sotsiologiya

Sotsiologiya (Russian: Социология) is the systematic study of society, social interactions, institutions, and social change. It examines how individuals’ behavior is shaped by social structures and how collective processes emerge from everyday actions.

The term sociology derives from Latin socius and Greek -logia, and the discipline took shape in the 19th century. Auguste Comte is commonly regarded as the founder, advocating a positivist science of society based on empirical observation. Pioneers such as Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber laid the foundations for theories on social order, class, religion, economy, and rationalization.

In the 20th century sociology developed several theoretical orientations, including functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, followed by critical, feminist, and postcolonial perspectives. Practice theory, associated with Pierre Bourdieu, emphasized the interplay of structure and agency. Contemporary sociology often combines quantitative and qualitative methods to study topics from inequality and power to globalization and digital life.

Subfields include social theory, culture, family and life course, education, crime and deviance, political and economic sociology, urban and rural sociology, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and demography. Methods range from surveys and experiments to ethnography, interviews, content analysis, and statistical modeling, with increasing use of mixed methods and computational approaches.

Sociology informs policy, administration, and social programs, and is taught and researched worldwide in universities and research institutes. Leading journals include American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and Sociology, along with regional publications across Europe, Asia, and the Global South.