Short answers, pulled from the story.
Sociology is the scientific study of human society, focusing on social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and the aspects of culture tied to everyday life. It ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes in an unpublished manuscript. It was later defined independently in 1838 by Auguste Comte as a new way of looking at society, after he had earlier called it social physics.
Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber are typically cited as the three principal architects of sociology. Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and the 14th-century scholar Ibn Khaldun are also named as founding or precursor figures, and Harriet Martineau has been cited as the first female sociologist.
The first formal Department of Sociology in the world was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion Small. The first European department was set up by Emile Durkheim at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, and the first British department opened at the London School of Economics in 1904.
Positivism holds that sociology should be conducted like natural science, treating scientific method as the only source of authentic knowledge, and is closely tied to quantitative research. Antipositivism, advanced by German theorists such as Max Weber and Georg Simmel, argues that human society must be studied through subjective meaning using the interpretative method called Verstehen.
Sociologists use qualitative methods such as participant observation, open-ended interviews, archival research, and content analysis, alongside quantitative methods such as survey research, experiments, and statistical sampling. Computational sociology adds simulation, text mining, and social network analysis to model complex social processes.
The 1966 Coleman Report, a study by James Coleman analyzing over 150,000 students, found that student background and socioeconomic status mattered far more to educational outcomes than measured differences in school resources. It also found that socially disadvantaged black students benefited from racially mixed classrooms, helping catalyze desegregation busing in American public schools.