Think Sociology

Abstract

How do you define sociology? You might say that it is the study of society, the study of how people live, or the study of people's interactions with one another. This is all true, but these answers only scratch the surface. According to The Australian Sociological Association (TASA), sociology 'focuses on the study of human behaviour and social interaction to understand how societies are organised, develop and change' (The Australian Sociological Association n.d.). To understand the social world - how it is organised, develops and changes - we have to understand what esteemed sociologist Anthony Giddens (1992: 14) calls 'the double involvement of individuals and institutions'. What he means by this is that people, as individuals and in groups, 'create society', create the social world in which they live. However, the other side of the coin is that, at the same time as people create the social world, they are simultaneously being 'created by it' (Giddens, 1992: 14). In all our interactions in society, we must consider agency (our role in the creation of the social world) and structure (the role of the social world in our interactions of society). Like any science, sociologists seek to understand the facts of a situation while keeping an open mind about what they are studying. In addition to this, sociologists strive to keep personal opinions at bay, while at the same time reflexively considering how aspects of their personal background (what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls 'habitus') might impact on the conclusions they make.