Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Sociology is so varied a discipline that it can be identified only very loosely as the study of social relationships, institutions and structures. Not only is this definition loose, it is also negative, for ‘social’ often means, in effect, not distinctly economic, not distinctly political, not distinctly religious and so forth. Although sociologists can trace their intellectual origins back to the Scottish *Enlightenment and beyond, the discipline did not begin to become established until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Although sociology is concerned with the study of social relationships, institutions and structures, the discipline is a child of industrial *capitalism and its predominant field of study is modern Western societies.
There are differences in style among the sociologies of various countries.
However, the predominant sociology worldwide is that of the United States, despite the fact that the word ‘sociology’ was invented by a French philosopher, †Auguste Comte, early in the nineteenth century (Coser 1971). This does not reflect just the country’s general power and influence, but also the fact that it was in the US that the discipline first established a strong institutional base, though sociology appeared fairly early in France as well. For instance, the two leading American sociology journals, the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review, were founded in 1895 and 1936. Contrast this with the two leading British sociology journals, the British Journal of Sociology and Sociology, which were founded only in 1950 and 1967. (†Durkheim founded †L’Année Sociologique in 1898.)
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