Modern sociology includes many scientific schools and individual teachings, each of which in its own way explains the essence of sociological science. There are also a lot of definitions of sociology at the present stage. The most common definitions are “science about the laws of passage and development of social processes and social communities, the mechanism of the relationship between people and society”, “science about the laws of formation, development and existence of society and social relations”.
Modern sociology calls society or individual social phenomena its subject. In this case, sociology studies not just the phenomena themselves, but their most general properties, which are not considered by other social sciences (history, philosophy, psychology, political economy, the theory of law).
In this regard, we can conclude that modern sociology is a separate science about the general laws of social phenomena and their generic properties. In research, sociology not only relies on empirical experience, but also theoretically generalizes it.
Sociology does not study just a person in general, but explores the whole world of his existence, which includes the social environment, the community in which he is included, social connections, lifestyle, social actions. Sociology considers the world as a system. Such a system is regarded by it not only as functioning and developing, but also as experiencing a crisis. Modern sociology seeks to study the causes of the crisis and tries to find possible ways out of it, and one that will be the least painful for society and the most promising.
The peculiarities of modern science are that it is trying to solve the most acute problem of our day - the survival of mankind for the possibilities of further updating civilization and raising it to a more developed level of relations. Sociology is looking for a solution to these problems not only at the global level, but also at the levels of individual social communities, social institutions, by studying the social behavior of individuals. This science explores the stages of formation, progressive development and the actual functioning of societies and communities of people. At the same time, she seeks the essence of phenomena and their causes in deep social processes, relations between individuals and communities.
The directions of modern sociology diverge according to two criteria. All schools of modern sociological science are divided into two groups. These are microsociological and macrosociological theories .
In the latter group, the theory of social conflict and structural functionalism are most influential. All schools rely on the achievements of modern science.
The foundations of structural functionalism were deduced by Talcott Parsons, who proposed looking at society as a system consisting of interconnected functional elements. To such elements, he attributed individuals, groups, groups and other communities, between which there is a relationship. In this theory, the emphasis is on the stability of social systems and the evolutionary forms of their development.
The theory of social conflict (the conflictological direction of sociology) has developed as opposed to structural functionalism. The most famous representatives of this direction are L. Coser and R. Darendorf.
Coser is the author of the theory of positive-functional conflict, which argues that the stability of a social system implies the existence of an obligatory struggle of interests, manifested in social conflicts and clashes. Darendorf developed the concept of a conflict model for the development of society. The main tenets of his theory are as follows: society is in a constant process of change, conflicts are inevitable in it, all the individual elements of society contribute to its changes and integration, in society, some members always dominate over others.
Microsociological theories focus on studying the behavior of individuals in their social relationships. The main theories of microsociology include phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, the theory of social exchange, ethnomethodology.
Symbolic interactionism (George Herbert Mead) states that people act according to symbolic meanings that need to be interpreted. Phenomenology (Alfred Schutz) explores social reality through the study of the daily lives of individuals. Ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel) considers reality as a result of the interpretive activities of people. The theory of social exchange (George Homans) is based on the principles of behaviorism to explain social processes.