Talk:Sociology

Cleanup time!

I propose a major cleanup of the sociology page. putang-nga nyung lht I started by archiving the present talk (see archive link to the right).

Here are the major points of what I think should be done to improve this page:

• At the start there should be a clear summary of what sociology is. The Introduction to Sociology wikibook [1] could be a good source for this. That text needs to be paraphrased into encyclopedia tone, though.

• There are too many lists on the page. The long lines of names should be removed in favor of summaries of ideas. These should be in paragraph form, not in bullet point form.

• There should be proportionally more present-day content and less historical content. History is of course good, but the present page makes it look like most of sociology happened a hundred years ago. There should be at least as much space dedicated to present-day sociological research. Some of the contemporary topics that could be interesting to highlight are in actor-network theory, medical sociology, social network analysis, culture and cognition and gene-environment interactions. Many more things could be added to this list.

Let's make the sociology page easy to read and exciting! DarwinPeacock (talk) 22:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I would like to help, but my sociology textbooks are where I'll have access to them in 2 weeks or so.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 13:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! I think this is going to take more than two weeks, anyway :) DarwinPeacock (talk) 21:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I edited a ton of stuff, mainly rewrites. I hope the changes are acceptable! Happy holidays! Ytcracker (talk) 01:54, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup edits are always good. I think the Scope and topics of sociology section is in need of a more serious rewrite though. It seems to me like it's just a random list of links. I think, preferably, that section would be much longer, and consist of short sub-sections for various topics in sociology, each of which would in turn contain a "Main Articles" link to the full article on that topic. This would be much easier if the various topics articles were themselves better, but we've got to work with what we have... DarwinPeacock (talk) 02:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

If the article was a mess before, it certainly looks better now, and I've removed the cleanup tag. What the article really appears to need now is expansion. I took the initiative to build Sociology#Positivism_and_anti-positivism with discussions of Marxian, Weberian, and Durkheimian methodology. I find it odd how under-treated these figures have been in the article; to attempt an overview of sociology without Marx, Weber, and Durkheim seems akin to summarizing physics with minimal mention of Newton, Einstein, and Planck. (On that note, one could argue that "most of sociology happened a hundred years ago," if one views the current trends in positivism as a throwback to Comte--whom, rather paradoxically, no one takes seriously anymore.) But there is a lot that could be said about sociobiology and related fields, such as memetics, which truly are offering new and valuable information. Here we have examples of sociology that should have happened a hundred years ago, following not too long after the work of one of the greatest social thinkers ever, Mr. Darwin. Additionally, Sociology#Scope_and_topics_of_sociology could be greatly expanded with summaries of, say, sociology of religion and sociology of the family. For an example of what such a section might end up looking like, see Psychology#Subfields. Cosmic Latte (talk) 20:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Latte, the removal of the cleanup tag is a good moment to savor; the article is indeed clean enough for that now. I also agree that the article is most in need of expansion (that's why I stubbed the Sociology#Scope_and_topics_of_sociology section). And I never wanted to make the case that Marx, Weber and Durkheim should be removed from the article -- I just did not think they should be the primary focus of it. However, I strongly disagree with the desirability of including either sociobiology or memetics in the article on sociology. These academic approaches are not part of the discipline of sociology, and nor have they ever been. While they share some of the subject matter with sociology, they are not seriously considered in the sociological literature, and are rarely if ever taught in sociology departments. These approaches are tangent to sociology just like economic sociology is to the discipline of economics (the article on the latter mentions the former only in the "See also" section). However, both sociobiology and memetics could earn mentions in the article in the context of fields that are a part of contemporary sociology. Sociobiology, for example, could be mentioned in the context of studies of gene-environment interactions; memetics has some parallels in the (far more sociological) Actor-Network theory. The recent AJS supplement on gene-environment interactions ([2]) could be a good source for working genes into this article. DarwinPeacock (talk) 21:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I admit that it would be unorthadox to introduce large or uncontextualized statements about sociobiology, etc. into a fairly small article about sociology. But I have high hopes that Sociology#Scope_and_topics_of_sociology can be expanded to a point at which even some against-the-grain approaches won't stand out like sore thumbs. Gene-environment interactions or actor-network theory (the latter of which is new to me) could be reasonable contexts in which to mention those approaches. However, given the efforts of sociologists such as Alexandra Maryanski (see [3]) and Richard Machalek to introduce an evolutionary approach to sociology, I wonder if a reasonably-sized subsection on "Evolutionary sociology" (not unlike the bit on evolutionary psychology that was recently added to the psychology article) might also work. Cosmic Latte (talk) 00:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. An "Evolutionary sociology" subsection would be quite reasonable under "Scope and topics". There definitely need to be a lot more things there. I am very excited about all this work you're doing on the article, btw. DarwinPeacock (talk) 02:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Editing Sociology

I have edited, and rededited this Sociology page more often than I can count. Each time I return to this page it is ladden with with either vague or improper content and context. I am a Sociologist. My handle is Sociologist4life. The recomendation below to the "Introduction to Sociology wikibook" is what I created. There seems to be people editing this page adding in their own personal sociological slant. A true Sociology professional does not attempt to impose one's view. To do so is in contradiction of the discpline. I urge all readers to think about this and to avoid editing and rediting work that already addresses what Sociology is.

At present, this page does not even provide and operational definition of Sociology, which is needed and of which I already created and of which is now not there. Track the changes created by me and then subsequent changes. You'll notice that most changes omit the basics of Sociology and have been rewritten with either political or Darwinian slants. Sociology is about understanding human behaviour not an attempt to sway the reader! I will refrain from advising my students to use this page any longer. I am disgusted with what has transpired. I think someone from within Wikipedia needs to address this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.114.104 (talk) 21:06, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Sociologist4life, this page does indeed need a huge amount of work, and your further contributions would be very welcome. There is also no way to stop anyone from editing a wiki page -- keeping wiki pages alive takes continuous effort, and it is always a cumulative one. This process, I think, is quite appropriate for describing sociology, which is a broad discipline consisting of a vast number of diverse theoretical, methodological and epistemological approaches. (I am also a sociologist, or at least well on my way to becoming one; I am not certain what your views on the discipline are, but I suspect that they are not exactly the same as mine.) Please, contribute whatever changes you think would make this page better. There is not going to be anybody "from within Wikipedia" who steps into the process: it's all up to us. DarwinPeacock (talk) 01:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Editing comments

Please refrain from asserting a particular sociological position or theorist in it's operational definition. Giddens is only one of several theorists in the discipline. Professional protocal among Sociologists is to not assert one's position in a general operational definition. I have changed this opening sentence many times to only discvover that someone is adding their own slant. This is very unprofessional and will mislead the new learner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.112.202 (talk) 05:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know whom you're addressing, but since I've edited the article heavily lately, I'm listening. More importantly, though, I don't know exactly what you're contesting. Nothing in the article's introduction strikes me as particularly controversial. The citations might not even be necessary there, because the information is fairly common-knowledge, although I don't see how they're hurting anything; they're certainly not there to advance the position of any sociologist to the exclusion of others. I saw what appeared to be some attempts on your part to tidy up the introduction, which seems like a reasonable thing to do, but apparently I'm missing something. Would you mind cluing me in? Cosmic Latte (talk) 12:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The Giddens text in question is "Introduction to Sociology" by Giddens, Duneier, and Appelbaum. It's a pretty uncontroversial text. DarwinPeacock (talk) 02:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Commented-out paragraph

FYI, I've commented out the following paragraph,

In the late 20th century, some sociologists embraced postmodern and poststructuralist philosophies. Increasingly, many sociologists have used qualitative and ethnographic methods and become critical of the positivism in some social scientific approaches. Much like cultural studies, some contemporary sociological studies have been influenced by the cultural changes of the 1960s, 20th century Continental philosophy, literary studies, and interpretivism. Others have maintained more objective empirical perspectives, such as by articulating neofunctionalism, social psychology, and rational choice theory. Others, such as Otto Newman, began to debate the nature of globalization and the changing nature of social institutions. These developments have led some to reconceptualize basic sociological categories and theories. For instance, inspired by the thought of Michel Foucault, power may be studied as dispersed throughout society in a wide variety of disciplinary cultural practices. In political sociology, the power of the nation state may be seen as transforming due to the globalization of trade and cultural exchanges, and due to the expanding influence of international organizations (Nash 2000:1-4),

with the following note:

PLEASE consider organizing the following paragraph before making it visible again. Currently (as of 10-11 Feb. 09) it is presented in such a haphazard fashion that the preceding paragraph (ending with conflict theory and neomarxism) flows better into the following paragraph (beginning with the survival of positivism in the U.S.) WITHOUT this intermediate series of digressions in the way.

Best to nix it, rescue it, or leave it visible? Cosmic Latte (talk) 12:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, ditch it. Looks unfixable to me. There should definitely be a different mention of postmodernism somewhere around there, though. DarwinPeacock (talk) 02:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree (with all points), and have removed the paragraph accordingly. Cosmic Latte (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Positivism and Anti-positivism

The section seems a bit too friendly to the anti-positivism side of the debate. Much more attention is paid to the anti-positivism side, and even Durkheim is presented as something of a non-positivist. It is my understanding that most sociologists are now somewhere on the spectrum between the two poles, with the majority being somewhat tempered positivists (though none are Comteans). (Afaik, all major graduate sociology programs require significant stats training, and most offer qualitative methods techniques as an optional methods course). I think the way the section is right now makes it sound that there are few positivists (or tempered positivists) around. Thoughts? DarwinPeacock (talk) 02:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It couldn't hurt to add some contemporary updates on the debate, although I see the potential for two errors: A) to allow any implication that Durkheim was the kind of guy who could have declared, "Sociology is the scientific study of society" and been on his merry way. Durkheim himself arguably qualifies as a "tempered positivist"; see, for example, page 19 of this paper. And B) to cite current practices that don't revolve around particularly articulate apologetics or debates. As the philosophical basis for experimental methods, positivism is, IMO, associated with a lot of how's (methods) and what's (data) that often leave limited room for discussion of the why's that constitute philosophical bases in the first place. The fact that so much sociology, at least in the United States, is so statistically oriented is, itself, fodder for nonpositivist critiques of the status quo. In a nutshell, although NPOV would indicate that current, mainstream views should be noted, I'd suggest that they should be noted with great care. Cosmic Latte (talk) 14:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Contrary to what has been suggested, contemporary sociology is anything but largely quantitative. The most progressive changes in recent sociology have been theoretical, and qualitative approaches. This is not to say quantitative is not still very popular. We must remain cautious in announcing one methodology is widely preferred over another. Quantitative methods are much more common in the US than in both Canada, and the UK. There are many ideological critiques which attempt to explain these differences. Many of these focus on the ideas that 'objective' facts, and data are more useful political tools for policy. Thus, as research institutions are given funding due to their production of 'useful' research, quantitative methodologies are often used in preference to reletavist qualitative methods. But on the other hand, some of the most useful sociological research has been done through qualitative methodologies and they have also been quite influential on public policy. Experiments such as the stanford prison experiment are illustrative of this. There must also be a realization that current sociological theories are very much more focused on describing how society operates rather than why it operates in such ways. This perspective is currently often considered the post-structuralist perspective (most notably started by French Sociologist and Philosopher Michel Foucault). This perspective is not positivist, even though it focuses on describing how society works. This perspective attributes all social morals, values, beliefs and so on to being abstract social structures that influence the actions of individuals and society in general. These structures are NOT permanent and by nature are very fluid and always changing. The main idea is that there are always abstract social structures pronounced through cultural discourses that shape and condition the way people and communities behave. One would be very hard pressed to find a fundamentalist positivist sociologist in this day in age. They likely became extinct long ago. Sociology presently is much more interested in socialization processes than in discovering an inherent and objective 'human nature.' This is likely why sociologists and psychologists often find disagreements. Positivism has also taken a large hit in the natural sciences and all other social sciences. All academic disciplines became aware, a long time ago, that we often prescribe our own ideas on the outside world, rather than understand them for what they actually are. Biologists have often been accused of prescribing human traits on their explanations of animal behaviour - it is very likely that we can never fully understand animal behaviour because we are not those particular animals (we also barely understand human behaviour and we are humans!). Accordingly, even quantum physicists have debated these controversies of human perception and methods when describing atomic predictions. It is quite interesting to point out that these debates originated in philosophy hundreds of years ago, and only now all disciplines seem to be understanding this dilemma (see Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy) to get a better grasp on this debate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ricky1984 (talk • contribs) 09:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

CosmicLatte, I agree with you completely. Ricky, there is currently far more space and attention attributed to non-positivist approaches; I am merely trying to find balance. But it's curious that you bring up the Stanford prison experiment as an example, since it itself is positivist (being an experiment) and exists in social psychology, which is a heavily statistical literature. I wouldn't go too far in claiming that physics is non-positivist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DarwinPeacock (talk • contribs) 00:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Phrase modification?

Why is the phrase "far flung" used in describing concepts in lines 6,7? 195.220.227.166 (talk) 14:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Go for it and change it if you have a better phrasing. See WP:BB. DarwinPeacock (talk) 00:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Sociology#Twentieth century developments

I've removed some recent changes to this section that covered Marxism and post-structuralism. However, both of those topics should be covered. My beef with the changes was that they introduced a very detailed discussion of the influence of Marxism on post-structuralism in a section that is otherwise a summary. The detailed discussion here is misleading about Marxism's role in sociology in general and in post-structuralism in particular. However, brief descriptions of both Marxism and post-structuralism would be quite quite fitting there. If Marxist sociology needs far more detail than a sentence or two, it should probably go into its own section (or even a Marxist sociology entry?). DarwinPeacock (talk) 00:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

request for some help

If there is anyone here (who watches this page) who knows quite a bit about J.J. Rousseau and Emile Durkheim, would you please contact me? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Try also asking at their discussion pages, and at WP:RDH. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I left messages there, over a month ago. I also left messages on France-related pages. Since these guys are political philosophers/social scientists I do not think RDH will help but I do appreciate the suggestion. Slrubenstein | Talk 07:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Manuel Castells and The Internet Galaxy

I have added internal Wikipedia links for both Manuel Castells and The Internet Galaxy. Михал Орела (talk) 11:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Very nice update, thank you. --77.99.78.57 (talk) 12:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Scopes and Topics

I've expanded the scopes and topics section, which for a long time, quite strangely, only consisted of 'the internet'. All these sections, however, require considerable improvement. If some people with a reasonable level of expertise could improve a section each that'd be great. --Tomsega (talk) 21:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protection?

This page is a heck of a lot better than it was 6 weeks ago, but there are still some vandalistic/mindless updates being made. Could anyone with the know-how set the gears in motion to get semi-protection on it?? --77.99.78.57 (talk) 12:28, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Considering the amount of vandalism recently, I reckon it probably should get semi-protection, yeah. --Tomsega (talk) 09:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

"Sociology" synonymous with "social science"

First of all, to Tomsega, to the editor at 81.155.85.59, and to the others who've been working on this article lately: Great work! This article has improved dramatically since the last time I worked heavily on it, and it might even be headed toward WP:FA status, which had seemed an absurdly unlikely dream just a couple months ago. My only issue at this point is rather minor, really, and it's an issue with the lead asserting that "sociology" and "social science" are often synonymous. Tomsega points out--correctly, I should note--that "sociology, as the science of society, was formally established long before the umbrella term 'social science' lay claim to swallowing it up". Of course, the different "founders" (for lack of a better term) of sociology used the word "science" to mean different things; the Comtean "science of society", for example, is worlds apart from a Weberian "science of society". However, only for Comte was there the (positivistic) science of society: sociology, the Science of Sciences (in much the same sense as Christianity views Jesus as the "King of Kings"). For Weber and others, sociology is a (non-positivistic, or at least non-Comtean) science of society, insofar as society is something that can be studied scientifically. From the post-Comtean view, sociology is not morally or methodologically superior to anthropology, history, economics, psychology, etc.; it is rather a viable alternative to these other social sciences. Even if the term "social science" was not in use back in the days of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, it would have been a semantically and syntactically proper reference to a variety of non-sociological disciplines. So I would assume that only a hard-core Comtean (if any still exist) would formally recognize the "social science" as sociology. As for more general reference, I suppose a bit of self-disclosure is in order: I am American, and my assumptions may reflect my cultural background and/or bias. In gradeschool/grammar school here, "social studies" ("studies" being roughly synonymous with "science" in the broadest sense of the latter term) refers to a conglomeration of mostly history, geography, and political science, along with a dash of psychology, sociology, economics, and other disciplines. At the university level, I studied both psychology and sociology; I could summarize this by saying, "I studied social science", but would likely then be asked, "Which one(s)?" A university's "division of social sciences" would not, by any means, be equivalent to the university's sociology department, although it would often encompass that department. If I am not mistaken, both Tomsega and the IP editor are British, and they might be aware of terminology that is not restricted by my American education and assumptions. If this is the case, then please forgive my ignorance, and keep up the good work. However, if my point seems potentially valid, then please mull it over. And, nonetheless, keep up the good work. (As an aside, I noticed that someone else has cited the Ashley/Orenstein source, which I initially introduced to the article. If anyone who has read this source reads this talk page post, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the book. Another disclosure: I am not one of the authors, although I have studied under one of them.) Cosmic Latte (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Cosmic. I graduated in sociology about two months ago and, possibly as a result of the state of the current job market, ended up spending a good hour a day working on this article and its babies. The opening paragraph stating "the cultural turn happened in the 1980s" served as some inspiration..!

Regarding the synonymity of sociology and social science, first of all, yes, my main point would be that sociology as the science of society existed long before the presumably Anglo-American umbrella term lay claim to it (perhaps this owes to the history of sociologie as a continental affair and the rather separate trajectory of British anthropology in the 19th century). The fact that some English-speakers missed the boat first time around, or that sociology is always self-criticising and mutating, is not really the fault of sociologists. If sociology were not so encompassing of all these 19th century 'sciences of society' it would have no right to claim Marx - who never worked as a sociologist per se, and who probably despised Comte.

Agreed academically the terms shouldn't be interchangeable, but then it's often hit-or-miss whether a subfield piece (say, on ethnic relations or urban studies) will categorise itself as a work of social science or of sociology, and there's often no rationale behind that except preference. On a conversational level, though, or in popular journalism, it seems to me as if 'sociological' and 'social-scientific' are used adjectivally at random, and this is the small point I hoped to highlight by saying "often synonymous". The use of the word 'often', the fact there are two separate wiki articles, seems enough to me. It's definitely a point of controversy though, so I'm prepared to be outvoted. Maybe "informally synonymous" would be more appropriate.--Tomsega (talk) 10:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

'Classical' sociologists

The key figures section lists 'classical' and 'latter 20th century' theorists, and has received some nice updates recently. Question remains who should qualify as a 'classical' sociologist. On the one hand they must obviously be major theorists, on the other it's a question of era. I think WW2 is a reasonable cut-off point. The Frankfurt school and Parsons just about class as 'classical' in that respect, whereas anybody born after about 1910 is probably closer to 'contemporary'. --Tomsega (talk) 22:45, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

@Tomsega: In remaking this part, we clashed, unfortunately. I apologize. You see: I consider it a questionable course, to include thinkers, who just influenced sociology (sociologists) as key thinkers without being sociologists. In this case, we shall be probably forced to add more and more people, including ancient ones. The list of "others" (dead or alife) might create discussions enough - concerning "classics" we ought to be careful. Think of those youngsters, who turn up to be informed, and start with Benjamin and the like as a given example. "Sociology" will be very clouded a concept in their eyes. Greetings -- €pa (talk) 21:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Howdy. This general point invokes the same question of whether or not Marx should be counted as a 'sociologist' simply because he never said so himself. In that instance I would say firmly yes, he was a sociologist, because he established a science of society, and was a studier-of-society, and sociology has developed as an approach, a method, an activity, not a 'club'. The word 'philosophy' has historically lay claim to just about all intellectual activity, which is understandable, but not always appropriate. To my mind, sociology is a sort of 'political philosophy of modernity', and although not all political philosophers are sociologists, all Marxists are both. With regard to the Frankfurt school, what adequately distinguishes Adorno and Habermas (self-described 'sociologists') from Marcuse and Benjamin (who supposedly didn't)? Similarly, to get from Marx to Baudrillard, or even to get from Marx to Giddens, you need Gramsci and Lukacs, yet only Gramsci has been left in. Is that consistent? Again I'd reiterate, as Marxism is a science of society, all Marxist theory is sociological theory.

Similarly, despite feminism being a major part of sociology, almost no feminists describe themselves as 'sociologists' -- they describe themselves only as 'feminists'. We'd have no feminists on the list if we didn't accept feminism as a breed of sociology. And lets face it, feminist theorists have much more in common with Marx, Weber and Parsons than they do with Herbert Spencer! In a nutshell: Sociology has to be recognised as a fairly broad term. --Tomsega (talk) 22:41, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Not quite agreeing, I see your point (sociology = political philosophy). But, you might exclude several of our best people. Moreover, I utterly disagree to the idea that by declaring oneself a marxist (or feminist, for that), one might enter the halls of sociology. We shall get all those fighters, a lot of them having only a very superficial understanding of sociological reasoning or research, claiming that “class“ be a catch-all for all social problems. Wouldn’t you fall in with that?
Anyhow, “who shall decide, if scholars disagree?” -- €pa (talk) 11:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There are Marxist authors, comedians and psychologists that I wouldn't class as sociologists, certainly, but I just can't see any logical reason, if Marx is a sociologist, why Lukacs isn't. They both examined the exact same subject manner in broadly the same method. If they both are or neither are. Neither one said 'Hi, I'm a sociologist'. I'd say Edward Said and Simone de Beavoir, for instance, are far more controversial inclusions on the list! But then they are key theorists, even if they're not sociologists. Regardless, I appreciate your good efforts on this page. Some of the edits in the past few days have been vandalism, if not just wrong and unhelpful, and it'd be nice if I wasn't the only one un-doing them all. --Tomsega (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Being an adherent of a sociological idea doesn't make one a sociologist. If you start including political philosophers where do you stop? By your logic, it seems like all political philosophers would be sociologists. Fixentries (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, really, I was more pointing attention to the lack of logic involved in saying Marx was a sociologist and saying someone like Lukacs, who was essentially carrying on Marx's work, was not. There is no logic there, it's just 'the done thing' to classify some intellectuals as political philosophers and others as sociologists. Furthermore, Gramsci and Lukacs are very nearly as central to the work of modern sociologist-Marxists as Marx was himself. --Tomsega (talk) 17:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This seems to give special preference to Marxism as "sociological" over other political theories. I'm not familiar enough to form a good argument about this. I would class the dialectical materialism under sociology, but not necessarily consequences of it or philosophies based on it. Fixentries (talk) 18:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It's all very grey, but the key reason Marxism is supposed to be sociology rather than political philosophy per se is because it sets out to be scientific, systematic, and dialectic, rather than moral or normative. But today we know it's certainly not a science, so that complicates things further! --Tomsega (talk) 20:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

'Criticism section'

I have removed this contribution for the following reasons: (1) There are absolutely no references. Granted other sections do not have references, but those sections don't have to prove their own worth quite as much as a criticism section; these sorts of sections are very susceptible to POV and general nonsense. (2) Criticisms between sociologists, for instance positivist critiques of post-structuralism, are simply disputes within the discipline, and not criticisms of sociology per se. The fact lots of different sociologists have different opinions on how sociology should be done is already covered, or at least always implicit. (3) Something like Thatchers statement "there is no such thing as society", which I think is on the society page, would attack social and political science and social philosophy in general, not specifically sociology. The fact that sociology has been undermined by certain governments is already mentioned quite enough in the history section. The edit was a fair contribution and I hate to be rude but I hope you see why I removed it. By all means we could have a criticism section, it's just imperative that this section, perhaps more than any other, should be very highly referenced indeed. People will always have their own subjective opinions about sociology (usually out of ignorance), and those opinions don't belong here. --Tomsega (talk) 12:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Why should one section have different standards of citation than another? It seems wasteful to just remove material rather than trying to improve it or find good citations. I don't think anyone wants to see articles summarily gutted just for the problem of lacking sources. Fixentries (talk) 14:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

You're right: ALL sections should be referenced. Personally I don't think it's appropriate to have a criticism section for a whole broad discipline, especially when this page has already seen a lot of vandalism as it is - we're just going to see those same POV acts of vandalism put into politer language. But that's just my opinion. So long as there are full and proper references, it's fine as far as the Wikipedia rules are concerned. I think we also have to bear in mind that this is a major page but with comparatively few regular editors, so efforts have to made to keep the level of academic discourse as high as you see, for example, on the Psychology or Philosophy pages (this time two months ago the sociology page was almost embarrassingly poor).--Tomsega (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I looked at your edit and it seemed to make sense, sorry, I meant to come back and mention that. The material you removed was pretty questionable or incorrectly classed under "Criticisms". I'm not sure all of it is covered in the "positivism" section though. Fixentries (talk) 18:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Cool beans. --Tomsega (talk) 20:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok here are the claims from there. Which of these are already contained in the article under positivism or other sections?

• Mainstream sociological theory has been criticized by sociologists for focusing too much on static phenomena and ignoring social processes over time (Elias)
• for focusing too much on stability and consensus and ignoring conflict (Dahrendorf)
• for an unclear definition of its subject of study (Latour)
• for legitimizing the status quo of the time instead of pointing out social inequalities (marxist sociologists)
• and for not taking into account the role of women in society (feminist sociologists)
• among other things.
• Certain currents of thought within the discipline, such as social constructionism, and the poststructuralist and postmodern-influenced branches of social theory have been criticized as epistemologically relativistic and thus eroding the scientific status of sociology.
• Certain research areas from the biological sciences, such as sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, etiology and the neurosciences have been seen as competing paradigms to the main schools of sociological thought.
• A core idea of sociological thought - that there are social phenomena that affect the individual - has been challenged on ideological grounds by politicians like Margaret Thatcher, who contend that 'society' is a false construct which is used to undermine individual responsibility.
• The work of sociologists has in the course of history been at odds with other social sciences - such as economics - who claim to produce theories with better explanatory power for social phenomena.

Which are relevant to the article and may have merit for inclusion? Fixentries (talk)

There are some good points here. However, all of the first five are criticisms by sociologists of other styles of sociology, which could be mentioned as those methods are introduced in the main body, but which do not constitute a critique of the discipline itself. What is 'mainstream sociology'? I don't think there is such a thing. Some people have the view the majority of sociologists are functionalist positivists, whereas other people think all sociologists are Marxists or social relativists. American sociology is more statistical, whereas European departments are often heavier on Marxism and literary thinking. I don't even think it's right to attempt to divide the discipline up between 'functionalists, conflict theorists and antipositivists' - it seems to me a huge generalisation for the purposes of school or undergraduate-level courses. In fact, something I think really should be criticised is the awfulness of school-level curricula, because that's what tricks certain people into thinking it'll be like that again at university...

The point 'certain research areas from the biological sciences' as well as the point on economics is good, but couldn't it just go in the section 'sociology and the other social sciences'?? Perhaps if we rename that section 'other disciplines' instead?

As for the Thatcher point.. well, I just think that is such an ineffably stupid and ignorant remark, to the extent it's not worth mentioning! --Tomsega (talk) 08:59, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

In general I agree with Tomsega, who seems to know quite a bit about the subject. There is no reason that every article should hve a criticism section. The "criticisms" listed here that have some validity (e.g. Latour) I think are far better characterized as "debates" which, since the very beginning, is what Academe has been all about. After all, Latour is himself a sociologist, and Marx is considered as foundational to social theory as Durkheim, Weber, and others. To characterize a high level of debate among sociologists, or between sociologists and economists, as criticisms seems to misrepresent what is going on. Also, some debates are here misplaced. So, some economists argue against some sociological theories. But obviously sociologists argue against economists. In these cases, what we need is an article on the matter under debate, providing the views of both sociologists and economists (and others as the case may be) thus complying with our NPOV policy and no need for a silly "criticisms" section. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I think sociobiology has too much space here for an article on another subject. It certainly never took off, most biologists do not do sociobiology and only a handful of social scientists, mostly in psychology and not sociology, were really influenced. Wouldn't it be far more interesting to discuss the difference between George herbert mead's social psychology and Solomon Asch's social psychology? That comparison is not about criticism or one-upmanship but about a genuine difference between disciplines addressing similar but still distinguishable ground. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

It'd certainly be interesting to have an article comparing Mead and Asch. Or as there are two social psychology pages, it could be discussed/linked to on either. As for having an article dedicated to debates between sociologists and economists over the primacy of effects, that'd also be good, but of course within sociology itself, we already have the grandest of all economic determinists, Marx, to contrast with the doyen of sensible-talking social theory, Max Weber! --Tomsega (talk) 20:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Marx was not an economic determinist. Rather, one major view of Marx is that he was an economic determinist. Now, this reading of Marx may be the dominant one among sociologists, but there are other readings, and other forms of Marxism. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

If that's a general comment on not pigeon-holing any thinker so explicitly, then I agree, but otherwise I can't think of a thinker who epitomises economic determinism more than Marx. Material was the basis of his philosophy. --Tomsega (talk) 13:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

As marxists like George Battaile pointed out, materialism is not the sme thing as economic determinism. "self interest" and other core economic concepts like "scarcity" and "need" or "wants" are actually not material, they are rather fuzzy concepts and economists quantify them by turning material things into abstract things. Isn't the first chapter of capital all about how money is really an abstraction, the matter it is made of being, um, immaterial? About how a materialist analysis of capitalism shows that its economy is really more like magic and religion than anything else? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:40, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Granted money is abstracted human labour; that its qualities for the Marxists are far more complex than those set forward by the shallower political economists. That is an important point. But I am not denying that in my conception of Marxist 'material', and it is hardly surprising the Marxists would defend Marx and attack 'economic determinism', to the extent the term it is usually meant pejoratively. Perhaps, in not seeing money as anything more than solid wealth on a table, the average stockbroker is more of a materialist than Marx. Nevertheless, contrasting the historical materialism of Marx with something such as the elective affinities of Weber, Marx was an economic determinst, and nobody has built a greater, more prophetic system of material since. If Marx were less of a determinist, history might have unfolded to leave him looking less mistaken. --Tomsega (talk) 14:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I hope you did not misunderstand me: I was not saying that marx is NOT a materialist, and I was NOT claiming that you were suggesting that he is not a materialist, I was just saying there is a difference between Marx's materialist view of the world (like the atomist philosophers he wrote his doctoral thesis on) and "economy." I would add only two points: I think it is important to distinguish between Marx the revolutionary and Marx the philosopher/historian. I know marx might object, but it is important if one is to understand what Marxists in Academe often reach very different conclusions from Marxists in the Communist Party. Also, I would add that a concept of "structure" is essential to Marxist social science as much as "materialism." The diffeence between marx's materialist approach and Weber's hermeneutic approach explains how "structure' means different things in their respective works, but the role of structure (in both works) is important to what makes it "social science" I think. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the predictive ability of a theory is a measure of whether it was intended as materialism or determinism. I liked the "normative" distinction you used above. Normative statements are not science, so they must not be sociology as such - although the observation of normative systems is of course very much part of sociology. Not all of Marx or Marxist beliefs are "the scientific or systematic study of society". I agree, economics as such is not generally sociology but it may be in some cases if the aim is along the lines of the observations (not value-judgments) Marx tried to make. Same with political philosophies in general, and any other moral or ethical statements - none of these are part of an objective study of society qua society unless they clearly set out to be. I think for any system mentioned in this article, if there is a major counter-argument out there, it must also be part of sociology, or neither should be in the article. Fixentries (talk) 14:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, I hope you guys keep on contributing to the page, you sound knowledgeable. It's on the verge of being a very good article! --Tomsega (talk) 22:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sociology/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk) 23:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

As this is such a detailed article, I will probably not post any comments here for a day or so. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

First Impressions: This article is generally well written, covers all major points, well referenced and very close to GA status. Points which do need addressing below.

Section: Positivism and anti-positivism

• Today, scholarly accounts of Durkheim's positivism may be vulnerable to exaggeration and oversimplification Implies that they were not vulnerable in the past to this?
• As a nonpositivist, however, one seeks relationships that are not as "ahistorical, invariant, or generalizable"[40 would like a clear statement that it is Weber saying this.

Section: Twentieth-century developments

• During the Interwar period sociology was undermined by totalitarian governments for reasons of ostensible political control. After the Russian Revolution, the discipline was "politicized, Bolshevisized and eventually, Stalinized" until it virtually ceased to exist in the Soviet Union. In China, the discipline was banned along with semiotics and comparative linguistics as "Bourgeois pseudoscience" in 1952, not to return until 1979. The second sentence jumps to post WWII without explanation and then the next sentence (During the same period, however, sociology was also undermined by conservative universities in the West.) appears to revert to the interwar period. I assume that a chronological structure is intended here. It certainly needs tidying up to make it more coherent.

Section: Epistemology and ontology

• Whereas positivism has sometimes met with caricature as a breed of naive empiricism, the word has a rich history of applications stretching from Comte to the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and beyond. By the same token, successful positivism would be open to the same critical rationalist non-justificationism presented by Karl Popper. This is, to say the least, rather unclear. Does reference 87 relate to these two sentences and the three preceding?

Section: Scope and topics

For Simmel, culture referred to .... Simmel links to a disambiguation page, please link to the right person, presumably Georg Simmel Emile Durkheim's The Division of Labour in Society was published in 1922, whilst Max Weber's Economy and Society was released in the same year - clumsy, simple and would be better. tan whilst.

Disambiguations that need fixing:

• agency
• metaphysical
• bust
• Anglo-American
• quantitative
• phenomenological
• reliability
• phenomenology
• attributes
• network analysis
• norm
• rationalization thesis
• Ancient Judaism
• Chicago School
• Simmel (mentioned above.

I realise that not all can be fixed as appropriate articles have not necessarily been created. But please take a close look at these and consider why they are wiki-linked.

References:

• 1. 54 [4] returns 403 forbidden
  2. 60 [5] is dead
• EL [6] Brazilian Socialogical Society is dead
  1. 119 [7] is dead
• EL [8] International Internet Sociology Group is a dead link

On hold. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I have disambiguated all the listed terms, and improved/simplified the language in all the sections you listed (Durkheim issue, and Kuhn & Popper).

The one point I haven't changed is the paragraph in the 20th century developments section dealing with the banning of sociology. I see what you mean, but there's no way the whole 20th century developments section could run in complete chronological order. All we can do is make it clear this paragraph refers to the academic standing of a discipline, and not the theory of a social science.-Tomsega (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Dead links = now corrected/removed --Tomsega (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, it looks like all is in order. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I am now happy to pass this as a good article, thanks for all of your hard work. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Other Comments

This article has been improved significantly over the past two months and I am confident that, although it is not featured status, it certainly deserves higher than its current B rating.--Tomsega (talk) 11:26, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a reviewer comments: Having experienced quite a few GANs, here's one thing to address: more citations. Ideally, every sentence should have a cite; currently, there are unreferenced paras and even sections = fail. PS. Reading "Scope and topics" section, which I like a lot, does however raise concerns about it being comprehensive - just as I noted in my comments at Talk:Subfields of sociology. PPS. While the GA can do without delving into this and still be relatively comprehensive, here's a field that needs much expansion: Category:Sociology by country, currently containing only two entries... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Over the last three weeks, I have added 20+ new references to the page, updated and substantially rewritten the history and 20th century sections, with new dates and fundamental chunks of information previously missing. Though the article is not of featured status (and I don't think it ever will be, based on various limitations), I don't think it is far off Good Article status. Any more ideas? We some reviewers!!! --Tomsega (talk) 01:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

• Comments from article contributor:

1. Re. Jezhotwells: The phrase, "ahistorical, invariant, or generalizable" is not Weber's own; it's from a chapter on Weber in a social theory textbook.
2. The "Sociology and other academic disciplines" section needs a little work. It had said a bit too much about social anthropology (a problem I've just tried to fix), whereas it says very little about psychology. Sociology-psychology comparisons pop up frequently in textbooks, and they're important because social psychology is something of a grey area, and gives a better sense of the disciplines' similarities than of their differences. (Case-in-point: The introductory course I took in social psychology was offered, with identical requirements, for either psychology or sociology credit, and the student got to choose.) Perhaps a reasonable (and verifiable) difference to note would be the relative prominence of critical and hermeneutic approaches in sociology, whereas critical psychology is hardly known amongst psychologists, while hermeneutic approaches (e.g., psychoanalysis) are frequently looked down upon.
3. The citations should be standardized, so that all are in a single format, or are at least in some proper format. Raw URL's (e.g., <ref>[http://www.somewebsite.com]</ref>) are inelegant and, unless the reader actually clicks on them, relatively uninformative.
4. Overall, however, great work: Tomsega and others have taken what used to be a mess of an article and turned it into something articulate and presentable.

Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Hoorah!! Now... let's get to featured status! ;) --Tomsega (talk) 19:50, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

PS. Removing duplicate transclusion. Might be about time to archive the talk page. --Tomsega (talk) 20:02, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Subfields of sociology

I am working on subfields of sociology. See my talk comment there for more info. Comments appreciated! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:10, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Who removed information about Social Anthropology?

This discipline has a major overlap into Sociology. It focuses on how humans function as groups in societies and how things happens in the societies.

Why did someone remove it? I have already revised it. Please leave this section alone and allow someone who is a professional to make revisions to this section to make it more relevant to how they overlap together.

Apparently the person who removed the section about Social Anthropology has no such experience with any part of Anthropology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 18:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This part of the article is entitled 'scope and topics', and should not constitute a list of every discipline under the sun that happens to analyse aspects of society. If we are to include social anthropology, logically we are going to have to include political science, social philosophy, human geography, perhaps even history. Social anthropology is more appropriately mentioned in the 'see also' section. Other than that, I removed the edit primarily because the implementation was poor: repetitive language, use of "it's" rather than "it is", etc etc.

Whether or not I have any experience with anthropology is nothing you could possibly know! I won't get caught up in an edit battle but if anybody else out there feels social anthropology shouldn't be in a 'scope and topics of sociology' section, by all means you have my consent to remove it. --Tomsega (talk) 23:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Nobody is denying that sociology and anthropology can overlap. Anybody who has studied the social sciences (e.g., probably all of the main editors of this article) knows that the different fields have their intersections. It was removed because it's not a sub-field of sociology, but rather a division of the social sciences as a whole. The lengthy description contained weasel words and, overall, probably had too much space devoted to it for this article. I think a case--a convincing one, in fact--most certainly can be made for mentioning social anthropology in this article (and, if you look, you'll notice that a shorter version of the earlier paragraph currently is in there). But this mention has to be made in proportion to its significance, and the presentation of social anthropology as sociology's BFF seemed a little over-the-top. Now, having said all that, I'm not the one who removed it. But the rationale for removing or reducing it most certainly does not appear to stem from any sort of anthropological ignorance. Cosmic Latte (talk) 23:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

And I'll be the first to point out that I... um, just contradicted myself--saying that a case can be made for mentioning social anthropology, when before I had said I'm unconvinced that even mentioning it would be proper. What I mean (or what I meant to mean, or what I now mean, or whatever) is that, although one could argue persuasively that social anthropology is relevant enough to warrant mention, one has to go a step further and actually WP:PROVEIT. For example, I can come up with sources (and, if one would like, would be glad to do so) that treat social psychology as a branch of sociology. But do they do the same for social anthropology? Do others even emphasize the connections between social anthropology and sociology? Perhaps they do, and I'd be happy to give editors a chance to confirm this. But the article can't just say, essentially, "Sociologists study X and social anthropologists also study X; therefore social anthropology is sociology's closest cousin." If it is mentioned, it has to be mentioned in accordance with how it is actually regarded, and I remain unconvinced that the current phrasing and positioning are reflective of the scholarly consensus. Cosmic Latte (talk) 23:38, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The section simply concerns the 'scope and topics' of sociology. Not 'related fields'. Granted, the inclusion of media and cultural studies adds to the confusion, but I believe the rationale there is that those disciplines arose from and with sociology, and continue to be taught predominantly from within sociology departments. Anthropology, however, is an entirely distinct discipline with its own history and trajectory.

Furthermore, the actual social anthropology page itself is highly unreferenced and seems to confuse itself with cultural anthropology. --Tomsega (talk) 00:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Oddly, although it seems that a lot of university departments comprise both social anthropology and sociology, I'm not having any luck finding sources that emphasize their similarities. I'm guessing that this chapter eventually gets into a comparison--the mention of "structure and function" on the first page seems a decent hint, but even that very sentence states that social anthropology "is primarily a product of British anthropology" (emphasis mine), and says nothing whatsoever about sociology. Given that I'm the creator and the primary editor of an article about an anthropologist, Canto2009 may rightfully assume that I share some of his sentiments; I most definitely agree that sociologists and anthropologists can learn a great deal from each other. However, I'm agreeing more and more with Tomsega that the point has been misplaced within this article. Cosmic Latte (talk) 12:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Social anthropology is less known that sociology. As such, I think it is sufficient to have a Social_anthropology#Overlapping_studies_into_Sociology section in that article, no need to link it from here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:28, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Key figures

Does anyone else find these 95%-blue paragraphs a bit unwieldy? They're informative, yes, but they already link to List of sociologists, and WP:LISTs exist precisely in order to avoid list-like prose in normal articles. Perhaps these paragraphs ought to be trimmed down to just the most prominent figures? Cosmic Latte (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes: if this article is ever to achieve a higher quality ranking, those long lists of names are going to have to go. But to some extent it's making up cheaply for what's missing in the rest of the article. Crucially, those big names need to be integrated narratively into the other sections (or the history of sociology article). We just need a good concise sentence for each (e.g "Meanwhile in the late 1800s, W. E. B. Du Bois and Charlotte Gilman....")

If the list does go, better check those names have actually made it to the list of sociologists page. Some are no doubt missing! --Tomsega (talk) 10:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the list of names and merged the second two sections, as most of the 'founding figures' were introduced step by step in the 'institutionalizing the academic discipline' section. Do you think this works? Any other ideas?

For the time being, here is the list of names, derived from the previous, that still need to be integrated into the article, in any section:

Classical figures: Alexis de Tocqueville, Friedrich Engels, Herbert Spencer, Vilfredo Pareto, Ludwig Gumplowicz, Gabriel Tarde, Thorstein Veblen, George Herbert Mead, Charles Cooley, Werner Sombart, W. E. B. Du Bois, Moisey Ostrogorsky, Charlotte Gilman, Antonio Gramsci, Florian Znaniecki, György Lukács, Maurice Halbwachs.

Contemporary figures: Louis Althusser, Jean Baudrillard, Simone de Beauvoir, Ulrich Beck, Howard S. Becker, Daniel Bell, Robert Bellah, Peter Berger, Andre Béteille, Herbert Blumer, Pierre Bourdieu, Michael Burawoy, Ernest Burgess, Judith Butler, Manuel Castells, Dieter Claessens, Ralf Dahrendorf, Guy Debord, Terry Eagleton, Gilberto Freyre, Steve Fuller, Herbert Gans, Ernest Gellner, Paul Gilroy, Barney Glaser, Erving Goffman, Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart, Bell Hooks, Luce Irigaray, Fredric Jameson, Julia Kristeva, Bruno Latour, Gerhard Lenski, Seymour Martin Lipset, Niklas Luhmann, Michel Maffesoli, Herbert Marcuse, Marcel Mauss, Robert K. Merton, Ralph Miliband, Nicos Poulantzas, John Rex, George Ritzer, Dorothy Smith, Pitirim Sorokin, M.N. Srinivas, Anselm Strauss, John Thompson, Barry Wellman, Edvard Westermarck, and Raymond Williams. --Tomsega (talk) 11:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What you've done so far looks good, and I'll let you know if anything else comes to mind. As for now, my only quibble is with the line, "Durkheim, Marx and Weber are typically cited as the three principal founders of sociology; their theory may be fittingly attributed to discourses of functionalism, conflict theory and anti-positivism respectively." I'd say that the attribution is the other way around: Durkheim and Marx weren't drawing from "functionalism" or "conflict theory", respectively (I doubt that those terms even existed in their day); rather, the discourses of these 20th-century schools can be attributed (in part) to the associated 19th-century theorists. This might strike one as pretty obvious and straightforward, but I've heard highly educated people say things like, "Marx was a conflict theorist" without indicating that this is a retroactive classification, even though--for reasons that, according to at least one source, may be noteworthy--it is. Cosmic Latte (talk) 13:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with such lists (blue paragraph), but recently I've been thinking that what is better is a nice table - it can have more info, eye candy stuff (thumb images, flags, whatnot), and even be sortable :) PS. I am really impressed with how this article has been progressing lately. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

@ Cosmic Latte: 'Conflict theorist' is a retroactive classification of Marx, but so is 'Marxist', as he pointed out in one of his most famous quotes "All I know is that I am not a Marxist"!! But anyway, yes the sentence should be written to acknowledge those terms came later. I'll try this: "Durkheim, Marx and Weber are typically cited as the three principal figures in sociology; their theory is central to the modern categories of functionalism, conflict theory and anti-positivism respectively."

@ Piotr: I quite liked the blue lists over not having those names mentioned at all, but they're not really appropriate, and we do indeed already have a list of sociologists. Now all those names are saved above there's a big clear task everybody can chip in on to integrate those names properly into the article one by one, with full English and full references etc.--Tomsega (talk) 11:30, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

There needs to be another discussion agreement on Social Anthropology section being here.

Please leave the Social Anthropology section alone. This fields does have a major overlap in Sociology because they both deal with human societies and structures that influence people's behaviors as a group. Traditionally the Social Anthropology studied non-western/non industrialized societies in other countries(a lot of time 3rd world) and Sociology would study western industrial societies. now Sociology has expanded to studying non-western/non industrialized societies and Social Anthropology are now including studies of western industrial societies and they have overlapped a lot.

IF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY CAN'T BE INCLUDED, THEN SOCIAL PYSCHOLOGY SECTION SHOULD NOT BE HERE TOO. SINCE SOCIAL PYSCHOLOGY SECTION IS INCLUDED, IT SEEMS FAIR TO INCLUDE SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY BECAUSE OF THE MAJOR OVERLAP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 14:13, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I suggest a WP:RFC. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that Canto2009 provide a reference to back up his position. As of now, what we have is his personal opinion. And, although I agree with much of this opinion, I provided a source that does not exactly seem to trumpet the idea. Canto2009, if you can come up with citations to the contrary, then go for it. (By the way, social psychology is verifiably regarded as a subdiscipline of both psychology and sociology. In fact, social psychology reaches so far into each field that WP currently has three articles devoted to it: general, sociological, and psychological.) Cosmic Latte (talk) 18:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Conto2009: Social anthropology is not a subfield of sociology. And the article for social anthropology is crap anyway. --82.4.86.209 (talk) 21:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with canto2009. They both have their major overlaps together. I do agree that if Social Psychology section is going to be here, then it is fair that Social Anthropology section should be included too. Social Psychology belongs to the field of Psychology and Social Anthropology belongs to the field of Anthropology, however they converge very much with Sociology and if Social Psychology section is going to stay in this article, so should Social Anthropology. If none of the users can agree to have Social Anthropology section here because it belongs to Anthropology, then Social Psychology section should not belong here too because it belongs to psychology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taishan88 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, not convinced Canto2009 and Taishan88 are not one and the same person. --82.4.86.209 (talk) 03:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I've had the same suspicion since day one (the 8th of November, to be precise, when both accounts suddenly started editing the article). Of course, I could be wrong (I haven't asked for an investigation, and I generally don't like to take that route); but either way, they should know (if only for the sake of knowing) that it is completely inappropriate to use multiple accounts in order to generate a phony "consensus". Cosmic Latte (talk) 17:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

all right, since there is a consensus that Social Anthropology should not be here since it belongs to anthropology even though they intercept with sociology like the way Social Psychology intercepts with Sociology like you all claim, it is fair to remove Social Psychology section because that belongs to psychology. so don't add Social Psychology section here anymore. The Social Psychology section is now removed.

There was consensus that social anthropology should be removed, so out of spite you removed social psychology as well? Social psychology (sociology) is a verifiable subfield of sociology. Social anthropology is simply not. Do not remove it, and please attach a signature to your comments. Further removal may constitute an act of vandalism and receive a warning. --Tomsega (talk) 09:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Not only this, Canto2009, it has appeared you have deleted the social psychology (sociology) article. This very much DOES constitute an act of vandalism.--Tomsega (talk) 10:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone locate and return the content of the social psychology sociology article that Canto2009 has deleted? I can't even find it so many bogus redirects have been created. --Tomsega (talk) 10:20, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Canto2009 and Taishan88, very probably the same user, if you continue to remove the social psychology section and vandalize its contents you will be blocked from wikipedia.--Tomsega (talk) 08:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems somebody has fixed the page-move (only an administrator can technically "delete" something). If Canto2009 would like to keep contributing to Wikipedia, I suggest he first take a long, hard look at WP:CON, WP:DE, WP:VAN, and WP:SOCK. And I would suggest that he pay special attention to the fourth: Disruption and even vandalism can at times be subtle, and any given consensus can be ambiguous (although I think it's pretty clear in this case), but using more than one account cannot be either. And, while multiple accounts can be used legitimately, if they are used without a good, clear reason, they can be detected by anyone with WP:CHECK access. So, once again: Canto2009, if you would like to contribute productively, please familiarize yourself with how to do so. Cosmic Latte (talk) 10:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I have come into a convincing thought about social Anthropology and Sociology I have come into a convincing thought about social Anthropology not being part of the subfield of sociology and that there has not been reliable sources to argue that. however Social Anthropology still has a such a significant overlap and that is why I have included the social Anthropology section under the "Sociology and Other Academic Disciplines" instead of the sociology topics section of the article.

before any of you make any decisions, please come into a consensus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 00:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

In the 'sociology and other academic disciplines' section, this is absolutely fine. No problem. (I moved this up into the previous discussion because there are already 3 discussion headings on it now! A bit much for a relatively trivial issue..) --Tomsega (talk) 11:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

To Canto2009: Wikipedia attempts to form an objective encyclopaedia and should not contain original theory or research. Every edit you ever make consists of trying to overemphasise the relationship between social anthropology and sociology, not least in (a) using bold text on the word social anthropology in a manner outside of the wiki style guide, but also (b) by apparently halving the size of the 'See Also' section and typing (in bold!) "Social anthropology (sociology's sister study)"! This is ludicrous. All your efforts seem to amount to a one-man mission to obfuscate. By all means release an academic paper on your specialist topic, but for the time being stop alterting wikipedia purely to suit your own wishes. --Tomsega (talk) 22:30, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I am with Tomsega and Cosmic Latte here, and this is something I actually know a lot about. If you look at sources from the lat 1800s or even early 1900s you will se people attempting to explain the relationship between social anthropology and sociology, or argue that the former is a subfield of the latter. It is important to bear two things in mind when reading such material: this was a period when what we think of as "departments" and disciplines was still in flux in the UK and the US, and the people writing were not historians of academia or social science explaining how things came to be, they were actual sociologists and social anthropologists who were fighting to establish new disciplines - there was a lot at stake here: whether someone would be a professor or a reader; how much autonomy one would have, and so on. By World War II things had changed quite a bit, and sociology and anthropology had emerged as distinct disciplines in both the US and UK.

The comparison with social psychology is not appropriate or helpful: social psychology is the name of a branch of psychology founded by such people as Solomon Asch. It is also the name of a branch of sociology, founded by such people as George Herbert Mead. I know this sounds confusing, but there you have it. One can be a social psychologist in a psychology department and never read a sociology journal; one can be a social psychologist in a sociology department and never read a psychology journal. Social psychology is the name of two subfields of two disciplines. One might wish that this coincidence would mean sociologists and psychologist have a lot to say to one another and talk to one another a lot. Nevertheless, they generally do not.

In the US anthropology programs are generally much smaller than sociology programs and many universities often merge them to save costs. This is not a natural fit. There are cultural anthropologists who read a great deal of research by evolutionary biologists. There is a tremendous overlap between anthropology and geography. Cultural anthropologists read books by Edward Said and Mary Louise Pratt, and people in English departments read books by Geertz and other anthropologists. If you were to look at the bibliographies of books and articles published by anthropologists in any givn year in the past thirty or forty years, you will see that anthropologists mostly cite other anthropologists - but when they cite people from other fields, it is more likely that they will cite someone from philosophy, geography, comparative literature, and so on, than that they will cite a sociologist. So, cultural or social anthropologists do talk to other academics, many of them not sociologists. The decision to put sociologists and anthropologists in the same department is invariably an administrative one and it is utterly uninformative about the nature of either discipline. Most sociologists I have med know very little about anthropology - even when they work in the sam department.

One thing that encyclopedia articles seldom give attention to is the fact that different acaemic isciplines often attract different personalities, and we would all better understand the relationships and chasms between historians, anthropologists, and geographers if we paid attention to personality. This can be a more decisive factor than the object of study or the body of theory or methods.

Be that as it may, one can say that anthropologists and sociologists look at groups of people. But the same is true of historians and human geographers. Clifford Geertz famously said anthropologists look at texts - he was speaking mtaphorically but his intent, like that of Ruth Benedict when she gave her AAA presidential address, was to say anthropology has a lot in common with comparative literature.

My main problem with Canto's campaign to put a plug for sociology in every anthropology article is that it unfairly singles out one other discipline when one can just as easily put in political science, economics, and psychology (there are branches of anthropology called political anthropology, economic anthropology, and psychological anthropology). But it is also misleading. How often do sociologists today cite anthropologists in their journals? I am sure it happens. It might be informative if someone did a statistical analysis. My guess is that the frequency is low, and perhaps even insignificant (i.e. what one would expect if sociologists chose to cite other disciplines at random).

Personally, I do not think any encyclopedia articl can ever provide an adequate explanation, for space considerations. But anyone who has hung around lots of sociologists and lots of anthropologists for a long time surely will discover that they speak different languages een if they all read Marx and Weber, and some Durkheim or Simmel. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Bravo! --Tomsega (talk) 23:15, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

See also section

Regarding this revert: That wasn't vandalism; that was me removing links that are already in the article text. The WP:SEEALSO shouldn't be redundant with the text; it's not a recap of the article's key terms, but rather a supplementary reference for readers who would like some information that lies beyond the scope of the article (links and all) that they've just read. Cosmic Latte (talk) 22:36, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay sorry, that's fair enough Cosmic. It's true those topics are already listed in the article, in the portal bar in particular. --Tomsega (talk) 23:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I never tampered with the see also section. Come to think of it, I thought something was odd about that section because it did not look the same. I don't know who tampered with it, but in honesty I only added the social/cultural anthropology link as sociology's sister study. however, both these studies are very overlapping even though they are not part of each other's study. But please remember that they are all part of the field of Social Science and since they are now converging with each other a lot, they are like sister studies.

everybody needs to stop thinking of the old tradition of Anthropology only studying primitive societies in other countries and the old tradition that sociology only studies modern societies in the west. Both these fields are no longer studying limited variety of societies. They both have expanded in studying all types of societies in the western countries and other countries.

I am going to put it back as sociology's sister study. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 23:15, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Canto, please sign your comments.

It is not for you to demand that social anthropology is "sociology's sister study". The article makes reference to the differences between sociology and anthropology, and indeed mentions theorists associated with both fields. Social and cultural anthropology are listed uncontroversially in the 'see also' section, as well as in the portal sidebar. To make this "sister study" statement is unreferenced (and I would suggest unreference-able), and ignores that half a dozen other fields (that you are apparently less interested in personally) may also be described as sister fields; cultural studies, political science, statistics... the list is endless. It was good of you to include the paragraph on the similarities between these disciplines in the 'sociology and other disciplines' section, but you cannot change things, whether in words or by changing styles, adding bold, or whatever, based on what you would like to see stated on wikipedia. Perhaps your efforts would be better spent actually improving the social anthropology article itself?! It's very poor. Anyway. The amount of discussion space now dedicated to this is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I'll leave it as it is now, but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised to come back tomorrow and see "social anthropology is like totally brilliant!" etched into the opening paragraph... --Tomsega (talk) 23:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

A couple comments:

• Canto2009: I have reverted your latest additions, but will be much less inclined to remove your statements if you actually can back them up. Your anthropological knowledge is appreciated, and your desire to find a good location for it in this article is commendable. However, I'm afraid that you (still) are overdoing it. If you can find sources to back up the view that sociology and social/cultural anthropology are as intimately related as you're saying, then by all means, feel free to enlighten us. I have searched for such sources on your behalf, but to no avail; perhaps you'll have better luck. But you may not introduce interpretations that are entirely your own, unless you first publish those interpretations in a reliable form. If you're blatantly adding your personal commentary to the article, then you are conducting original research, which is not what an encyclopedia publishes.
• Tomsega: I've restored the truncated version of the see-also section; but, as it's not really a big deal, if you feel it is better to keep a fuller list in this article, and if you'd like to restore this list, then I'll be happy to ignore the fine print of WP:SEEALSO and just let it be (not to be confused with Let It Be :-)). Cosmic Latte (talk) 08:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Bearing in mind everything in the See Also section is already mentioned in the article and in the portal bar, it's fine for the list to be in this reduced state. I'm surprised you don't also feel this "(sociology's sister study)" business a bit ridiculous. It doesn't look or sound very academic, and to be fair if it is going to stay it needs a citation needed stamp after it. The relationship between the two fields is already mentioned (with spurious citations) a few lines higher up the page.--Tomsega (talk) 11:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the "sister study" thing is too much. But, as if that weren't even enough, we have the whole family tree, which reads almost like a parody of Comte's "queen science" scheme (and that was peculiar enough in its own right). I'm just holding out some hope that Canto2009 can curb his enthusiasm enough to treat this like an encyclopedia article, rather than like an advertisement for some unnamed university's "sociology/anthropology" department. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I am absolutely convinced that Canto2009, Taishan88, and 134.74.78.106, are all the same user, with multiple last warnings. Perhaps somebody with higher authority should block him/her to prevent further distruptive edits.--Tomsega (talk) 18:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm convinced, too. I've tried to be patient, but this is just getting ridiculous. I propose a WP:SPI (without CheckUser, since it's so blatantly obvious) if Canto2009/Taishan88/etc. makes even one more disruptive edit to this (or any other) article. Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

What was wrong with the formatting? After I added the source in the article, it seemed fine.

After I added the source, the article seemed okay. what was wrong with the format of the article.

I just want to add that I am sorry for the inappropriate additions to the articles. I will try to be professional in making edits.

I also added this source to the Sociology section within Social Anthropology article and the user [[9]] keeps removing the section. This particular user refuses to allow a section about the overlaps between sociology and Social Anthropology, including cultural Anthropology. Either this user does not have any type of academic experience with Sociology or either has a negative bias against Sociology. Anybody who reads this section is welcome to go to the discussion board in the Social Anthropology to make some agreements.