Development of sociology

 Emile Durkheim

    When Emile Durkheim began writing books on sociology it was also a time when sociology was not considered its own field of study, it was most often grouped with philosophy, and he was someone who made the gap between sociology and philosophy a little bit bigger. Emile Durkheim was a french sociologist who claimed society is "a reality unique to itself and irreducible to its composing parts." with this claim he implies it is its own subject and it should be studied in its own way, this also means it can be studied scientifically. Durkheim uses what he calls "Social facts" as the big chief in his procedure in studying sociology. Social facts are shared expectations that influence individuals, the most common examples are norms, social norms, values, social structure, etc. He believed sociology should be the study of social facts through observation and or experience. The studies Durkheim had done later in the years were much different than his earlier studies. in 1895 his thinking changed, this was after he read a lecture by William Robertson Smith, from being mainly focused on materialistic factors affecting social thinking it shifted more towards nontangible factors, like thoughts, religion, and values. There were many others who influenced his work and thinking and many affected him greatly. Durkheim had made many contributions to the development of sociology, he is considered one of the principal founders of sociology, his views on social structure and therefore named the founder of functionalistic theory and the author of On the Division of Social Labor and Suicide. 

Source: https://iep.utm.edu/durkheim/#SH1b  

Conflict theory

    Conflict theory was considered to be founded by Karl Marx and allowed contributions from C. Wright Mills. This is a theory that focuses more on the broad spectrum of sociology and society as a whole rather than individuals. The theory presents a claim stating there is a conflict between different social classes that compete for limited resources. When Marx was studying this theory he saw the conflict between the Bourgeoisie, the people in power, and the proletariat, the people working. His view of society was constant conflict between these two groups, and revolution was a way to balance out the inequality of power. I feel this is still a relevant theory and can apply to smaller things than the whole of society or even bigger things. There are aspects of this theory that are definitely present in any situation with a power difference or an inequality of some kind. 

Source: https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/social-conflict-theory--3?pathway=foundations-of-sociology--2