Science Branches: Unlocking the Tapestry of Knowledge, a Journey Through Science Branches

By Fouad Sabry

What is Science Branches

The sciences, often known as scientific areas or scientific disciplines, are typically subdivided into the following three primary categories:The study of formal systems, such as those that fall within the categories of logic and mathematics, that employ an a priori methodology, as opposed to an empirical one, is referred to as the formal sciences.The study of natural occurrences is referred to as the natural sciences. There are two primary sub-disciplines that make up natural science: the physical sciences and the life sciences.The study of human behavior in relation to society and culture is referred to as the social sciences.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Branches of science

Chapter 2: Sociology

Chapter 3: Economic policy

Chapter 4: Macroeconomics

Chapter 5: Keynesian economics

Chapter 6: Theory

Chapter 7: Theoretical chemistry

Chapter 8: Natural science

Chapter 9: Reductionism

Chapter 10: Social science

Chapter 11: Interdisciplinarity

Chapter 12: History of the social sciences

Chapter 13: Musicology

Chapter 14: Political science

Chapter 15: Branches of physics

Chapter 16: Discourse analysis

Chapter 17: Behavioural sciences

Chapter 18: Philosophy of social science

Chapter 19: European studies

Chapter 20: Fiscal policy

Chapter 21: Phillips curve

(II) Answering the public top questions about science branches.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of science branches in many fields.

(IV) Rich glossary featuring over 1200 terms to unlock a comprehensive understanding of science branches

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of science branches.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Nov 7, 2023

Book preview

Chapter 1: Branches of science

Science (also known as the sciences, scientific fields, or scientific disciplines) is typically broken up into three distinct categories:

The study of formal systems, such as those found in logic and mathematics, through an a priori rather than an empirical approach is known as the formal sciences.

The study of the world around us is called the natural sciences (including cosmological, geological, physical, chemical, and biological factors of the universe). There are two main categories within natural science: physical science and life science (or biology).

The study of society and culture from a scientific perspective.

Logic, mathematics, theoretical computer science, information theory, system theory, decision theory, and statistics are all examples of the formal sciences.

The formal sciences focus on the properties of formal systems based on definitions and rules rather than the validity of theories based on observations in the real world (empirical knowledge). That's why there's debate about whether or not the formal sciences qualify as real science. However, the methods of the formal sciences are crucial in building and testing scientific models of observable reality, and significant progress in the formal sciences has often paved the way for significant progress in the empirical sciences.

Logic (capable of logical thought, intellectual, dialectical, argumentative')

Classification of arguments, systematic presentation of logical forms, deductive and inductive reasoning, formal proofs and inference (including paradoxes and fallacies), and syntax and semantics are all part of the traditional purview of logic.

Since ancient times, philosophers and mathematicians have studied logic (since the mid-19th century). Cognitive science, which includes computer science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology, has recently shifted its focus to the study of logic.

The primary focus of information science is the study of how information is gathered, organized, stored, retrieved, transmitted, and safeguarded. Researchers both inside and outside of the field examine how information systems are used and how they are used by individuals and organizations in order to replace, enhance, or gain insight into those systems.

In its broadest sense, mathematics is simply another word for formal science; however, traditionally, mathematics has meant more specifically the coalition of four areas: arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and analysis, which are roughly the study of quantity, structure, space, and change, respectively.

The discipline of statistics focuses on these three aspects of data analysis.

A statistician is someone who has mastered the line of thought required to effectively employ statistical methods. Such individuals usually have a broad range of professional experience. Mathematical statistics is a separate field that explores the theoretical underpinnings of data analysis.

When referring to the scientific field as a whole (as in, Statistics is an art), the word statistics is singular, while statisticians is the plural (this statistic seems wrong or these statistics are misleading).

Systems theory is the study of systems in general, with the goal of elaborating universal principles applicable to a wide variety of system types and areas of study. Systems theory can be reasonably considered a specialization of systems thinking and a generalization of systems science, but there is not yet a well-established, precise meaning for the term. The term autopoiesis is borrowed from Niklas Luhmann's sociological autopoiesis and Talcott Parsons' action theory, both of which are grounded in Bertalanffy's General System Theory (GST).

In this sense, systems refers only to those that can self-regulate, or correct their own errors using feedback. Biological systems, ecosystems both local and global, and the weather are all examples of self-regulating systems.

Not to be confused with choice theory, decision theory examines how an agent makes decisions. Both normative decision theory and descriptive decision theory examine how agents actually make decisions, but normative decision theory focuses on the outcomes of decisions while descriptive decision theory looks at the optimal decisions given certain constraints and assumptions.

The fields of game theory and computer science are intrinsically linked to decision theory.

Statistical and econometric techniques are typically used in empirical applications of this theory.

Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a branch of both mathematics and computer science that deals specifically with the mathematical aspects of computing.

The theoretical spheres are hard to define precisely. This is how the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) SIGACT (Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory) defines it::

Algorithms, data structures, computational complexity, parallel and distributed computation, probabilistic and quantum computation, automata theory, information theory, cryptography, program semantics and verification, machine learning, computational biology, computational economics, computational geometry, computational number theory and algebra, and many more are all covered by TCS. The use of rigorous mathematical methods is a common hallmark of research in this area.

Science that relies on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation to describe, predict, and understand natural phenomena is called natural science. To ensure the reliability of scientific progress, we use procedures like peer review and the ability to reproduce our results.

There are two primary areas within natural science: life science and physical science. Biology is another name for the study of life, while physics, chemistry, astronomy, and Earth science are all subfields of physical science. There is room for further subdivision within each of these natural science subfields (also known as fields)

In contrast to the life sciences, physical science is the study of inanimate objects and processes. Many subfields of physics also investigate biological phenomena, so the term physical draws an artificial line. The terms physical science and physics are not interchangeable.

Physics (from Ancient Greek: φύσις, Physis (in Latin), lit. 'nature') is a natural science that involves the study of matter Certain research areas are interdisciplinary, including Quantum Chemistry and Biophysics, that the limits of physics are not set in stone.

Since physics provides fundamental explanations for every observed natural phenomenon, physicalism emerged as a major unifying feature of the philosophy of science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The fundamental mechanisms of other sciences are often explained by recent developments in physics, while allowing for the expansion of mathematical and philosophical inquiry.

Chemistry (the etymology of the word has been much disputed) Substances, atoms, molecules, and matter are all subjects of study in this branch of physics (especially carbon based). Analytical chemistry analyzes samples of materials to determine their chemical composition and structure; biochemistry examines substances found in living organisms; physical chemistry investigates chemical processes by employing physical concepts like thermodynamics and quantum mechanics; and so on. The chemical study of the nervous system (neurochemistry) is just one example of the many newly developed fields in recent decades.

All disciplines that study Earth are collectively referred to as Earth science, geoscience, or the Earth sciences. Since Earth is the only planet thought to support life, it presents a unique circumstance in the study of planets. In Earth science, one can take either a reductionist or a holistic perspective. The term Earth sciences can refer to the study of the solid earth as well as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. To develop a quantitative understanding of the Earth system and its history of change, Earth scientists typically employ tools from physics, chemistry, biology, geography, chronology, and mathematics.

Geology (from the Ancient Greek γῆ, gē (earth) and -λoγία, -logia, (research on, Geology (from Greek (dialog, discussion)) is the branch of Earth science that, the rocks it is made up of, and the processes that cause their evolution over time.

Planets with solid surfaces, like Earth, Mars, and the Moon, can also be the subject of geological study.

There is a great deal of overlap between modern geology and the other Earth sciences, including atmospheric and hydrological studies, Consequently, it is considered a crucial part of both Earth system science and planetary science as a whole.

The study of the ocean is known as oceanography or marine science. Currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics in the ocean; plate tectonics and the geology of the seafloor; and the fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within and across the boundaries of the ocean are all discussed. Oceanographers draw from a wide range of fields, including biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, physics, and geography, to increase our understanding of the global ocean and the processes that occur within it.

The study of weather and climate from a variety of scientific perspectives is known as meteorology. Research in this area dates back millennia, but it wasn't until the 17th century that meteorology really took off. Development of international networks of observers led to significant advances in the nineteenth century. Improvements in weather forecasting were made possible by the advent of computers in the second half of the twentieth century.

To put it simply, space science is the investigation of the cosmos. science experiments carried out in space (see space research).

The physical structure, chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, development, and evolution of all forms of life, from bacteria to humans, are the focus of life science, also known as biology.

Chemical processes within and relevant to living organisms are the focus of biochemistry, also known as biological chemistry. It is a branch of chemistry and biology, and it is central to the study of biology from a reductionist perspective. Biochemistry is the study of the molecular, cellular, genetic, and physiological processes at work in living organisms.

Unicellular, multicellular, and acellular microorganisms are all subjects of study in the field of microbiology (lacking cells). Microbiology is a vast field that studies everything from viruses to fungi, bacteria, and even parasites.

Botany is the study of plants and is considered a subfield of biology. Other names for botany include plant science, plant biology, and phytology. Traditional botany also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists, and the International Botanical Congress continues to be interested in all three groups of organisms. Roughly 410,000 species of land plants, including about 391,000 species of vascular plants, are currently being studied by botanists (in the strict sense) today (including approximately 369,000 species of flowering plants), Zoology (/zoʊˈɒlədʒi/) Some branches of zoology include: anthrozoology, arachnology, archaeozoology, cetology, embryology, entomology, helminthology, herpetology, histology, ichthyology, malacology, mammalogy, morphology, nematology, ornithology, palaeozoology, pathology, primatology, protozoology, taxonomy, and zoogeography.

Ecology (from Greek: οἶκος, house, or natural; -λογία, research into) issues related to the connections between living things and their physical surroundings, which depends on both living things and nonliving things.

Biodiversity is a hot topic right now, distribution, biomass, species, communities, and ecosystems, both intraspecific and interspecific collaboration and competition.

Ecosystems are complex networks of living things that change over time, the groups they belong to, and the inanimate elements that surround them.

Ecosystem processes, like the production of food, pedogenesis, nutrient cycling, plus niche development, control the flow of energy and matter in a system.

Organisms with particular life history characteristics keep these processes going.

To put it simply, social science is the scientific study of human societies and the interpersonal dynamics within them. Sociology, the first science of society, was founded in the 19th century and was formerly referred to by this term. It now incorporates not only sociology, but also anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, politics, and psychology.

To better understand society, positivist social scientists employ techniques similar to those used in the natural sciences. In contrast to the positivist approach, interpretivist social scientists may resort to methods like social criticism or symbolic interpretation instead of attempting to build empirically falsifiable theories. Eclecticism and the use of a wide variety of research methods are hallmarks of today's academic community (for instance, by combining both quantitative and qualitative research). As professionals from different fields increasingly identify with the goals and methods of social research, the term has also gained some independence.

Science that is put to practical use, such as in the development of new technologies or novel ideas, is called applied science..

Basic scientific disciplines within the field of natural science generate foundational knowledge that can be used to explain and even predict natural occurrences. The term applied science refers to a field of study that employs scientific methods and principles to solve real-world problems. This covers a wide variety of professions associated with the field of applied science, such as engineering and medicine.

For example, epidemiology makes use of formal science like statistics and probability theory. Genetic epidemiology is a field of study that combines biological and statistical approaches.

The table provides a concise overview of the connections between the various scientific disciplines.

Visualization and exploration of scientific fields and research topics are possible with the help of OpenAlex and Scholia. A field of study concerned with the nature of scientific inquiry is sometimes called metascience..

{End Chapter 1}

Chapter 2: Sociology

Sociologists have long been interested in such topics as social stratification, class mobility, religious and secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and social deviation. Since the interaction between social structure and individual agency has an impact on every aspect of human life, sociology has branched out to study topics as diverse as the Internet, the sociology of education, social capital, and the impact of social activity on the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Because of this, social scientists now employ a wider variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. Interpretive, hermeneutic, and philosophical approaches to societal analysis have flourished, especially since the mid-20th century linguistic and cultural turns. Agent-based modeling and social network analysis are two examples of recent, more analytically rigorous methods that have emerged since the turn of the 21st century.

Ibn Khaldun statue in Tunis, Ancient Tunisia (1330-1406)

Before sociology even existed, people were using sociological reasoning. Ancient philosophers like Confucius wrote about the significance of social roles, and social analysis can be traced back to the common stock of universal, global knowledge and philosophy as early as the time of Old comic poetry, which features social and political criticism.

The literature of medieval Arabic includes a large body of work that provides some of the earliest examples of sociological thought. Ibn Khaldun, a Muslim scholar from Tunisia in the 14th century, is credited by some authors, The Latin word socius (meaning companion or fellowship) is an etymological ancestor of the English word sociology..

The suffix -logy ('the study of') comes from that of the Greek -λογία, derived from λόγος (lógos, knowledge or word.

The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in an unpublished manuscript.

In 1838, French scientist and philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) offered his own definition of sociology.

Auguste Comte (1798–1857)

Comte's influential push for the growth of sociology bore fruit in the nineteenth century's twilight years. This is not to imply that prominent French sociologists like Durkheim were slavish followers of positivism's high priest. To be sure, Comte helped put sociology on the map by emphasizing its nature as the scientific study of social phenomena and by insisting that each of his basic sciences is irreducible to the particular science of sciences which it presupposed in the hierarchy. Of course, its roots go back even further than, say, Montesquieu or Condorcet, and certainly further than Saint-Simon, Comte's direct predecessor. Even though Durkheim did not agree with the idea of the three states and criticized Comte's approach to sociology, Comte's recognition of sociology as a distinct science with its own character justified Durkheim in regarding him as the father or founder of this science.

— Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: IX Modern Philosophy (1974), p. 118

Karl Marx (1818–1883)

Following the industrialization and secularization of Europe, both Comte and Karl Marx (1818–1883) sought to create scientifically justified systems, influenced by a wide range of historical and scientific philosophical currents.

Marx rejected Comtean positivism.

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a prominent member of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, lived from 1820 to 1903. One million copies of his books are thought to have been sold during his lifetime, making him the most successful sociologist of all time.

He had such an impact on the minds of his contemporaries in the 19th century that, including Émile Durkheim, defined their thoughts in terms of his.

To a large extent, Durkheim's Division of Labor in Society is an extended debate with Spencer, whose sociology, Now, a lot of people in the commentary community agree, The great majority of Durkheim's work is based on the work of others.

Positivism advocates for a methodological approach to sociology that is largely consistent with that of natural science. Based on the premise that scientific knowledge is the only genuine form of knowledge and that such knowledge can only arrive by positive affirmation through scientific methodology, empiricalism and the scientific method are prioritized in order to provide a tried and true basis for sociological research.

Our primary objective is to apply scientific rationalism to social behavior.... The positivism that we practice today is merely a byproduct of this rationalism.

— Émile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)

This sense of the term has long since been lost, and today there are at least twelve distinct epistemologies all referred to as positivism.

Hegel, a German philosopher, was a critic of both determinism and traditional empiricist epistemology, dismissing them as uncritical.

Max Weber

The goal of sociology is to provide a causal explanation for the process and outcomes of social action, so it is the science that attempts to do this. As used here, action refers to human behavior if and only if the agent or agents involved find it meaningful. The meaning to which we refer may be (a) the meaning intended by a particular agent at a specific time in history or by a group of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. The'meaning' in neither case should be considered objectively 'correct' or 'true' according to some metaphysical criterion. This is the key distinction between disciplines like law, logic, ethics, and aesthetics, which seek to derive 'correct' or 'valid' meaning from their subject matter, and the empirical sciences of action like sociology and history.

— Max Weber, The Nature of Social Action (1922),p.7

Weber and Georg Simmel developed the Verstehen (or interpretive) method in sociology, which involves a methodical approach to understanding a different culture or people by putting themselves in their shoes.

Georg Simmel

Most of today's most intractable problems stem from people's persistent efforts to preserve their unique identities in the face of overwhelming social pressures, cultural influences, and technological advancements. This hostility is the most up-to-date expression of the struggle for physical survival that primitive man has always waged against the forces of nature. It's possible that the eighteenth century advocated for freedom from all the historical ties in politics, religion, morality, and economics to allow the original natural virtue of man, which is equal in everyone, to develop without hindrance, and that the nineteenth century advocated for freedom as well as individuality (which is connected with the division of labor) and achievements that make man unique and indispensable.

— Georg Simmel, The Big City and the Mind (1903)

Émile Durkheim

Albion Small, at William Rainey Harper's invitation, founded the University of Chicago's Department of Sociology in 1892. Soon after, in 1895, Small also established the American Journal of Sociology. His hope was that by conducting such analyses, sociology could determine whether a society is healthy or pathological and then work toward social reform to prevent the resulting organic breakdown or social anomie..

As a discipline, sociology developed rapidly in response to what many scholars saw as the difficulties posed by modernity's industrialization, urbanization, secularization, and rationalization..

For Marx and Engels, the emergence of modern society was tied to the rise of capitalism; for Durkheim, it was tied to the rise of industrialization and the new social division of labor that it ushered in; and for Weber, it was tied to the emergence of a unique mode of thought, the rational calculation that he linked to the Protestant Ethic. Together, the works of these great classical sociologists point to what Giddens has recently called a multidimensional view of institutions of modernity, one that places equal emphasis on capitalism, industrialism, surveillance (meaning control of information and social supervision), and military power as central pillars of the modern world order (control of the means of violence in the context of the industrialisation of war).

— John Harriss, The Second Great Transformation? Capitalism at the End of the Twentieth Century (1992)

Bust of Ferdinand Tönnies in Husum, Germany

In 1875, William Graham Sumner established the first American college course titled Sociology at Yale.

Multiple sociological thinkers, including Herbert Spencer, Lester F. Ward, and William Graham Sumner, all contributed to the development of the modern field of sociology.

All of these schools of thought have left their mark on modern sociological theory, and they are not incompatible.

Functionalism, a broad historical paradigm in sociology and anthropology, is concerned with the whole and the necessary function of the parts of the social structure (what the classical theorists called social organization). Herbert Spencer popularized the idea that societal norms and institutions are like organs in a body, each contributing to the health of the whole. Again with reference to observable, structural laws, this viewpoint was implicit in Comte's original sociological positivism but was fully theorized by Durkheim.

Anthropologist theorists like Marcel Mauss provide another theoretical foundation for functionalism, Bronisław Malinowski, as well as Radcliffe-Brown.

The term structural first appeared in the latter context.

From Comte onward, functionalists have primarily looked to the field of biology as the closest and most compatible model for social science. Social system structure and function, as well as evolutionary processes and mechanisms of adaptation, have been conceptualized and analyzed with reference to biological systems. According to functionalist theory, the social world is more important than the individual parts that make it up (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects).

It is common to contrast functionalist theories, which stress cohesive systems, with conflict theories, which either criticize the entire sociopolitical system or highlight inequalities within it. The political and theoretical differences between functionalist and conflict thought are exemplified by the following Durkheim quotes:

Aiming for a higher level of civilization than the nexus of our environment allows for will only spread disease throughout our society. There is a limit to how much collective activity can be encouraged without damaging the social organism as a whole.

— Émile Durkheim, Work Distribution in a Community (1893)

Class struggles are the backbone of every society that has ever existed. Oppressor and oppressed, whether free and slave or patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

— Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, An Outline of Communism (1848)

Symbolic interaction is a school of sociological thought that emphasizes individual interpretations and the observation of social processes at the micro-level (via phenomenology, dramaturgy, and interpretivism). Max Weber, George Herbert Mead, Erving Goffman, George Homans, and Peter Blau are just a few of the prominent sociologists who have been linked to this perspective. The radical-empirical approach of ethnomethodology, developed by Harold Garfinkel, also belongs to this tradition.

In the field of sociology, utilitarianism is typically referred to as exchange theory or rational choice theory. This school of thought typically gives the upper hand to rational individual actors, who are presumed to always act to maximize their own self-interest within any given interaction. There are four defining characteristics of rational actors, according to Josh Whitford's argument:

the ability to see different paths

an awareness of, or conviction in, the likelihood and impact of the various outcomes

definition: a ranking of values relative to their consequences; and

guidelines for choosing between potential options

It is generally agreed that George C. Homans, Peter Blau, and Richard Emerson are responsible for developing exchange theory. Individuals' levels of rationality are limited, according to organizational sociologists James G. March and Herbert A. Simon. Former ASA president James Coleman is widely credited with reviving the utilitarian perspective in sociology in the late 20th century.

The interactionist thinking of the Chicago School came to dominate American sociology after the decline of theories of sociocultural evolution. We didn't consider symbolic interaction a subfield of sociology; rather, we considered it sociology itself, as Anselm Strauss puts it.

By the 1980s, conflict-oriented perspectives had largely supplanted functionalist ones across Europe, When the compromise zone between divergent schools of thought collapsed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the orthodox consensus collapsed with it. Phenomenologically influenced approaches, critical theory, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, structuralism, post-structuralism, and theories in the tradition of hermeneutics and ordinary language philosophy are all part of the third 'generation' of social theory.

Although there was a rise in interest in a few specific conflict approaches in the United States, the field as a whole shifted its focus to a collection of empirically oriented, mid-range theories that eschewed a grand unifying theory. John Levi Martin calls this era, the Pax Wisconsana, a golden age of methodological unity and theoretical calm. Despite the backlash against grand theory in the second half of the 20th century, a number of new traditions have emerged with alternative synthesis proposals. theories of structure, post-structure, culture, and society, and systems.

Anthony Giddens

Durkheim's writings, as interpreted by two European academics, were the primary inspiration for the structuralist movement. The Late Anthony Giddens, a sociologist, who base their structuration theory on Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistics; and Claude Lévi-Strauss, an anthropologist.

With this in mind, No implication of social structure is intended, instead to the semiotic analysis of cultural signs in human society.

There are four main ideas that define structuralism:

The structure of a thing is what makes it what it is.

For structuralists, there is a structure underlying every system.

Structuralists favor structural laws governing continuity rather than flux.

Underneath the veneer of words or concepts, structures are what really exist.

Contemporaneous with Giddens, a second school of structuralist thought emerges from the American School of social network analysis in the 1970s and 1980s; its proponents call this network structuralism and compare it to the British rather than French tradition of Levi-Strauss' structuralism..

In the development of social theory, post-structuralist thinking has often rejected 'humanist' assumptions. The discussion between these thinkers exemplifies the recent trend of overlapping philosophic and sociological perspectives. The term postmodernism, usually used to describe an era or phenomenon but sometimes misunderstood as a methodology, has been linked to the anti-humanist position.

There is widespread agreement on the most pressing issues in sociological theory, the majority of which are a legacy of earlier theoretical frameworks. There is general agreement on the following big three contrasts::

knowledge-based subjectivism and objectivism; structure and action-determining agency; and the temporal dimensions of synchrony and diachrony.

Finally, a subset of all three central problems in sociology is the difficulty of integrating or transcending the divide between small-, medium-, and large-scale social phenomena.

There are two aspects to the subjectivity and objectivity conundrum: worries about the potential outcomes of social actions, and difficulties in developing social science-based solutions. In the former, the subjective is typically associated with the person, along with that person's motives and understanding of the objective (though this is not always the case). Any action or result that affects the public at large is usually considered to be the goal. How knowledge is reproduced along the subjective-objective-subjective chain, or how intersubjectivity is achieved, is thus a central question for social theorists. Quantitative survey methods also aim to capture individual subjectivities, just like qualitative methods have done historically. There are also radical approaches to in-situ objectivity taken by some qualitative methods.

According to Bourdieu, a sociologist's interest in scientific knowledge stems from the fact that they themselves are a part of the social phenomenon they study:

How can the sociologist put into practice the radical doubt necessary to bracket all the presuppositions inherent in the fact that she is a social being, that she is socialized and made to feel like a fish in water within that social world whose structures she has internalized? How can she stop the social world from constructing the object in a roundabout way through her, via these unconscious or self-oblivious actions in which she appears to play a central role?

- Pierre Bourdieu, The Problem of Reflexive Sociology, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (1992), p. 235

Structure and agency, or determinism and free will, are two opposing philosophical perspectives. An ongoing theme in this discussion is the concept of social reproduction, which seeks to explain how preexisting structures (in this case, those that perpetuate inequality) are maintained through the actions of individuals.

Within social theory, the distinction between synchrony and diachrony (also known as statics and dynamics) originated with Levi-Strauss, who borrowed the concept from the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Synchrony allows us to study discrete intervals of time, So, it's a look at the way society has always been.

Diachrony, to contrast,, pursuits of sequence-dynamic analysis.

Following Saussure, The term synchrony is used to describe social phenomena as a fixed idea, similar to a language, whereas, diachrony would be used to describe ongoing processes such as actual dialogue.

Central Issues in Social Theory, as outlined in Anthony Giddens's introductory chapter, In his words,, in order to show the interdependence of action and structure…we must grasp the time space relations inherent in the constitution of all social interaction. And like structure and agency, Social reproduction is inextricably linked to the passage of time.

However, because it captures a moment in time, survey research is more attuned to the synchronization of social life, whereas historical sociology is more adept at the diachronic analysis of social life. The synchrony of social structure, according to some, is more of a methodological viewpoint than an ontological assertion. However, a theoretical challenge is figuring out how to combine these two approaches to social data recording and analysis.

It is possible to classify sociological research techniques into two broad, related categories:

To better comprehend social phenomena, qualitative research methods often prioritize first-hand accounts, in-depth interviews, and in-depth textual analysis over sweeping generalizations.

When studying social phenomena, quantitative designs take a data-driven approach and use statistical analysis of multiple cases (or across experimental treatments) to establish robust, credible claims.

It's not uncommon for sociologists to be split into rival camps over the best way to conduct research. These disagreements are connected to the epistemological discussions at the heart of social theory's development. While qualitative and quantitative approaches differ greatly in many ways, they share a commitment to systematically interacting with theory and data.

The bean machine, built by pioneering social scientist and statistician Sir Francis Galton to illustrate the normal distribution, a feature crucial to a variety of quantitative hypothesis tests

This list of research techniques is neither complete nor final:

Secondary sources like biographies, memoirs, journals, and so on can be mined for information in archival research, also known as the historical method.

Interviews and other texts are subjected to a methodical examination of their content, known as content analysis. Qualitative data analysis (QDA) programs like Atlas.ti, MAXQDA, NVivo, and QDA Miner are commonly used for coding data as part of the grounded theory methodology.

By isolating and recreating a single social process in the lab (by, say, setting up an environment where participants can make unconscious sexist judgements), researchers can test hypotheses about the relationships between and among various social factors (such as whether or not activating opposing gender stereotypes can influence participants' attitudes toward traditional gender roles). To conduct an experiment, participants are randomly assigned to either a control group (serving as a baseline because they are also tested on the dependent variable, but have not been exposed to any independent variables of interest) or a treatment group (receiving one or more independent variables of interest). The use of randomization ensures that any observed differences between groups are causally related to the intervention being studied.

A longitudinal study is one that follows one or more subjects over an extended period of time.

Taking in sensory information and processing it, The observer of social behavior or occurrences keeps meticulous notes.

Participation is not always a part of observational methods.

An Example of Participant Observation, The investigator travels to the study site (e.g.

place (of work or residence), and participates in the activities of the field for a prolonged period of time in order to acquire a deep understanding of it. Data acquired through these techniques may be analysed either quantitatively or qualitatively.

Studying by observing, An area of the world with fewer people would be ideal for a sociologist to conduct research on global warming.

Project, policy, and program questions can be answered through evaluation, which is a methodical process involving the collection, analysis, and use of data, In-depth interviews form the backbone of any survey study, questionnaires, similar comments from a group of people representative of the population at large.

Survey items from an interview or questionnaire may be open-ended or closed-ended. Data from surveys is usually analysed statistically on a computer.

A social network diagram: individuals (or 'nodes') connected by relationships

In order to analyze and model social phenomena, sociologists increasingly rely on computationally intensive methods.

Max Horkheimer (left, front), Adorno, Theodore (right), front), and Jürgen Habermas (right, back), 1965

Sociology of culture and cultural sociology are two similar but not identical terms that sociologists use to describe their perspectives on cultural phenomena. An older term, sociology of culture classifies certain issues and objects as more cultural than others. However, cultural sociologists take the view that all social phenomena have cultural origins. Early theorists like Durkheim and Mauss had an impact on cultural anthropology, but modern (rather than ancient) society is what sets sociologists of culture apart. Hermeneutic analysis of texts, objects, and symbols, as well as ethnographic interviews, are common methods used in cultural sociology. Weber and Bourdieu are two examples of sociologists who analyze culture using historical-comparative or quantitative methods. It is not uncommon for scholars in this area to form alliances with critical theorists like Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and others associated with the Frankfurt School. Cultural studies can be thought of as a subfield of sociology of culture. Theorists from the Birmingham School, such as Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall, challenged the traditional dichotomy between producers and consumers of media by highlighting the two-way nature of textual exchange. Studying a topic through the lens of cultural practices and their connection to authority is central to cultural studies. The social practices of a subculture (say, white working class youth in London) would be examined in relation to the dominant class. Culture became a much more prominent topic for sociologists after the 1960s cultural turn..

Literary sociology, film, and cultural sociology includes art as one of its subfields.

Research in this area focuses on the social processes and consequences of the creation of works of art.

A notable example is Pierre Bourdieu's Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure du Champ Littéraire (1992).

None of sociology's forefathers dedicated significant research to the study of art, but they did create concepts that other writers used in their work.

Pierre Macherey applied Karl Marx's theory of ideology to the literary arts, Fredric Jameson and Terry Eagleton.

Weber's concept of modernity as the rationalization of cultural practices, which he used to compose music, came to be used for everything creative, literature included, by Frankfurt School writers such as Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas.

Robert Escarpit shifted the focus of sociology away from the study of objectively established social facts, as Durkheim had envisioned it, and back toward literature.

Bourdieu himself acknowledges his debt to Marx, Internet and Durkheim.

Criminologists use techniques from sociology, psychology, and the behavioral sciences to examine crime's origins, progression, and mitigation. The sociology of deviance examines social deviations, such as violations of laws (such as crime) and social conventions (such as drinking in public). Sociologists are charged with investigating the origins, evolution, and mechanisms of social norms and institutions. When larger social systems facilitate rule breaking, we speak of social disorganization. For example, Robert K. Merton developed a typology of deviance that accounts for both personal and societal factors in its etiology.

The field of law study was instrumental in the development of classical sociology. According to Durkheim, the law is the visible symbol of social solidarity.

the social aspects of computing, the Internet, new media, computer networks, and other communication and information technologies are all included in the scope of the sociology of communications and information technologies.

Sociologists are interested in the Internet for many reasons, but primarily as a research and discussion tool. Digital sociology, a branch of internet sociology, broadens the focus beyond the internet to consider the influence of all forms of digital media and technology that have proliferated since the turn of the millennium.

The media studies field emerged from the meeting of sociology and other social sciences and humanities, including literary criticism and critical theory, in the same way that cultural studies did. Despite the fact that sociologists are not tasked with critiquing artistic forms or creating them, sociological theory and method can be found in analyses of socializing factors like ideological effects and audience reception. Therefore, the'sociology of the media' is not a formal subfield, but rather, the media are a ubiquitous and often central part of everyday life.

First used by William Stanley Jevons in 1879, the term economic sociology was subsequently coined by Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel between 1890 and 1920. A new field of study, economic sociology focuses on class dynamics and the philosophical concept of modernity in its examination of economic phenomena. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) by Max Weber and Georg Simmel's The Philosophy of Money (1907) both shed light on the connection between capitalism and modernity (1900). In 1985, Mark Granovetter published Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness, a seminal work that helped establish the current era of economic sociology, also called new economic sociology. This study developed the idea of embeddedness, which holds that people and businesses conduct their financial dealings within the context of their broader social networks (and are thus structured by these relations as well as the greater social structures of which those relations are a part). To investigate this phenomenon, researchers have mostly relied on social network analysis. Two of the most influential theoretical works in this area are Granovetter's theory of the strength of weak ties and Ronald Burt's concept of structural holes.

Industrial sociology, or the study of work and employment, looks at the direction and implications of trends in technological change, globalization, labor 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 sociology of education investigates the ways in which formal learning environments shape individuals, groups, and societies. It focuses primarily on the educational systems of advanced industrial nations. The debate over school effects that study sparked has yet to die down. Students from low-income black families benefited the most from being educated in multi-racial settings, according to the study, which helped spur desegregation busing in public schools across the United States.

Human interactions with the natural world are the focus of environmental sociology, which examines the causes, effects, and solutions to environmental issues from a societal perspective. Environmental sociology research can be conducted at a variety of scales, from the global (e.g., world-systems) to the local (e.g., communities) to the individual (e.g., people). The mechanisms by which people come to define and recognize environmental problems are also examined. Marx's analysis of the metabolic rift, which influenced modern ideas of sustainability, is often cited by prominent environmental sociologist John Bellamy Foster as the antecedent to modern environmental sociology. There are many areas of study that overlap with environmental sociology, such as risk sociology, rural sociology, and disaster sociology.

Human ecology is the multidisciplinary study of how humans interact with their surrounding ecosystems. Environmental sociology, architectural sociology, urban sociology, and even visual sociology all have some bearing on this area of study. Visual sociology, which examines society through its visual manifestations, overlaps with media studies because it makes use of the same photographic, cinematic, and other media technologies.

Prenatal social behavior and interaction is the focus of the field known as social pre-wiring. In this context, social pre-wiring refers to how social skills are learned and developed over time. wired to be social is another name for this trait. The theory investigates the possibility that an inclination toward socially oriented behavior is not innate. According to the studies supporting this theory, infants enter the world predisposed to be social.

In other words, the social pre-wiring hypothesis holds water:

The most important contribution of this research is the confirmation of the occurrence of'social actions' during the second trimester of pregnancy. Beginning around week 14, twin foetuses begin to intentionally plan and carry out movements directed at their co-twin. These results require us to look back before the development of social behavior: in situations where doing so is possible, such as with twin foetuses, other-directed actions are not only more common than self-directed ones.

Rosie the Riveter was an iconic symbol of the American homefront and a departure from gender roles due to wartime necessity.

Many branches of sociology examine various aspects of the complex interplay between family, gender, and sexuality. Members of a family share a common bond through biological, marital, civil union, or adoptive ties. The family unit is a central social institution present in virtually every society throughout history. As the most fundamental level of social organization, the family is crucial in assimilating children into societal norms and values. Focusing on the relatively recent historical development of the nuclear family and its distinct gender roles, the sociology of the family investigates the family as an institution and unit of socialization. The concept of childhood should also be taken into account. As one of the more fundamental institutions to which sociological perspectives can be applied, the study of the family is often included in introductory courses. On the other hand, feminist sociology is a normative sub-field that analyzes and critiques gender and sexuality as social constructions, with a focus on power and inequality. Feminist theory primarily focuses on patriarchy and the systematic oppression of women that is present in many societies, both on the micro- and macro-levels of interaction. The intersections of gender, race, and socioeconomic status that contribute to and sustain social inequalities are also studied by feminist sociologists.

The study of the social implications of and responses to health problems, mental health issues, and physical or mental impairments is known as the sociology of health and illness. Gerontology, the study of aging, and this area of study all have some overlap. In contrast, the study of medical sociology is concerned with the inner workings of the medical profession, its organizations, and its institutions, as well as the ways in which these can affect knowledge and interactions. After the publication of the Goodenough Report, sociology was included in British medical school curricula (1944).

The sociology of death refers to the study of death, dying, and bereavement, which is a subfield of the sociology of health and illness that overlaps with cultural sociology. The writings of Douglas Davies and Michael C. Kearl serve as excellent examples of this topic.

The field of sociology known as the sociology of knowledge examines how and why ideas spread throughout communities and what consequences these ideas have for people's lives. In the 1920s, the term was popularized by a number of German-speaking theorists, including Max Scheler and Karl Mannheim. The sociology of knowledge was on the fringes of the discipline for much of the 20th century as