Category talk:Sociology

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i would like to start some ideas here on some issues in todays world. >> maybe war?

Contents 1 Cleanup request 2 Sub categories 3 Discussion of proposed changes 4 Making changes

[edit] Cleanup request

This category has too many articles; they need to be sorted into new subcategories. -- Beland 23:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. See Talk:Sociology#Category_cleanup.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Have begun this task by creating 10 main subcategories and sorting various articles into them (see below). It still needs a lot of work, to go through the remaining articles and move them into the appropriate category, as well as coming up with some more logical subcategories. Some suggestions have been made below and also on Talk:Sociology. I have also created Category:Articles not related to sociology to help clear them out of here if they don't belong. See here for discussion of tasks on WikiProject Sociology. JenLouise 02:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sub categories

Is it usual for sub catgeories to be spread across different pages by the letters of listed articles below rather than being in their own list? It makes it very hard to understand what subcategories there are. Also is there any way of putting an alphabet listing the pages so you can jump to articles starting with S or something? JenLouise 00:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

If you want all subcategories to be forced to be on the first page on Cat:Sociology, you need to edit them to the following form: [[Category:Whatever| ]]. Similarly if you want an article on, let's say, structural functionalism, to be listed not at s but at f in a given category, you would edit it to say [[Category:Whatever|F]]. As for alphabet listing of cats, I think you mean something like {{compactTOC}}? I am not sure if this can be done, perhaps you should ask at Wikipedia:Categories.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Are people likely to have problems with me moving all the subcategories to the first page? To me it just makes much more sense to be able to see all of the subcategories immediately. Especially once our subcategories are systematic. JenLouise 01:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't disagree with that.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• I have moved some sociology sub categories to the top of the list. These are generic subcategories, such as Branches of sociology or Sociology books. I think non-generic ones are fine in alphabetical order. I have used [[Category:Sociology| 01]], [[Category:Sociology| 02]] etc to order them. JenLouise 05:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of proposed changes

Sounds good, let's start cleaning this up. However I am not happy with the 'Sociological Organisation' name (aren't all organizations sociological?). Perhaps 'Organizations of sociologists' or 'Sociological associations' or 'Sociological research organizations' would be better...--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 04:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes Associations was the word I was looking for. I have changed it above. And perhaps it should be Sociological Associations and Journals, considering the only article on a journal, is the journal of an association listed. And sociology journals are usually put out by sociology associations. JenLouise 05:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually we alread have Category:Sociology journals and there are quite a few publications (many more not yet even stubbed on Wiki).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I broadly concur with the suggested changes, but would add some quick thoughts:

• Please ensure lower case names where appropriate
• I think there may be a place for Category:Social research or the less likely Sociological research, which should relate somehow to research methodology. Category:Social sciences should be considered - for example Category:Social sciences methodology exists.
• There is a question of whether to have Category:Social theories or Category:Sociological theories - I think the latter for most things, but the former has also been suggested.
• I think you may have confused (as I started doing) Category:Branches of sociology and Category:Sociological theories. I think sociology of education should be a branch, whereas Positivism, (Structural) Functionalism etc should be theories. There is a really fine line which I think it would be useful to clarify if possible. For example, to which category do Feminism and Marxism belong, and why? I feel that Sociology of gender is a branch, but feminism and especially Marxism are theories which can be used by many other branches. But equally they may not be just theories. Then what is the Frankfurt School?
• An association is different from an institute. I wonder if institutions (ie research centers) should be kept seperate from professional organisations (associations).
• I have wondered if there might be a use for a Category:Social stratification, or Category:Social class, or something similar.

-- zzuuzz ^(talk) 01:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Have changed all proposed names to be lower case
  • I am happy for articles under Methodological/research methods to be include in Category:Social sciences methodology.
  • I defintely believe that sociological theories should be kept distinct from social theories. To me social theory is a much broader than sociology and interdisciplinary.
  • I guess some definition around Branches/Theories etc needs to happen before changes are made. I agree with what you say about the distinction between sociology of education and functionalism, and am happy to go with branches being defined around areas of subject matter, however I disagree that functionalism, marxism etc then become theories. I suppose I would define them as Sociological perspectives. Wikipedia has an article on sociological paradigms but relates that to research, whereas in the context that it has always been used in the study I have done (across a few different universities in Australia) a sociological perspective represents a broad way of approaching the subject matter. If you want to call them paradigms then I think we'd have to rewrite/expand that article somewhat. Anyway, whatever this category is to be called, I think it should remain distinct from Sociological theories because a perspective/paradigm can incorporate a number of different sometime conflicting theories. If we go with paradigm, then for thinks like the Frankfurt School, it would become The Frankfurt School of Thought as a broad way of approaching something. If you want to approach it this way, then there are a whole host of articles already in the Branches category that needs to be reclassified.
  • In terms of the organisations/associations/institutes, whatever the category is called, I think it should remain one catgeory. I originally used the term organisation because to me that is the most generic and common word, association and institute are both more specific and narrow in definition. I don't agree with Piotrus that all organisations are sociological (sociological, being of or related to sociology, which is the study of the social/society, etc) so only organisations that are related to the study of the social/society are sociological. At this stage there doesn't seem to be very many, so perhaps we can put a paragraph at the top of the category page which makes the distinction and later on create two separate sub categories if necessary.
  • There is already a Category:Social classes.
  • On a different note, I am going to remove the pages specified above as not belonging to the sociology category, but leave a note on their talk page. JenLouise 03:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Making changes

I would like to go ahead and create the proposed categories above (shown in red). What do people think? JenLouise 04:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I will begin doing so and if anyone objects we can make changes. JenLouise 23:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Have made the changes as proposed before, but deleted them now from this page. To see it please refer to the old version of this page. The following categories have been created and the various articles moved into them:

• Branches of sociology
• Branches of sociology (interdisciplinary)
• Sociological paradigms
• Sociological theories
• Sociological terms
• Social sciences methodology
• Sociologists
• Sociology books
• Sociology journals
• Sociology magazines
• Sociological organisations

These categories appear at the beginning of the sub categories list at Category:Sociology because I have numbered them [[Category:Sociology| 01] to [[Category:Sociology| 10].

The only change I have not made is the creation of the category Category:Sociological Organisations because there was some discussion over the appropriate name for this category. Hopefully interested people can continue the discussion so that we can arrive at consensus and create this category.

Category:Sociological organisations seems like a good name. We can sub-categorise institutions, associations, etc as necessary. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 00:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Done ! JenLouise 06:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)