page_title: Sociology
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Sociology / Origins
caption_attribution_description: Statue d'Ibn Khaldoun sur l'avenue Habib Bourguiba à Tunis (Tunisie)
context_page_description: Sociology is the study of human behavior. Sociology refers to social behavior, society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture that surrounds everyday life. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociology can also be defined as the general science of society. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society to macro-level analyses.
  Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance.
context_section_description: Sociological reasoning predates the foundation of the discipline itself. Social analysis has origins in the common stock of Western knowledge and philosophy, having been carried out from as far back as the time of Old comic poetry which features social and political criticism, and ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, if not earlier. For instance, the origin of the survey (i.e., the collection of information from a sample of individuals) can be traced back to at least the Domesday Book in 1086, while ancient philosophers such as Confucius wrote about the importance of social roles. 
  There is evidence of early sociology in medieval Arabic writings as well. Some sources consider Ibn Khaldun, a 14th-century Arab-Islamic scholar from Tunisia, to have been the father of sociology although there isn't reference to his work in the work of major founders of modern sociology. Khaldun's Muqaddimah was perhaps the first work to advance social-scientific reasoning on social cohesion and social conflict.
caption: Ibn Khaldun statue in Tunis, Tunisia (1332–1406)
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