Introduction
Historical Developments and Theoretical Approaches in Sociology in two volumes is a component of Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias.
Sociology is one of several social science disciplines and smaller bodies of knowledge which seeks to understand the patterns in social life. There is a broad congruence between the objective configurations of social life and the components of the disciplines studying them, the body of sociological knowledge is socially constructed and the pathways to its gaining of knowledge influenced by a variety of factors. Moreover, since social life is ever-changing, sociology often has to scramble to catch-up with the changing social world.
This work is built up around four broad topics, the first providing important shared contextual material and then followed by three broad levels of social analysis: with each of these four parts containing a number of chapters with more specific and in-depth information. The theme essay provides a general introduction and overview of the theme as a whole. In total, the work holds 40 contributions written by a selection of many international renowned specialists from 12 countries. It was important to obtain a wide range of viewpoints giving the ways in which social issues arise quite differently in a range of countries.
These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers, NGOs and GOs.
Editor(s) Biography
Charles Crothers is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at AUT, after previously serving as a Professor of Sociology at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Prior to this position Charles had lectured in the Departments of Sociology at the University of Auckland, and Victoria University and had been President of the New Zealand Sociological Association and held office in the History of Sociology Research. Committee of the International Sociological Association. His interests span: Sociological/ Social Theory (with books on the work of Robert K Merton, and the conceptualisation of Social Structure); Social Research Methodology/methods; sociology of Science and Social Science: and studies of New Zealand (Auckland in particular) and South Africa
