Why do we have to study Social Science - Sociology ?

Nature of Science

What is the general meaning of Science ?

It is the study of the natural world, it is a system on which we acquires knowledge by observation and logical thinking.

It is classified into two categories:

• Natural Science
• Social Science

but let's focus on Social Science.

How important Social Science is ?

Studying Social Science is very important for us in understanding the problems of every human because this studies deals with all things that talks about social life.

In Social Science, there are many disciplines. It is because Social Science studies the all aspects of human life. The following subjects below are considered as disciplines of Social Science.

• Philosophy
• Human Geography
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Anthropology
• Economics
• History and
• Sociology

The discipline of Sociology

What does and where does the word Sociology came from ?
Sociology was coined by Mr. Auguste Comte, the father of sociology, it came from the latin word that means " an relationship " or " an association " and the Greek word logos , means " study " or " science ".

But... the operational meaning of sociology is the scientific investigation of the relationship between the society and interaction of human that happens within a society. Indeed, society involves the direct or indirect interaction of human. By human interaction, we mean a reciprocal relation between each persons.

Major Sociological Theories

• Evolutionary - This theory was made by Herbert Spencer in 1820 - 1903 and he said that the society undergoes evolution from simple to complex forms. The concept of this that the strong society will survive and the weak ones will die.

• Structural Functionalism - According to Robert Merton, Auguste Comte, Talcott Parsons and Emile Durkheim that the society is composed of social structures. The Families, Schools, Churches, and Law Enforcement Agencies, each of these has a role to comply to make sure that the entire society is stable.

• Conflict - This theory was made by Utopian ideology and states that conflict theory arose because the functionalism failed to maintained the connection between reality and what it teaches. On its view, social order can be attained and sustained by an agreement among the people and was seen as an illusion.

• Symbolic Interactionism - Micro level orientation takes a closer look on social interest in a specific situations. The constant adjustment of our behavior is what really symbolic interaction really means. George Herbert Mead , the founder of this theory observed that as we interact with others we use symbols in our communication such as language, gestures , colors and sounds.

Relevance of Sociology

The most important function of sociology is to lessen the superstition and erroneous information about people and society. Thus, the sociology guides us to correct stereotyped beliefs and famous ideas that are barely wrong. Stereotype means something similar a preconceived ideas or generalization about a social group. And because of that, we can classify people and connect them with certain character traits, behavior, and appearance. Unlikely to happen that stereotype leads to unfair, discrimination and destructive treating of members of a certain social groups. And it would be very dangerous when it includes misinformations and erroneous portrayal of members of a given ethnicity, religion, gender , profession, etc.

At the end, because of theoretical perspectives or social theories, we found out that there is a way to better understand the patterns of human interaction.