Difference between Sociology and Anthropology

This article is an attempt to catalogue the various ways in which the difference between sociology and anthropology has been described, and to arrive at a definition of both, thereby.


 * Purpose
 * The primary goal of anthropology is to understand human diversity and cultural difference, while sociology is more solution-oriented with the goal of fixing social problems through policy.
 * Sociology looks for the "public issues" that underlie "private troubles"—C. Wright Mills


 * Study methods
 * Anthropologists conduct research using ethnography (a qualitative research method), while sociologists use both qualitative and quantitative methods.
 * Anthropologists study human beings from a very broad and comparative perspective


 * Subject of study
 * Anthropology studies human behavior more at the individual level, while sociology tends to look at the bigger picture, studying institutions (educational, political, religious), organizations, political movements, and the power relations of different groups with each other.
 * Whereas an anthropologist often begins their work by studying an individual to learn about their society, a sociologist typically begins by studying a society at large.
 * Anthropologists are interested in human experience around the world, past and present.
 * Sociology is also more commonly applied to current societies (since the aim is to improve behaviors).
 * Anthropology is the holistic study of mankind (i.e. man and everything that concerns man); sociology is the study of society.
 * Sociology initially focused on industrialised societies (the western societies, particularly Europe); the initial interest of anthropology was the study of simple, small-scale, and pre-literate societies situated outside Europe and western societies.


 * Worldview
 * Sociology questions many of the common sense and taken-for-granted views of our social world, recognizing that most often things are not necessarily what they seem.


 * Subdisciplines
 * Anthropology includes the subfields of archaeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology; sociology includes subfields such as gender studies, criminology, social work.


 * Historical roots
 * Anthropology is generally considered to have no roots in philosophy, while the sociology has.
 * The emergence of sociology can be mainly attributed to the attempt to bring about social order in European society after the great social transformation brought about by industrial revolution and French revolution. The emergence of anthropology is attributed to the opening up of intellectual and geographical spaces to enable the European scholars to go outside the European society and study the pre-literate societies.

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