What social and political factors led to the emergence of sociology as a separate discipline?

Answer 1

1. The protestant reformations.

They created space for individual thinking and enquiring. it also created individualism i.e self contendness both of which were related to the notion of free will and choice. The protestant reformation introduced the idea that salvation was individual, it meant that people could make choices or exercise free will which further meant that they had to gather information and synthesis it or evaluate it in order to make use of such a decision.

2. Political revolution

They overthrew monarchial systems that were legitimized by the clergy. They introduced the idea of freedom and liberty which meant people would think more of their issues and behaviours. The revolutions introduced democracy as a form of government which meant people could no longer attribute their problems to the super naturals but to the failures of the government. It also meant the solutions of the problems could come from the people themselves. Hence the emergence of sociology as a discipline to solve their social problems.

3. Industrial revolution.

This marked the transformation of society from agricultural based(RURAL) to indusrial(URBAN) based society. The factoey production sysytem was the cental system of this transformation. With the factory system there was mass production which meant employment of large numbers of people who came from diverse cultural settings. the factory system created problems like congestion, pollution, and deviant behaviours like prostitution, suicide, crime, urban riot etc which needed to be studied and controlled hence the emergence of sociology to address these problems.

4. The growth of physical and biological sciences.

This provided a point of reference for modelling sociology.

Like the physical sciences sociology began looking at the cause-effect relationship in human behaviour. Also like the biologicall sciences it began to look at the society as an organism with interdependent parts thet were functinally intergrated. This frame of seeing society as an organism is used till today.

5. COLONIAL EXPANSION

This lead to the contact of europeans with other societies and cultures that were very different from their own. Hence they needed to explain the difference and therefore sociology.

Answer 2

Sociology is defined as the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society. The factors that led to the emergence of sociology as a separate discipline are Inequality and class structure in the society, criminal deviance and changes in population.

Answer 3

Enlightenment

French Revolution

Industrial revolution

Reformation

Answer 4

The rise of the industrial economy and growth of cities.

Answer 5

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