I learned that sociology is the study of society. It is a branch of science, social science--a term which is sometimes synonymous--which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity. For many sociologists the goal is to conduct research which may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whilst others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes.
The main subjects within sociology is: cities, class, crime, culture, deviance, demography, education, economy, environment, family, gender, health, industry, internet, knowledge, law, medicine, politics, mobility, race and ethnicity, rationalization, religion, science, secularization, social networks, social psychology and stratification. Those are MANY broad topics within sociology (there are up to one hundred sub-fields of sociology), so I was even thinking... to be a "sociologist" you probably are not working on all of those subjects, you are probably narrowing into only a few of them (or to one sub-field)
I also learned of the history behind sociology.
Sociology emerged mainly after the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of knowledge.
Some of the major famous sociologists were...
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| Karl Marx (studied economics, capitalism, technology, class struggle and ideology) |
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| Max Weber (dealt with the rise of capitalism, bureaucracy, and the rationalization of society) |
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| Ferdinand Tonnies (interested in the forms and patterns of social ties and organizations) |
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| George Herbert Mead (addressed interpersonal relations and communication; believing that the "self" was constructed and reconstructed through interactive behavior) |
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| Emile Durkheim (produced comprehensive analyses of Suicide, the Division of Labor in Society, and the Elementary Forms of Religious Life) |
