Sociology is the scientific study of human social relationships and structures. Like biologists and other natural scientists, sociologists work by sets of rules through which they evaluate the arguments and evidence generated by empirical research. This doesn't mean sociological work is either narrow or lacking in practical significance. Our techniques range from computer simulation through survey research to participant observation of urban street corner life. Styles among sociologists vary from the scientific to the humanistic, from the applied to the theoretical.
Sociology involves the observation and explanation of human behavior in a wide variety of areas.
In addition to the specialties of social psychology, political sociology, and mathematical sociology, which have obvious ties to other social sciences, sociologists study such things as race relations, social stratification, the family, the community, ethnic minorities, sex roles, drugs, crime, population, leisure, sport, aging, mass media, third world societies, organizational structure, communication in small groups and in dyads. If you are actively concerned about the world you live in and want to do something constructive and useful in it - whether in law, business, education, medicine, urban or rural planning, etc. Whether you want to change society radically, modify it, preserve it as it is, or restore it to a bygone era, you must first understand what the structure of system is, how social order is maintained, and how social change can be affected. Sociology can give you some of that knowledge and can further help you acquire the analytic tools to develop it on your own. Many public or nonprofit agencies, governmental bureaus, and community programs hire applied sociologists.