WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?

SOCIOLOGY

• Sociology is defined as a science of social order and progress. It is a study of social life, social change, social cause and consequences of human behavior in society.
• It is also called social science. It is a study of social problems and social relations are happens in whole society. I mean, How human beings are connected to each other, interact and behaving in society.
• August compte is the father of sociology.
• Universe is made up of natural laws and the society is the part of an universe, It is also governed by the natural laws. Thus society should discover these law by applying scientific procedures like observations, data collections, verifications and generalizations. They are called the analytic and synthetic approach to social problems.
• The synthetic approach is the construction of laws and principles of science. Here is five stages to discover the social problems occur in the society which are given below:

1. Problem formulation : It is clear that one will take any step to attain an objective only when he/she has a clear proposal of it in his/her mind. It is only when one is involved in any object, he/she will try to attain and resolve it. Then one will try to investigate various processes to achieve her/his goal. In the process of investigation, the problem may require some modifications.
2. Hypothesis : When we modify such a problem, at that time some hypothesis are generated in our mind and it have some tentative conclusions. After discarding all irrelevant factors. One may find a high degree of correlation between two or more events but at this stage, we are not able to come to any conclusion. Here it needs to be tested through various observations.
3. Observations : When we observe the whole phenomena. It consists in the application in our mind and its cognitive powers, which we are studying. It may be done through history records or through survey, questionnaire and interview methods  or other techniques used by social scientists. It is of-course difficult to have complete controlled observations in sociological studies.
4. Classification : Once the facts are observed and controlled, They should be classified in special arrangement in advance with the relevant forms.
5. Verification : After various observations, surveys, questionnaire methods, hypothesis, considerations etc, after that we come to a particular assumption. But we can not accept any assumption as general or universal law unless we have conducted investigation in the other part of universe with different conditions. When our assumption is proved true allover, It can be accepted as a law or a principle. Such universal laws can not be made easily in the sociology. Society is too vast and human nature is unpredictable so it is more difficult to make a social law than a physical law.