What was sociology originally developed to address

Now, as well as being an academic subject in its own right, sociology forms part of many other programmes such as business studies, medical and nursing education, geography and environmental science, as well as sports science.

Sociology seeks to provide insights into, and evidence about, the many forms of relationship among people, both formal and informal. Such relationships are considered to be the 'fabric' of society. Smaller-scale relationships are connected to larger-scale patterns of connection among organisations and institutional sectors, and the totality of this is society itself. Human beings have wants, needs and desires but the forms that these take are related to attachments to social groupings and participation in social institutions.

The latter are patterns of human interaction which become established over time. People therefore recognise them and orientate their actions towards them. Alternatively, people may react against social institutions. Either way, it is the actions of people that serve both to reproduce society and to effect the changes that are a constant feature of the process. Social problems work themselves out when the government leaves society alone. They must fend for themselves without social assistance if society is to remain healthy and even progress to higher levels.

The class of capitalists that Marx called the bourgeoisie particularly enraged him. Members of the bourgeoisie own the means of production and exploit the class of laborers, called the proletariat , who do not own the means of production. Marx believed that the very natures of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat inescapably lock the two classes in conflict. Marx believed that communism was a more equitable system than capitalism.

Instead, he favored a form of government that allowed market forces to control capitalism. Georg Simmel was a German art critic who wrote widely on social and political issues as well.

Simmel took an anti-positivism stance and addressed topics such as social conflict, the function of money, individual identity in city life, and the European fear of outsiders Stapley Much of his work focused on the micro-level theories, and it analyzed the dynamics of two-person and three-person groups. His work also emphasized individual culture as the creative capacities of individuals.

Durkheim helped establish sociology as a formal academic discipline by establishing the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in and by publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method in In another important work, Division of Labour in Society , Durkheim laid out his theory on how societies transformed from a primitive state into a capitalist, industrial society.

According to Durkheim, people rise to their proper levels in society based on merit. In , Durkheim attempted to demonstrate the effectiveness of his rules of social research when he published a work titled Suicide. Durkheim examined suicide statistics in different police districts to research differences between Catholic and Protestant communities.

He attributed the differences to socioreligious forces rather than to individual or psychological causes. George Herbert Mead was a philosopher and sociologist whose work focused on the ways in which the mind and the self were developed as a result of social processes Cronk n.

He argued that how an individual comes to view himself or herself is based to a very large extent on interactions with others. Weber wrote on many topics related to sociology including political change in Russia and social forces that affect factory workers.

The theory that Weber sets forth in this book is still controversial. Some believe that Weber argued that the beliefs of many Protestants, especially Calvinists, led to the creation of capitalism.

Others interpret it as simply claiming that the ideologies of capitalism and Protestantism are complementary. Weber believed that it was difficult, if not impossible, to use standard scientific methods to accurately predict the behavior of groups as people hoped to do.

They argued that the influence of culture on human behavior had to be taken into account. This even applied to the researchers themselves, who, they believed, should be aware of how their own cultural biases could influence their research. To deal with this problem, Weber and Dilthey introduced the concept of verstehen , a German word that means to understand in a deep way.

This approach led to some research methods whose aim was not to generalize or predict traditional in science , but to systematically gain an in-depth understanding of social worlds. The different approaches to research based on positivism or antipositivism are often considered the foundation for the differences found today between quantitative sociology and qualitative sociology.

Quantitative sociology uses statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants. Researchers analyze data using statistical techniques to see if they can uncover patterns of human behavior. Qualitative sociology seeks to understand human behavior by learning about it through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and analysis of content sources like books, magazines, journals, and popular media.

In the State of the Union Address, President Obama called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage, and he signed an executive order putting this into effect for individuals working on new federal service contracts. Congress did not pass legislation to change the national minimum wage more broadly.

The result has become a national controversy, with various economists taking different sides on the issue, and public protests being staged by several groups of minimum-wage workers. Opponents of raising the minimum wage argue that some workers would get larger paychecks while others would lose their jobs, and companies would be less likely to hire new workers because of the increased cost of paying them Bernstein ; cited in CNN.

Proponents of raising the minimum wage contend that some job loss would be greatly offset by the positive effects on the economy of low-wage workers having more income Hassett ; cited in CNN.

Sociologists may consider the minimum wage issue from differing perspectives as well. How much of an impact would a minimum wage raise have for a single mother?

Some might study the economic effects, such as her ability to pay bills and keep food on the table. Others might look at how reduced economic stress could improve family relationships.