...Sociology is a broad discipline in terms of both methodology and subject matter. Its traditional focuses have included social stratification (i.e. class relations), religion, secularization, modernity, culture and deviance, and its approaches have included both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. As much of what humans do fits under the category of social structure and agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such as medical, military and penal organizations, the internet, and even the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge. The range of social scientific methods has also been broadly expanded. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-20th century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and "postmodern" approaches to the study of society. Conversely, recent decades have seen the rise of new mathematically rigorous approaches, such as social network analysis. Read full entry

This entry is from Wikipedia,the leading user-contributed encyclopedia.It may not have been reviewed by professional editors(See full disclaimer)