Seen from the perspective of its development,the word sociology is formed from 'Societus'[Latin] and 'Logos'[Greek].Societus and Logos in sociology mean society and science or study respectively.This establishes sociology as a science that is concerned with the study of society.This also indicates that society is a broad concept.Sociology is a study of that broad subject matter.The science that studies relationships,inter-relationships,processes and changes is sociology.Thus,sociology studies various facts of society.The credit for developing the term sociology goes to the French philosopher Auguste Comte,who developed the term in 1839.The belated emergence of sociology becomes clear when we compare it to other social sciences.Sociology studies human relations,behaviors and activities and other institutions of political,economic,social and cultural nature.Moreover.it also studies social problems like poverty,industrial labor,murder,boycott and other csocial conflicts.Society constitutes many units nd sociology studies the interactions and inter-dependenc among those units.
As it studies the ethnic,linguistic,gender,cultural,religious,economic and political diversity of society,sociology can be a good source of theoretical and practical knowledge for us to know more about society.Like other pure sciences,sociology provides us analysis of social events and processes.Because of changeability of social variables or units of study,it is difficult to make the conclusions and findings of sociology universal.However sociological studies are bases on scientific procedures of research.
In general,sociology is the study of society and many sociological definitions of sociology have been given by sociologists.For Emile Durkheim,"sociology is the systematic description and explanation of society as a whole."It means sociology provides a systematic study of society in its entirety.Defining sociology Maclver and Page remark,"sociology is about social relationships,the network of relationship we call society."This definition sees sociology as a science that studies society as a network of relationship.According to Herbert Spencer,"sociology is the study of inter relationships between different parts of society."Here,sociology studies the interconnectedness among different components of society.Auguste Comte defines sociology as" the scientific and more particularly the positivistic study of society."Similarly,for Schaefer and Robert P Lamn,"sociology is the systematic study of social behaviours and human groups.It focuses primarily on influence of social relationship upon people's attitudes and behaviour and how societies are established and changed."In Max Weber's view,"sociology is the science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action."Giving a long and comprehensive definition of sociology from encyclopedia of social science edited by Frank N Magill says,"sociology involves the study and understanding of human interaction.As people live they live in relation to others for example, in a family or at school how they pereceive themselves and others and how they act is a consequence of the type of interaction and expectation.Sociology analyzes how various group structures are organized,how they work and what meaning individuals bring to and get from the groups in which theylive."
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