The sociology is included into group of social and humanitarian, or public disciplines. All humanities are interconnected as study human nature and the culture of spirit. Social sciences are engaged in studying life of people within society.
Instruction
1. The sociology studies society as a uniform system: its structure, development and also interaction of people among themselves. This science has four main functions: empirical, theoretical, predictive and applied.
2. Empirical function consists in studying life experience. It includes data collection and processing. Thanks to this function it is possible to learn about the number of the population in the country or around the world, the level of marriages and stains and many other things. This function is interconnected with psychology and anthropology.
3. Theoretical function is responsible for the conclusions drawn on empirical researches. So sociologists make new theories and concepts about society, at need enter new terms and represent the found regularities. This function is also connected with history and social philosophy.
4. Predictive function, in turn, depends on theoretical – on its basis forecasts and trends of development of society appear. It helps to define probable advantages and shortcomings of each option of development and to designate their long-term consequences.
5. Applied function costs at top of a pyramid of functions. It is in what solves practical problems for different groups of society: beginning from the states and finishing individuals. Interconnected with social psychology.
6. Also the sociology is studied at two levels: macrosociology and microsociology. The macrosociology considers society as a uniform system. The microsociology is engaged in the interpersonal relations and interaction of small groups.
7. The sociology – rather young science, it arose in the 30th years the 19th century. The term "sociology" was offered by August Comte. Problems with which the sociology deals were discussed long ago - Platon and Aristotle, but then they entered a philosophy framework.
8. Actively began to study sociology only in 90 years after its emergence – in 20e years of the 20th century the set of highly specialized areas within this science was created. Among them – family, education, work, science and the right. Each of areas is considered now as a separate phenomenon which internal dependences consider using sociological methods.
9. Now thanks to sociology it is possible to solve such problems as, for example, forecasting of a victory on elections of any given candidate and modeling of policy which will be at it or demographic indicators and their influence on other fields of activity.
10. As the discipline sociology is studied at all humanitarian faculties, considering it from the point of view of set specialties.