Scope of Sociology

The scope of Sociology is very broad and vast in nature. Every science has its own areas of study or field of inquiry. Sociology also has its own scope and there are two schools of thought that outline the scope of sociology. They are:

• The formalistic or specialistic school of thought
• The synthetic school of thought

1. The formalistic or specialistic school of thought

This school of thought is led by the German sociologist George Simmel. The other main advocates of this school are Virkandt, Max Weber, Van Wiese, and Tonnies. As pure science, it has a limited scope. Sociologists confines themselves to the study of certain aspects of a human relationship falling under the discipline of economics, political science, or other discipline is different than those issues addressed by sociology.

According to Max Weber, the scope of sociology refers to the interpretation of social behavior.

According to synthetic school, all aspects of social life are inter-related, hence the study of one aspect cannot be sufficient to understand the entire fact, and without studying the principles in concrete social life and their study becomes dull and purposeless.

According to Reuter and Hart, the scope of sociology admits the division into the three following parts:

• Social change
• Personality and its development
• Social processes

Criticisms:

1. The formalistic school has unreasonably narrowed the field of sociology. As a matter of fact, sociology should study not only the general forms of social relationships but also concrete contents.
2. The distinction between the forms of social relationships and their contents is not workable. Social forms can’t be abstracted from the content at all.
3. Sociology is not only a science that studies the forms of social relationships. Other sciences also do that.
4. The establishments of pure sociology are not practical. NO sociologist has been able to develop pure sociology so far.

2. The synthetic school of thought

The synthetic school of thought wants to make sociology a synthesis of the social sciences. According to this school, the scope of sociology is encyclopedic, very vast that is. According to this, argument all aspects of social life are interrelated; hence the study of one aspect cannot be considered complete to understand the entire field.

The views of Emile Durkheim are:

He stated that sociology has three main divisions or fields of inquiry. They are:

• Social Morphology

It studies the terrestrial basis of life of people and also the problems of the population such as volume and density, local distribution of a given population, etc.

• Social Physiology

It has different branches such as sociology of religion, morals, laws, economic life, and language, etc.

•   General Sociology

It can be regarded as the philosophical part of sociology. It deals with the general character of social facts. Its function is the formulation of general social laws.

The views of Morris Ginsberg are:

Ginsberg another advocate of synthetic school, says that the main task of sociology can be categorized into 4 branches and they are:

• Social Morphology

It deals with the quantity and quality of a given population. It studies the social structure, social groups, and institutions.

• Social Control

It studies formal as well as informal means of social control such as custom, tradition, morals, religion, convention, and also law, court, legislation, etc.

• Social Processes

It tries to make a study of different modes of interactions such as cooperation, competition, accommodation, conflict, assimilation, isolation, integration, differentiation, development, arrest, and decay.

• Social Pathology

It studies maladjustment and disturbances, it also includes studies on various social problems like poverty, beggary, unemployment, overpopulation, crime, prostitution, etc.

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