We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2025
Perhaps this book or the course in which you are reading it is your first introduction to sociology. If so, this appendix is for you. It introduces sociology as a discipline, along with some of the most important insights sociologists have about how society works. Some language in the appendix assumes that you’ve already read the book.
What Is Sociology?
Sociology is the academic study of social patterns (and exceptions to them) at all levels and in all contexts through the use of empirical research. Sociology is also a perspective or way of seeing the world, about which I say more later. Sociology studies the following:
• Ways in which we are free and ways in which we are not
• How structure and culture enable and constrain us
• How belonging to a social group shapes our beliefs
• How our interactions with people change based on the context
• How our actions differ depending on the setting
• How social inequality works
• How different organizations and institutions interact with one another
• How our self-understanding is socially shaped
• How social patterns continue over time and how they change
• How individuals make sense of their lives
• How people interact with each other
• What people learn from culture
• What people believe, value, and assume, and how those beliefs, values, and assumptions impact our actions
• How organizations and large-scale institutions work separately and collectively
• How these facets of life come together to make societies that keep going over time while changing constantly
Since everything we do in our lives involves our relationships with others and with society more broadly, nothing human is off limits to sociology and virtually everything human is of interest to at least a few sociologists.
Some sociologists focus on the smallest levels of human social life: perceptions, values, ideas, identity development, meaning-making, individual behavior, and interpersonal interactions. Some sociologists are more interested in how organizations work, how cultural norms and ideals are disseminated across a society, or how social change movements come into existence, have an effect (or don’t), and fall away again. Some sociologists study the largestscale institutions of a given society, how nations interact with each other, or globalization and other patterns that span multiple countries.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
