The uses of sociology

At this point you may well be asking: Why bother to study sociology? Where can it be used? Sociologists believe that their discipline provides its students with three general benefits: it can help you to address major social issues more effectively, it can improve your ability to make a living, and it can assist you in making more intelligent decisions about the course of your life.

Improving society

We must have accurate information about present social conditions before we can develop practical plans to improve them. If, for example, we desire to create a more effective welfare system, we must know many things. We must find out how many people are currently receiving welfare, what their social characteristics are, and how they came to be on public assistance. We must also study both the strengths and the failings of the current system. If we want people to leave the welfare rolls as quickly as possible and earn a living on their own, we must explore what kinds of jobs are currently available, which skills they require, and how welfare recipients can most effectively be trained in these skills.

Sociology is well equipped to uncover the truth about social problems precisely because of its emphasis on careful, reliable empirical research. In addition, sociology’s global orientation can familiarize us with how other societies have responded to their problems. Cross-cultural research can save us from wasting our time grappling with issues that others have addressed and in some cases solved.

Some sociologists believe that their efforts to address social problems should be limited to researching the facts and developing theories to explain them. These advocates of basic or pure sociology believe that it is the responsibility of other disciplines – especially social work, urban planning, and public administration – to actually use sociological data in the effort to improve social life.

Others, and their numbers are increasing, believe that sociologists should put their knowledge and skills to work in the real world. This orientation is called applied sociology. Applied sociologists have been particularly active as advisors and consultants in evaluation research, in which they assess the effectiveness of programs designed to remedy various social problems. Today, over one-quarter of all sociology PhDs are employed in applied roes in nonacademic settings.

Making a living

Almost everyone who completes college will find some preparation in sociology valuable because sooner or later most graduates end up working closely with people, whether in business, in teaching, in the medical professions, in the ministry, in the law, of in many other fields. Even if you become an engineer or a computer scientist, you are almost certain to discover that as you advance in your career, you will find yourself spending more and more time interacting with your co-workers as you assume managerial responsibilities.

If you plan to work with people in any capacity, you will need understanding of why they behave as they do so that you can interact with them smoothly and inspire them to work collectively toward the accomplishment of shared objectives. And the best way to gain this understanding is through a solid grounding in the social sciences, especially sociology and psychology.

Making life choices

Beyond the world of work, we all face many important life decisions: Whether and when and whom to marry. Whether to divorce, or to remarry. How to vote. Where to live. How to relate to our parents as they age. How to raise our children. When and where to retire. Sociology provides us with “scripts” that guide us in these decisions, but in many cases, the standard scripts do not include all the options that are really open to us.

The study of sociology has a unique capacity to make us aware of the full range of alternatives from which we may choose as well as to provide information that can help us make the decisions that are right for us.

An example may help explain this idea. Some years ago, one of the authors had as a student a woman in her thirties who had recently been released from prison for killing her boyfriend, who had subjected her to severe mental and physical abuse. During a class discussion of family violence, she commented that she had grown up in an environment in which virtually every woman she knew had been beaten by a father, boyfriend or husband. She had seen non-abusive families depicted on television, but never believed that families like that really existed. Through studying sociology, she began to realize that life held more options than she had thought possible. She learned that many people really do establish the kind of caring relationships that she had always believed to be nothing more than fantasies. She learned that she had the right to expect to be treated with respect.

By the time this student reached her senior year, she had also begun to re-evaluate her career options. She had been socialized to believe that women ideally should not work, or, they must, they should limit themselves to traditionally female “pink collar” jobs like secretaries, waitresses, and maids. Again her knowledge of sociology broadened her horizons: she realized that women today have the freedom to enter virtually any occupation that interests them. Gifted with considerable artistic talent, she chose to pursue a fulfilling career as a sculptor.

In both of these ways, this student was able to greatly improve her life by using the sociological imagination to debunk the narrow script that she had once thought she had to follow. You too may find sociology to be useful in helping you to live as fulfilling a life as possible.

Comprehension check

Answer the following questions on the text:

1. What must we know if we want to improve current welfare system?

2. Why can sociology give us true information about social issues?

3. What is the difference between pure and applied sociology?

4. How can sociology be useful in careers other than that of a sociologist?

5. What sort of decisions in everyday life can sociology help make? Give the examples from the text?

6. Could you think of other ways of applying sociological knowledge in everyday life?

Role-play

Student A. You’ve come to the job center because you are looking for a job. Talk to the job advisor. Look at the tasks for the candidate on this page.

Student B. You are a job advisor. Look at the information for the job advisor on the next page.

Tasks for the candidate:

• Explain why you have come to the job center.

• Ask if there are any vacancies.

• Find out about the salary and responsibilities of the job suggested.

• Decide if you are interested in the job of not.

• Ask for the address and telephone number of the company which has got the vacancy.