New Perspectives in Sociology and Allied Fields

 Sociology is the study of the society and the interaction of the individual to individual, community to community, individual to the community and vice versa. The interplay of this social interaction takes place in the playground of the human settlements.  Albert J. Reiss has defined, “sociology is the study of social aggregates and groups in their institutional organization, of institutions and their organization, and of the causes and consequences of changes in institutions and social organization.” Another sociologist, Parson defined sociology, “Sociology is concerned "...With the phenomena of the  institutionalization  of patterns of value-orientation in the social system, with the conditions of that institutionalization, and of changes in the patterns, with conditions of conformity with and deviance from such patterns, and with motivational processes insofar as these- are involved in all of these.” So, we find that social systems and social institutions play an important role in the society which acts as a cohesive tool to sustain the social structure and society.

Human settlement is the complex entity of the physical habitable space wherein the social interaction in the term of economics and social relationship. But we can simply define, human settlement is an organized grouping of human habitation with basic facilities for sustenance of life.

An individual is a part of the family and the family is the part of a community which in term is a part of the locality which might be a part of rural or urban centre. Further, Albert J. Reiss stated, “A society is an empirical social system that is territorially organized, whose members are recruited by sexual reproduction within it, and persists beyond the lifespan of any individual member by socializing new members to its institutions.

India is a land of diversity and this diversity can be seen in the social structures too. Our society has religious groups and each religious groups are further sub-divided into caste. Caste is an Indian social phenomenon which might not be in existence in other countries.

Before moving further, it's necessary to understand the difference between caste and class. Caste is an inherent social structure prevalent in our society which has been further strengthened through the provision of caste based reservation in our society through the government. Whereas class is an acquired differential status of an individual and a larger community who has acquired particular qualification or proficiency in a particular field or acquired economic status in society through individual or collective endeavour. For example, the association of lawyers, association of architects, organization of planners, Institution of engineers etc.

The broad based class in terms of the economic status is the low income group, middle income group and high income group. 

Community is the collective sense of the group of the families which share some common religious, social and economic status. In some society the community can be based on class or caste. For example, community of Brahamins, community of Muslims, community of Christians, etc.