Talk:Sociology

Older discussion

I'd like to see some reference to sociology and the internet. Wiki's are a sociological phenomenon, and the co-ordination of anti-Iraq demonstrations accross the planet was internet dependent. The concept of communities online has been discussed elsewhere but these two aspects are newer. Rowena

The sociology page seems to me rather messy -- most of it are links to special sociologies, sociologists or sociological schools and methods. Maybe w should clean it up and rewrite it majorly. In the present state it looks like sociology isn't a science, but rather a colourful conglomerate consisting of very different parts. I don't think that's right. --till we *)

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There might be good interdepartmental politics reasons within universities for promoting sociology as a science, but speaking as a sociologist myself, I'm of the view that 'colourful conglomerate consisting of very different parts' is a more apt description of sociology than is the term 'science'. To that extent the page reflects what it is. But in any case the page certainly looks much more informative than it did in November last year (when the above comment was made). I'm a relative latecomer to this page in any case, and I appreciate the way its developing (June 2003). (Olly).

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I removed the recently added noosphere.cc link, because this seems to be one very special project ("integrative knowledge"), which could be classified as one sociological method if you take the category in a wide sense. I think it's better to use external links that link to sociology portals and source websites than to websites for special theories and methods. Otherwise, I think I could add a dozen or so websites linking to my pet theories.

BTW: Top-adding or bottom-adding? --till we *) 19:29 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

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Removing these two paragraphs because (1) If I don't understand what they mean, there's no chance in hell an average layman will; and (2) they look a lot more personal than neutral reportage of the field. Mr. Clihor, please note that it is Wikipedia's policy not to include "original research", or to support unconventional theories except to report on their existence. We are an encyclopedia. The purpose of an article here is to give a layman a basic understanding of present knowledge in the field. If you want to write commentary, speculation, and original research, you should clearly mark it as such and keep it on second pages (for example "H. W. Clihor on Time") --LDC

However, in deference to Mr. Comte, Social Psychology, yet another discipline has embarked upon the study of how society's structure influences individuals and groups. Perhaps one of its founders, W.I. Thomas' definition of situational dynamics best describes how these varied disciplines might be related: He wrote: "If you define a situation as real, it is real to you in its consequences...however, your definition of a situation may be influenced by how others define the same situation."

This simple paradigm calls into question the four disciplines of Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, Social Psychology and Traditional psychology and how they relate to each other and to their various definitions of society. Perhaps they should be grouped into a single discipline called Cultural Sociology. (Which would include all four disciplines and certain studies within Economics, History, Political Science, Statistics and Chaos Theory.)

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The topic Situational Dynamics sounds interesting. Tell us more. --Ed Poor

From the rest of the text submitted by Mr. Clihor over the day, he seems to be what we old hands on the net call a "mild psychoceramic"--i.e., a crackpot. I seriously doubt that anyone could learn anything useful from him. Let's not encourage him. --LDC

I'm not sure to whom I am speaking. But as an "old hand" on the internet as well, crackpot seems derisive, deleterious and more than overtly limited in its most demonstrative attempt at true crtiticism. I guess name-calling is the last bastion of the uninformed. LDC overlooks the fact that multi-disciplinary studies of social dynamics and situational dynamics have been conducted for over a half century. Perhaps if LDC took at look at the collected topics of Social Psychology, Aggression Theory, Studies in Emotional Arousal, Cognitive Dissonance, Propoganda and for that matter a host of articles too numerous to mention the light of illumination might burn away an indifferent veneer. Please, if deletions are to occur at least have them available for peer review...by at least someone somewhere capable of making an intelligent decision. Further, the ceramic nature of pscychology is an interesting concept. (LOL). I hope we can continue this discourse with LDC and maybe come to some agreement upon which material is fodder for further dicussion, inclusion and who indeed may not be psychoceramic, but an "unschooled, or biolgically silent burro" of which other minds might glean a fitting demonstrative conclusion to LDC's interesting "criticisms".

Sociology problem oriented?

Removed this: Sociology is a problem-oriented discipline. It examines actuall (sic) social problems such as racism, sexism, mostly in developed countires such as the United States for two reasons: (a) most of it is already covered above, and (b) the remainder is nonsense. Sociology is no more "problem oriented" than a host of other disciplines - psychology is an obviolus example, and less so than several (consider criminology).

Of course, many sociologists are "problem oriented" - but saying this is one thing, saying that it is "a problem oriented discipline" is quite another. The two senses in which sociolgy might best be regarded as "problem oriented" are (a) insofar as it is a subject area often taught to aspiring social workers - but note that they themselves are not "sociologists", they are social workers with some sociological training alongside the training they had in several other areas - and (b) in the rather narrow historical sense that 19th & early 20th century functionalist sociology grew up in response to the twin problems of "how do we explain these massive social changes", and "how do we respond to the explanation offered by the conflict theorists (in particular, Marx)?"

(Please excuse my very belated entry here. I did the edit and said "see talk", then got called away by work (the work I get paid for, I mean) for quite a few hours.) Tannin 08:03 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Needs work

SLR commented just now: rewrote the first paragraph; the rest sure needs work! Alas, he is absolutely right. For an entry with such a long edit history, this one is vapid, disjointed, and damn near useless. Some items to consider, in no particular order:

1: SLR, thankyou for providing that new introduction, no doubt at short notice and more-or-less off the top of your head. It's a vast improvement, but I'm afraid I'm going to take issue with it just the same. To me, it reads as a good short introduction to Durkheim and his followers. I don't think it applies nearly as well to Compte or Marx, and possibly not to Weber either. (But I am weak on Weber and wouldn't push that last thought strongly.) This comment notwithstanding, for the time being I think it's more important to concentrate on other areas, and come back to the intro when the rest of the entry hasd some shape and rigour.

You are welcome, and you are absolutely right about the limitations of what I wrote -- although I hope that it can still provide a working basis. I am not a sociologist, although I have a pretty good grasp of its history and current practice. I think the main limitation of what I wrote is that it reflects U.S. sociology. The article certainly needs at least a paragraph on "critical sociology" and "humanistic sociology" (I am thinking of Gouldner and C. Wright Mills and maybe Reisman) in the U.S. and "Cultural Studies" in Great Britain (I am thinking of Hall -- it seems to me that in the UK cultural studies = sociology + marx which is quite different from what the term means in the U.S.). But anyone outside the US should know that US sociology, regardless of its history, remains dominated by those two gifts of Durkheim, functionalism and quantitative methods.

Ideally, the article should indeed provide a solid history, including non-sociologist forbears like Compte and Marx; classic sociologists like Simmel, Durkheim, and Weber, as well as Schutz and Mead and their heirs (the fact is, Wikipedia just needs top-notch articles on these people; I myself have put a fair amount of work into the Marx article and am pretty satisfied, but I cannot speak to the others). The risk of such a history is that it can idealize what sociologists would like to think of themselves, or what they think sociology ought to be. Such an account, though valuable, ought to be balanced by a fair assessment of institutionalized sociology: what kind of sociological research must one do to get a job at a top institution? What kind of research gets big grants? Personally, I love Simmel, but how many graduate students (especially outside of the elite schools) read him? I love Giddens (at least, the early Giddens) and Garfinkel -- but how many graduate students these days are working within their respective projects? Who dominates the professional organizations? (Aren't these precisely the questions a sociologist would ask, if conducting a sociological study?) I am not the perfect person to do this, but this is nevertheless a good part of what I think the article should become and I hope others like Tannin can start filling in the gaps and reorganizing it.

I have some other scattered remarks but in the absence of anything else, I agree with everything Tannin writes here, Slrubenstein

I don't know about US sociology, but I do know, that Marx, Simmel, Giddens and Garfinkel *are* read and used in sociology in continental Europe. Quantitative views and Durkheimianism isn't the whole of the world ... till we *)

2: The list of branches is chaotic and needs structuring into coherence. Most of the entries on it are just empty links. I am inclined to put it here for now and replace it with a shorter list. (Better a little bit of information hat makes sense than a lot on info that makes nonsense.)

Branches

• environmental sociology
• economic sociology
• functionalism
  • Note: disambiguated version is functionalism (sociology) --Jerzy 06:05, 2004 Feb 10 (UTC)
• human ecology
• industrial sociology
• interactionalism
• social conflict theory
• micro-sociology
• political sociology
• rural sociology
• social development
• social engineering
• social theory - explain social behavior in a few principles.
• sociology of knowledge
• sociology of religion
• symbolic-interactionism
• systems theory

3: I'm not sure what to make of the link to Human ecology. Does it belong here? Is the Human Ecology stub itself of any value? The Systems theory link is also questionable. The entry there is purely anthropological in content, and I've not stumbled across systems theory as a branch of sociology. Does it belong in the top-level sociology article? If so, where does it fit in?

I probably should have deleted this link, but not being a sociologist I wanted to give whoever wrote it the benefit of the doubt -- but I agree with you, Slrubenstein

Systems theory is a major branch of sociology, at least in Germany (Niklas Luhmann), so it should stay here. (And the borderline between anthropology and sociology isn't that exact, either, but that is another issue). till we *)

4: There is a crying need for entries on the major theoretical perspectives. They should be described briefly in the top-level article and the links should lead to solid, comprehensive entries, not what we have now, which is a confused stub with a mixture of information and misinformation; nothing at all; and a one-sentence stub. I think I have a half-finished replacement on my home machine for functionalism, if so, I'll try to knock it into enough shape to plug in later this weekend.

Enough of my ranting for now. I've done a fair bit of cutting the ugly fat off the bones of this entry, I better go home to where my references are and start putting some healthy flesh on them instead (before someone reverts me for simply being destructive). Tannin 09:07 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Re Human ecology

Re Human ecology -- that is, as far as I know, a scientific field or discipline that emerged in the wake of the formation of ecology / environmental sciences. It looks onto human beings as part of eco-systems (including built environment, industrial society) and trys to apply the principles of the science of ecology on the living being "human". So it is -- AFAIK, and a bit like sociobiology -- in so far similiar or related to sociology, that it looks onto the human being and its behavior/actions, but with a background rooted in natural science. I'll try to enhance the h.e. entry. -- till we *) 15:30, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

Some additions and changes

I added some sentences (e.g. qualitative branch), and I deleted the following, because it seems to me (and I am a studied sociologist ;-)) a rather minor and special issue, maybe valid for Durkheim, but not valid for sociology in general.

One noticeable point in sociology is it distinguishes troubles and issues. In sociology, troubles occur in individual context. For example, the couple may divorce because of personal reasons such as having affiar. On the other hand, issues occur in social context. For example, the expansion of working hours may increase the divorce rate. Sociologists believe the increase of divorce rate is not explained by the personal matterns but by social context.

If someone wants to put it back, I would rather like to hear an explanation, why this distinction is relevant for sociology at large. BTW: I don't think it's wrong -- but I do think it's not important at that place in that article. till we *) 01:17 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)

I agree, Tillwe. Tannin

Tillwe, concerning systems theory -- I stand corrected; thansk for explaining it to me. As for the above passage, I myself have never heard of "troubles" and "issues" used this way. But I do think that the passage is trying to make an important point concerning what Mills called "the Sociological imagination" -- that the problems sociologists study are not individual or personal problems (although individuals may be aware of them, and may experience them personally) but rather social facts (yeah, quoting Durkheim, sorry) that can only be understood in terms of social processes and structures. I think this is a major issue that this article should develop. In part his is one way to distinguish sociology from psychology. But I think there is more at stake: have either of you seen Bowling for Columbine? At one point Michael Moore suggests to the manager (or publicist) of a Lockheed Martin plant that one reason American teenagers may be so violent is because they see their parents come home at the end of the day from having spent all their labors making weapons. The manager says, "I don't see the connection." Now, maybe Moore is wrong and this relationship is not a good "explanation" for American violence, but it still seems to me that this is a good example of the sociological imagination that is of a ratehr different sort than saying children are just naturally agressive, or this particular child had an unhappy home life, or that child was picked on in school. This sociological shift in perspective is in my opinion one of its great contributions to society in general, so I'd like to see it developed. I am not a sociologist as such so I hesitate making further changes to the article -- but if either of you can relate to what I am saying, perhaps you can incorporate it into the article in layman's terms, and also provide something of an intellectual geneaology to link it to specific sociologists -- I do not think this is a specifically Durkheimian view (you can find examples of it in Compte and Marx, at least) and it should be presented first in an ecumenical way, then more specifically...Slrubenstein

Yes, you are making good sense, SLR. In a way, that is what sociology is. I haven't forgotten my intention to expand this entry, just got distracted by various other matters over the weekend. (Something to do with having the attention span of a five-year-old in a lolly shop, no doubt.) Tannin

Social Theory

Added section on social theory. It is probably controversial and, at least, needs grammatical and style editing. Also, it's location on that page is certainly not optimal, but couldn't think of better way to handle. User:Lunchboxhero

Intro parapharsing Giddens

Added short intro paraphrasing Anthony Giddens Sociology (I only have the German translation, so if anyone has the English original, maybe s/he can improve the intro; what I was paraphrasing is the end of the first paragraph in chapter 1, Sociology: Problems and Perspective). -- till we *) 15:24, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

"Social" makes more sense in English in place of "societal', which sounds redundant in the same phrase with "societies". Does it catch the German sense equally well? I've made that change, on the assumption it does. --Jerzy(t) 01:39, 2004 Mar 22 (UTC)

This is of value only if it is typical, so there's no point in sourcing it except on this talk page:

Anthony Giddens -- in his textbook Sociology -- defines sociology as the study of the societal lives of humans, groups and societies. --Jerzy(t) 01:39, 2004 Mar 22 (UTC)

Uh, that's not that easy. I would say it is a fairly typical definiton (but then we can omit the "typical textbook" also), but on the other hand, every sociologist has it's own definition, so I would be happier with attribution (and maybe one or two other definitions from other textbooks, a la "Giddens says, sociology is ..., whereas ... defines sociology as the ..."). -- till we *) 13:27, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sounds to me like it could be interesting; plz show us more, either here or on the article. --Jerzy(t) 17:14, 2004 Mar 22 (UTC)

Seems to me a multi-person-project ;-) ... at the moment, I have the problem that I don't have that much time on my hands, and that I don't have that much textbooks on my hands (but in the university library, but see: time), and that most of the textbooks I could get access to are in German. So, English language sociologists etc., please look up in your textbooks how sociology is defined there, write it down here, and let us sort out the commons and the differences ... -- till we *) 01:02, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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