10 Early Sociologist 1 Auguste Comte

10 Early Sociologist :
1. Auguste Comte
August Comte is known as the founder of positivism and is credited with coininging the term sociology. Comte helped shape and expand the field of sociology and placed a great deal of emphasis in his work on systematic observation and social order.
2. Karl Marx
Karl Marx is one of the most famous figures in the founding of sociology. He is known for his theory of historical materialism, which focuses on the way social order, like class structure and hierarchy, emerges out of the economic system of a society. He theorized this relationship as a dialectic between the base and superstructure of society. Some of his notable works, like "The Manifesto of the Communist Party," were co-written with Friedrich Engels. Much of his theory is contained in the series of volumes titled Capital. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world.
3. Emile Durkheim
Emile Durkheim is knows as the "father of sociology" and is a founding figure in the field of sociology. He is credited with making sociology a science. One of his most famous pieces of work includes Suicide: A Study In Sociology, and another important work of his that focuses on how society functions and regulates itself is The Division of Labor in Society.
4. Max Weber
Max Weber was a founding figure of the field of sociology and is considered one of the most famous sociologists in history. He is known for his thesis of the "Protestant Ethic" as well as his ideas on bureaucracy.
5. Harriet Martineau
Though wrongfully neglected in most sociology classes today, Harriet Martineau was a prominent British writer and political activist, and one of the earliest Western sociologists and founders of the discipline. Her scholarship focused on the intersections of politics, morals, and society, and she wrote prolifically about sexism and gender roles.

6. W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois was an American sociologist best known for his scholarship on race and racism in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. He was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from Harvard University and served as the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. His most notable works include The Souls of Black Folk, in which he advanced his theory of "double consciousness," and his massive tome on the social structure of U.S. society, Black Reconstruction.
7. Alexis de Tocqueville
Biography of Alexis de Tocqueville, a sociologist best known for his book Democracy in America. Tocqueville published many works in the areas of comparative and historical sociology and was very active in politics and the field of political science.
8. Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian political activist and journalist who wrote prolific social theory while imprisoned by Mussolini's fascist government from 1926-34. He advanced Marx's theory by focusing on the role of intellectuals, politics, and media in maintaining the dominance of the bourgeois class in a capitalist system. The concept of cultural hegemony is one of his key contributions.
9. Michel Foucault Michel Foucault was a French social theorist, philosopher, historian, public intellectual and activist best known for revealing through his method of "archaeology" how institutions wield power by creating discourses that are used to control people. He is one of the most widely read and cited social theorists, and his theoretical contributions are still important and relevant today.
10. C. Wright Mills
C. Wright Mills is known for his controversial critiques of both contemporary society and sociological practice, particularly in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959). He also studied power and class in the United States, as displayed in his book The Power Elite (1956).

Fundamental Procedures in Sociological Inquiry :

Archival research - Facts or factual evidences from a variety of records are compiled.
Content Analysis - The contents of books and mass media are analyzed to study how people communicate and the messages people talk or write about.
Historical Method - This involves a continuous and systematic search for the information and knowledge about past events related to the life of a person, a group, society, or the world.
Experimental Research - The researcher isolates a single social process or social phenonena and uses the data to either confirm or construct social theory. The experiment is the best method for testing theory due to its extremely high internal validity. Participants, or subjects, are randomly assigned to various conditions or 'treatments', and then analyses are made between groups. Randomization allows the researcher to be sure that the treatment is having the effect on group differences and not some other extraneous factor.
Survey Research - The researcher obtains data from interviews, questionnaires, or similar feedback from a set of persons chosen (including random selection) to represent a particular population of interest. Survey items may be open-ended or closed-ended.
Life History - This is the study of the personal life trajectories. Through a series of interviews, the researcher can probe into the decisive moments in their life or the various influences on their life.
Longitudinal study - This is an extensive examination of a specific group over a long period of time.
Observation - Using data from the senses, one records information about social phenomenon or behavior. Qualitative research relies heavily on observation, although it is in a highly disciplined form.
Participant Observation - As the name implies, the researcher goes to the field (usually a community), lives with the people for some time, and participates in their activities in order to know and feel their culture.

METHOD, TECHNIQUES AND TOOLS IN SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY
EXPERIMENT - a research method that exposes subjects to a specially designed situation. By systematically recordings subjects’ reactions, the researcher can assess the effects to different variables.
SURVEY –a method of research using either questionnaires or interview, or both, to learn how people think, feel, or act. Good surveys use random samples and pre-tested questions to ensure high reliability and validity.
CASE STUDY - Intensive study and examination of a person or a specific group, organization or institution is carried out. FIELD OBSERVATION OR PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION- A research method in which researchers deliberately involve themselves in the activity, group, or community they are studying in order to get an insider’s view.
INTERVIEWER - The researcher may interview subjects face-to face or by telephone. It can be: -Structured or Detective -It is a procedure in which carefully phased standard questions or schedule often with multiple choice answers - are asked in a fixed order to provide systematic and comparable data and hence facilities analysis.
- Unstructured or Nondirective -It is a procedure in which neither the questions nor the answer are predetermined, instead, the researcher let the interviewee or respondent guide of flow of the interview. HISTORICAL APPROACH The aim is to gain insight and understanding of present social realities in the context of what took place in the past.
QUALITATIVE TECHNIQUE – involves the examinations of the data from observations, interviews and publications which are not statistical in nature.
QUANTITATIVE TECHNIQUE – involves the use of statistics which deal with a mass of data and permit more precise statements of their relationships. It involves the classification and enumeration of data, analysis of the quantitative relationships involved, and assignment of numerical values of their relationships.