Introduction Sociology is a fascinating field that explores human society in a holistic way. It seeks to understand the social relationships, patterns, and structures that shape our lives, our communities, and the world around us. At its core, sociology is the scientific study of society, its institutions, and its functioning. One of the key insights […]
Karl Marx is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of sociology, and his concept of dialectic materialism is a central aspect of his political and economic philosophy. Dialectical materialism refers to the theory that human history is shaped by the interaction between the material conditions of society and the ideas, values, and
Understanding Social Structure Social structure refers to the enduring patterns of social relationships, institutions, and practices that exist within a society. It includes the organized and recurrent arrangements of power, status, and resources within a society. Social structure refers to the way that social institutions, such as the family, education, religion, and government, are organized
Contribution of Marx to Economic Sociology: Karl Marx (1818–83) was one of the pioneers in Economic Sociology. Marx had been trained in law (and in philosophy), but was self-taught in economics.
Karl Marx and Max Weber are two of the most influential social theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Both Marx and Weber were concerned with the nature of society, and both sought to understand the ways in which social institutions, values, and norms shape human behavior and experience. Despite their many similarities, however, Marx
The concept of a system is at the core of any discussion of Parsonian theory (Parsonian Social System). Parsons stated, “The concept of system in the action field as in others, has been central to my thinking from a very early stage.” His general theory of action, in which he gives his overall picture of
Durkheim and Functionalism Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is certainly the most important sociological forerunner of modern functionalism. Comte’s influence on Durkheim and, in turn, Durkheim’s impact on Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski were of crucial importance to its development. Parsons said that Durkheim was one of his most important intellectual role models. Similarly, Robert Merton states that Durkheim
What is Functionalism? According to “A Modern Dictionary of Sociology”, functionalism is defined as, The analysis of social and cultural phenomena in terms of the functions they perform in a sociocultural system. In functionalism, society is conceived of as a system of interrelated parts in which no part can be understood in isolation from the
Introduction Society is found even at the level of sub-humans, the primates such as monkeys and chimpanzees. Sociologists submit that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is the presence of culture among human communities; thus, human beings came to be characterized as ‘beings with culture’. For understanding human beings, therefore, we have to look
Perspectives in Sociology There is no clearly identifiable date when sociological theory began. However, the mid-to-late 1800s marks the period when social thought turned to what we today call sociology. There are currently three major theoretical paradigms in sociology: the structural-functionalist paradigm, the social conflict paradigm, and the symbolic-interactionist paradigm (Babbie 1994). No one of
Sociologists and other social theorists use the concept of social stratification to describe inequalities that exist between individuals and groups within human societies. Often, we think of stratification in terms of assets or property, but it can also occur because of other attributes, such as gender, age, religious affiliation or military rank. Individuals and groups
Among American sociologists, C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) is the best known (for Sociological Imagination) recent theorist whose work combines a conflict perspective with a strong critique of the social order. Mills was born and raised in Texas; he never left the state until he was in his twenties, when he won a research fellowship to
Critical Theory and Frankfurt School: Although all the theorists discussed in this section provide a critique of contemporary society, the term critical theory is also associated specifically with the theorists of the Frankfurt School. The work of the older Frankfurt theorists only became well-known among English-speaking sociologists in the 1960s. However, Jurgen Habermas, the most
Marx on class conflict has argued that at any one time, it is the class conflict or struggle that defines the essential character of a society. It is the product of, first, the irreconcilable differences in interest between classes and, second, the fact that a class’s common interests will encourage its members to group together
List of Sociology and Political Science Journals in SCOPUS Source Title Publisher Administrative Science Quarterly Cornell University Press Journal of Service Research SAGE Leadership Quarterly Elsevier Social Issues and Policy Review Wiley-Blackwell Government InformationQuarterly Elsevier New Media and Society SAGE American Sociological Review SAGE Cambridge Journal of Regions,Economy and Society Oxford University Press Journal of
Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818 (Beilharz, 2005e). His father, a lawyer, provided the family with a fairly typical middle-class existence. Both parents were from rabbinical families, but for business reasons the father had converted to Lutheranism when Karl was very young. In 1841 Marx received his doctorate in philosophy
Auguste Comte was born in Montpelier, France, on January 19, 1798. His parents were middle class, and his father eventually rose to the position of official local agent for the tax collector. Although a precocious student, Comte never received a college-level degree. He and his whole class were dismissed from the Ecole Polytechnique for their
Alexis de Tocqueville was born on July 29, 1805, in Paris. He came from a prominent though not wealthy aristocratic family. The family had suffered during the French Revolution. Tocqueville’s parents had been arrested but managed to avoid the guillotine. Tocqueville was well educated, became a lawyer and judge (although he was not very successful
Ibn-Khaldun was born in Tunis, North Africa, on May 27, 1332. Many modern scholars, particularly Islamic scholars consider him the first Sociologist.
The Sociological Perspective The basic insight of sociology is that human behavior is shaped by the groups to which people belong and by the social interaction that takes place within those groups. We are who we are and we behave the way we do because we happen to live in a particular society at a
Georg Simmel (1858-1918) Among the great early sociologists, Simmel was the most interested in identifying universal patterns in human behavior. Whereas Marx and Weber wanted to understand what made a particular society operate, Simmel concentrated on developing what is almost a mathematics of society: a collection of statements about human relationships and social behavior that
Elite Theory Although the major elements of conflict theory were set out by Marx and Weber, a number of other theorists developed comparable ideas that have also had a significant impact on modern analysts. The most important are the elite theorists (namely Pareto, Mosca, and Michels), Thorstein Veblen, and Joseph Schumpeter. The most prominent elite
Max Weber and Conflict Theory Max Weber was born into a prominent bourgeois German family. His father was an important member of the National Liberal Party, with a seat in the Reichstag (Parliament); his mother came from a wealthy but also intensely religious and cultured background. There was considerable tension in his parents’ marriage. As
Karl Marx and Conflict Theory Conflict theory in sociology is the creation of Karl Marx. Indeed, Marxism and conflict theory are sometimes discussed as though the two were synonymous. There can also be no better example than Marxism of the close connection between a theorist’s ideas and the events of the “real world”; for it
What is Neofunctionalism? Neofunctionalism is a recent theoretical development that emerged in the mid-1980s, both in the United States and in Germany. In 1984, the American Sociological Association devoted two sessions to a conference on neofunctionalism at its annual meeting, where most of the papers presented were reappraisals and reconsiderations of the empirical implications of
