What Is Sociology? The Sociological Approach
What Is Sociology?
Sociology is the disciplined study of how society works. Rather than explaining human behaviour through individual personality or biology, sociologists look at the social forces that shape people’s lives — the groups they belong to, the rules they follow, and the inequalities built into the world around them. Sociology asks questions such as: why do some groups consistently achieve less in education? Why are some people more likely to be labelled criminal? What holds society together, and what tears it apart?
Crucially, sociology is not common sense. Common sense might say that poverty is caused by laziness. Sociology investigates the social structures that distribute wealth unequally, the institutions that reproduce disadvantage, and the processes by which labels are attached to whole groups of people. The discipline demands evidence, theory and critical thinking.
The core concepts of sociology are society, socialisation, norms, values, roles, culture, power and authority. These eight concepts appear across every topic in your exam and underpin every sociological argument you will make.
Socialisation: How Society Gets Into People
Socialisation is the mechanism through which society reproduces itself in the next generation. Through socialisation, individuals learn what behaviours are expected of them, what counts as right and wrong, and how to perform the social roles assigned to them. Without socialisation, the shared understandings that allow society to function would collapse.
Primary socialisation happens in the family, in early childhood. It is here that children first learn language, basic rules of behaviour, emotional responses and a sense of who they are. Parsons, writing from a functionalist perspective, argued that the family is the irreplaceable site of primary socialisation because it transmits the core values of society to each new generation.
Secondary socialisation occurs through agencies outside the family — schools, peer groups, workplaces and the mass media. Each of these agencies reinforces (or sometimes challenges) the values first taught in the home. Feminists such as Oakley have highlighted that gendered expectations are first taught in the family, through the toys parents give and the activities they encourage, and are then reinforced by media and peer groups.
Norms, Values, Roles and Culture
Norms are the unwritten rules of behaviour that tell people how to act in specific situations — how to greet a stranger, how to behave in a classroom, what to wear at a funeral. Unlike formal laws, norms are enforced informally through social approval or disapproval. Values are the deeper moral beliefs that lie beneath norms — for example, the norm of queuing in shops reflects an underlying value of fairness.
A role is a set of expected behaviours attached to a social position. The teacher role, the parent role, the police officer role — each comes with a bundle of norms about how the person in that position should act. These roles exist independently of the individuals who fill them; a new teacher steps into a role that was there before them and will remain after they leave. Together, norms, values and roles make up culture — the entire shared way of life of a society.
Power is the ability to get others to act in ways they might not otherwise choose. It can be exercised through force, persuasion or the control of resources. Authority is the legitimate exercise of power — power that others accept as rightful. Weber identified three types of authority: traditional (legitimacy from custom and inheritance, e.g. the monarchy), charismatic (legitimacy from a leader’s personal qualities), and rational-legal (legitimacy from formal rules and elected offices, e.g. a judge or elected MP).
Different perspectives disagree on who holds power and why. Functionalists argue power is distributed through legitimate authority for the benefit of society as a whole. Marxists argue power is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), who use it to maintain their dominance over the proletariat. Feminists argue that patriarchal structures give men disproportionate power over women in both public and private life. Interactionists are more interested in how power operates in micro-level face-to-face interactions — for instance, how labels imposed by powerful actors (teachers, police, doctors) can define and constrain less powerful individuals.
Consensus Versus Conflict: The Central Debate
One of the most important debates in sociology is between consensus and conflict perspectives on what holds society together. This debate runs through every topic you will study.
Consensus perspectives — most notably functionalism — argue that society is held together by shared norms and values. Most people, most of the time, agree on the basic rules of social life. Institutions such as the family, education and religion serve positive functions by transmitting these shared values and maintaining social order. From this view, inequality, where it exists, reflects the different functional importance of different roles, not exploitation.
Conflict perspectives — most notably Marxism and feminism — argue that society is characterised by fundamental divisions and inequalities. For Marxists, the key division is class: the bourgeoisie own the means of production and exploit the labour of the proletariat. For feminists, the key division is gender: patriarchal structures systematically disadvantage women. Both argue that the apparent consensus in society is not genuine agreement but the product of false consciousness or ideological control.
A frequent error is to treat sociological knowledge as “just common sense.” Sociology challenges common sense systematically. Common sense explanations are often ethnocentric (culture-bound), unreflective about their own assumptions, and unsupported by evidence. Sociology builds theories from evidence, tests them against data, and acknowledges that its own knowledge is socially produced and therefore open to critical scrutiny. The discipline asks: whose common sense? Common sense in 1950s Britain treated racial segregation as natural; sociology helped expose the social construction of race and the institutional processes that produced racial inequality.
Consensus perspectives (e.g. functionalism) argue society is held together by shared norms and values. Conflict perspectives (e.g. Marxism, feminism) argue society is divided by class, gender or other inequalities and that apparent harmony conceals exploitation or oppression.