The Whos and Whats of Sociology

1. The study and science of Sociology is a comparitively new pursuit, as opposed to the general sciences such as physics, archeology and chemistry, that is now being used to explain and help improve our way of life and behaviour. Many benefits are derived from the study of sociology; understanding the social dynamics within communities or certain groups give clarity on why problems and conflicts arise within them, and how those can be solved, as well as impinging upon our individual day to day existence.

The study of sociology enables us to understand the basis of human behaviour within different contexts, the interaction between different classes and social divisions, such as race, sex and age, and the factors that give rise to these different patterns of behaviour. Sociology is a study of human behaviour as constructed by the human race, as distinct from a study of those sciences which are dependent upon natural evolution. Although humans are basically similar, it helps us understand their behavioural attitudes towards any kind of situation, particularly where there are conflicts of interests such as those between the different classes, or communities of large cultural diversity. Sociologists believe that the way to adequately study and understand the behaviour and lives of individuals is to study the social contexts within which they live. It studies social patterns and trends and the phenomena that causes social change, how individuals adapt to that change and how that influences collective behaviour in groups: families, youth clubs and work places, as well as large-scale global problems such as poverty, helping to bringing forth solutions as a result. Sociology is not a precise science, and is dependent on outside influ...

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...al approach is focuses on the dynamics of individual people in small groups, taking on the microview. Phenomenologists discard the idea of a set social structure, concentrating on society's individual members and groups in an attempt to understand how they see and interpret the world in which they live by placing themselves in their environment as to try and view things from their perspective. It is virtually a polar opposite and a more complex approach than that of the positivists. They believe that ''social facts do not exist but are created and constructed in the process of social interaction.''

''These two approaches can be compared to a telescope. One end will show everything in enlarged form and in great detail (the microview), the other will display a world that is small and distant (the macroview). Both are 'true' pictures of the same thing.''