Sociology

The scientific study of society and the various groups that constitute a given society. Sociology at the microlevel focuses on individuals and patterns of their behavior. At the middle level, sociology is concerned with phenomena that occur within and between organizations and communities. At the macrolevel, sociologists study changes in entire societies, such as those that result from war. The founding of sociology is based in the Enlightenment of the 1600s, when philosophers were developing the concepts of human reason. After the revolutions in France, England, and the early American colonies during the 1700s, tradition was challenged and increasingly replaced with science. The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) is credited with coining the term sociology. The field was further developed in the 1800s by Karl Marx (1818–1883), Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), and Max Weber (1864–1920). The discipline was first taught by an independent academic department at the University of Chicago in 1892.