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 …
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 …
List of Sociology Journals in SCOPUS (December 2022) Read More »
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 …
Alexis de Tocqueville: An Aristocrat Sociologist Read More »
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 …
Georg Simmel and Conflict Theory: A new thread of conflict Theory Read More »
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
Neofunctionalism: New Addition in Functionalism or against it? Read More »
Impact of Globalization on Agriculture:
Unsustainable agricultural practices are increasing like the excessive use of fertilizers.
It is the big MNCs and private players who are actually getting benefitted from agriculture in the modern globalized world and not the actual tiller of the land or the farmer.
Meaning •What is socialisation? Socialisation is an important process for the functioning and continuation of society. Different societies have different ways and methods to train their new born members so that they are able to develop their own personalities. This training of and building the personality of the child is called socialisation. •Socialisation is a …
What is socialisation? Conceptualization and Agencies of socialisation Read More »
Major Themes in Discipline and Punish Power and Knowledge The theme of knowledge and power is central in the work of Foucault. “Discipline and Punish” focuses on the reorganization of the power to punish, and the emergence of various fields of knowledge (sciences) that reinforce and interact with such power. The ‘power to punish’ is based …
The modern nation-state, with a centralized structure and elaborate bureaucracy, is a relatively recent human innovation (Bottomore 1979) having been in existence for only about 6,000 years (Berberoglu 1990). Prior to the rise of the state, authority was determined by kinship relations or religious rituals with no specific group charged with decision-making responsibility (Bottomore 1979). …
Authority implies legitimacy or legitimate use of power. According to Weber, there are three systems of legitimation, each with its corresponding norms, which justify the power to command. It is these systems of legitimation which are designated as the followingtypes of authority. (i) Traditional authority This system of legitimation flows from traditional action. In other …
Social Action: Action is ‘social’ insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course.
Systems of Land Ownership The system of land ownership regulates the relationship of the people to the land, specifically the power of disposition over land and the right to use the land. As it is practically impossible, on the one hand, to increase the amount of land while, on the other hand, it is the …
Introduction to Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse was a German philosopher closely associated with the Frankfurt school (Radical intellectuals) Marcuse was more of a Marxist wing of the school. First published in 1964, the book was one of the most important works of that time and was recognized as a significant critical diagnosis of the present …
Herbert Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man (1964) and Advanced Industrial Society Read More »
Introduction Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was a prominent American Sociologist of twentieth century. He served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1921 to 1973. Parsons made a rapid academic progress. He was made chairman of the Harvard Sociology department in 1944; in 1946, he set up and chaired the innovative department of Social relations; in …
Talcott Parsons: The Social System, and General Action Theory (1952) Read More »
When one closely observes a society, s/he may witness various diverse groups in it. Despite these diverse there exists a basic element of unity among the individuals in the society. This phenomenon is called unity in diversity.
The Introduction (The Archaeology of Knowledge) In France, a country that awards its intellectuals the status other countries give to their rockstars, Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was part of a glittering generation of thinkers. One of the great intellectual heroes of twentieth century, Foucault was a man whose passion and reason were at the service of …
Discourse, Power and Knowledge – By Michel Foucault (2022) Read More »
Tribe is generally used for a “socially cohesive unit, associated with a territory, the members of which regard themselves as politically autonomous
In origin and development of Sociology, two factors played important role. 1) Intellectual Forces (contributions of thinkers; 2) Social Forces (Social conditions prevalent in society).
The social institution is a system of beliefs, norms, values, positions and activities that develop around a basic societal need or generally, institutions are patterns of norms that define behaviour in social relationships. Institutions are the pre-defined patterns of conduct established by habitualised human actions.
Community is a term we apply to a pioneer settlement, e.g., a village, a city, a tribe or a nation. Whenever the members of any group (small or large) live together in such a way that they share the basic conditions of common life, we call that group a community.
WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY: Sociology is concerned with human society and human social activities. Auguste Comte, a French thinker, is known as the ‘Father of Sociology’
Sociology Books For UPSC: To start with one should go for NCERT Books (class 11th and 12th), NIOS Material on Sociology and Selected IGNOU material for specific topics.
