why sociology essay

10 Reasons Why it’s Important to Study Sociology and Scope

Sociology is an academic discipline that is vital to be studied in our rapidly progressing and changing world. The study of societies is important as every society has their own unique characteristics and histories that define the lives of people that belong to them. Sociology helps understand various human and social perspectives in which individual lives are defined and shaped. This essay will seek to explore into ten reasons why it is important to study sociology.

why is it important to study sociology explained reasons

Introduction

Sociology as an academic discipline is vital in analyzing the relationships that are ensued as a part of interacting with the environment, the different natures of these relationships, the origin of cultures and traditions, the relationship between economic, social and political power, etc. Sociology is rich in relevance and scope. It encourages the researcher to device and accommodate innovative solutions to various societal issues. The discipline encourages one to view society more objectively and understand the subjectivity of every individual’s life. In the rapidly growing modern industrial world that is only becoming more and more complex, a discipline like sociology helps to understand and analyze the innate differences that lie within individuals and how the individual contributes to the whole. This essay will now go into the ten reasons why it is important to study and read sociology:

Sociology analyzes the role and importance of various social institutions in an individual’s life

Sociology analyzes the individual role that every social institution has on our lives. Institutions such as Family, Marriage, Kinship, Religion, Education, etc. each play distinct roles in shaping a person’s life and their social interactions. The study of these institutions helps in examining the formation of our primary and social identities and their interplay in shaping us into valuable members of society. Every personal and social interaction we have, from the moment we are born to the end of our lifetimes, continue to have an effect on the creation of our individual identities. These interactions and socializations contribute to the way each person in society is shaped. Sociology helps us examine the way in which the individual contributes to the whole.

2. Sociology is rich in Scope

Sociology as an academic discipline offers an array of possibilities and opportunities in the global field. Engaging in sociology offers career pathways in the fields of urban development and planning, public policy , nonprofit management, criminal and social justice, social activism, community outreach and many more. “As a basic discipline it ought to have a part in the general education of everyone. But it is of particular importance in the occupational training of those whose work will be concerned with the ordering and regulation of human affairs. Education, law, the ministry, medicine, journalism, radio and TV programming, librarianship, social casework, youth group work, agricultural extension, town and country planning, and administration in its now multitudinous fields of business, public service, local government, social service, colonial service, and hospital military and prison organization-professional training for any of these walks of life would be immeasurably the poorer without a coverage of general sociology” (Fallding, 1962, p. 92).

3. Sociology is a science, and utilizes distinct and highly accountable methodologies for research

The introduction of sociology as an academic discipline marked the advent of the study of human societies in distinct systematic ways. Equipped with its various modes and methods of research, it was the only discipline that sought to analyze the nature and complexities of human societies. The discipline utilized well defined methods of enquiry such as , observational method – participant and non-participant observation, survey method, interviews, archival method, field research, experiments etc. These research methods are engaged in very professionally and often guarantee optimal results.

4. Sociology aids in finding practical and innovative solutions to societal issues

Along with the multitude of intricacies and complexities in society, come the various social issues and disputes in society. The lack of a discipline such as sociology, makes it almost impossible to find viable solutions to these problems. It is hard to mend the society without having a valid understanding of its mechanism. Sociology is important here because, it seeks to dissect the issue, understand the root cause and the external and internal factors that contribute to the problem; and only then proceed to find solutions. With the multiple methods of research as mentioned above, a clear and comprehensive understanding of the social issue is formed, which allows the researchers to devise the most suitable and effective solution according to each problem.

5. Sociology has been vital in reconstructing our attitude towards fellow human beings

The discipline of sociology studies numerous societies, their cultures, traditions and behaviors; and it is this very nature of the discipline that helps human beings create a clearer understanding and acceptance of each other’s differences. It helps one understand and learn about beliefs and practices different from one’s own and allows a healthy cultural exchange in times that require intermingling. Sociology provides knowledge and education about the various differences as well as similarities we possess across our various cultural and national backgrounds. Pre-equipping ourselves with this understanding helps human beings function better in society by utilizing our similarities and mediating our differences in the most effective and nurturing ways.

6. Sociology contributes greatly to the understanding of international problems

There is always a threat of conflict in the world, the nature of the world has always been so. Especially with the progress the world has reached so far thanks to industrial, scientific and technological development, there are possible tensions created between countries for the accumulation of resources. Since the world is highly divided politically, chances of resource and economic conflicts also rise. This is where sociology plays its part, where it helps understand, analyze and mediate these tensions and aid in avoiding conflicts in ways such as foreign policymaking, public policymaking, creation of international laws, trade laws, etc.

Also Read: Sociological Perspectives on War

7. Sociology plays a major role in raising awareness about the nature of livelihoods of marginalized communities

The more the number of people that are educated on sociological concepts, the easier it is to reach a larger audience when raising awareness about social issues of today. Sociological understanding of the conditions of marginalized communities and other social issues of the world allows individuals to understand these issues better even if they are not directly affected by them. Awareness of how social sanctions, social institutions, our interactions, relationships etc. affect the way we treat other individuals and the way we receive and choose to act on social injustices, is key to creating a drive to seek solutions and raise awareness. Sociological research projects and their valuable results aid the governments to ensure social welfare measures and welfare programs that are undertaken for communities that require it.

8. Sociology is a multifaceted discipline

Sociology does not exist in isolation, people seeking to learn sociology can also learn and include other disciplines, as all facets that sociology covers are relevant in all aspects of life. Subjects like International Relations, Anthropology, Political Science, History, Literature, Cultural Studies, etc., all have a give and take relationship with Sociology. Sociology provides research skillsets that are both tangible and intangible, equipping the learner with a set of skills that can be used for most disciplines in their own respect research areas as well.

Also Read: Relationship – Sociology and Other Social Sciences

9. Sociology equips individuals with transferrable skills

Transferrable skills are a key character trait looked for in people as these are skills that have the potential to be applied in a variety of areas. Sociology ensures the development of transferrable skills such as, “an understanding of social systems and large bureaucracies; the ability to devise and carry out research projects to assess whether a program or policy is working; the ability to collect, read, and analyze statistical information from polls or surveys; the ability to recognize important differences in people’s social, cultural, and economic backgrounds; skills in preparing reports and communicating complex ideas; and the capacity for critical thinking about social issues and problems that confront modern society”. (Department of Sociology, University of Alabama, n.d.).

10. Studying and Reading Sociology helps one gain a valid understanding about the various social forces that play a part in one’s life, and this knowledge better equips one to deal with these social forces and make rational decisions for themselves.

Lastly, sociological knowledge and understanding shapes us into informed and driven citizens, preparing us with the skillsets required to make and influence important societal decisions. C. Wright Mills coined the term, “sociological imagination” which he used to describe the direct connection between society’s larger events and the individual consequences faced by us. Being aware of this relationship and attaining this sociological imagination helps us become more aware of the impact every societal concept and phenomenon has on every individual’s life. The knowledge acquired through sociological reading, learning and understanding can be used to educate our fellow citizens, and also be to contribute to social organizations for the enrichment of the society.

Read: How to Apply Sociology in Everyday Life

The discipline of sociology serves as a key provider of foundational knowledge about the various facets of society and aid in preparing us to deal effectively with the numerous social phenomena that influence us throughout the course of our lives. Sociology also has a wide scope of opportunities due to its multifaceted nature and equips individuals with valuable transferrable skills that prove to be very useful in almost all fields. Sociology is important for the sustenance and enrichment of democracy as well, as the more informed and educated we are on the working and functioning of society, the better prepared we are to aid in its growth and contribute to our society’s needs in fruitful ways.

Also Read: What are job opportunities for sociology students

Department of Sociology, University of Alabama. (n.d.). Is Sociology Right for You? Huntsville: University of Alabama. http://www.uah.edu/la/departments/.

Fallding, H. (2008, April 7). The Scope and Purpose of Sociology . Wiley Online Library. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8497.1962.tb01031.x .

Angela Roy is currently pursuing her majors in Sociology and minors in International Relations and History, as a part of her BA Liberal Arts Honors degree in SSLA, Pune. She has always been driven to play a part in changing and correcting the social evils that exist in society. With a driving passion for breaking down harmful societal norms and social injustices, she seeks to learn and understand the different social institutions that exist in society like family, marriage, religion and kinship, and how they influence the workings and functioning of various concepts like gender, sexuality and various types of socializations in an individual’s life. She envisions herself to play a vital role in building safe places for today’s marginalized communities and creating a world that is characterized by equity and inclusiveness, free of discrimination and exploitative behaviors.

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Learning Objectives

Explain why it is worthwhile to study sociology
Identify ways sociology is applied in the real world

Photo (b) shows the sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark.

When Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, she was met by an angry crowd. But she knew she had the law on her side. Three years earlier in the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education case, the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned twenty-one state laws that allowed blacks and whites to be taught in separate school systems as long as the school systems were “equal.” One of the major factors influencing that decision was research conducted by the husband-and-wife team of sociologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark. Their research showed that segregation was harmful to young black schoolchildren, and the Court found that harm to be unconstitutional.

Since it was first founded, many people interested in sociology have been driven by the scholarly desire to contribute knowledge to this field, while others have seen it as way not only to study society but also to improve it. Besides desegregation, sociology has played a crucial role in many important social reforms, such as equal opportunity for women in the workplace, improved treatment for individuals with mental disabilitiess or learning disabilities, increased accessibility and accommodation for people with physical handicaps, the right of native populations to preserve their land and culture, and prison system reforms.

The prominent sociologist Peter L. Berger (1929– ), in his 1963 book Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective , describes a sociologist as “someone concerned with understanding society in a disciplined way.” He asserts that sociologists have a natural interest in the monumental moments of people’s lives, as well as a fascination with banal, everyday occurrences. Berger also describes the “aha” moment when a sociological theory becomes applicable and understood:

[T]here is a deceptive simplicity and obviousness about some sociological investigations. One reads them, nods at the familiar scene, remarks that one has heard all this before and don’t people have better things to do than to waste their time on truisms—until one is suddenly brought up against an insight that radically questions everything one had previously assumed about this familiar scene. This is the point at which one begins to sense the excitement of sociology. (Berger 1963)

Sociology can be exciting because it teaches people ways to recognize how they fit into the world and how others perceive them. Looking at themselves and society from a sociological perspective helps people see where they connect to different groups based on the many different ways they classify themselves and how society classifies them in turn. It raises awareness of how those classifications—such as economic and status levels, education, ethnicity, or sexual orientation—affect perceptions.

Sociology teaches people not to accept easy explanations. It teaches them a way to organize their thinking so that they can ask better questions and formulate better answers. It makes people more aware that there are many different kinds of people in the world who do not necessarily think the way they do. It increases their willingness and ability to try to see the world from other people’s perspectives. This prepares them to live and work in an increasingly diverse and integrated world.

Sociology in the Workplace

Employers continue to seek people with what are called “transferable skills.” This means that they want to hire people whose knowledge and education can be applied in a variety of settings and whose skills will contribute to various tasks. Studying sociology can provide people with this wide knowledge and a skill set that can contribute to many workplaces, including

an understanding of social systems and large bureaucracies; the ability to devise and carry out research projects to assess whether a program or policy is working; the ability to collect, read, and analyze statistical information from polls or surveys; the ability to recognize important differences in people’s social, cultural, and economic backgrounds; skills in preparing reports and communicating complex ideas; and the capacity for critical thinking about social issues and problems that confront modern society. (Department of Sociology, University of Alabama)

Sociology prepares people for a wide variety of careers. Besides actually conducting social research or training others in the field, people who graduate from college with a degree in sociology are hired by government agencies and corporations in fields such as social services, counseling (e.g., family planning, career, substance abuse), community planning, health services, marketing, market research, and human resources. Even a small amount of training in sociology can be an asset in careers like sales, public relations, journalism, teaching, law, and criminal justice.

The phenomenon known as Facebook was designed specifically for students. Whereas earlier generations wrote notes in each other’s printed yearbooks at the end of the academic year, modern technology and the Internet ushered in dynamic new ways for people to interact socially. Instead of having to meet up on campus, students can call, text, and Skype from their dorm rooms. Instead of a study group gathering weekly in the library, online forums and chat rooms help learners connect. The availability and immediacy of computer technology has forever changed the ways in which students engage with each other.

Now, after several social networks have vied for primacy, a few have established their place in the market and some have attracted niche audience. While Facebook launched the social networking trend geared toward teens and young adults, now people of all ages are actively “friending” each other. LinkedIn distinguished itself by focusing on professional connections and served as a virtual world for workplace networking. Newer offshoots like Foursquare help people connect based on the real-world places they frequent, while Twitter has cornered the market on brevity.

The widespread ownership of smartphones adds to this social experience; the Pew Research Center (2012) found that the majority of people in the United States with mobile phones now have “smart” phones with Internet capability. Many people worldwide can now access Facebook, Twitter, and other social media from virtually anywhere, and there seems to be an increasing acceptance of smartphone use in many diverse and previously prohibited settings. The outcomes of smartphone use, as with other social media, are not yet clear.

These newer modes of social interaction have also spawned harmful consequences, such as cyberbullying and what some call FAD, or Facebook Addiction Disorder. Researchers have also examined other potential negative impacts, such as whether Facebooking lowers a student’s GPA, or whether there might be long-term effects of replacing face-to-face interaction with social media.

All of these social networks demonstrate emerging ways that people interact, whether positive or negative. They illustrate how sociological topics are alive and changing today. Social media will most certainly be a developing topic in the study of sociology for decades to come.

Studying sociology is beneficial both for the individual and for society. By studying sociology people learn how to think critically about social issues and problems that confront our society. The study of sociology enriches students’ lives and prepares them for careers in an increasingly diverse world. Society benefits because people with sociological training are better prepared to make informed decisions about social issues and take effective action to deal with them.

Section Quiz

Kenneth and Mamie Clark used sociological research to show that segregation was:

of no importance

Studying sociology helps people analyze data because they learn:

interview techniques
to apply statistics
to generate theories
all of the above

Berger describes sociologists as concerned with:

monumental moments in people’s lives
common everyday life events
both a and b
none of the above

Short Answer

How do you think taking a sociology course might affect your social interactions?

What sort of career are you interested in? How could studying sociology help you in this career?

Further Research

Social communication is rapidly evolving due to ever improving technologies. To learn more about how sociologists study the impact of these changes check out http://openstax.org/l/media

Berger, Peter L. 1963. Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective . New York: Anchor Books.

Department of Sociology, University of Alabama. N.d. Is Sociology Right for You? . Huntsville: University of Alabama. Retrieved January 19, 2012 ( http://www.uah.edu/la/departments/sociology/about-sociology/why-sociology ).

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DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

Why study sociology, what is sociology.

Sociology is the systematic study of social groups, and the basic premise of sociology is a powerful intuition about human life: Human beings are not islands unto themselves. We are social creatures. We are “group animals,” as the phrase goes.

In a very general sense, sociologists are interested in why different social groups form, change, and fade away; how people make sense of their belonging to different social groups; and how different social groups shape the world that we live in.

That is not in the least bit inaccurate, but it is a bit general and abstract.

The different types of specific questions that sociologists ask are easier to grasp. Do children from more affluent families have access to better educational opportunities? If so, is it because of what they learn at home from their parents or because they are sorted into better schools? Why are some countries in Latin American richer than other countries, and is the difference related to where liberally minded, commercially oriented townspeople tended to live in the Spanish Empire during the seventeenth century? Why did the town elders of Birmingham, Alabama, suddenly concede to the demands of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and civil rights movement on the morning of May 7, 1963? Was it concern about the bad publicity generated by the violent response of the police force to mass protest in the streets, or was it the fact that protestors were able to bring economic life in Birmingham to a virtual standstill with no end in sight?

Sociology is distinctive in the social sciences for the special emphasis it places on the importance of social groups in human life. It does not deny that individuals matter. It simply recognizes that individuals are not always and everywhere the sole building blocks of human interaction. In the eyes of sociologists, people are not simply automatons that are wired to maximize their utility or self-interest at every waking moment of their lives. Nor do sociologists think of people as creatures who merely follow the biological dictates of their genetic blueprints or merely act out the underlying tendencies of their individual psychologies. Sociologists are committed to the idea that human life is a collective phenomenon in crucially important ways. Human life is a product of our belonging to social groups. It cannot be understood simply as the aggregation of individual responses to the supply and demand of scare resources.

When thousands of Americans (many of them white) took to the streets last May and June in the midst of a global pandemic to protest the killing of George Floyd, were they motivated strictly by a desire to maximize their personal utility? Or, were they motivated by something else, something bigger than themselves? If your thoughts turned toward the latter possibility, then your sociological imagination is alive and well!

Why study sociology?

Career skills.

As the broadest of all of the social sciences, Sociology provides a wide range of practical and marketable skills, including critical analysis, statistical methods, theory, and field research.

Our majors have gone on to work in in law, medicine and public health, consulting, finance, non-profit and public administration, social network research, culture, and the arts. To learn more about careers in Sociology please visit our careers page .

Our Department

The Department of Sociology at Northwestern is a top-ranked program with world-class faculty committed to teaching all students to engage more effectively with the world around them. The undergraduate program features a generous faculty-student ratio and many opportunities for students to get to know their professors beyond the classroom.

Sociology is an ideal major for pursuing a senior thesis , an internship through the Chicago Field Studies Program , or other capstone project.

Why Major in Sociology?

About 80% of Sociology Majors who graduated in 2019-2021 said that they would highly recommend the major to an incoming freshman.

More than anything else, graduating seniors tell us that they appreciate the major’s flexibility and the opportunity to explore topics that really matter to them. And 86% of recent graduates said that the major is very relevant for understanding and addressing current social issues. Sociology majors also develop a broad knowledge of society, critical thinking skills, and the ability to evaluate and write about quantitative and qualitative evidence. Graduate programs and employers highly value these skills.Read on for more information about how the major allows you to study the topics that interest you and prepares you for a wide range of graduate programs and careers.

Pursue Your Interests

Perhaps more than any other major, Sociology embodies Cornell’s tradition of “… any person … any study.” Sociology allows you to follow your own interests in the social world, wherever they may lead.

As a recent graduate told us:

“I valued being able to learn about the kinds of things that people don’t often take the time to think about, like power dynamics, domestic violence, drug abuse, and health disparities.”

Sociology courses at Cornell provide a strong foundation in sociological theories, research, and methodological tools, including quantitative and qualitative analyses of surveys, experiments, networks, temporal sequences, or historical or archival data. The conceptual tools of sociology are used to study social behavior and social change at many different levels of analysis, including individual actions or speech, people, schools, firms and organizations, social networks, neighborhood or spatial communities, and nation states.

What unites sociologists is our commitment to developing a rigorous, systematic, and evidence-based understanding of how our social context affects our behavior and, how our collective behavior creates social institutions and patterns within society.

The sociological perspective and research methods give our majors a unique ability to analyze the social world. A recent graduate told us:

“What I value most is the frame of thinking that I learned through the sociology major. I appreciate the holistic approach to social issues that I learned, and the scientific, analytical methods that I’ve learned to use to examine issues of social justice.”

With these skills, Sociology majors are well-prepared for a wide range of graduate programs and careers. Read on for more information.

Get into Graduate School

In 2019-2021, about 20% of our senior sociology majors entered graduate school immediately after graduating from Cornell. Another 51% said that they were likely to go to graduate school within the next few years.

Sociology majors pursue a wide range of graduate degrees.

About a third of our majors who go to graduate school enroll in professional degree programs, such as business school, law school, and medical school.

Sociology provides an excellent foundation for applying to law school and business school because of the critical thinking and analytic skills that you develop as a major. In fact, many of the top law schools and business schools have been adding sociologists to their faculty, because they recognize the value of sociological perspectives and methods.

And, as you might know, the MCAT now includes a section on the sociology of health. We’ve even had majors who have gone on to top dental schools.

About 50% of Cornell sociology majors who go to graduate school pursue masters or doctoral degrees. This includes graduate degrees in sociology, of course, but also public policy and public affairs, political science, psychology, education, public health, social work, natural resources, and urban planning.

Our majors are admitted into some of the most competitive masters and doctoral programs. There are a few reasons why our majors stand out.

First, admissions to graduate programs often require students to demonstrate their potential for graduate-level research, and/or to craft a coherent statement about why they want to pursue a post-baccalaureate degree. Our majors tell us that their sociology courses prepared them for this by teaching them how to frame a social science research question and think critically about social facts and evidence — precisely the skills that admissions committees are seeking.

Second, majoring in sociology also affords students many opportunities to develop strong writing samples that enhance their applications to graduate programs. Several of our courses devote sustained attention throughout the semester to the craft of evaluating social scientific evidence, writing effectively about social science research, and producing new social science research. Students who complete an honors thesis in Sociology will also be especially well prepared for graduate admissions and studies.

Get a Rewarding Job

The skills that you learn as a Sociology major – including “critical thinking,” data analysis, and the ability to evaluate and write about quantitative and qualitative evidence – are in high demand in the labor market.

Among our 2019-2021 graduating seniors who planned to work after graduation, 83% said that their knowledge of sociological theories/ideas/topics helped them to get their jobs, and nearly 76% said that their research skills and knowledge of sociological methods (e.g., statistics, network analysis) helped them to get their jobs.

Other students said that the writing skills they developed in Sociology courses were particularly helpful with getting jobs and internships.

“Being a sociology major, I have grown exponentially as a writer, researcher, and thinker. I want to go into a public relations career where all I will be doing is writing, and the interview processes for it have required writing tests, which has been my greatest strength. I… attribute that to the Sociology major and the incredible professors I have had.”

Following graduation, sociology majors in 2019-2021 were hired in a wide variety of jobs, including in finance, the non-profit sector, government, policy research, health care, management consulting, labor relations, education, the legal system, marketing, and the tech industry.

The Career Services unit of the College of Arts and Sciences is the primary source for advice on getting a job. They also compile statistics every year on careers of recent Cornell graduates.

For more information about careers with a sociology major, we suggest exploring resources for undergraduate sociology majors on the American Sociological Association's (ASA) website .

1.4 Why Study Sociology?

Learning objectives.

Explain why it is worthwhile to study sociology
Identify ways sociology is applied in the real world

Since it was first founded, many people interested in sociology have been driven by the scholarly desire to contribute knowledge to this field, while others have seen it as way not only to study society but also to improve it. Besides desegregation, sociology has played a crucial role in many important social reforms, such as equal opportunity for women in the workplace, improved treatment for individuals with mental disabilities or learning disabilities, increased accessibility and accommodation for people with physical handicaps, the right of native populations to preserve their land and culture, and prison system reforms.

The prominent sociologist Peter L. Berger (1929– ), in his 1963 book Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective , describes a sociologist as "someone concerned with understanding society in a disciplined way." He asserts that sociologists have a natural interest in the monumental moments of people’s lives, as well as a fascination with banal, everyday occurrences. Berger also describes the “aha” moment when a sociological theory becomes applicable and understood:

[T]here is a deceptive simplicity and obviousness about some sociological investigations. One reads them, nods at the familiar scene, remarks that one has heard all this before and don't people have better things to do than to waste their time on truisms—until one is suddenly brought up against an insight that radically questions everything one had previously assumed about this familiar scene. This is the point at which one begins to sense the excitement of sociology. (Berger 1963)

Sociology teaches people not to accept easy explanations. It teaches them a way to organize their thinking so that they can ask better questions and formulate better answers. It makes people more aware that there are many different kinds of people in the world who do not necessarily think the way they do. It increases their willingness and ability to try to see the world from other people's perspectives. This prepares them to live and work in an increasingly diverse and integrated world.

Sociology in the Workplace

an understanding of social systems and large bureaucracies; the ability to devise and carry out research projects to assess whether a program or policy is working; the ability to collect, read, and analyze statistical information from polls or surveys; the ability to recognize important differences in people’s social, cultural, and economic backgrounds; skills in preparing reports and communicating complex ideas; and the capacity for critical thinking about social issues and problems that confront modern society. (Department of Sociology, University of Alabama)

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The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

What this handout is about

This handout introduces you to the wonderful world of writing sociology. Before you can write a clear and coherent sociology paper, you need a firm understanding of the assumptions and expectations of the discipline. You need to know your audience, the way they view the world and how they order and evaluate information. So, without further ado, let’s figure out just what sociology is, and how one goes about writing it.

What is sociology, and what do sociologists write about?

Unlike many of the other subjects here at UNC, such as history or English, sociology is a new subject for many students. Therefore, it may be helpful to give a quick introduction to what sociologists do. Sociologists are interested in all sorts of topics. For example, some sociologists focus on the family, addressing issues such as marriage, divorce, child-rearing, and domestic abuse, the ways these things are defined in different cultures and times, and their effect on both individuals and institutions. Others examine larger social organizations such as businesses and governments, looking at their structure and hierarchies. Still others focus on social movements and political protest, such as the American civil rights movement. Finally, sociologists may look at divisions and inequality within society, examining phenomena such as race, gender, and class, and their effect on people’s choices and opportunities. As you can see, sociologists study just about everything. Thus, it is not the subject matter that makes a paper sociological, but rather the perspective used in writing it.

So, just what is a sociological perspective? At its most basic, sociology is an attempt to understand and explain the way that individuals and groups interact within a society. How exactly does one approach this goal? C. Wright Mills, in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959), writes that “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.” Why? Well, as Karl Marx observes at the beginning of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), humans “make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” Thus, a good sociological argument needs to balance both individual agency and structural constraints. That is certainly a tall order, but it is the basis of all effective sociological writing. Keep it in mind as you think about your own writing.

Key assumptions and characteristics of sociological writing

What are the most important things to keep in mind as you write in sociology? Pay special attention to the following issues.

The first thing to remember in writing a sociological argument is to be as clear as possible in stating your thesis. Of course, that is true in all papers, but there are a couple of pitfalls common to sociology that you should be aware of and avoid at all cost. As previously defined, sociology is the study of the interaction between individuals and larger social forces. Different traditions within sociology tend to favor one side of the equation over the other, with some focusing on the agency of individual actors and others on structural factors. The danger is that you may go too far in either of these directions and thus lose the complexity of sociological thinking. Although this mistake can manifest itself in any number of ways, three types of flawed arguments are particularly common:

The “ individual argument ” generally takes this form: “The individual is free to make choices, and any outcomes can be explained exclusively through the study of their ideas and decisions.” While it is of course true that we all make our own choices, we must also keep in mind that, to paraphrase Marx, we make these choices under circumstances given to us by the structures of society. Therefore, it is important to investigate what conditions made these choices possible in the first place, as well as what allows some individuals to successfully act on their choices while others cannot.
The “ human nature argument ” seeks to explain social behavior through a quasi-biological argument about humans, and often takes a form such as: “Humans are by nature X, therefore it is not surprising that Y.” While sociologists disagree over whether a universal human nature even exists, they all agree that it is not an acceptable basis of explanation. Instead, sociology demands that you question why we call some behavior natural, and to look into the social factors which have constructed this “natural” state.
The “ society argument ” often arises in response to critiques of the above styles of argumentation, and tends to appear in a form such as: “Society made me do it.” Students often think that this is a good sociological argument, since it uses society as the basis for explanation. However, the problem is that the use of the broad concept “society” masks the real workings of the situation, making it next to impossible to build a strong case. This is an example of reification, which is when we turn processes into things. Society is really a process, made up of ongoing interactions at multiple levels of size and complexity, and to turn it into a monolithic thing is to lose all that complexity. People make decisions and choices. Some groups and individuals benefit, while others do not. Identifying these intermediate levels is the basis of sociological analysis.

Although each of these three arguments seems quite different, they all share one common feature: they assume exactly what they need to be explaining. They are excellent starting points, but lousy conclusions.

Once you have developed a working argument, you will next need to find evidence to support your claim. What counts as evidence in a sociology paper? First and foremost, sociology is an empirical discipline. Empiricism in sociology means basing your conclusions on evidence that is documented and collected with as much rigor as possible. This evidence usually draws upon observed patterns and information from collected cases and experiences, not just from isolated, anecdotal reports. Just because your second cousin was able to climb the ladder from poverty to the executive boardroom does not prove that the American class system is open. You will need more systematic evidence to make your claim convincing. Above all else, remember that your opinion alone is not sufficient support for a sociological argument. Even if you are making a theoretical argument, you must be able to point to documented instances of social phenomena that fit your argument. Logic is necessary for making the argument, but is not sufficient support by itself.

Sociological evidence falls into two main groups:

Quantitative data are based on surveys, censuses, and statistics. These provide large numbers of data points, which is particularly useful for studying large-scale social processes, such as income inequality, population changes, changes in social attitudes, etc.
Qualitative data, on the other hand, comes from participant observation, in-depth interviews, data and texts, as well as from the researcher’s own impressions and reactions. Qualitative research gives insight into the way people actively construct and find meaning in their world.

Quantitative data produces a measurement of subjects’ characteristics and behavior, while qualitative research generates information on their meanings and practices. Thus, the methods you choose will reflect the type of evidence most appropriate to the questions you ask. If you wanted to look at the importance of race in an organization, a quantitative study might use information on the percentage of different races in the organization, what positions they hold, as well as survey results on people’s attitudes on race. This would measure the distribution of race and racial beliefs in the organization. A qualitative study would go about this differently, perhaps hanging around the office studying people’s interactions, or doing in-depth interviews with some of the subjects. The qualitative researcher would see how people act out their beliefs, and how these beliefs interact with the beliefs of others as well as the constraints of the organization.

Some sociologists favor qualitative over quantitative data, or vice versa, and it is perfectly reasonable to rely on only one method in your own work. However, since each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, combining methods can be a particularly effective way to bolster your argument. But these distinctions are not just important if you have to collect your own data for your paper. You also need to be aware of them even when you are relying on secondary sources for your research. In order to critically evaluate the research and data you are reading, you should have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods.

Units of analysis

Given that social life is so complex, you need to have a point of entry into studying this world. In sociological jargon, you need a unit of analysis. The unit of analysis is exactly that: it is the unit that you have chosen to analyze in your study. Again, this is only a question of emphasis and focus, and not of precedence and importance. You will find a variety of units of analysis in sociological writing, ranging from the individual up to groups or organizations. You should choose yours based on the interests and theoretical assumptions driving your research. The unit of analysis will determine much of what will qualify as relevant evidence in your work. Thus you must not only clearly identify that unit, but also consistently use it throughout your paper.

Let’s look at an example to see just how changing the units of analysis will change the face of research. What if you wanted to study globalization? That’s a big topic, so you will need to focus your attention. Where would you start?

You might focus on individual human actors, studying the way that people are affected by the globalizing world. This approach could possibly include a study of Asian sweatshop workers’ experiences, or perhaps how consumers’ decisions shape the overall system.

Or you might choose to focus on social structures or organizations. This approach might involve looking at the decisions being made at the national or international level, such as the free-trade agreements that change the relationships between governments and corporations. Or you might look into the organizational structures of corporations and measure how they are changing under globalization. Another structural approach would be to focus on the social networks linking subjects together. That could lead you to look at how migrants rely on social contacts to make their way to other countries, as well as to help them find work upon their arrival.

Finally, you might want to focus on cultural objects or social artifacts as your unit of analysis. One fine example would be to look at the production of those tennis shoes the kids seem to like so much. You could look at either the material production of the shoe (tracing it from its sweatshop origins to its arrival on the showroom floor of malls across America) or its cultural production (attempting to understand how advertising and celebrities have turned such shoes into necessities and cultural icons).

Whichever unit of analysis you choose, be careful not to commit the dreaded ecological fallacy. An ecological fallacy is when you assume that something that you learned about the group level of analysis also applies to the individuals that make up that group. So, to continue the globalization example, if you were to compare its effects on the poorest 20% and the richest 20% of countries, you would need to be careful not to apply your results to the poorest and richest individuals.

These are just general examples of how sociological study of a single topic can vary. Because you can approach a subject from several different perspectives, it is important to decide early how you plan to focus your analysis and then stick with that perspective throughout your paper. Avoid mixing units of analysis without strong justification. Different units of analysis generally demand different kinds of evidence for building your argument. You can reconcile the varying levels of analysis, but doing so may require a complex, sophisticated theory, no small feat within the confines of a short paper. Check with your instructor if you are concerned about this happening in your paper.

Typical writing assignments in sociology

So how does all of this apply to an actual writing assignment? Undergraduate writing assignments in sociology may take a number of forms, but they typically involve reviewing sociological literature on a subject; applying or testing a particular concept, theory, or perspective; or producing a small-scale research report, which usually involves a synthesis of both the literature review and application.

The critical review

The review involves investigating the research that has been done on a particular topic and then summarizing and evaluating what you have found. The important task in this kind of assignment is to organize your material clearly and synthesize it for your reader. A good review does not just summarize the literature, but looks for patterns and connections in the literature and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of what others have written on your topic. You want to help your reader see how the information you have gathered fits together, what information can be most trusted (and why), what implications you can derive from it, and what further research may need to be done to fill in gaps. Doing so requires considerable thought and organization on your part, as well as thinking of yourself as an expert on the topic. You need to assume that, even though you are new to the material, you can judge the merits of the arguments you have read and offer an informed opinion of which evidence is strongest and why.

Application or testing of a theory or concept

The application assignment asks you to apply a concept or theoretical perspective to a specific example. In other words, it tests your practical understanding of theories and ideas by asking you to explain how well they apply to actual social phenomena. In order to successfully apply a theory to a new case, you must include the following steps:

First you need to have a very clear understanding of the theory itself: not only what the theorist argues, but also why they argue that point, and how they justify it. That is, you have to understand how the world works according to this theory and how one thing leads to another.
Next you should choose an appropriate case study. This is a crucial step, one that can make or break your paper. If you choose a case that is too similar to the one used in constructing the theory in the first place, then your paper will be uninteresting as an application, since it will not give you the opportunity to show off your theoretical brilliance. On the other hand, do not choose a case that is so far out in left field that the applicability is only superficial and trivial. In some ways theory application is like making an analogy. The last thing you want is a weak analogy, or one that is so obvious that it does not give any added insight. Instead, you will want to choose a happy medium, one that is not obvious but that allows you to give a developed analysis of the case using the theory you chose.
This leads to the last point, which is the analysis. A strong analysis will go beyond the surface and explore the processes at work, both in the theory and in the case you have chosen. Just like making an analogy, you are arguing that these two things (the theory and the example) are similar. Be specific and detailed in telling the reader how they are similar. In the course of looking for similarities, however, you are likely to find points at which the theory does not seem to be a good fit. Do not sweep this discovery under the rug, since the differences can be just as important as the similarities, supplying insight into both the applicability of the theory and the uniqueness of the case you are using.

You may also be asked to test a theory. Whereas the application paper assumes that the theory you are using is true, the testing paper does not makes this assumption, but rather asks you to try out the theory to determine whether it works. Here you need to think about what initial conditions inform the theory and what sort of hypothesis or prediction the theory would make based on those conditions. This is another way of saying that you need to determine which cases the theory could be applied to (see above) and what sort of evidence would be needed to either confirm or disconfirm the theory’s hypothesis. In many ways, this is similar to the application paper, with added emphasis on the veracity of the theory being used.

The research paper

Finally, we reach the mighty research paper. Although the thought of doing a research paper can be intimidating, it is actually little more than the combination of many of the parts of the papers we have already discussed. You will begin with a critical review of the literature and use this review as a basis for forming your research question. The question will often take the form of an application (“These ideas will help us to explain Z.”) or of hypothesis testing (“If these ideas are correct, we should find X when we investigate Y.”). The skills you have already used in writing the other types of papers will help you immensely as you write your research papers.

And so we reach the end of this all-too-brief glimpse into the world of sociological writing. Sociologists can be an idiosyncratic bunch, so paper guidelines and expectations will no doubt vary from class to class, from instructor to instructor. However, these basic guidelines will help you get started.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Cuba, Lee. 2002. A Short Guide to Writing About Social Science , 4th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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SOC101: Introduction to Sociology (2020.A.01)

An introduction to sociology.

Read this chapter for an introduction to sociology. As you read each section, consider the following topics:

Write down the definition of sociology. Also, focus on Mill's concept of the sociological imagination.
Take note of important sociological figures, such as Karl Marx and Auguste Comte, as well as the bold terms.
Take notes on the three major sociological theoretical perspectives: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.
Take note of the societal, as well as personal, benefits of studying sociology. How will studying sociology help you in your life?

Why Study Sociology?

Learning objectives.

Explain why it is worthwhile to study sociology
Identify ways sociology is applied in the real world

Figure 1.9 The research of sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark helped the Supreme Court decide to end "separate but equal" racial segregation in schools in the United States. When Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, she was met by an angry crowd. But she knew she had the law on her side. Three years earlier in the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education case, the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned twenty-one state laws that allowed blacks and whites to be taught in separate school systems as long as the school systems were "equal". One of the major factors influencing that decision was research conducted by the husband-and-wife team of sociologists, Kenneth and Mamie Clark. Their research showed that segregation was harmful to young black schoolchildren, and the Court found that harm to be unconstitutional. Since it was first founded, many people interested in sociology have been driven by the scholarly desire to contribute knowledge to this field, while others have seen it as way not only to study society but also to improve it. Besides desegregation, sociology has played a crucial role in many important social reforms, such as equal opportunity for women in the workplace, improved treatment for individuals with mental disabilities or learning disabilities, increased accessibility and accommodation for people with physical handicaps, the right of native populations to preserve their land and culture, and prison system reforms. The prominent sociologist Peter L. Berger (1929– ), in his 1963 book Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, describes a sociologist as "someone concerned with understanding society in a disciplined way". He asserts that sociologists have a natural interest in the monumental moments of people's lives, as well as a fascination with banal, everyday occurrences. Berger also describes the "aha" moment when a sociological theory becomes applicable and understood: "[T]here is a deceptive simplicity and obviousness about some sociological investigations. One reads them, nods at the familiar scene, remarks that one has heard all this before and don't people have better things to do than to waste their time on truisms - until one is suddenly brought up against an insight that radically questions everything one had previously assumed about this familiar scene. This is the point at which one begins to sense the excitement of sociology". Sociology can be exciting because it teaches people ways to recognize how they fit into the world and how others perceive them. Looking at themselves and society from a sociological perspective helps people see where they connect to different groups based on the many different ways they classify themselves and how society classifies them in turn. It raises awareness of how those classifications - such as economic and status levels, education, ethnicity, or sexual orientation - affect perceptions. Sociology teaches people not to accept easy explanations. It teaches them a way to organize their thinking so that they can ask better questions and formulate better answers. It makes people more aware that there are many different kinds of people in the world who do not necessarily think the way they do. It increases their willingness and ability to try to see the world from other people's perspectives. This prepares them to live and work in an increasingly diverse and integrated world.

Sociology in the Workplace

Employers continue to seek people with what are called "transferable skills". This means that they want to hire people whose knowledge and education can be applied in a variety of settings and whose skills will contribute to various tasks. Studying sociology can provide people with this wide knowledge and a skill set that can contribute to many workplaces, including

an understanding of social systems and large bureaucracies;
the ability to devise and carry out research projects to assess whether a program or policy is working;
the ability to collect, read, and analyze statistical information from polls or surveys;
the ability to recognize important differences in people's social, cultural, and economic backgrounds;
skills in preparing reports and communicating complex ideas; and
the capacity for critical thinking about social issues and problems that confront modern society. (Department of Sociology, University of Alabama)

Please "Friend" Me: Students and Social Networking

The phenomenon known as Facebook was designed specifically for students. Whereas earlier generations wrote notes in each other's printed yearbooks at the end of the academic year, modern technology and the Internet ushered in dynamic new ways for people to interact socially. Instead of having to meet up on campus, students can call, text, and Skype from their dorm rooms. Instead of a study group gathering weekly in the library, online forums and chat rooms help learners connect. The availability and immediacy of computer technology has forever changed the ways in which students engage with each other. Now, after several social networks have vied for primacy, a few have established their place in the market and some have attracted niche audience. While Facebook launched the social networking trend geared toward teens and young adults, now people of all ages are actively "friending" each other. LinkedIn distinguished itself by focusing on professional connections and served as a virtual world for workplace networking. Newer offshoots like Foursquare help people connect based on the real-world places they frequent, while Twitter has cornered the market on brevity. The widespread ownership of smartphones adds to this social experience; the Pew Research Center (2012) found that the majority of people in the United States with mobile phones now have "smart" phones with Internet capability. Many people worldwide can now access Facebook, Twitter, and other social media from virtually anywhere, and there seems to be an increasing acceptance of smartphone use in many diverse and previously prohibited settings. The outcomes of smartphone use, as with other social media, are not yet clear. These newer modes of social interaction have also spawned harmful consequences, such as cyberbullying and what some call FAD, or Facebook Addiction Disorder. Researchers have also examined other potential negative impacts, such as whether Facebooking lowers a student's GPA, or whether there might be long-term effects of replacing face-to-face interaction with social media. All of these social networks demonstrate emerging ways that people interact, whether positive or negative. They illustrate how sociological topics are alive and changing today. Social media will most certainly be a developing topic in the study of sociology for decades to come.

Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Three top tips for writing sociology essays

The Craft of Writing in Sociology

By Andrew Balmer and Anne Murcott
September 19 th 2017

As the academic semester gets underway, we talked to three senior colleagues in Sociology at the University of Manchester to come up with their ‘pet peeves’ when marking student’s essays. Here are some of their comments, and some of our top tips to help you to improve your work.

First, lecturers said they were frustrated with the way that students write their opening paragraphs:

“A main peeve of mine in student writing is poor introductions. Three common errors regularly stand out: throat clearing sentences (e.g. ‘globalisation is an important topic’, ‘Marx was an important writer’); dictionary definitions for core sociological concepts; and introductions that merely restate the question. What I really want to see from an introduction is a brief account of how the student is approaching the question at hand, what key questions the essay will address, and what answer the student will come to at the end of the essay.” – Senior Lecturer in Sociology

This was a point on which our three colleagues agreed: students often waste the introduction. Here is top tip number one to help you improve your essays:

1. Give the reader a guide to your argument. Much as you would give someone directions in how to get to where they’re going, tell your reader what steps you will take, what the key turning points will be, why it is important to take this route and, ultimately, where you will end up. In other words, tell your reader exactly what you will conclude and why, right at the beginning.

Another point on which our colleagues agreed was that sociological essays can be imprecise, and are sometimes written in a style which is meant to sound intellectual, but which is more confusing than it is enlightening. As one senior lecturer put it:

“A pet peeve of mine is imprecise language, for example peppering an essay with terms like ‘however’, ‘therefore’, and ‘consequently’, but without attending to the logical relationship between sentences that those words are supposed to signal. If the logical connector is wrong then the argument fails. This kind of error is often motivated, I think, by students wanting their essays to ‘sound academic’, when often they would have been more convincing by using simpler language more precisely.” – Senior Lecturer in Sociology

It is worth planning the time needed to rework your essays because a good argument can be let down by poor presentation. Here is top tip number two:

2. Your written work should prioritise clarity and concision over entertainment and erudition when making an argument. Students often write in a style which they think makes their points sound important, but get lost in the meaning of what they are saying by doing so. It might be that you have quite a command of English and want to show off your knowledge of polysyllabic or unusual words, or it might be that you wish to imitate the sociological writers whom you admire. Whatever additional reasons you have for writing, there is none more important in a sociological essay than making your argument clear. Words such as ‘however’ and ‘moreover’ should be used to indicate how your ideas are linked together, not to start a sentence with a good word. Be sure that when you edit your work, you edit for the argument, prioritising the word choices which best help to make your point. Such decisions will reflect maturity and consideration in your written work, and it is these which will truly impress a reader.

A final element which our three colleagues all listed in their top pet peeves was poor structure:

“I am often frustrated by the poor structuring of an essay. In other words, with the order in which ideas are presented, either at the level of the whole essay or at paragraph level. Essays that ping-pong from one idea to another, and then back to the original idea, indicate that the student has not really thought their argument through. A trickier thing to get right is the structuring of paragraphs, and some students seem keen to cram in as many (often unconnected) points into one paragraph as possible.” – Senior Lecturer in Sociology

The key point to learn when it comes to structuring your work is to make your writing serve your argument. You should present the main turns of your argument clearly, so as to reach a natural conclusion. Here is top tip number three for improving your essays:

3. Redraft your work for your argument, before you edit and proof-read it. Students often write to tight deadlines and do not plan enough time for a good second draft of their work. Instead, they write a first draft and then edit it as they proof-read it. When writing the first draft of an essay you will still be working out what the argument is. This is because writing helps you to think, so as you write your full first draft you will be meandering around a little, finding the best route as you go. Instead of merely editing this and checking the grammar, you should seriously re-draft the essay in light of the argument you now know you wish to make. This will help you to write a good introduction, since you can now say clearly from the outset what you will go on to argue, and a good conclusion, for you will now be able to say exactly what you have argued and why. Re-drafting for the argument means taking out material, adding in material and ensuring that each paragraph has a main point to contribute. It is an essential step in producing a good essay, which must be undertaken prior to editing for sense and proof-reading for typographical mistakes.

These tips point you towards the most important part of learning to write good sociological essays: bringing everything you do into the service of producing an argument which responds to the question and provides a satisfying answer.

Featured image credit: meeting by Eric Bailey. CC0 Public Domain via Pexels .

Andrew Balmer is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester and member of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives. He is co-author of a new book, The Craft of Writing in Sociology: Developing the Argument in Undergraduate Essays and Dissertations , published by Manchester University Press. Andrew can be found on Twitter @AndyBalmer .

Anne Murcott is Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham and Honorary Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London. She is author of numerous books and edited collections, including The Craft of Writing in Sociology .

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Why Study Sociology?

A student walks by the Berry Library on a blue-sky, spring day.

A lot of people wonder why studying sociology is desirable, given that sociology does not necessarily lead to a definite career path the way that engineering, law, or medicine might. Many college disciplines, actually, are not vocationally oriented, but this should not stop students from pursuing those majors.

One reason to study sociology is simply because sociology is a fascinating and multifaceted discipline . Sociologists and students of sociology can study anything, including other disciplines, because sociological issues are prominent in all aspects of life. Take a look at all the different research and teaching interest areas of our faculty to get an idea of how varied sociology is.

Students often major in sociology simply because they enjoy the courses we offer. The courses we offer are relevant to our students' lives, as they tackle social issues in which our students have first-hand experience. But for students who may not have direct experience with some of the social issues raised in our classes, studying sociology helps students to not only better understand the world around them, but sociology helps students to better understand they own lives .

Studying sociology also equips students with both tangible and intangible skills . More tangible skills include research skills, particularly the ability to conduct data analysis. A skill set in quantitative data analysis (statistics) and proficiency in a statistical software are especially valuable, as studies suggest that jobs and careers involving quantitative skills pay more than non-quantitative positions and are in greater demand. Qualitative data analysis also is a valuable skill that students acquire.

Study Sociology at Salem State

Salem State sociology majors take a core group of classes that form the backbone of the discipline. Core classes include statistics, classical theory, contemporary theory, and research methods. Sociology students benefit from a variety of sociology electives in both general areas (e.g., social inequality and social problems) and more specialized areas (Afro-Latinos, gender and society, public sociology, race and ethnicity, social deviance, and urban sociology, to name a few of our electives).

Students conclude their coursework through more applied and experiential courses ( internship and/or community involvement ), with the capstone seminar in sociology as the culminating experience within the major.

Apply to Salem State's Sociology Program

Learn more about Sociology at Salem State

Benefits of Studying Sociology at Salem State

Businesswoman Analyzing Statistical Business Reports on her Tablet PC at the Office, a Close Up

Marketable Skills

Critical thinking ability
Analytical skills
Reading, writing, and oral communication skills
Quantitative literacy and statistical reasoning skills
Research skills (e.g., literature review, data collection, and data analysis)
Social skills (e.g., communication skills, ability to interact with people from different social backgrounds, cultural competence, and empathy)

A Better Understanding of the Social World

Studying sociology provides a better understanding of the following:

Reasons for social differences, including differences in social behavior.
Reasons for the differentials in group opportunities and outcomes.
The relevance of social hierarchies and social power in everyday life.
How individuals and groups are shaped by larger social forces.
The role of social institutions.
The role of social structure.

A Better Understanding of Your Own Life

An Asian woman touches her hand's reflection in the mirror

Studying sociology helps students better understand their own life. The "sociological imagination" allows students to recognize that their own experiences and circumstance are not unique; rather, there are patterns in behaviors, processes, and opportunities that lead to differences in people's lived experiences, in turn leading to disparities in outcomes.

Social Justice Orientation

Studying social inequality and social problems often leads to the desire and motivation to change society for the better. Our students want a more just, a more equitable, and a healthier world.

Careers in Sociology

Majoring/minoring in sociology is useful for future jobs. Learn more about careers in sociology.

How to Write a Sociology Essay: A Simple Guide

The process of writing a sociology essay is like piecing together a puzzle of society, where each theory, study, and analysis forms a vital piece. It's about understanding how people interact, why societies work the way they do, and expressing these ideas in a thoughtful and organized manner. This article will guide you through the steps of how to write sociology essay A level, from brainstorming ideas to polishing your final draft, making the process less daunting and more manageable. And for those of you who lack time or motivation to work on this assignment, our sociology essay writing service will cater to all your needs.

What Is Sociology Essay?

A sociology essay is essentially an exploration and analysis of societal structures, behaviors, and dynamics using the tools and concepts provided by the field of sociology. This academic genre involves applying sociological theories, empirical research, and critical thinking to examine and interpret various aspects of human society. Unlike essays in other disciplines, the action items of how to write a sociology paper often emphasize understanding the intricate relationships between individuals and the broader social context, delving into questions of culture, institutions, power dynamics, inequality, and social change. The objective is not just to present facts but to offer insights into the underlying patterns and forces that shape human behavior and the functioning of societies.

When writing an essay on sociology, individuals typically use primary and secondary sources, drawing upon established sociological theories and applying them to real-world situations or case studies. The essay might explore topics ranging from the impact of social institutions like education or family on individuals to broader issues such as globalization, social stratification, or the dynamics of social movements. If you ask our experts to write essays for money , they will contribute to a deeper understanding of the social world and provoke critical discussions about the sociology complexities inherent in human societies through thoughtful analysis and interpretation.

Tips for Writing a Sociology Essay

Starting to write a sociology essay? No worries! This section is packed with practical tips to help you nail it. We'll walk you through everything from building a solid thesis to weaving in real-world examples – making sure your essay not only makes sense but also stands out. Ready to turn those sociological insights into a compelling piece of writing? Let's dive in!

Clearly Define Your Thesis

Begin your essay on sociology with a well-defined thesis statement succinctly presenting the main argument or perspective you intend to explore in your paper.
This will provide focus and direction for your sociology writing.

Thoroughly Understand the Sociological Concepts

Demonstrate a strong grasp of sociological concepts and theories relevant to your topic.
This involves not only defining key terms but also showcasing an understanding of their application within the broader social context.

Research Widely and Critically

Conduct thorough sociology research using various reputable sources, such as academic journals, books, and empirical studies.
Evaluate sources critically and select those that contribute robust evidence and insights to support your argument.

Create a Solid Outline

Develop a clear and organized outline before diving into the actual writing.
This roadmap will help structure your essay, ensuring a logical progression of ideas and a coherent presentation of your arguments.

Use Concrete Examples

Support your arguments with concrete examples and relevant evidence.
Whether drawing from real-world sociology cases, empirical studies, or historical events, providing specific examples strengthens your analysis and makes your essay more compelling.

Engage with Counterarguments

Acknowledge and engage with counterarguments.
This not only demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the topic but also strengthens your own argument by addressing potential criticisms.

Write a Cohesive Conclusion

Summarize your main points and re-write your thesis in the conclusion.
Avoid introducing new sociology information, but reflect on the broader implications of your findings and potentially suggest avenues for future research.

Edit and Revise

Set aside time for editing and revising your essay.
Check for clarity, coherence, and consistency in your arguments.
Ensure your writing is concise and free of grammatical errors.

Cite Sources Properly

Learn how to format a sociology paper in APA, MLA, or Chicago.
Write accurate and consistent citations throughout your essay.
Proper referencing adds credibility to your work.

Which Sociology Essay Topics to Choose (With Examples)?

Choosing the right sociology topics for essays is crucial for creating an engaging and insightful piece of writing. Firstly, consider your interests and passions within sociology. Selecting a topic that resonates with you will not only make the research process more enjoyable but also likely result in a more compelling essay. Whether examining gender roles, exploring racial dynamics, or delving into the complexities of social institutions, find a theme that sparks your curiosity.

Secondly, to learn how to write a good sociology essay, you should assess the current sociological landscape. Choose topics that are relevant and timely, as this ensures your essay contributes to ongoing discussions in the field. Issues such as globalization, technology's impact on society, or the evolving nature of social movements can provide a contemporary context for exploration. By addressing current societal challenges, your essay can offer fresh perspectives and insights, making it more engaging for you and your sociology readers.

Lastly, consider the scope and feasibility of the sociology essay question. Ensure it is neither too broad nor too narrow for the length of your essay. Strike a writing balance, allowing in-depth analysis while staying focused on a specific aspect of the chosen topic. This sociology writing approach ensures you can thoroughly explore the subject matter within the confines of your assignment, providing a well-rounded and comprehensive examination of the sociological issues at hand. Here’s a list of 30 social science essay topics to boost your creativity:

The impact of social media on interpersonal relationships.
Gender inequality in the workplace.
Effects of education on social mobility.
Influence of family structure on child development.
The sociology of online dating.
Examining racial profiling in law enforcement.
Social consequences of income inequality.
Role of religion in shaping societal norms.
The rise of single-parent households.
Impact of technology on social interaction.
Juvenile delinquency and its societal causes.
Stereotypes in the media and their effects.
The sociology of fashion and cultural identity.
Exploring youth subcultures.
The stigma surrounding mental health.
Societal attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals.
Social effects of environmental pollution.
The dynamics of cross-cultural communication.
Influence of social class on educational opportunities.
Examining the prison industrial complex.
Social implications of immigration policies.
Sociology of deviant behavior.
The impact of globalization on local cultures.
The social construction of beauty standards.
Societal views on aging and the elderly.
The role of social institutions in society.
Exploring microaggressions in everyday life.
The sociology of conspiracy theories.
Social effects of gentrification.
Societal perceptions of disability.

When you find a topic you like, you can either study it yourself or let our professional essay writers do the job for you, getting faster and more dependable results.

Sociology Essay Structure

In a sociology essay, write your thoughts in a clear and organized way so that readers can easily follow along. We start by diving into the topic, exploring different aspects and ideas, and using examples and evidence to support our points. Each part of the essay connects smoothly, like pieces of a puzzle, forming a complete picture of our argument. Finally, we wrap it up by summarizing what we've discussed and highlighting the broader significance of our sociology findings. This structure helps us convey complex sociological concepts in a way that's easy to understand and engaging to read. If any of the concepts are too difficult to comprehend, simply ask us, ‘ write my essays ,’ and our writers will take your task from here.

Introduction to Sociology Essay

A well-structured essay on sociology typically adheres to a standard format, beginning with an introduction that outlines the context, significance, and purpose of the essay. As you study how to write an introduction to a sociology essay, it should feature a clear and concise thesis statement. This central sociology sentence presents the main argument or perspective that will be explored in the essay. This section serves as a roadmap for the reader, providing an overview of the key themes to be addressed.

Body in Sociology Essay

Following the introduction, the essay's body is organized into paragraphs, each devoted to a specific aspect of the topic. These paragraphs should be structured logically, with a clear topic sentence introducing the main idea, followed by supporting evidence, examples, and sociology analysis. It's crucial to maintain coherence and flow between paragraphs, ensuring a seamless transition from one idea to the next. The essay's body allows for a comprehensive exploration of sociological concepts, theories, and empirical evidence, reinforcing the central thesis through a well-organized and cohesive argument. Here are 5 comprehensive tips on how to write body in sociology essay:

Structure paragraphs logically with a main idea and smooth transitions.
Support your points with relevant evidence, whether from research or examples.
Go beyond description; critically evaluate evidence and discuss implications.
Stick to the main point of each paragraph; avoid unnecessary tangents.
For clarity, maintain a consistent writing tone and style throughout your essay.

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Conclusion of Sociology Essay

Concluding the essay is the final section, where the writer summarizes the key points, restates the thesis in a nuanced manner, and reflects on the broader implications of the analysis. This section should avoid introducing new information but instead offer a thoughtful synthesis of the essay's main ideas. A strong sociology essay conclusion leaves a lasting impression, leaving the reader with a sense of closure and a deeper understanding of the sociological perspectives explored in the essay. How to write a conclusion for sociology essay? Maintain a clear and organized structure that ensures that the paper effectively communicates complex sociological ideas while engaging the reader from start to finish.

Editing and Proofreading

Knowing how to write sociology papers constitutes 70% of a great job done. The remaining 30% belongs to effective editing and proofreading. Start by reviewing the overall structure and coherence of your arguments, ensuring each paragraph contributes to the essay's main thesis. Next, scrutinize the clarity and consistency of your language, eliminating unnecessary jargon and ensuring a straightforward communication of ideas. Finally, meticulously check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors, ensuring a polished and error-free presentation of your sociological analysis. Note that when you buy essay online , you won’t have to edit or proofread anything, as the service includes these activities on our behalf.

Sociology Essay Example

We’ve written several sociology essays examples for your convenience and inspiration. Remember that they are for reference purposes only! Don’t copy and paste them into your document for submission. If you like our sociology research papers examples, order one that will be written for you from scratch or write on your own to avoid plagiarism and damage to your academic integrity.

The Digital Canvas: Unraveling Youth Identity in the Age of Social Media

Social media platforms have become an integral part of contemporary youth culture, serving as both a mirror and a canvas for self-expression. This essay explores the multifaceted impact of social media on the formation and presentation of youth identity, examining how these digital spaces shape perceptions, relationships, and self-awareness.

Social media platforms, from Instagram to TikTok, have revolutionized the way young individuals construct and project their identities in today's interconnected world. As the virtual realm intertwines with real-life experiences, it poses critical questions about the authenticity and complexity of youth identity formation.

One significant aspect is the performative nature of identity on social media. The curated profiles and carefully selected content act as a digital stage where youth engage in a constant performance, showcasing aspects of their lives that align with societal expectations or online trends. This performative aspect influences self-esteem, as individuals navigate the fine line between authentic expression and the desire for social validation.

Social media's role in facilitating social comparison among youth is noteworthy. The constant exposure to peers' achievements, lifestyles, and experiences can lead to both inspiration and feelings of inadequacy. This comparative aspect influences the construction of youth identity as individuals navigate their unique identities in the context of a digitally connected and often competitive environment.

Social media platforms redefine the landscape of friendship and belonging among youth. Online connections and communities provide opportunities for global interaction, yet they also introduce challenges related to cyberbullying and the pressure to conform. Understanding the impact of these virtual relationships on youth identity is crucial for comprehending the evolving nature of social connections in contemporary society.

In conclusion, the digital era has fundamentally altered the terrain of youth identity. Social media, as a tool for both self-expression and social comparison, plays a central role in shaping how young individuals perceive themselves and relate to others. As society grapples with these transformations, it becomes imperative to navigate the nuanced intersections between online and offline identities, fostering an environment that supports authentic self-discovery and interpersonal connections.

The Dynamics of Economic Inequality and Social Mobility

In contemporary society, economic inequality stands as a pervasive challenge that not only reflects societal disparities but also significantly influences the prospects of social mobility. This essay delves into the intricate relationship between economic inequality and social mobility, examining how disparities in wealth and opportunities shape the life trajectories of individuals across different social strata.

Economic inequality has emerged as a defining feature of our times, with profound implications for the ability of individuals to move upward on the social ladder. This essay seeks to unravel the complex dynamics between economic inequality and social mobility, shedding light on the factors that either facilitate or hinder the pursuit of the proverbial American Dream.

One key aspect is the connection between income disparities and access to quality education. Children born into economically disadvantaged families often face limited educational resources, hindering their ability to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary for upward mobility. This perpetuates a cycle where economic disadvantage becomes an enduring barrier to social advancement.

Economic inequality manifests prominently in occupational segregation and wage disparities. Certain professions and industries offer more significant opportunities for economic advancement, while others remain marginalized and undervalued. The unequal distribution of resources and opportunities within the job market directly influences the potential for social mobility among different segments of the population.

The transmission of economic status across generations contributes significantly to the perpetuation of inequality. Economic advantages or disadvantages experienced by parents often shape the opportunities available to their children, creating a cycle that is challenging to break. Understanding this intergenerational dimension is crucial for comprehending the long-term effects of economic inequality on social mobility.

In conclusion, the intricate interplay between economic inequality and social mobility underscores the need for comprehensive societal measures. Addressing disparities in education, occupation, and intergenerational opportunities is essential for fostering a more equitable society, where individuals can pursue their aspirations irrespective of their economic background. As we navigate these challenges, the pursuit of a more inclusive and socially mobile society remains a critical goal for shaping the future of our communities.

A good essay on sociology is all about being organized, using evidence wisely, and thinking critically. The tips for aspiring writers provided here are like a toolkit to help you express your ideas effectively and make a meaningful contribution to the world of sociology. Keep in mind the importance of a clear thesis, backing up your points with good evidence, and thinking deeply about your topic. Also, don't forget to do thorough research and stick to the rules of academic writing. With these tips, your sociology essays can not only be academically solid but also interesting and thought-provoking. Alternatively, you can pay for essay on our website and move to other more important tasks for the day. In any case, happy writing!

Frequently asked questions

How to start a sociology essay, how to write a sociology essay university level, how long is a sociology essay.

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Decolonise Sociology ↗

The Department recommends that students write a total of four to six essays per paper over the course of Michalemas and Lent terms.

This equates to two or three essays per paper, per term. Since students take four papers, and terms are eight weeks long, two essays per paper would work out at one essay per week (if distributed evenly). Regardless of how many essays students choose to write, they will still receive six supervisions per paper over the course of both terms. This means three supervisions per paper, per term.

For two of these supervisions, the Sociology Department has a policy that allows students to prepare in another way besides an essay for the supervision, such as with a blog post , or a presentation on a reading or related current event. This should be agreed ahead of time with the supervisor in question.

Essays are expected to be around 1,500 to 2,000 words, which may sound like a lot to new students, but it is crucial practice for honing the skill of making a detailed, coherent and concise argument. The upper word limit is also important, as writing to wordcount (and deadline) are key academic skills, and this takes into consideration the marking workload of your supervisors.

Essay writing is one of the main means of study as well as a form of preparation for the exams , in which students are expected to draw on lecture material, supervision work, and independent reading. Over the course of the HSPS programme, students will be increasingly encouraged to supplement supervisors’ suggested readings with the sources they have encountered using their growing research skills.

Essay Writing FAQs

The sections below provide some answers to help students approach their essays. Students are encouraged to reach out to their peers, supervisors and/or Directors of Studies if they are having trouble with essay writing.

When you write an essay, you’ll need to find the suggested reading list provided in the paper guide. A reading list will usually contain a mixture of online resources like journal articles and Ebooks, and physical books which can be requested from the libraries; in 2020-21, however, given the coronavirus pandemic, we have adjusted our reading lists so that all texts are available electronically. Most of the readings you need for sociology are available via the Seeley library (Sociology, Land Economy), and you can find out how to access them on our Study Resources [link] page.

There are multiple copies of most of the books in the Seeley library so you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting hold of a text. Often you can request a book even if it has been taken out, in which case the student who has the book on loan will be expected to return the book in three days. If they’re not available at the Seeley library, the iDiscover website can show you all the locations where a book can be found in other university libraries.

Many College libraries also have undergraduate reading list collections, and it’s always worth emailing either the SPS or your college library if you’re struggling to access a text. Finally, if you can’t access a book or find an Ebook version online, Google Books often has parts of books - such as selected chapters - available to read for free. Your lecturer may also give tips for finding certain texts.

You will find you get much faster at reading and condensing arguments as you progress through your degree. Rather than trying to read everything, focus on the readings that the lecturer has marked as particularly important, and then use the additional recommended readings to gain a broader understanding and add more nuance to your essays.

What matters is that you’ve got a grasp of the key concepts and theories as portrayed in the available literature on a topic. When you’re first starting out, it may be better to focus on a few readings and give yourself more time to think and write. Another way of tackling reading lists is to split the workload with other people doing the same topic. Sharing notes and ideas not only helps consolidate your learning, it also makes life much, much easier.

If you’re assigned an entire book without chapter or page number suggestions, don’t feel you’re expected to read them cover to cover. Start with the introductory and concluding chapters to get a feel for the arguments. You can also check the contents page for sections or chapters that are especially relevant. Sometimes useful summaries, reviews, or commentaries on books are available online; for example, you can search for book reviews via Google Scholar.

Key to writing a good Sociology essay is a clear argument based on a careful and critical reading of the material relevant to the question. In the first instance, this will be the books and articles the paper organiser has indicated you should read in the paper guide. Pay careful attention to the language a particular author uses and attempt to situate the work in the social and intellectual context of the period in which it was written.

A good essay will provide an introduction that explains your interpretation of the question and how you intend to answer it, namely your essay’s structure and argument. As part of the process of building the argument, the body of the essay will outline, and critically evaluate, the different positions you’ve considered on the topic of the question (e.g. a question on class may discuss Marx, Weber and Durkheim’s differing understanding of the structural organisation of class and/or the subjective experience of class). This critical evaluation may include how well arguments are supported with empirical examples of events (including contemporary events not yet analysed in the literature), studies or statistical data. Specifically, you can use the theory to help us understand an empirical case of your choice, and then use that empirical case to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of that theory.

Here you can show further knowledge by referring to material beyond the reading list, as long as you demonstrate its relevance. The essay should conclude by summarising your argument and the justifications you have offered for it, as well as indicating the relevance of your argument in the broader theoretical and/or empirical context. Always try to justify your arguments by reference to concrete examples, studies, research or new work. Reference all your sources consistently and systematically. Finally give yourself time to re-read, edit and re-edit your essay. Often the process of re-reading and editing will improve an essay immensely. This process will, of course, be aided through discussions in supervisions and the further reflections they inspire for you.

When supervisors mark your essays (and indeed, your exams), they will be guided by the marking criteria, so it is best to familiarise yourself with these criteria. You can ask your supervisor for advice on how to interpret these criteria, which can be downloaded via WHERE [link].

The university and the faculty libraries have lots of guidance on essay-writing, which you can ask them about or find on their websites. Some colleges run workshops or have academics who provide support for essay-writing; your Director of Studies (DoS) should be able to point you in the right direction. This is especially useful for students who want to develop their academic writing skills, and can help build confidence for those who might feel a little out-of-practice.

Finally, it’s always good to share essays with friends taking the course to get a sense of their approaches. You can learn from your fellow students just as you can learn from university academics. Chatting through an issue that you’re finding confusing with a friend can have great results, because just by talking through your difficulties or thought processes, the path to the answers you need can become clearer.

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Why I Am Majoring in Sociology: Perspectives from 3 current students

By Alana Inlow

Students become WSU sociology majors for a variety of reasons. They also come from a variety of backgrounds, seeking a match between their interests, skills, and future aspirations.

After graduating, our students go into several different sectors of the work force. Some go into social services, others into law and/or law enforcement, and still others into private industry.

There is no typical sociology major. Each has come to the department for different reasons. Here, three current sociology majors, Alyssa Newton, Hayley Garnick, and Amy Cox, decided to major in sociology. They share in their own words what attracted them to, and kept them in, sociology.

Alyssa Newton: “My goal is to serve people.”

I am a first-generation college student who grew up in western Washington. I did running-start in high school, so I took my first sociology class at a community college in Olympia, and just loved it. When I got to Pullman, I decided to take more sociology classes, and fell in love with the major.

Now, I am intern with Child Protective Services, which I find difficult but enjoyable, and this is the kind of thing I hope is in my future. I shadow social workers, go on ride-along experiences, and also get to go to court and learn about investigations and foster care placements.

Eventually I want to go get a master’s degree. I’m not quite sure what I want to do after I graduate. But I know that I want to work now and apply to graduate school later, perhaps getting a master’s in social work and eventually going into family counseling.

My favorite sociology class has been Social Deviance (SOC 360), taught by Dr. Kristin Cutler. I love learning how people think and interact, as well as getting a broader perspective on the world. I have also enjoyed my Juvenile Delinquency (SOC 362) class.

I am enrolled in the Youth-At-Risk minor, which included the social deviance class as well as the sociology of family course taught by Dr. Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson. These courses fit with my interest in working with child protective services and youth in the future. Those classes were probably my favorite because they focused on the family and children.

I considered other majors than sociology. I thought about political science because it might prepare me to have more of an impact on people. But my thoughts turned back to sociology and how I can actually serve individuals and have a direct impact on people’s lives.

My goal is to serve people, and I think sociology is super helpful in understanding social policy, as we discuss in classes. I really enjoy sociology. I love it and talk to everybody about it!

Hayley Garnick: “I see the world differently as a result of sociology.”

I am a senior and will graduate in May. I came to WSU from the Bay Area in California and learned about WSU because in high school I was interested in becoming a veterinarian and learned there was a good vet program here. It is one of the best in the nation. Then, when I got here, as a biology major, I didn’t like the classes, so I ended up looking for something different.

A photo of Hayley Garnick smiling at the camera.

I started reading about sociology online. In high school they didn’t teach sociology or anything like that, so I had no idea what it was. As I was reading about it, the topics sounded really interesting, and I learned that you could also become a teacher after being a sociology major if you went on to get at least a master’s degree. I wanted something that would be more applicable for something like real life, rather than looking at bugs and plants all day.

Sociology classes have taught me a lot about how society works, and I think that it’s really beneficial to know about these kinds of social processes. I now see the world differently as a result. Sociology opens up your eyes to see why certain people live in one place compared to another, or why people go to different schools, or have different college experiences. Knowing about sociological issues seems applicable to any career that I could think of pursuing.

The Capstone sociology class (SOC 495/497) changed my perspective on what kind of skills I’m learning. It’s not just thinking, ‘Oh, I know racial differences in who gets educated.’ As a sociology major, I have learned skills such as working with others, working with data, statistical analysis, and critical thinking. I have also learned writing and communication skills. Those seem applicable to many different post-college jobs. I do not yet know what field of work I want to go into after college, but I feel confident about the usefulness of the skills that I am learning.

After I graduate, I want to go back to California. I may go back and get my master’s in teaching and then I’d want to be a high school teacher. For right now, it’s just to move back and see what kind of jobs I’m able to find with the education I have.

One of my favorite classes was SOC 350, Social Inequality with Dr. Julie Kmec. It provided a broad overview of all sorts of different social problems, including education, housing, race issues, and gender issues. That was one of my first classes I took as a sociology major and it got me really interested in the field. I also liked the capstone class because Dr. Sarah Whitley showed us many ways that sociology skills are applicable to jobs besides social research. It was really cool to learn about them. We learned to build résumés and cover letters, do mock interviews, and build other skills that prepare us for life after college.

I am minoring in psychology, which is closely related to sociology. A lot of the concepts we talk about in psychology classes remind me of things that we’ve also talked about in sociology classes. The focus is just on a different level, being focused more on individuals than group behaviors. That minor allowed me to take classes about kids, their development and behavior problems, which should be really helpful if I become a teacher.

Amy Cox: “The most useful thing I have learned from sociology is how to connect with people.”

I am a junior here, a non-traditional student, returning to finish my degree. I currently work as a university development coordinator, which I have done for more than 15 years. I’ve spent the last four years finishing my bachelor’s degree.

A photo of Amy Cox and her two children standing outside and smiling at the camera.

I started my secondary education career at another university and took a break to re-focus. I was an accounting major but needed a hiatus. I then got married, spent 20 years raising kids and family, and then decided to go back to school to give myself opportunities for career advancement. But I knew I didn’t want to go into accounting. Numbers are super easy for me, but they’re boring.

The Sociology 101 introduction course was absolutely fascinating. It scared me to death at first because there were six papers, and I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, how am I going to write six papers after being out of college for 25 years?’ But I absolutely loved it, and just having the thought of how our society influences people’s behaviors really spurred my interest.

I have two siblings. My sister and I are both fairly successful. She works for a large corporation. But our brother died from alcoholism a few years ago. Yet, we all grew up in the same house. So, how do three kids that grow up in the same family end up on completely different paths as they get older? And what other influences affected my brother’s decisions in life? Learning about theories, peer influences, and institutional influences spurred my interest and pushed me toward a sociology degree. So, when I’m looking now at why I’m majoring in sociology and why my minor is in at-risk-youth, it’s partially because I am trying to understand how early life circumstances can influence young people to go in different directions, some of which are unfortunate.

I have been working in philanthropy at WSU for the last 14 years and I absolutely love it. I would like to stay in this area of work. Having the opportunity to help people fulfill their philanthropic endeavors is really fulfilling to me. I would love to work for an organization that either works with at at-risk youth or adolescent addiction. Being able to bring an awareness of these issues to help fund-raise, while also addressing the interests of donors, is fulfilling work.

The most useful thing I have learned from sociology is how to connect with people. Understanding how a person’s life has influenced their decision making is helpful to me. Knowing these kinds of things helps me understand how people may respond to different situations that they come across. And I know in my specific position, having a sociology degree has opened my mind to how socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and other things influence people’s behaviors. I’m also going to add the Workplace Diversity minor because it’ll be great for my career path.

Some classes have really inspired me. My favorite classes are always with professors who are really passionate about what they are researching and what they do, like Drs. Kmec and Whitley. When you have a professor that can stand in front of a classroom and have a student ask a question that might be a little bit off topic, and they answer that question with passion because they’ve researched something for so long, it’s inspiring to me, and I love that engagement.

Dr. Kmec’s gender & work course (SOC 390) was especially fascinating, because I’ve been in the workforce for so long. And then Dr. Whitley’s classes taught me about kids growing up, how they are educated, and the effects of social and economic class on that process. It’s their combined passions for teaching and research on those issues that I most appreciate.

Sociology News is grateful to these three sociology majors for sharing their paths into sociology and how their experiences are preparing them for the future.

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Is Sociology a Science? The Case for "Yes"

Last updated 13 Jun 2020

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Positivist sociologists believe that it is possible to establish objective facts through scientific research methods and the thorough collection and analysis of empirical evidence. They argue that their research follows the scientific method shown below.

A good sociologist identifies a social problem or question. Following research, they formulate a hypothesis. Although they are very unlikely to use laboratory experiments, they would argue that they use rigorous, reliable research methods that produce sound quantitative data which can be analysed, leading to conclusions that are then published in peer reviewed academic journals.

Classic positivist sociologists like Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim were firmly of this view. Indeed, when Durkheim conducted his famous study Suicide he did so in part to establish how the science of sociology could explain all human behaviour, even that which most would consider fundamentally individual and “antisocial”.

Like a natural scientist, Durkheim tested his hypothesis against a range of “variables” (e.g. religious belief) to understand the impact these social features had on suicide rates. While Durkheim’s study has been extensively criticised, he did reach conclusions that supported his hypothesis and published them in a highly influential and much read essay.

Evaluating the Case For "Yes"

Interpretivists and postmodernists believe that this misunderstands the nature of society and human behaviour. While potassium will always react with water, humans will (within certain parameters) do as they please. They cannot be scientifically studied in the same way.

Karl Popper argued that positivist sociology generally failed to be as scientific as it intended because it used inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning. In other words, instead of subjecting their hypothesis to falsification, trying to find evidence to disprove it, they do the opposite: they try and find evidence that supports their hypothesis. The flaw with this approach is often illustrated with swans. If you had a hypothesis that "all swans are white", you would find more and more supporting evidence with every white swan you found. But the critical evidence is the black swan that proves your hypothesis incorrect. While inductive reasoning requires a researcher to look for evidence that supports their hypothesis, true scientific method attempts to falsify the hypothesis. Popper calls this falsification . Instead of searching for supportive evidence, the researcher should try and prove that their hypothesis is untrue. If they are unable to do so, it remains the best explanation. Popper was particularly critical of some concepts within Marxism, such as false class consciousness arguing that it is not really possible to falsify.

Taking Durkheim’s study on suicide as an example, even other positivists criticise the reliability of his data and the scientific rigour of his method. The calculation of suicide rates between countries might have been inconsistent. Furthermore, some of the key concepts in the study (such as social cohesion and social control) were very difficult to operationalise. How do you scientifically measure such concepts? Sociology is full of such concepts that are almost impossible to be turned into quantitative data, and yet any other measurement would be deemed unscientific

Science (Theory)
Sociology as a Science

Durkheim on deviance, evaluating functionalist explanations of crime, parsons on education, conflict theories of education - louis althusser, the nature of knowledge, what is functionalism introduction to a-level sociology.

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Emile Durkheim's Theory of Functionalism

1. introduction to emile durkheim.

Emile Durkheim was born in France in April of 1857 and was a major figure in the establishment of sociology. He is considered to be one of the founders of sociology and one of the most influential people in the history of sociology. Durkheim was interested in the individual and society interaction. He wanted to understand how people's behavior is influenced through social conditions. Durkheim suggested that if we want to understand why people act the way they do, there must be a factor in society that affects them. He believed that society, and not just individuals and their personal choices, was detrimental in shaping people's beliefs and actions. The influence of society was weighed against biology and psychology relating to behavior functioning. Durkheim categorically stated that biology and psychology were not strong enough by reason alone. He came to this conclusion when he observed that many people from certain groups, cultures, and settings acted in a similar manner despite their different biological make up or psychological backgrounds. In essence, Durkheim believed that society, as a whole, shaped individuals. The reason Durkheim had these particular ideas about society was because he lived in Europe during the time of dramatic growth and social change. He saw that the political and industrial revolutions had transformed society's people by pulling from their religious beliefs and traditions and in turn giving them freedom, control, and choice in their individual courses of action. With personal freedoms had come a feeling of confusion and frustration with traditional forms of society and with people involved in the routines of their everyday pursuits and imaginations. This created an unstable social environment, which was Civil War and a powerful force behind individual motives. Although he was interested in religion, his approach to the social phenomenon could be applied to the social dynamics of the modern society. Durkheim's concern was not with religion in the religious sense but rather the functions of religion in the social life. Emile Durkheim is a social theorist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He has a significant influence over the discovery of sociology with Karl Marx and Max Weber. His most original contribution was his theory of the division of labor; detailed especially in his monumental work, The Division of Labor in Society. His major theoretical concern was to analyze the ways in which the usual form of social integration in a given society affect what could be sociologically by identified its form of social solidarity. It is Durkheim's belief that social integration facilitates social control.

1.1. Biographical Background

Born in the eastern French town of Epinel, Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) was the son of a rabbi and belonged to a long line of rabbis. After spending his early years in his birthplace, Durkheim left for Paris. There he studied at a high school in which the teacher of philosophy, Aristide Lefranc, had transformed the teaching of philosophy into teaching about the ideas of Auguste Comte, Jules Michelet, and Condorcet. Inspired by Lefranc, he entered the Ecole Normale Superieure and found himself alongside some notable figures of those days – Jean Jaures, Felix Rauh, and Marcel Mauss, the nephew of the sociologist Emile, who would later on achieve world fame in their respective fields. Upon completing his tertiary education, he went to Germany and stayed there long enough to become an influential figure in the circle around Wilhelm Wundt, and to witness the developments in the relatively new scientific field of psychology. Then he returned to France, where he distinguished himself in the teaching of education and moral science. In 1887, he was assigned to the Sorbonne in Paris and was made a professor at a very young age. There he taught pedagogy, morality, and sociology, the last of which he had learned about from the lectures of Herbert Spencer, whom he had met for the first time in England in 1885. Spencer introduced him to the works of John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and later, to those of Auguste Comte, and for more than two years, conversed and corresponded with Durkheim.

1.2. Influences and Intellectual Context

Occasionally, a widely subscribed theoretical position arises whose inflections and implications are so submerged in covert consciousness that their explicit treatment causes surprise. Durkheim's reputation, at least in the United States, is widely assumed to derive from the development of his "functional" sociology. Often enough, the form of expression of this reputation is fatuously - but effectively - summarized by a position paper urging sociologists to "apply Durkheim's analysis of particular institutions or aspects of society to the problems of today." The evasive character of this proposal reveals the nature of the intellectual properties actually attached to the Durkheimian œuvre. What is not present here is the assertion that the application suggested is grounded conceptually, methodologically, or politically. However piously invoked, at best "Durkheim" is a name, attributed to stock quotes from Suicide, The Division of Labor in Society, and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, and efforts to use them in professional exercises of verified or middle-range speculation. Durkheim rather is cited to license the more or less private intellectual projects of self-identified "functionalist sociologists." This account can be and often is offered without direct reference to Durkheim's work, or to the problems he addressed, or to the methods and theories employed. The contemporary relevance of Durkheim is, rather, an assertion of a bridge position, a warrant deduced to grant legitimacy to enterprises which independently of such grant feel themselves legitimized and warranted. To a considerable extent it is the explicitness of this routine assignment, and the effort required to comprehend its tacit character, that make the disclosure of the actually constituted genealogy of functionalism a matter for surprise.

2. Foundations of Functionalism

According to John G. Macionis, functionalist theory emphasizes the ways in which the component parts of a society are especially suited to ensure the smooth functioning of that society. The early French sociologist Emile Durkheim was the first to explain the existence and quality of all the parts of the society and their functions. His theory of functionalism was used to help make sense of the rapid social changes occurring in Europe at his time. Durkheim worked to show how the narrow specialization of the industrial division of labor could reproduce a smooth-working society. At a time when industrial and social organization was undergoing rapid change, Durkheim wanted to assure others that traditional social ties, meanings, and values present in small, undifferentiated pre-industrial society were present in modern, large-scale societies as well. His concern was that people would think, and perhaps act, as though they were isolated and powerless. He studied traditional and modern, small-scale groups and large-scale ones looking for social facts or recurring patterns of behavior that have a coercive influence upon individuals. He found that the larger the social structure, the greater the number of social facts shaping both individual and groups. These basic forms of specialization were in fact functional needed for the success of a society.

2.1. Definition and Key Concepts

A society is a number of persons united together by a common bond. People are more than the sum of individuals, and there is a collective force in society which is irreducible to the individuals that formed the society. Social phenomena can be distinguished from psychological phenomena because there are emergent properties at the level of society and the group. Institutions are inevitable in society because of the predominance of social facts in society. A social fact is every way of doing, fixed or not, capable of exercising an external constraint on the individuals; or again, which is general in society, while having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations. Society has the properties of (1) constancy of the way of life; (2) progressiveness, for which society requires existing outside the individual; and (3) existence of society, which implies that society conditions the individuals that partake in societal activities. Durkheim proposes that society generates the individual, rather than individuals forming society. The more we detest the principle of society, the weaker our moral feelings, and the more lawless we will become. Society maintains the differences between the individual and also obliges each member to comply with the holistic principles of the human mosaic. Individuals can identify themselves because of their affinities with others. Pre-social is innate and therefore we can presuppose it. Society is born of this. With the division of labor, moral bounds become less intimate and mechanical solidarity develops. To resolve these, organic solidarity will result, and interdependence, resulting from the division of labor, will take center stage, thus reducing anomie in society.

2.2. Organic Analogy

Durkheim coined the term "organic analogy" to describe the relationship between the functioning parts of a complex society. He was careful to distinguish his concept from the concept of the "organic state". He emphasized the importance of social facts to the survival of the group. In complex societies, individuals are permeated by the social facts that regulate their desires and needs. They benefit when collectively possessed goods increase with the group's moral density. Thus, as a group's moral density increases, functions that serve individual interest are functionally equivalent to those that serve the group's interest. Therefore, deviance serves to strengthen groups if collective sentiments harmed by deviance respond to deviance in the way specified by Durkheim: integration fragments and one or both dysfunctions increase. What holds for crime also holds for legal processing. In this manner, deviance is functionally incongruent with its own state processing and has positive functions at the group level. When crime and legal processing increase, Durkheim's argument is that our moral density could decrease and lead to anomie.

3. Key Principles of Durkheim's Functionalism

Durkheim believed that society is made up of the collective consciousness, or its shared beliefs and values. To make this happen, consensus is necessary. This is created by promoting a common morality among people. Durkheim also felt that society is greater than the sum of its parts. This is important to remember, as society is the driving force in people's lives and humankind. By imposing its collective will or force, society can dictate the nature of belief and actions and present constraints exerted upon the individual. The individual gains sanity, meaning, and purpose through his or her role in keeping society intact. The basic underlying elements of functionalism are made up of three main principles. Society should be analyzed and examined on the basis of how the parts work together, and not just the sum of its parts. The society has an existence in and of itself, and the fundamental goal is to maintain equilibrium or balance. The last base of functionalism is that sociology is the study of the structures that shape the society. In sum, functionalism is a theory representing the prevalent method for understanding and analyzing large, supercomplicated social structures. Its concepts are used quite generally to all sorts of collective phenomena, and functionalists write in an ideal typology.

3.1. Social Facts

Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist who helped establish sociology as an academic discipline through his efforts to maintain it as a particular scientific and the investigation of a specific subject. Through his study of social solidarity, he contributed to our understanding of the nature of social solidarity and social cohesion. The formation and maintenance of social order, particularly how social cohesion is maintained in the context of modern industrial society, to analyze the description of society he developed social facts. All aspects of individuals' social environments, from religious beliefs and laws to patterns of interpersonal communication and relations, and types and forms of social institutions, are shaped and influenced by social facts. All social facts are external to individuals and are capable of exerting their will upon individuals, notwithstanding their complete submission. All persons need not endorse or believe in social facts for the latter to have the capacities and empowerment they possess, nor need individuals be aware of the social facts' influence. By investigating the social facts that exist in a social environment and determining how they influence individual beliefs and behaviors, sociologists can test whether individuals act as moral beings because of free will or because they are forced to do so by external forces.

3.2. Collective Consciousness

According to Durkheim, another important source of cohesion is what he termed collective consciousness (or conscience). Justice and a moral sense are not just individual sentiments, Durkheim argued; rather, they are moral phenomena and requirements which are, in fact, collective, yet still real and normative. Therefore, these forms of justice and the moral sense rest ultimately on collective representations. That these collective representations exist is known symbolically by the things people require of us, by the pressures to conform to the regulations which are forms of what society needs of people, by the rules of functioning and classification of the social aggregates of which we are a part, and symbolically by the precepts we are taught or moral rules we are made to respect. The point is that because we are members of society we find that symbols associated with the collective representations are inscribed in us, but not that they are subordinate parts of our conscious self; these symbols are effectively stored in a specific and fundamentally collective area of the brain and not that collectively we believe in them as though in the existence of supra-individual entities. Rather, we are a part of the world of the collective representations and our self is part of the collective self. We are connected with society and come to believe and think in the way we do by this connection. We find "society" in us. Indeed, Durkheim concludes, since we both participate in and seek the camaraderie of the collective representations, social life comes to exist in the realm of the individual.

4. Applications and Critiques of Functionalism

In the spirit of making functionalism into a more concrete and plausible theory, let us consider several examples. In the first two examples particular institutions are regarded as dysfunctional and the point is to illustrate the success of functionalist explanations. We then consider manifestly functional institutions; but first a word about the use of the word "institution." "Institution" is used in the narrow sense of status-role, money, and the like, but also in the broader sense of activity patterns such as play of conversation. With that in mind, we proceed to our examples. Functional Analysis of Suicide Durkheim's Suicide is largely devoted to an explanation of why men in society should find it necessary to kill themselves, that is to say, why a phenomenon which at one level seems thoroughly maladjusted, dysfunctional, is in fact functional. Essential to his position is the belief that every aspect of society exists because it serves certain functions within the total social system. The necessary task is to discover these functions and to show the intimate connection which exists between the collective representations which constitute morality and society. The functional interdependencies which Durkheim discovers are in fact universal—true at all times and in all places. The explanation of suicides—of the positive facts which make it conceivable that men, when their position is too high in the different statuses of society, may find themselves morally obliged to kill themselves—is that morality is necessary and legitimate. Without constraint, men would not perform the legal and moral duties which guarantee the common good, and society would not hold together. This is the necessary condition for all collective life and for the coexistence of individuals. Without collective consciousness, there would really be nothing. Society or humanity would simply not exist. The conscience collective must, iself, be guaranteed by material coercion, whether that be moral-economic sanctions or some other urgent necessity. Suicide, Durkheim says, is always connected to some religious phase. When suicide takes on the character of a duty, this occurs where the individual will is held too fast by an opinion which would not be unanimous if it were free. In such cases both Catholics and Protestants feel obliged to kill themselves. When the individual, like the soldier condemned to death, otherwise feels himself bound by a unanimous social point of view, and is in reality. Such obligatoriness does not objectively exist in the absence of effective coercion though the influence of collective defnition. Then the current point of view ceases to be genuinely exclusively collective. Religion becomes a society's religion on the day when individuals live from it, for then it is equal to their life. The history of religions is therefore at the same time the history of moral progress. The essence of religion is the primacy and moral preponderance of collective forces which arise in both the individual and in the collective from a tradtion exterior to themselves, in respect both of substance and of form. They must establish their own unity—and that in actual fact. This is what happens in the religious act which is really according to its nature. It is necessary to avoid the two most opposed errors: one is that of materialism, of considering religious forms as indifferent; the other is the idealist, of considering them independent themselves.—Once again Durkheim clarifies his meaning in a footnote. In such cases the religious act appears to as in the guise of a clearly human and purely subjective figure, which only exists as a symbol of collective life. Since, however, in an objective context (placed in the external world), he recognises an effect to which he adapts himself, the moral influence of the symbol becomes as if it were real, and by virtue of this, concrete and disciplinary. Suicide, Durkheim points out, is not an intrinsically religious act; it becomes religious only because, together with the fact that it is obligatory, it has also been doubled and consecrated by being placed outside and beyond life, in the realm of the divine and supernatural. The suicide is then made to believe that it is the divinity himself who obliges him to perform the act. Since the act is therefore consecrated and religious as significative of a reality and verity which could not have been truly consecrated by purely human values, it becomes important as the manifestation of an intrinsic force in his own collective conscience, external to the individual conscience, and will exercise a real and coercive force on this conscience.

4.1. Functionalism in Contemporary Sociology

American functionalism was founded by classical sociologists, emphasizing the study of the evolving system. It emphasized reciprocal dependence, the assimilation of systems, or the correspondence of structural and functional elements. The integration and stability of society depend on the presence of the so-called interaction system. The basis of the consensus is thus based on broad values in a community, which together determine the functioning of social systems and the behavior of individuals. In modern functionalist sociology, functional harmony, not predestination, reigned, which firmly determined the course of people's actions. Social order and social consolidation, the recognition of cultural norms and values, defined for a sociologist certain regularities in social development. Many sociologists today are trying to understand patterns in our lives. After all, this is the empirical essence of sociology itself. How is functionalism in sociology today dressed? There is no doubt that social functionalism and its results are of interest. They are involved in large numbers in various fields. The subsidiarity of their works is impressive. The functions and dysfunctions of the institution are thoroughly commented on and can be of practical concern in increasing their efficiency. Functionalism manifests itself in the research of the coming crisis, as well as in the search for new norms and values. Every society has its own structure. This structure is multi-layered, also involving cultural and interaction systems. The normative influence is essentially functional, as the author tried to prove in the last chapter. It deepens in the specialty and location of the functionalist today. It lies in multidisciplinary research in the field of sociology, medical sociology, industrial sociology. The researchers look into the relationship between functioning, norms of knowledge and those people who are in constant contact with them. Such research highlights the functions of the relationship system, from which the normative systems of whole communities are formed.

4.2. Critiques and Limitations

Levi-Strauss criticizes Durkheim on the definition of 'social fact' and points to the ambiguity caused by Durkheim's eclecticism in using his three criteria for determining the specific quality that makes a reality a social fact. Radcliffe-Brown suggests that Durkheim's writings lack precision. Gluckdt too accuses Durkheim of carrying oppressive apparatus in his study of religion and Z Sidney gives a detailed critique of Durkheim's definition of religion. Kathleen Gough points out that Durkheim's definition of social organization is not clear. K-Skarlan, following Gough, again criticizes Durkheim for providing no clear definition of social order. These may sound a little harsh considering the fact that Durkheim himself in his writings has given sufficient indications that his theory should not be taken as the very definition of social fact, or order and organization. According to Durkheim, the study of the social fact is not to study any particular order, but to understand the origin and function of orders.

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Applied Worldwide Student Essay Competition: Why is Sociology Important?

Black and yellow title graphic reading "presenting our 4th annual why is sociology important? student essay competition" for Applied Worldwide Student Essay Competition

Applied Worldwide is proud to present our 4th annual “Why is Sociology Important?” student essay competition! We welcome undergraduate students from across the globe to submit their creative essays for a chance to win a cash prize and have their work published on AppliedWorldwide.com .

This year, our student essay competition is especially near and dear to our hearts as we watch states in our home country attack the integrity of our discipline. In January of 2024, the state of Florida essentially made the decision to remove sociology as a general education course at public universities in the state. We won’t go into all the devastating consequences of that decision for sociology professors, graduate students, and undergraduates in Florida, but devastating is the only word we can use to describe the decision. With that said, in the current political climate both here in the US and globally, we feel the continued mission of this essay competition could not be more timely. We hope this attack on sociology will only further motivate participation in this opportunity for both students and potential sponsors of the competition!

Thank you to our sponsors for this year’s competition!

Sociologists for Women in Society
Center for Equity Education
Hartman Castle Preservation Corporation , a 501c3 non-profit
American Sociological Association’s Section on Sociological Practice & Public Sociology
Island Acres Resort Motel
Alpha Kappa Delta
Pacific Sociological Association
Association for Applied & Clinical Sociology

You can learn more about each of these wonderful organizations by scrolling to the bottom of this page.

Continue reading below for full details on eligibility, guidelines, and requirements!

The Who, What, Where, When, and Why

Applied Worldwide is a digital content production and consulting company based in the United States with a mission to enhance a vision of applied sociology . Co-founders Dr. Stephanie Wilson and Luke Hanna launched AppliedWorldwide.com in 2019 and have since grown a digital library of nearly 400 original publications from sociological professionals and students across the globe.

We are proud to host our 3rd annual global student essay competition that challenges students to explore the importance of sociological application. Winners of the competition receive cash prizes ranging from $20-100 USD and have the opportunity to publish their essays on AppliedWorldwide.com.

This essay competition is open to students across the globe who are passionate about the importance of sociology, wherever they might live!

Essay submissions are due June 1st and should be submitted using the submission portal linked at the bottom this page.

We continue to host this essay competition year after year for three main reasons:

First, it is currently the only sociology essay competition that allows students to explore creative writing in sociology, as opposed to the traditional research paper.
Second, we consistently receive essays that add invaluable insight to our international digital publication, and we are always excited to share those with our networks.
Lastly, sociology and those who study it deserve to be celebrated, and this essay competition celebrates all that is important about the discipline!

Essay Competition Prompt, Guidelines, Requirements, & Eligibility

Below, you will find the prompt, guidelines, requirements, and eligibility for our “Why is Sociology Important?” student essay competition. If you have further questions about the competition or your eligibility to participate, please direct your questions to us at [email protected] .

Essay Prompt

The overall goal of this essay competition is to demonstrate the importance of sociology from a variety of viewpoints. Submissions should answer the general question, “Why is Sociology Important?” but can do so using a variety of angles.

We want to know why sociology is important to you!

At Applied Worldwide, we know that sociology is important and we are looking to publish a series of essays that demonstrate the importance of sociology to everyday life.

As a student, we know that you are regularly considering the importance of sociology and we are looking for essay submissions that highlight your insights.

Applied Worldwide is looking for original essays that address questions such as:

What value does sociology bring to the world around you and why?
How do you see sociology bringing value to your immediate communities?
In what professional sectors does sociology have an opportunity to make a valuable difference and why?
How might sociological theories and research methods help drive positive change in the world around you?

Submissions do not have to answer each of these questions, or really any of them, but in presenting them we hope to get the creative juices flowing as you prepare to write your essay on why sociology is important.

Essay Guidelines & Requirements

All essay submissions should meet the following guidelines and requirements:

Essays should be 1200-2000 words in length, not including references
All sources must be properly cited using an academic citation style or by hyperlinking them in text
Essays must be original work that has not been previously published elsewhere
All submissions should follow the prompt presented on this page (remember, creativity is encouraged!)
The use of generative AI is not welcome in this essay competition. Any sign that an essay was written either fully or partly using AI will disqualify that writer from the competition.

Essay Competition Eligibility

Please review the information below to ensure you are eligible to participate in this essay competition. Eligible students should meet the following criteria:

Have yet to earn their bachelor’s degree
Are currently studying or taking classes at the college level
Have taken at least one sociology class and have a basic understanding of the discipline of sociology

Submitting your Essay

Please use the submission form button below to access our secure submission system.

Meet our 2024 Essay Competition Sponsors!

Sociologists for Women in Society is a nonprofit professional feminist organization dedicated to:

Transforming the academy and professional organizations, including our own, by actively supporting feminist leadership and advancing career development of feminist scholars.
Recognizing that structural inequalities impact those marginalized by their identities and that this requires proactively promoting the creation of inclusive institutional spaces in an ongoing manner and by practicing critical reflexivity.
Advocating and encouraging the development of sociological feminist theory rooted in intersectionality and cutting-edge research for publication and dissemination.
Promoting social justice research within local, national, and international activist spaces by supporting scholar-activist communities seeking to dismantle intersecting systems of oppression.

The Center for Equity Education (CFEE), established in 2020 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, addresses a gap in expert-led education for organizations, especially those with limited resources. At CFEE, our mission revolves around empowering organizations with comprehensive knowledge on federal and state civil rights, specializing in harassment and discrimination, including sexual harassment.

Hartman Castle Preservation Corporation , a 501c3 non-profit, is a A community grassroots movement formed to purchase and preserve the Hartman Castle in Gunnison, CO

The purpose of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology is to advance sociologically-informed research and practice, to further public discussion of sociological issues, and to promote the use of sociology to inform public policy.

Island Acres Resort Motel is a restored authentic 1950s lodging property in the style of the tourist court motel. Embracing the appeal of a bygone era, where history blends with hospitality.

Alpha Kappa Delta , the International Sociology Honor Society, seeks to acknowledge and promote excellence in the scholarship in the study of social problems, sociology, and intellectual activities that lead to the improvement in the human condition.

The Pacific Sociological Association is committed to serving sociologists, faculty, applied professionals, and students. We strive to create a professional community that reflects the diversity of our region and enhances the diversity of our discipline. We are committed to inclusivity and equity in our organization, to promoting social justice by examining and challenging the structural and institutional barriers in our discipline, and to building pathways for the next generation of sociologists.

The Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology (AACS) promotes applying social scientific knowledge and methods to develop constructive solutions. We provide educational, programmatic, mentoring, networking, and policy resources in a supportive professional community.

Are you seeking one-on-one college counseling and/or essay support? Limited spots are now available. Click here to learn more.

“Why This College?” Essay Examples

May 17, 2024

As you apply for college, you’ll notice that there are several different essay writing genres you’ll need to familiarize yourself with. There’s the Common App Essay , of course, along with many specific supplemental essays like the Community Essay and the Diversity Essay that will be required by particular schools. In particular, there is the “Why This College?” Essay. The “Why This College?” Essay can be an important component in your college application, as it’s an opportunity for you to describe why you specifically would be a good fit for a particular school. It’s a popular requirement for many colleges and universities and in this article, we’re going to show you a few “Why This College?” Essay examples, and share some tips and tricks for how to write a “Why This College?” Essay.

As you peruse these examples and tips, remember that there’s no one perfect way to write a “Why This College?” Essay. Rather, there are important generic conventions you can work with and build upon to craft an essay that is unique to you as a specific college candidate. Think of a novel. You can expect a novel to have a title and chapters and contain a fictional story. At the same time, novels are written across a plethora of genres, have characters that are as different as Vladomir Harkonnen and Elizabeth Bennet, and can be short reads or thousands of pages long. It’s the same in this case. As you learn how to write a “Why This College?” Essay, you’ll see that some elements of the essay will be fixed, while others will be entirely up to you to create!

What Kind of Prompts Are There for the “Why This College?” Essay?

Many schools require some form of the “Why This College?” Essay for their supplemental application materials, and the prompts can be general or specific. Take these extra general ones from Yale and Dartmouth , for instance:

What is it about Yale that has led you to apply?
In short, why Dartmouth?

These open-ended prompts can feel like both a blessing and a curse. Without particular guidelines, you might feel freer to describe your particular fit within a university and it might be easier to brainstorm about the content you’d like to highlight in this essay; however, beware of open prompts: they can make it tempting to veer into generality!

In other instances, the “Why This College?” Essay prompt will be specifically tailored for many schools, and this specificity can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Take, for instance, these two examples from Northwestern :

Community and belonging matter at Northwestern. Tell us about one or more communities, networks, or student groups you see yourself connecting with on campus.
Northwestern’s location is special: on the shore of Lake Michigan, steps from downtown Evanston, just a few miles from Chicago. What aspects of our location are most compelling to you, and why? [i]

“Why This College?” Essay Examples (Continued)

The positive side to specific prompts like these is that they’ve given potential applicants a couple of springboards to begin diving from as you write – you can immediately begin detailing your specific interests and likes about Northwestern that make you an ideal candidate for the school. A potential downside is that you’ll honestly need to do research here before you can even begin brainstorming about either of these questions authentically! Specific prompts may also mean that you’ll need to totally start from scratch with each “Why This College?” Essay (for these Northwestern prompts, you certainly couldn’t plug in a different “Why This College?” Essay where you’ve written about your dream of editing for the Harvard Crimson or your hope to network in nearby New York City!).

So, with prompts like these, how to even begin writing a “Why This College?” Essay? Check out our tips and “Why This College?” Essay examples next!

Also, check out our list of college application essay topics to avoid .

Tips on How to Write a “Why This College?” Essay

Regardless of the prompt, your response needs to be specific. This is possibly the most important thing to remember as you learn how to write a “Why This College?” Essay.

First and most importantly of all, focus on fit. Remember that this is your opportunity to showcase why you’re specifically a good match for a college – not why a college is a great general choice for anybody. Ultimately, this is an essay about your potential relationship with a school. If you were writing an epic love poem, you might obsess over your beloved’s hair, eyes, etc. – but obsession isn’t a relationship! On the other hand, if you were asking someone out, you might want to focus, instead, on why you’d have a great time together because it’s more persuasive (and that’s ultimately what you’re trying to do: persuade this school’s admissions committee that you belong there!).

Here are a few tips on specificity that we’ll review below as we analyze a few “Why This College?” Essay examples:

Before writing your “Why This College?” Essay, do your research on each school to which you’ll apply. This means finding particular programs of study you’ll pursue, looking up course titles you’d like to take and even professors you’d like to study under. It means researching clubs and extracurriculars you’ll partake in, internship programs you’ll apply for, and details about the school that will further your goals as a student there.

At the beginning of your “Why This College?” Essay, you can include a brief anecdote or bit of personal information that will make your essay stand out. As with any college application essay, this is an opportunity to brag about yourself! For instance, if you’re going to mention a particular club or extracurricular you’d like to join at a university, you can use this anecdote to briefly remind your reader that you were the president of that extracurricular at your high school (especially if that detail doesn’t appear elsewhere in your application materials). NOTE: Including a personal anecdote like this is sometimes dependent upon word length. For longer “Why This College?” Essays, it’s a great choice. For shorter ones, this hook may be a feature you’ll have to reduce or skip altogether.

Don’t linger on the general features of the school, or on school qualities that apply to everyone. Don’t focus on the school’s reputation, rankings, or student-to-professor ratios. The school knows this stuff already! Everybody paints the rock at Northwestern and paints the fence at Carnegie Mellon and these schools’ admissions counselors have read about these sorts of traditions approximately a billion times. Avoid general features and focus, rather, on detailed aspects of the school community that are particularly compelling to you .

Details about campus culture or school location are okay to write about, but remember that you’re not trying to be John Keats here. Don’t just talk about the beauty of the leaves changing in the fall or the way the palm trees sway on the school’s tropical campus. Rather, focus on what the school’s location can do for you as a scholar . Is there something particular about the school’s locale that can further your scholastic goals? Perhaps it’s situated in a region known for a particular area of study, with the best professors in the field nearby (e.g. Silicon Valley for computer science). Or maybe its setting can provide ample internship opportunities for a student with your major (e.g. Washington, D.C. for political science majors).

Edit for details. As you write your thousandth college application essay, it can be so tempting to simply copy-paste and go through the motions of writing unique drafts. While it’s okay to have a little carry-over between essays, it’s essential that you don’t have any major bloopers (like getting the school’s colors or motto wrong) in a “Why This College?” Essay.

Honesty is the best policy! It’s better to write something authentic to you than something you think the school wants to hear. After all, no matter how prestigious a school or program might be, if you can’t think of why you’d fit in there, you may want to reconsider whether a school is meant for you!

“Why This College?” Essay Examples

Below, we’ve included three fictional “Why This College Essay?” examples. The first two are good examples, along with commentary on what makes them strong and what these authors might improve upon to make them even better. The third essay is an exceptionally poor one, designed to help you see common pitfalls within this essay genre so you can think about how to avoid them yourself (or even how to correct mistakes you’ve already made in drafts!). Think of this third, poor essay as a way to test how well you’ve familiarized yourself within the genre.

Good “Why This College?” Essay Example 1:

As current Editor-in-Chief of my school magazine The Clarion , I’d like to pursue a Journalism major at the College of Northeastern Ohio, where I will deepen my experience in writing and design through classes such as “Reporting with Visual Journalism” and “International Writing.” Additionally, CNO’s Amanpour Journalism Project will give me hands-on experience as a journalist working in a newsroom. There, I’ll explore aspects of journalism such as digital storytelling and broadcasting, along with elective courses like “Feature Interviews” and “Documentary Television.”

My love for writing and communication stems from my multilingual upbringing. In high school, I explored Latin America on a study abroad trip to the Dominican Republic, where I relied on my Guatemalan heritage to further my Spanish-speaking skills. Through CNO’s International Language Studies program, I hope to attain a Spanish minor and explore Spanish-speaking countries in their study abroad program while immersing myself in international media.

With the interdisciplinary emphasis at CNO, I’ll additionally have the flexibility to study politics through a Political Science double major. I’ve written many articles on global communication for The Clarion , and I hope to further my writing on political communication with the Amanpour Project’s “Writing in Conflict Zones” class and other interdisciplinary classes with Professor Joan Walters. CNO’s robust communications offerings give me the opportunity to specifically study my interests in writing, politics, and Spanish simultaneously with the resources of multiple departments.

This essay does a great job of both showcasing the writer’s unique experiences and exploring how the college will specifically help her pursue her major and career goals. Additionally, the author has done a dynamite job researching particular classes and programs within the university that she’d like to take, listing several by name and course/program details.

How we might fix it up:

This essay primarily focuses on academics. Since academics are usually the most important reason why you’d want to attend a particular university, this definitely isn’t a major problem! However, the writer could potentially explore other extracurriculars or campus offerings that might make her a great fit for this university.

Good “Why This College?” Essay Example 2:

Data. From our politics to what we binge on Netflix, data collection and information systems have become part of the fabric of our lives. But when we think about sports, we don’t always think about numbers – and I want to do just that. The Massachusetts Institute of Stanford Mellon offers a top-ranked Data Science and Information Systems major, which will provide me with transferable skills that can be applied to my dream career path: sports marketing and data analytics.

I would like to go to a university where I can immediately participate in research. In high school, I created an algorithm that helps me predict how much fans will spend on team gear, based on their previous purchases and levels of engagement with games, betting, and online searching. The MISM Data and Numbers Lab allows undergraduates to access their databases and start conducting research right away (without having to wait until grad school!) and courses like “Analysis of Algorithms” and “Marketing and Numbers” provide the tools to conduct research on issues like sports marketing. At MISM, I hope to study with mentors like Professor Bill Jobs, whose work on information systems and regional spending might facilitate my own independent research. Additionally, MISM has alumni networks that facilitate internship and job placement in both Silicon Valley and with major sporting equipment stores like Rick’s Sporting Depot.

Finally, MISM offers a variety of extracurriculars that I would love to join, particularly the Little Pucks program, which provides community outreach to aspiring hockey players with physical disabilities. Since my sophomore year, I’ve volunteered at our local rec center, volunteering with kids who have special needs and helping them learn about and play sports. As I pursue a career in sports marketing and data analytics, I want to make a positive impact on companies and consumers alike. I’d love to live up to MISM’s motto: “Knowledge for service.”

Again, this writer does a fantastic job showcasing his own strengths and specifically demonstrating how this university has particular offerings (courses, labs, professors, extracurriculars, etc.) that will help him in his chosen major and career path. The generalities of this essay (like the school motto) are also used for a purpose: to illustrate how the writer hopes to use his education to give back to the community.

This is a great draft. To make it even better, we might consider how this essay focuses a lot on what the school can do for the writer. The writer might want to consider: how will I, in turn, contribute more to the campus community?

Poor “Why This College? Essay” Example:

When I took a campus visit at Princevard University last year, I was sure to stop at the Wishing Fountain in the middle of the quad. There, I threw in a penny and recited Princevard’s motto, “Veritas in vota” – “truth in wishes” and made my wish: that I will get accepted into Princevard this fall. I’ve known that I wanted to attend Princevard ever since I was a little boy and found out that my Great Uncle Howie graduated from there in 1965. At Princevard, I would study in their English program so that I could pursue my dream of becoming a novelist and a teacher when I graduate.

Ranked at #7 in the nation, Princevard’s reputation is another reason why I would like to attend; a degree from Princevard will open up doors to jobs and internships that many other schools could never open. Finally, I hope to join one of Princevard’s fraternities because the school offers more Greek organizations than any other university on the East Coast.

Well, it’s a start. If you’ve written a similar draft to this one, which breaks many of our “Why This College?” Essay writing rules, don’t despair! Instead, use this draft as a springboard for your next one.

How we might fix up this essay:

You’re probably familiar enough now with the genre conventions of the “Why This College?” Essay to think of a few reasons why this essay is a poor one. Now, let’s see how we can take even a poor first pass and turn it into a viable essay:

Our main goal with a draft like this is to turn all of this generality into an essay that specifically tells the school why this student would be a good fit there. Hint: avoid the sentiments about ranking and general location!

While this essay begins with a personal anecdote, it doesn’t tell us anything about this particular student. Instead, it focuses on a vague campus tradition. Remember that personal anecdotes serve as an opportunity to hook your reader and tell them something unique and positive about yourself.

There’s not much need to mention that a family member attended a university unless a) you are such a strong legacy there that your name is literally on a building (in which case, you should probably have a donating family member make a call on your behalf to the admissions department) or, b) your family history is somehow relevant to your future career and attendance at that school (e.g. your mother went to law school there and you want to become a lawyer and join her firm). If the latter, be sure you’re using this detail as a vehicle to demonstrate why this university is right for you.

While it’s great to talk about your major and career aspirations, be specific! Most schools have English departments so it’s not super useful to point this generality out. Writing that “Princevard University offers a unique dual English program with concentrations in both Creative Writing and Literary Theory, which would enable to me to pursue an ultimate graduate degree in literary and cultural studies while honing my craft as a novelist,” on the other hand, is a much more useful and detailed statement that demonstrates fit and brags a little about the applicant’s writing aspirations!

Similarly, many universities have Greek life organizations. If you’re going to mention an extracurricular, name which ones and why. Perhaps a particular Greek organization on this campus is affiliated with your major; maybe a chapter is politically motivated with a cause you’ve previously championed; maybe a fraternity is historically associated with your ethnicity or race and you’d love to take part in that community.

Closing Thoughts on the “Why This College?” Essay

As you write a “Why This College?” Essay, remember that this essay is perhaps the first conversation you’ll have about your relationship with a university – a relationship that, if you’re accepted, will be a formative one for the rest of your life. Good luck!

[i] “Completing Your Northwestern Application,” Application Materials: Undergraduate Admissions – Northwestern University, 2024. https://admissions.northwestern.edu/apply/requirements.html

College Essay

Jamie Smith

For the past decade, Jamie has taught writing and English literature at several universities, including Boston College, the University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. She earned a Ph.D. in English from Carnegie Mellon, where she currently teaches courses and conducts research on composition, public writing, and British literature.

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MA Sociology (Inventive Urban Research)

Content navigation menu, why study ma sociology (inventive urban research) at goldsmiths.

This MA is designed for students interested in new ways of exploring and understanding the social world through visual, sensory, and other experimental approaches. You will draw on urban sociology to examine the meaning of cities, urban life and culture.

Combining lectures and seminars with practical sessions and workshop-based projects, this MA will help you develop a hands-on approach to sociological research. You’ll gain skills in methods which could be used in public sector contexts, art or media research, design or commercial application
You’ll develop the ability to carry out empirical research and present it publicly in a variety of media and materials. You’ll engage with sociology as an inventive research practice, using creative research methods to address classic and changing sociological problems
You’ll engage in current debates about sociological methodology, including the impact of visual, digital and other technologies and will be encouraged to build to on these debates through your own inventive practice
As well as presenting your ideas through writing, you’ll have the opportunity to produce different outputs, including film/video, photography, sound and multimedia pieces
You’ll design and reflect on your own research projects. The dissertation allows you to complete a substantive research project on your individual interests, supported by one-to-one supervision with a member of staff
You’ll have access to post-production and editing stations, as well as equipment for photography and video. You can also borrow audio-visual and media equipment
You’ll be part of a lively community of researchers and urban practitioners, including the Centre for Urban and Community Research and will join students who have a range of experiences and interests in communication, management, politics, design and cultural industries
We use research-led teaching to explore the importance of sociological knowledge in understanding cities, urban economies, culture, politics and social justice. Our department is world-leading. We've been rated top 10 in the UK for sociology in the QS World University Rankings 2023

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Dr Michael Guggenheim or Dr Emma Jackson .

1 year full-time, 2 years part-time

What you'll study

Compulsory modules.

You will take the following compulsory modules:

You will also pick one of the following modules:

Optional modules

You can also choose two modules up to the value of 60 credits from a list provided by the Department of Sociology annually.

Teaching Style

Learning and teaching takes place through lectures and seminars, as well as technical workshops and practice-based learning to develop technical skills.

You are encouraged to extend learning beyond the classroom by attending relevant exhibitions, film showings, public meetings and more, whether with the programme convenor, in groups or as an individual.

You will also take part in several ‘walks’ as part of programme as a means of research and engaging with the world outside of the classroom.

How you'll be assessed

You’ll be assessed by a variety of methods, which may include coursework, extended essays, reports, presentations, practice-based projects or essays/logs and group projects.

All assessed work is accompanied by some form of feedback to ensure that your work is on the right track. It may come in a variety of forms ranging from written comments on a marked essay to oral and written feedback on developing projects and practice as you attend workshops.

Entry requirements

You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in sociology, a related social science discipline or a humanities degree.

If you do not possess the standard qualifications, you might also be considered for this programme if you demonstrate exceptional commitment or abilities to study for the degree. This may include relevant professional experience, other qualifications, or skills demonstrated as part of an interview.

International qualifications

We accept a wide range of international qualifications. Find out more about the qualifications we accept from around the world.

If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification ) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme. If you need assistance with your English language, we offer a range of courses that can help prepare you for postgraduate-level study .

Fees and funding

Annual tuition fees.

These are the PG fees for students starting their programme in the 2024/2025 academic year.

If your fees are not listed here, please check our postgraduate fees guidance or contact the Fees Office , who can also advise you about how to pay your fees.

It’s not currently possible for international students to study part-time under a student visa. If you think you might be eligible to study part-time while being on another visa type, please contact our Admissions Team for more information.

If you are looking to pay your fees please see our guide to making a payment .

Additional costs

In addition to your tuition fees, you'll be responsible for any additional costs associated with your course, such as buying stationery and paying for photocopying. You can find out more about what you need to budget for on our study costs page .

There may also be specific additional costs associated with your programme. This can include things like paying for field trips or specialist materials for your assignments. Please check the programme specification for more information.

Skills and Careers

The programme will prepare you with an understanding of crucial social and cultural questions of the 21st century that confront employers in the public, private and third sector.

You will gain critical theoretical and methodological skills to research and analyse those questions. Additionally, you will acquire skills that equip you to communicate ideas and methods and to process information in ways that will prepare them for careers in a variety of organisations, including charities, NGOs, governments and corporations.

The Careers Service also provides central support for professional skills enhancement. They provide regular workshops and support sessions and can offer tailored advice according to your own skills and interests.

You can also seek advice from the tutors on the programme.

How to apply

You apply directly to Goldsmiths using our online application system.

Read our guide to applying for a postgraduate degree at Goldsmiths for advice on things like writing a personal statement.

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MA Sociology

How can sociology engage with the most significant challenges facing societies today and the patterns and dynamics of contemporary social life? Through an introduction to the sociological imagination and sociology as a craft and vocation, you will study core themes of sociology at an advanced level to develop your capacity to think critically and sociologically.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, how to write a 'why brown' essay.

I'm working on my college application essays and I want to apply to Brown. What are some tips or examples for writing an engaging 'Why Brown?' essay?

Writing an engaging 'Why Brown?' essay involves thorough research on the university and demonstrating a strong personal connection to the school. Here are some tips and examples to help you craft a compelling response:

1. Be specific and detailed: Generic statements about Brown's strong academic programs or beautiful campus won't set you apart. Research the university's unique offerings, programs, and resources that align with your interests and goals. For example, if you're interested in studying environmental science, you could mention Brown's interdisciplinary Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES).

2. Connect academics and extracurriculars: Show how Brown's open curriculum and available resources will help you grow academically and personally. For instance, if you're passionate about community service, you might discuss how Brown's Swearer Center for Public Service offers multiple opportunities for you to contribute to the local community while engaging with your academic interests.

3. Explain how Brown's culture and values align with your own: Brown is known for its collaborative environment and commitment to social responsibility. Highlight why these values resonate with you and how you plan to contribute to the intellectual and social community at Brown.

For example: "As someone who values bridging the gap between theory and practice, I am drawn to Brown's commitment to intellectual exploration through its innovative open curriculum. Without the constraints of a core curriculum, I am excited to combine my interests in cognitive science and literature to explore the connections between artificial intelligence and storytelling. By participating in programs like the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program, I could further hone my creative and analytical skills for a dynamic interdisciplinary education."

4. Demonstrate knowledge of Brown's unique traditions: Including details about specific campus traditions or events shows that you have researched beyond the surface level. Whether it's the unique shopping period at the start of each semester or the Midnight Organ Concert during Halloween, mention how these traditions excite you and make Brown the right fit for you.

5. Be authentic and personal: Your essay should reflect who you are and what you hope to achieve at Brown. Share a personal story or anecdote as a way to demonstrate your fit with the school's culture and values.

Keep in mind that the 'Why Brown?' essay is a crucial part of your application. By demonstrating a deep understanding of the university, its culture, and opportunities available, you'll show the admissions committee why you belong at Brown.

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What this handout is about

What is sociology, and what do sociologists write about?

Key assumptions and characteristics of sociological writing

Units of analysis

Typical writing assignments in sociology

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Application or testing of a theory or concept

The research paper

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SOC101: Introduction to Sociology (2020.A.01)

Why Study Sociology?

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Three top tips for writing sociology essays

The Craft of Writing in Sociology

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Why Study Sociology?

Study Sociology at Salem State

Benefits of Studying Sociology at Salem State

Marketable Skills

A Better Understanding of the Social World

A Better Understanding of Your Own Life

Social Justice Orientation

Careers in Sociology

How to Write a Sociology Essay: A Simple Guide

What Is Sociology Essay?

Tips for Writing a Sociology Essay

Which Sociology Essay Topics to Choose (With Examples)?

Sociology Essay Structure

Introduction to Sociology Essay

Body in Sociology Essay

Conclusion of Sociology Essay

Editing and Proofreading

Sociology Essay Example

Frequently asked questions

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The Department recommends that students write a total of four to six essays per paper over the course of Michalemas and Lent terms.

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Why I Am Majoring in Sociology: Perspectives from 3 current students

Alyssa Newton: “My goal is to serve people.”

Hayley Garnick: “I see the world differently as a result of sociology.”

Amy Cox: “The most useful thing I have learned from sociology is how to connect with people.”

Is Sociology a Science? The Case for "Yes"

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Our subjects

Emile Durkheim's Theory of Functionalism

1.1. Biographical Background

1.2. Influences and Intellectual Context

2. Foundations of Functionalism

2.1. Definition and Key Concepts

2.2. Organic Analogy

3. Key Principles of Durkheim's Functionalism

3.1. Social Facts

MA Sociology (Inventive Urban Research)