Subject matter, scope and relevance of sociology

1. Subject matter

Sociology studies society, but that word needs breaking down. Its subject matter includes:

• Social relationships and social interaction — between individuals, between groups, and between individuals and groups.
• Social groups — family, caste, class, community, associations, crowds.
• Social institutions — marriage, family, religion, education, the state, law, property and the economy.
• Culture and socialisation — how values and norms are created and passed on.
• Social processes — co-operation, competition, conflict, accommodation, assimilation.
• Social control and deviance — how society secures conformity and why people depart from norms.
• Social change — its causes, direction and consequences.

2. Scope: the formalistic or specialistic school

This school, mainly German, held that sociology becomes a separate science only if it confines itself to the forms of social relationships, leaving their content to other sciences. Just as geometry studies the form of objects (a sphere) whatever they are made of, sociology should study forms such as domination, subordination, competition, imitation and division of labour, which appear in a church, a business or a state alike.

• Georg Simmel — the founder of formal sociology; sociology studies the forms of social interaction (sociation).
• Ferdinand Tönnies — classified relationships into Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (association) in Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887).
• Alfred Vierkandt — sociology should study the ultimate forms of mental or psychic relationships that bind people.
• Leopold von Wiese — listed some 650 forms of social relationship.
• Max Weber — sociology interprets and classifies types of social action and relationships.

Criticism

• It narrows sociology unduly. Forms cannot be studied apart from their content; the form of conflict in a family and in a war cannot be understood without what is being fought over.
• Other sciences also study forms of relationship: political science studies authority, law studies contract.
• A pure sociology of forms has no practical use.

3. Scope: the synthetic school

The synthetic school, mainly French and English, held that sociology is a general science that synthesises the social sciences. Society is an interrelated whole and a change in one part affects all others, so sociology must study social life as a whole and the relations among its parts.

• Émile Durkheim divided sociology into:
  1. Social morphology — the geographic and demographic base of society: population size, density, distribution;
  2. Social physiology — the sociology of religion, morals, law, economy, language and so on;
  3. General sociology — the general laws drawn from these special studies.
• Morris Ginsberg listed four main branches: social morphology, social control, social processes and social pathology (crime, poverty, disorganisation).
• L.T. Hobhouse and Pitirim Sorokin also took the synthetic view. Sorokin described sociology as the study of the relations between different classes of social phenomena and of the features common to all of them.

Criticism

If sociology studies everything, it risks becoming a mere collection of the other social sciences without a distinct subject of its own.

4. Relevance and importance of sociology

1. Scientific knowledge of society. It replaces common-sense assumptions with tested knowledge of how groups and institutions work.
2. Social planning and development. Five-year plans, poverty programmes and health campaigns need data on caste, family, migration and belief; sociologists supply it.
3. Solution of social problems. Crime, dowry, communalism, untouchability, alcoholism and unemployment can be tackled only once their causes are understood.
4. Understanding Indian society. Caste, the joint family, village life and religious diversity are best studied sociologically. M.N. Srinivas’s concepts of Sanskritisation and dominant caste are examples.
5. Democracy and citizenship. It widens the outlook of the individual, develops tolerance of other groups and helps citizens judge public policy.
6. Careers and professions. Social work, journalism, administration, industrial relations, market research and the civil services draw on it.
7. Law. Legislation works only if it fits social reality. Sociological jurisprudence (Roscoe Pound’s law as social engineering, Ehrlich’s living law) treats law as a social institution. Social legislation such as the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 or the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 depends on changing attitudes, not only on penalties. Judges, too, weigh social facts in public interest litigation.
8. Understanding social change. Globalisation, urbanisation and technology reshape the family, work and religion; sociology explains how and with what costs.

How this is examined

Expect “Define sociology. Explain the scope of sociology” (February 2025, 10 marks; January 2026, 16 marks) or “Define sociology and explain the importance of sociology” (February 2025, 16 marks). Write two definitions, then the formalistic school with thinkers and criticism, the synthetic school with Durkheim’s and Ginsberg’s divisions and criticism, and a short conclusion that they are complementary. A short note on the formalistic school is the first half of this answer on its own. For importance, number the points and end with the relevance of sociology to law.