Table of Contents
Sociology is a study of how people function and interact in our everyday lives, human social instillation and affiliation, not only just understanding our roles in society. For instance, a girl walking down the street may seem like an ordinary girl but her roles she have living her life may not just only be a girl; she may be a daughter, a sister, a student, a waitress or worse cast scenario a victim of abuse we never know. Sociology gives us multiple perspectives on why do other people behave in certain ways. For example, one growing up in a developing country and another grow up in a developed country, there will be differences in terms of education, finances, behavior, and attitude; the upbringing of the child will also differ from each other resulting in one will attend school with proper attire and the other will work to sustain the family in old and dirty cloths, commonly known as child labor. Sociology helps us recognize why these diversities occur so that we stop judging or presume that one is better than the other. Studying sociology also provides us the view of how people evolve their cultural mindset and structure throughout centuries until today; in the modern era.
For instance, the older generations have certain judgements against other religions and races due to the lack of exposure to society and what they actually are but the younger generations have enough knowledge to identify rationally the limits of having social circles with more than one race. Sociology also helps us in many ways including finding out what causes social problems and solving it; to get a hold of sociology by simply reading a book or watching daily news on televisions related will give us a general picture of how society works. Sociology does not narrow down their perspectives focusing just on certain things, sociology studies everything; covering areas such as religion, race and their cultural background, type of social class, and gender issues. Not only that, sociology helps us in improving our language and vocabulary, it might also help us in winning an argument with the broad knowledge from all parts of the world.
Sociology has made us a better person with humanity because not only it gives us perspective of the world we live in; it has helped us in many ways to improve ourselves to not let emotions cloud judgements. For example, when certain issues have happened that causes anger or disappointment, sociology helps us to intensify our understanding towards the problem (How sociology help us, .n.d.) and forbid us to overact before finding out the reason and get a proper solid explanation. Sociology teaches us why do people make particular decisions or provoke specific responses and teaches us to condone and view them as not evil and inadequate because individuals act corresponding to their own thoughts and upbringing.
Sociology and Culture
Sociological perspectives has made us realized that in a multicultural country such as India, Canada, Australia and Malaysia have different races that contains different cultural background. By containing cultural relativism, we could gain insights from other races and their traditional way into celebrating their occasion. For example, Eid al-Adha is a festival of sacrifice where Muslims slaughter cows, goats and camels then distributed amongst the family and the needy. Furthermore, thanksgiving is a national celebration in Canada and the U.S. to present gratitude and the blessing of the harvest; it is often seen where turkeys are roasted pairing it with red wine and families gather at the dinner table. The alternative to cultural relativism is ethnocentrism, where some part of the society practice judging another culture by their own culture. It is necessary for people to be emotionally devoted to their own way of life but sometimes it may develop misunderstanding and conflict. In other words, in between cultural relativism an ethnocentrism, there is a thin fine line known as human rights. For example, child marriages are strongly restricted and oftentimes illegal in developed country, but child marriages are still happening because of poverty in developing countries and poor income nations. As stated earlier, Eid al-Adha slaughters animals as sacrifice but individuals who do not understand the cultural background would most likely think it’s torturing the animal and might call out for animal abuse.
The perception of being a sociological citizen is by doing what they do best to serve the society more persistent than others. A strong engagement to reason other than to have the perfect fallout is the key to deal with identical or distinctive situations when they raise; to be a better citizen, people often uses the term rational regulation to name a certain type of process to replace traditional world view with a rational way of thinking. The better we understand how society works, the more active we become. For example, C. Wright Mills stated that, it is the sociological perspective that changes a person’s personal issue into a public issue. We have seen how society affects us, we either support it or we demonstrate to change it. Max Weber said that the truth is the outcome through the result of rational thinking because it appreciates efficiency and has little devotion from the past.
How sociology makes us into a better citizen includes intellectual growth, it improves our critical thinking and helps us “see the bigger picture”. Depending on the individual, most of their careers are inclusive of multiple frameworks in which are needed so that each of the co-workers, even clients are satisfied and is willing to participate in the working environment. Positivist sociology is a study of society based on systematic observation. For example, individuals can volunteer to participate into providing essentials like food and water, toothpaste and toothbrushes, combs to the homeless. They are supervised under a team of individuals that has been doing this for a long period of time; it is often conducted by the non-profit organizations (NGO). Interpretive sociology is a study that focuses on the meanings people attach to their social world. According to Max Weber, he stated that the most appropriate way to focus sociology is interpretative, or taking the meaning that people create into account.
Sociology not only helps individuals to be a better person and become an active participant in the society, it also teaches us how to be fully prepared for our future career that we are pursuing. Sociology educates us to be a strong observer especially in a global corporate company. Establishing organizations, and human interactions into the spotlight, a good emotional intelligence is used with co-workers, managers and assistants, clients, and opponents creates potential to succeed at business and other industries. For instance, good managers would prefer their employees voicing out during meetings; know when to guide their co-workers and when to allow them to be independent. Sociology helps us identify the discipline that strengthens a business person’s capability to dominate these relations; it also gives us a proper solid skill set needed for graduate studies so that it enables individuals to pursue career in just about any field of endeavor such as lawyer, pharmacist, counselor, dietitian and nutritionist, and physicians says the American Sociological Association.
Conclusion
Other than that, each of these different fields of work allow individuals to observe different types of conduct towards sociology such as the cost of operation, politics of labor, and other government like entities. Most of the sociologist graduates are well-prepared for public sector careers; if students have interest in deviance, crime or problems with issues of injustice, skills such as quantitative research and data analysis will be a useful in the field. Robert K Merton stated that society is determined in a way that it reinforces to much deviance, although it is said that some deviance is needed for the society to function. Students are also allowed to pursue their career in the field of environmental sociology involving maintaining environmental risk, and engage in climate change. Moreover, sociology is a subject that is beneficial alternative for students who don’t know what they want to pursue yet; as sociology allows student to explore all types of fields to get a better view of their goals. Overall, sociology is a subject that allows us to acknowledge situations that we never thought existed, placing us in all kinds of perspectives, viewing the world as a whole factory of moving machines fabricating from scratch until product outcome.