Someone working in the field of sociology is often called a sociologist.
As an academic
discipline, sociology is considered a social
science and is relatively young compared to other disciplines, having
evolved in the early 19th century. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties
or subfields.
The word sociology comes from the suffix "-logy" which means
"study of," derived from Greek, and the stem "socio-" which
is from the Latin word socius, meaning member, friend, or ally, thus referring
to people in general.
Because sociology is such a broad discipline, it can be difficult to define,
even for professional sociologists. One useful way to describe the discipline is
as a cluster of sub-fields that examine different dimensions of society. For
example, social
stratification studies inequality and class structure; demography studies changes in a population size or type; criminology examines criminal behavior and deviance; political
sociology studies government and laws; and the sociology
of race and sociology
of gender examine the social construction of race and gender as well as race
and gender inequality. New sociological sub-fields continue to appear—such as network
analysis—many of which are cross-disciplinary in nature.
Sociology - Wikipedia
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