ISSS Reference Sources

The study of crime, society's response to it, and its prevention.

Phenomenology is the study of conscious human experience in everyday life. As first developed by Alfred Schutz, phenomenological sociology is the study of the connection between human consciousness and social life.

The branch of sociology concerned with the study of politics or the political subsystems of society.

Social psychology continues to straddle the border between sociology and psychology. However, despite a number of theoretical concerns in common, sociological social psychology and psychological social psychology remain largely independent endeavors.

The study of the biological and evolutionary base of social behaviour.

The study of language as it affects and is affected by social relations.

The study of social relationships and structures in the city

Any large or small group of people sharing a common history, language, set of values or goals.

In anthropology, culture is the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviors in any given society. Cultural differences distinguish societies from one another.

A historical means of social classification and differentiation that attempts to essentialize political and cultural differences by linking physical traits (such as skin color, blood, genetics) and social practices (such as religion, violence, passion) to innate, immutable characteristics (see essentialism).

A society is an extended group of individuals residing within a bounded geographic area, subject to common political authority and law, sharing mutual institutions and a distinctive culture. At a broader level, a society is any social grouping that comes together, or is lumped together, on the basis of some shared characteristic or interest.

Conflict theory is used in the social sciences to study the power dynamics among members of competing groups.

A sociological perspective that focuses on the contributions any particular social unit makes towards the larger social system.

Concepts, teachings and ideas derived from the discourse of Karl Marx. Marxism is best known for its critique of capitalism.

The doctrine formulated by Comte which asserts that the only true knowledge is scientific knowledge.

Social constructivism argues that a social phenomenon does not possess an independent existence but is “constructed”, meaning generated and maintained through collective human action, thought, discourse, or other social practices.

Structuralism is the approach which seeks to isolate, and decode, deep structures of meaning, organised through systems of signs inherent in human behaviour (language, ritual, dress and so on).

Sociological perspective that focuses on the way individuals interpret social symbols.

Utilitarians judge the moral value of acts, institutions and/or rules according to their consequences.