Analysis of sociology:
1. The major concern of sociology is sociological analysis. It means the sociologist seeks to
provide an analysis of human society and culture with sociological perspective (side).
They invests their interest in the evolution of society and tries to reconstruct the major changes
in the evolutionary process.
2. Sociology has given sufficient attention to the study of primary units of social life.
It concerned with social acts and relationships, individual personality, groups of all varieties,
communities (urban, rural and tribal), associations, organizations, populations.
3. Sociology has been concerned with the development, structure, and function of a wide variety
of basic social institutions such as:
family and kinship, religion and property, economic, political, legal, educational and scientific,
recreational and welfare, aesthetic and expressive institutions.
4. The fundamental social process that play role is not ignored by sociologists. The social process
such as co-operation and competition, accommodation and assimilation.
Social conflict including opinion formation, expression and change, social differentiation and
stratification, socialization and indoctrination (training or education) social control and defiance
including crime, suicide, social integration and social change.
5. Sociology has placed high premium on the method of research also. Contemporary sociology
has tended to become more and more rational and empirical rather than philosophical and
idealistic. A sociologist senses a problem for investigation. It is then tried to formulate into
researchable proposition (proposal) and after collecting the data it is been tried to establish
connections between them.
The researcher finally arrives at meaningful concepts, propositions and generalizations.
6. Sociologists are concerned with the task of formulating concepts, propositions and theories.
Concepts are abstracted from concrete experience to present a class of phenomena, for example
the terms such as social stratification, differentiation, conformity, deviance. Represent concepts.
Societal communities
Parsons’ general concern was to understand the fundamental mechanisms maintaining the stability
of societal communities as self-regulating entities. Parsons argued that the similarity between
biological and social “classes of living systems lies in the applicability to both of the fundamental
concepts of adaptation and integration.” In this work, Parsons followed Durkheim, who he praised
as “probably the most seminal theorist in the field of studying the integration of social systems....”
We can see the influence of 19th century evolutionary theory in Durkheim’s famous duality of the
“normal and the pathological” carried over into Parsons’ analogy of social and biological systems.
It is at this same moment in the history of the discipline that we encounter the figure of the
sociologist as the physician of society interwoven with discourses of degeneration and
recapitulation. If we see society is an organism, then we must also conclude that the division of
labor is a process of adaptation and specialization and integration of systems. These systems
provide the functional needs of the social organism and maintain social equilibrium, i.e.,
normalcy.
Parsons sought to bring together an understanding of both the reproduction of social life and the
process of social evolution. The social order is “the patterned normative order through which the
life of a population is collectively organized [as a] ‘societal community’” built upon the everyday
experience of its legitimacy to govern that population.
its grounding is always in some sense religious” . While the norms of religion, race, and law can
establish social equilibrium, the norms of religion and race are at the same time frequent
sources of conflict or “disequilibrium.
The social roles:
There are many ways that people can influence our behavior, but perhaps one of the most
important is that the presence of others seems to set up expectations
We do not expect people to behave randomly but to behave in certain ways in particular
situations. Each social situation entails its own particular set of expectations about the “proper”
way to behave. Such expectations can vary from group to group.
One way in which these expectations become apparent is when we look at the roles that people
play in society.
Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group. With each social role you
adopt, your behavior changes to fit the expectations both you and others have of that role.
In the words of William Shakespeare:
All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.
These lines capture the essence of social roles. Think of how many roles you play in a single
day, e.g. son, daughter, sister, brother, students, worker, friend etc. Each social role carries
expected behaviors called norms.
Social Norms:
Social Norms are unwritten rules about how to behave. They provide us with an expected idea
of how to behave in a particular social group or culture. For example we expect students to
arrive to lesson on time and complete their work.
The idea of norms provides a key to understanding social influence in general and conformity in
particular. Social norms are the accepted standards of behavior of social groups. These groups
range from friendship and work groups to nation states. behavior which fulfills these norms is
called conformity, and most of the time roles and norms are powerful ways of understanding
and predicting what people will do.
There are norms defining appropriate behavior for every social group. For example, students,
neighbors and patients in a hospital are all aware of the norms governing behavior. And as the
individual moves from one group to another, their behavior changes accordingly.
Norms provide order in society. It is difficult to see how human society could operate without
social norms. Human beings need norms to guide and direct their behavior, to provide order and
predictability in social relationships and to make sense of and understanding of each other’s
actions. These are some of the reasons why most people, most of the time, conform to social
norms.
the totality of norms defining the behavior of persons in a social system as a function of their
status or position; also, the behavior that represents the realization of these norms.
In role-oriented descriptions, a society or a social group is represented as a set of specific social
positions (for example, worker, scholar, schoolboy, husband, and soldier). A person is obliged
to obey the “social demand” or expectations of other persons associated with his social position.
In meeting this social demand, a person chooses one of several possible variants for executing a
social role. (For example, a student may be lazy or diligent.)
people are selected for various social roles. Of course, in reality role expectations are always
ambiguous. Moreover, a person may experience role conflict if his various social roles are
incompatible.
The emergence of the concept of social role reflected a progressive tendency to shift from
individualistic interpretations of the personality to the understanding of the person as a social
phenomenon.
Gender Roles
The extent to which gender differences are socially constructed or inherent is disputed.
However, it is clear that certain roles, such as house-maker or breadwinner, are largely a matter
of expectations that are attached to the idea of gender. Social role theory asserts that not only
these roles, but a host of other dispositions and desires, are the result of socialization and do not
have anything to do with a particular sex.
Authoritative Roles
Social role theory also points out that the distribution of power and authority within society is a
matter of tradition. For existence, mothers and fathers in some cultures share authority over
children equally, while in others the mother's role is largely subordinated to the father's. In some
cultures, one's age determines authority while in others, younger people will take over positions
of authority after others reach a certain age.
Situation-specific Roles
Some roles are specific to situations and can only be assumed within a certain context. For
instance, the role of bride or groom can only exist within the context of a wedding. Likewise,
when a lawyer enters a courtroom he plays the role of a lawyer. When the lawyer goes home to
his family, he plays the role of parent.
Role Switching
Throughout one's life, one can play a variety of roles, determined by the expectations and social
contexts in which one finds oneself. At work, a person can play the role of boss or subordinate
based upon which coworker the person is interacting with, just as a person can play the role of
playing with friends and then go home to play wife for a husband.