Sociology as a Scientific Discipline

The scope has been divided into two divisions:

A. Scope in the field of knowledge
B. Scope in the field of profession.

The field of knowledge. Sociologists have the primary and basic aim to build up knowledge about the society and social interaction. The sociologists are required to gain the know-how about the social problem and their solution. This is possible for the sociologist but on the basis of scientific knowledge. In our country we have pure as well as applied sociology. To train the students of sociology, they are taught research methodology, community development etc. they get knowledge about the factors of the problems and their solutions. So in the field of knowledge, sociology provides understanding of the society and what is going on in the society, through the specialized fields of sociology.

The specialized fields of sociology, which give knowledge to the students of sociology about different aspects of human social life, are as follow.

• Rural Sociology                              Industrial sociology.
• Urban Sociology.                            Social change and development
• Medical sociology.                          Sociology of social problems.
• Criminology.                                  Sociology of education
• Social psychology.                          Political sociology
• Economic sociology.                        Sociology of the family.
• Sociology of religion

In the field of profession. Sociology is also a professional discipline. It performs the following services as a profession:

• Teaching.
• Research.
• Administration

Teaching. The persons, who get great knowledge, become qualified. These qualified persons are serving in the teaching profession. These teachers in the field of research and surveys and to transmit them the cultural traits train the students. It means that the teaching profession serves to transmit knowledge about culture and to train the students for community development. The subject is getting popularity, increasing the number of its textbooks and recruitment in the subject is increasing day by day.

Research. The qualified persons in the discipline of sociology are involved in the field of research. They work to detect serious problems, their factors and are able to get these problems solved. The sociologists as researchers are engaged in different governmental and non­governmental organizations. These organizations and agencies established in various ministries and departments where sociologists are employed are given below:

• Ministry of local government, social welfare and rural development,
• Population census commission.
• Statistical division.
• Pakistan academy for rural development.
• Provincial department of jails and reclamation etc.

The researchers except the above mentioned agencies and departments are working in many national as well as international organizations like UNDP, UMICEF, and UNHCR etc.

Administration. The sociologists are employed in different programmers of governmental and non­governmental organizations as administrators. They direct and guide the people in organizations about development in different sectors. They are doing so and are preferred, because they are skilled in the same field.

From the above discussion, it is concluded that the sociologist gets knowledge about society. Then they serve as teachers, researchers and administrators to make the development of the community possible.