significant that it is

Nineteen Pictures of a Discipline: A Review of Recent Introductory Sociology Textbooks

Here are nearly a score of books which may be taken collectively as an expression of general sociology. That, of course, was not the goal of the authors; they were not engaged in any common effort even though they shared the same general aim: to write an introduction to sociology. To look at 19 different introductory texts on the same subject is to expect that a general view of that subject will emerge and take on a form with definable features. Persons schooled in that subject may then respond to such a picture with a variety of comments and questions. Nineteen sets of decisions about what aspects of sociology need to be included when presenting it to the uninitiated, and 19 sets of priorities in the arrangements of such features, do yield a set of commonalities which result in a portrayal of general sociology. Those portions of sociology omitted or de-emphasized in such an image can become a source of reflection about what is and what is not happening to the discipline-as introduced to students. This review will not explore such questions very deeply, but some of them will be raised. After all, a major purpose for reviewing textbooks is to give readers sufficient information to make their own first level evaluations about texts for use in teaching. This essay, then, has a double objective: to provide about these texts (all published in 1978-79) sufficient information suitably organized to help the instructor who is hunting a text, and also to stimulate colleagues interested in reflecting on the current condition of the discipline. These authors expect their texts to be used in learning situations, and they provide a number of helpful visual and instructional aids. Table 1 compares the texts by the most common of such devices. Some of the aids which appear to be lacking for a given text may, in fact, be available in the instructor's manual; if the authors indicated in their text that such a manual was available from the publisher, that is shown in the table. Instructors differ in their preferences for such aids, of course, but that factor is probably secondary to matters of substantive content in text selection, so Table 1 stands here for your information but without further comment. In the interests of saving space in the comments below, after the first reference to a text by the authors' last names, I will use their initials in later references; those are the symbols used in Tables 1 and 2. In Table 2 we see the general shape of sociology's subject matter as presented in these texts, their collective image as well as their individual outlines. The reader should be informed immediately that some texts which do not have a chapter or significant unit on a given topic may in fact treat that topic more continuously throughout the book. A prime example of this is the treatment of sex roles by Almquist, Chafetz, Chance, and Corder-Bolz (ACCC). It should also be noted in this connection that two of the texts are abridgements of larger books: Broom and Selznick (BrS), Perry and Perry-Brief [PP(b)]. The data as arranged in Table 2 present a distribution of topics among these texts that, when considered as a set, suggest a general shape to the discipline. We find that sociological theory and research, socialization, stratification, and social structure are universally included with significant priority (see below for the apparent exception). Culture, collective behavior, social change, crime/deviance, and minorities are topics nearly universal in their inclusion. The traditional social institutions are less common but notably present. A fourth to three-fifths of these texts give little or no emphasis to the topics of urban sociology,

The Use of Electronic Computers in the Study of Social Organisation

I want, in this paper, to examine several specific ways that electronic computers are being used in the study of social organization. But some of this work constitutes a rather sharp departure from established modes of research and theory-construction in sociology, and therefore leads at the outset to a look at these established modes and at the nature of sociology's subject matter (1).

The Subject Matter of Sociology in College Education

SOCIOLOGY TODAY is a generally accepted course in undergraduate curricula, but nobody can say what the proper subject of sociology really is. Some teachers hold this is due to the fact sociology as a science is so young it has not yet succeeded in circumscribing its area, but in due time the true meaning of sociology will emerge out of the growing compilation of figures and facts. Others accept the situation without scepticism or challenge, taking one of the textbooks of sociology and following the guidance of its author, or discussing all problems of actual interest in the field of the social sciences which do not have any other adequate place. Some teachers in sociology are aware of the basic and unique difficulty of teaching it; others consider the textbook and various selected articles sufficient authorization for continued instruction which calls desperately for clarification in method as well as subject. Teachers outside the field of sociology cherish the hope sociology one day may die a natural death due to indigestion of unrelated facts, and college administrations stand aloof as long as students continue registering for the course. Some, perhaps, are amazed when, by chance, through a glance at different textbooks, they become aware of the fact there is a definite lack of unity of opinion concerning what students of sociology are supposed to learn. Is it possible, they ask, that one can pretend to teach a science if there are no generally accepted principles, nor any common basis binding to every scholar in the field?

Superiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter of Sociology. II

Previous articleNext article FreeSuperiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter of Sociology. IIGeorg SimmelGeorg Simmel Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 2, Number 3Nov., 1896 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/210625 Views: 268 Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Robert O. Slater Education Scale, Education and Urban Society 21, no.22 (Feb 1989): 207–217.https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124589021002008

Superiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter of Sociology

Next article FreeSuperiority and Subordination as Subject-Matter of SociologyGeorg SimmelGeorg Simmel Search for more articles by this author PDF Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 2, Number 2Sep., 1896 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/210600 Views: 267 Citations: 15Citations are reported from Crossref Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Anja Weiß Re-thinking society: How can sociological theories help us understand global and cross-border social contexts?, Current Sociology 69, no.33 (Jul 2020): 333–351.https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392120936314John N. Parker, Edgar Cardenas, Alexander N. Dorr, Edward J. Hackett Using Sociometers to Advance Small Group Research, Sociological Methods & Research 49, no.44 (May 2018): 1064–1102.https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124118769091Luca Caricati, Gianluigi Moscato, Chiara Bonetti, Mitchell Rabinowitz Intergroup alliance orientation among intermediate-status group members: The role of stability of social stratification, PLOS ONE 15, no.77 (Jul 2020): e0235931.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235931Reid Leamaster, Andres Bautista Understanding Compliance in Patriarchal Religions: Mormon Women and the Latter Day Saints Church as a Case Study, Religions 9, no.55 (Apr 2018): 143.https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9050143Kateřina Vlčková, Jan Mareš, Stanislav Ježek Adaptation of Teacher Power Use Scale to Lower Secondary Students and Student Teachers, Pedagogická orientace 25, no.66 (Mar 2016): 798.https://doi.org/10.5817/PedOr2015-6-798Anthony Elliott, Bryan S. Turner Three versions of the social, Journal of Sociology 51, no.44 (Dec 2015): 812–826.https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783312474080Nicholas J Rowland A new direction in political sociology?TaylorGraham, The New Political Sociology: Power, Ideology and Identity in an Age of Complexity, Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2010; viii + 208 pp.: ISBN 0230573320, US$100.00/£62.70/€84.99 (hbk), 0230573339, US$32.00/£20.99/€26.99 (pbk)GrayHermanGómez-BarrisMacarena (eds), Toward a Sociology of the Trace, University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2010; xvi + 328 pp.: ISBN 0816655979, US$82.50/£61.50/€67.99 (hbk), 0816655987, US$27.50/£20.50/€22.99 (pbk)LahireBernard, The Plural Actor, Polity: Malden, MA, 2011; xx + 280 pp.: ISBN 0745646840US$69.95/£52.25/€72.99 (hbk), 0745646859, US$24.25/£18.04/€24.99 (pbk), International Sociology 29, no.22 (Mar 2014): 98–105.https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580914524110Anthony Elliott Book review: Simmel and ‘the social’, Journal of Classical Sociology 11, no.44 (Nov 2011): 511–514.https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X11415139William J. Buxton From the “missing fragment” to the “lost manuscript ”: Reflections on Parsons’s engagement with Simmel, The American Sociologist 29, no.22 (Jun 1998): 57–76.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-998-1029-4Gary Dean Jaworski Simmel in early American sociology: Translation as social action, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 8, no.33 (Mar 1995): 389–417.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02142892David Frisby Bibilographical Rote on Simmel's Works in Translation, Theory, Culture & Society 8, no.33 (Jun 2016): 235–241.https://doi.org/10.1177/026327691008003016David P. Frisby Georg Simmel’s Concept of Society, (Jan 1990): 39–55.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0459-0_4Jules J. Wanderer Simmel's Forms of Experiencing: The Adventure as Symbolic Work, Symbolic Interaction 10, no.11 (May 1987): 21–28.https://doi.org/10.1525/si.1987.10.1.21 References, (Jan 1982): 357–373.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-147150-7.50015-6 Ronald S. Burt Autonomy in a Social Topology, American Journal of Sociology 85, no.44 (Oct 2015): 892–925.https://doi.org/10.1086/227093