GENERAL AREAS AND SUB AREAS OF SOCIOLOGY

 The sociology of culture concerns culture--usually understood as sets of cognitive meanings--as it is

manifested in society

 Deviance in a sociological context describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms including
formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways

 The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affect
education and its outcomes. It is most concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial
societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education

 Environmental sociology is typically defined as the sociological study of societal-environmental

interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating
human cultures from the rest of the environment.

 The sociology of race and of ethnic relations is the area of the discipline that studies the social, political,
and economic relations between races and ethnicities at all levels of society. This area encompasses the
study of racism, residential segregation, and other complex social processes between different racial and
ethnic groups. The sociological analysis of race and ethnicity frequently interacts with other areas of
sociology such as stratification and social psychology, as well as with postcolonial theory.

 Sociology of gender is a prominent subfield of sociology. Since 1950 an increasing part of the academic
literature, and of the public discourse uses gender for the perceived or projected (self-identified)
masculinity or femininity of a person.

 Medical sociology involves the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the
production of knowledges and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare
professionals, and the social or cultural (rather than clinical or bodily) effects of medical practice. The field
commonly interacts with the sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies, and social
epistemology. Medical sociologists are also interested in the qualitative experiences of patients, often
working at the boundaries of public health, social work, demography and gerontology to explore
phenomena at the intersection of the social and clinical sciences.

 Industrial sociology, or the sociology of work, examines "the direction and implications of trends in
technological change, globalization, labour markets, work organization, managerial practices and
employment relations to the extent to which these trends are intimately related to changing patterns of
inequality in modern societies and to the changing experiences of individuals and families the ways in
which workers challenge, resist and make their own contributions to the patterning of work and shaping
of work institutions

 The Sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social
context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized
area of sociology but instead deals with broad fundamental questions about the extent and limits of social
influences on individual's lives and the social-cultural basics of our knowledge about the world.

 The sociology of law (or legal sociology) is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an
interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. While some socio-legal scholars see the sociology of law as
 "necessarily" belonging to the discipline of sociology, others see it as a field of research caught up in the
disciplinary tensions and competitions between the two established disciplines of law and sociology.

 Military sociology aims toward the systematic study of the military as a social group rather than as an
organization. It is a highly specialized subfield which examines issues related to service personnel as a
distinct group with coerced collective action based on shared interests linked to survival in vocation and
combat, with purposes and values that are more defined and narrow than within civil society. Military
sociology also concerns civilian-military relations and interactions between other groups or governmental
agencies.

 Political sociology is the study of the relations between state and society. The discipline draws on
comparative history to analyze socio-political trends

 The sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society; the practices, historical backgrounds,
developments and universal themes of religion in society. [1] There is particular emphasis on the recurring
role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history.

 The sociology of scientific knowledge is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with
the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific
activity.

 social stratification refers to the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into divisions of power and
wealth within a society.

Other related areas of Sociology

 Criminology (from Latin crīmen, "accusation"; and Greek -λογία, -logia) is the scientific study of the
nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society. Criminology
is an interdisciplinary field in the behavioral sciences.
 Demography is the statistical study of human populations. It can be a very general science that can be
applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space. It
encompasses the study of the size, structure and distribution of these populations, and spatial and/or
temporal changes in them in response to birth, migration, aging and death.
 Ecology describe the study of an organism’s relationship to its environment
 Human geography is one of the two major subfields of geography. Human geography is the study of
human use and understanding of the Earth and the process which have affected this. It is linked to both
social science and the humanities.
 Social anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary
living human beings behave in social groups
 Medical sociology involves the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the
production of knowledges and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare
professionals, and the social or cultural (rather than clinical or bodily) effects of medical practice.
 Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms,
expectations, and context, on the way language is used,