Sociological theory serves as a framework for understanding the complexities of human behavior. Sociology being a scientific study of social life like other disciplines also has theories that aid in providing assumptions and basis for explaining social life. This theories provides a systematic or o...
,INTRODUCTION TO FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Understanding sociological theory Introduction
Social life can be complex and sometimes perplexing with varied possibilities of understanding
and conceptualization, simple facts of social life can attract numerous interpretations and
explanations depending on one‘s social orientation and persuasion. For instance; a simple concept
such as crime may elicit several explanations such as demon or culturally influenced, social
environment at play and even political connotations. This scenario of complexity and varied
observation makes it difficult to know ―facts‖ let alone knowing why these things happen the way
they do or explaining them. The question then is why facts can‘t speak for themselves.
This question can be best answered through a theory. A theory is critical in making sense of the
complex social life. Theories are useful in interpreting social life because they provide assumptions
or basis for understanding the same. The understanding of our social life is always based on a
theory, sometimes we are aware of the theory, and sometimes we are not aware.
Traditional African society is full of sayings and folk tales that indicated existence of theory.
For instance, among the Luo nation, ―if you associate with a thief, you will be a thief‖. This is a
theory that is based on long term of observation of people associating with thieves and eventually
becoming a thief.
Sociology being a scientific study of social life like other disciplines also has theories that aid in
providing assumptions and basis for explaining social life. Despite the critical value of sociological
theory, students do not fancy studying sociological theory. In one of my lectures at Egerton
University on Foundations of Sociological Theory; a student asked me ―why should we study
theory? In any case, we are studying people who lived in 1800 years and have since died!
What is sociological theory?
To be able to understand sociological theory, it is imperative that we begin with understanding the
concept theory. Appelroulth and Edles (2012) define theory as a system of generalized statements
or proposition about a phenomenon.
A theory is an explanation of a phenomena occurs. A theory has two components;
i. Data
ii. A proposed relationship
Data alone is not so informative. For instance, the classic theory of suicide by Emile Durkheim,
was interested in explaining the phenomena of suicide and he employed both data and theory to
explain suicide. Durkheim aggregated data of people in Europe who committed suicide and from
this he was able to discern patterns of suicide rates and connected these variables to religious
affiliation. He noted that Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than were the Catholics.
He then introduced the concept of social solidarity to be able to explain the suicide rates. He
pointed out that looser social ties among the Protestants led to weaker social cohesion and reduced
, social solidarity and hence higher rates of suicide. However, a distinction must be made between
natural science and social science theories. The following two characteristics define natural science
theories;
i. They have a predictive and explanatory power with high levels of certainty.
ii. They produce testable and thus falsifiable hypothesis.
Natural science theory explains and predict events that exist in the natural world. For instance,
Newton‘s explanation of motion in which he argues that an object in motion continues in its state
of motion unless compelled to do otherwise. This theory by Newton transcends time at which it
was/is applied and the geographical boundaries of its source. The laws of gravity also have similar
characteristics.
A sociological theory is a set of interrelated concepts used to describe, explain, and predict how
society and its parts are related to each other. Sociological theories on the other hand are a set of
statements that seeks to explain social phenomena such as social actions, social problems such as
teenage pregnancies, corruption in developing countries, early marriages, gender violence. In other
words, sociological theories explain phenomena that exist in the social world.
Sociology cannot be understood without sociological theory and there can never be any discussion
of sociological theory without discussing sociology. We can only understand sociological theory
in terms of sociology; the science of human society and social behavior or the study of how people
relate with one another and influence each other‘s behavior (Thomas 1995).
Sociology is also interested in the causal effect relationship of social phenomena such as, why
more women are more religious than men, why the modern family is under threat, why the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS is higher in Luo land than the national average, why there is high rate
of early marriage in the coastal Kenya than the national average, why African leaders cling or
attempt to cling to power beyond the term limit set out their constitutions, why there is
monogamous marriages and polygamous marriages in some societies and not others, why the
behavior in school is different from behavior at home, why there are numerous conflicts in Africa
and we can go on and on ad infinitum.
To understand interactions, we develop explanatory perspectives, models or frameworks within
which we place social happenings by providing explanation why they are the way they are and
most importantly predict their future based on the present happenings. Sociologists can describe
behavior to a specific circumstance into a specific situation. Sociological theory is therefore a set
of ideas that provide an explanation of human society.
Sociological theory may also be conceived as;
i. A critical examination of social issues or social phenomena. Sociological theories explain
occurrence of social phenomena.
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