SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION
Sociology is a social science discipline which aimed at discovering the basic structure of human society. It explains the main forces that operate in person-person, person-group and inter-group relations. The discipline is scientific because it theories have been progressively refined and tested by observation. Furthermore, the ideal of objectivity and exactness had guided it enquiry. Sociology is related to other disciplines in the social sciences such as Economics, Anthropology, Political Science and Social Psychology in the task of exploring social behavior and its products. However, Sociology preceded a step further than other social science subjects by adopting a multi-faceted approach to human social behaviour.
The Discipline of Sociology
Sociology is one of the social sciences. Its long run aim is to discover the basic structure of human society, to identify the main forces that hold groups together or separate them, and to learn the conditions that transfer social life.
The Difference between Concrete Science and Sociology
There are presently few claims against the act of calling Sociology a science. Some believe that sociology is not a science and that because of the nature of the subject matter, it cannot be. They point to the difficulty of applying the experiment method of social phenomena as a major obstacle. However, science is not a single method or routine, each of the old and established sciences has developed more or less distinctive techniques, instruments and routines. Research procedures, which vary from discipline to discipline and from time to time, should not be confused with science itself. All science is characterized more nearly by an attitude, an approach, a point of view, than a special technique.
One is entitled to call sociology a science if its theories are progressively refined, and tested by observation, and if the ideals of objectivity and exactness guide inquiry. By a variety or research methods, the social scientists attempt to go as far as they can toward uncovering what is persistent and respectable in the social world; we recognize, however, that for him ‘nature’ is more elusive and inconstant than it is for the physical scientists. Sociology shares with other social sciences notably Anthropology, Economics, Political Science and Social Psychology the task of scientific exploration of social behaviour and its products.
There is no hard and fast division between one social science and another. There are, however important differences of emphasis that mark off one discipline from another. Social psychology is largely concerned with connections between group experience and the psychology of the individual; an area to which both sociology and psychology contribute. Social psychologists in their attempts to understand individual behavior and personality have recognized the need to see the influence of interpersonal relations and group membership. This has led to studies of social reels, of the emergence of small groups. In social psychology, the emphasis is placed on the individual. Anthropology deals especially with biological origin of man and the variations in the human species including the study of race. Its concerns include the inter-relationship betwepen skill and body structure, and behaviour breeding habits, and growth studies. It examines culture and human adaptation, the history and growth of man’s physical characteristics and behaviour from primate (e.g. ages) to homosapien (human beings).
Social and cultural anthropology have contributed greatly to the comparative analysis of societies by exploring the ways or life among human communities throughout the world. Social anthropology specifically examines institutionalized social relationships. Such central institutions as family, marriage, kinship, economy, politics, ritual, religion etc. are of interest to social anthropologists.
The cultural anthropology studies both similarities and different characteristics of the culture of man. It deals with all that people have learned and passed from generation to generation.
Economics: It deals with the phenomenon of cost and prize of savings and investment, of supply and demand. The economist necessarily makes assumptions about the goals men seek in economic life.
Furthermore, the economic order is related to and dependent upon many non-economic forces e.g. government, public opinion, family life, and migration.
Political Science: This is mostly concerned with the study of government, and traditionally it has had a strong administrative orientation. The political order does not stand alone but is rooted in culture and social organization.
Geography: It is the spatial analysis of man’s territorial organization. Though man is a social animal, they are also territorial animals. Man shows a tendency to lay claim to some stretch of ground around their home and to maintain a territorial organization of varying scale and complexity. Territorial man is the focus of the geographer’s interest. Geography concentrates on the relationship between man’s activities e.g. Social, economic, political, religious etc., and the space or area/territory which he occupies Geography coincides with sociology on such topics as population distribution, urban ecology and the use of natural resources.
From the foregoing, all social sciences study concrete and unique phenomena e.g. the constitution of Nigeria, the organization of foreign trade invariant relations between phenomena according to their nature. What then is the difference between these concrete sciences and sociology?
Four principal answers have been given by sociologists at different times during the history of the discipline.
i. Auguste Comte:- He believed that sociology must take over and digest all the data studied by these concrete sciences, and thus deprive them of their reason for existence.
ii Herbert Spencer:- Though Sociology was a super science not itself making observations of social phenomena, but unifying the observations and generalizations made by the other social sciences.
iii George Simmel:- At the end of the 19th century insisted that the study of the content of human actions defined by their ends formed the subject matter of the concrete social sciences. Economics for example studies actions aiming at the solution of material problems; Political Science studies actions aiming at the acquisition and exertion of political power. But none of these sciences investigates the forms of endeavour such as the formulation and dissolution of human groups, competition, conflict, etc. This field not yet occupied by any concrete science is occupied by the new discipline – Sociology.
iv .Pitirim Sorokin:- He gave a line of demarcation pertaining to the content of sociology. According to his position, if there are within a class of phenomenon, a sub-class, there must be n+1 disciplines to study them ‘n’ to stand each for the sub-classes, and one more (i.e. +1) to study that which is common to all, as well as the correlation between the sub-classes. Sorokin posits that to each of the many classes of social phenomena –economic, political, religions, etc. a particular social science mustcorrespond. But in addition to those sciences, a science (Sociology) is necessary to study the characteristics common to all the classes of social phenomenon, and the inter-relation between those classes; simply because these two tasks cannot be satisfactorily achieved by the particular social sciences.The question has been debated for example, whether the economic phase of human co-existence determines moral of religious ideas (Marxist position)   whether moral ideas of religious origin give special assistance to economic development (Max Weber). Neither the economist nor the student of history of moral and religious ideas is competent to solve the scientific problem, because he sees it from one side only; it falls within the province of a science which stands above the division of social phenomena into classes. This science is sociology.

Levels of Analysis in Sociology
          Sociology analyses social life at those levels interpersonal, group and societal. Each level is more complex and involves a larger number of people than the one before it.
The Interpersonal Level
An interpersonal relation is the social connection between two or more persons, such as friend-friend, leader-follower, or neighbor-neighbour. Interpersonal means ‘between persons’ but does not imply that the relation must be close or cordial. They may be friendly or hostile, close or distant, deep or superficial. Most daily life consists of interpersonal relations. Every interaction between persons is built on past experience and understanding. We are friends, business competitors, followers, students, parent and child or buyer and seller.

The Group Level
          This level of analysis deals with groups and group relations. The word group has a very general meaning. It can include everything from a family, a nation. Two persons form a group if they are friends or partners that are if they are held together by mutual interest or dependency and set apart from others by their relationship. A college is a group since it has boundaries, a way to identify its members, and a symbol that distinguishes it from other colleges. Groups can be highly stable and organized such as the family; or they can be fluid and temporary like the gathering at a cocktail party or a political rally. People who have similar incomes or are alike in other ways, such as age, occupation, or reading habits do not necessarily form a social group. Instead, they are called statistical aggregates or social categories.
Sometimes, such categories are transformed into social groups, and the process by which such transformation occurs is of great interest to sociologists.

The Societal Level
         The third level of sociological analysis deals with whole communities or societies and is called the societal level. A society that is characterized by persistent and distinct patterns of social organization is a social order for example, apartheid, slavery, and religious based politics. A kin-based society is another kind of social order. In many societies, kinship is the most important social bond, and the family is the basis of social organization e.g. family firms and farms. Societies are familistic when the family is the main type of social group and is responsible for keeping order, producing goods, and performing religious duties. In a familistic society, relatives depend on each other. They give each other practical financial aid and guidance, and they also hold the keys to social esteem because the family itself has high or low prestige. Thus, interests of the family such as wealth, continuity, honour, etc. cannot be separated from modern societies by contrast, are individualistic rather than familistic. Activities at each level express influences originating at the other levels, and in turn shape activities at those levels.
CONCLUSION
          While other disciplines have shown great interest in understanding human society, man in society and other relations within the society, only Sociology has been scientific and systematic in studying the society. There is no doubt that Sociology shares with other social sciences notably Anthropology, Economics, Political Science and Social Psychology, the task of scientific explanation of social behaviour and its products. However, the trio level of the analysis of the society; the interpersonal, group and society are quite noteworthy. While relationship within each level is unique, one level of analysis or relationship definitely leads to the other. There is thus a form of interdependence and interpenetration of all the levels of analysis of the society.
SUMMARY
          In this unit, emphasis is placed on Sociological analysis of social behaviour and its product in the society. The concerns of other discipline of the social sciences were given. Also their limitations were shown.
However, with the inputs of prominent Sociologists such as Auguste Comte, George Simmel, Herbert Spencer and Pitirim Sorokin on the uniqueness of Sociological analysis the domain or concerns of Sociology were made clear.