Making Sense of Society: Understanding the Social World

This study material covers the concepts of social cohesion, community cohesion, qualitative and quantitative research, alienation, social movements, and sustainability. It also discusses the reasons behind the decline of social and community cohesion in contemporary society.

MAKING SENSE OF
SOCIETY
UNDERSTANDING
THE SOCIAL
WORLD

Table of Contents
Section 1...........................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Qualitative and quantitative research.....................................................................................3
Alienation...............................................................................................................................4
Social movements...................................................................................................................4
Sustainability..........................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
Section 2...........................................................................................................................................7
Community and social cohesion are in decline in the contemporary society ........................7
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................7
Concept and theories of social cohesion ...............................................................................7
CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................9
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................10

Section 1
INTRODUCTION
Sociology is the study of social life and social cause related to human behaviour change.
It help to analyse the structure of group and society to identify how people interact with each
other on different situations. The following file covers qualitative and quantitative research,
alienation, social movement and sustainability.
Main body
Qualitative and quantitative research
Qualitative research are those research which are involving qualitative aspect or which
help to analyse results by essay or words (Queirós, Faria and Almeida, 2017). On the other hand
quantitative research are those research which are used to identify outcomes in numbers, graphs
and statistics. Social world can be understand by using both concepts. For example, when a
researcher want to analyse the behaviour of any group then that researcher need to observe them
while talking, reacting and responding to reach other. Hence, observing their attitude and
behaviour and prepare report based on observations in essay paragraph will determine that
research is done on qualitative basis. Hence, it is essential for researcher to conduct qualitative
research to analyse the behaviour of their targeted group.
On the other hand, quantitative research are also helpful for researchers to conduct their
research on social issues because here they are required to select a number of individuals and
then analyse their results by using graphs and charts so that they can record those data which
help them to understand their outcomes easily. Secondly, data related to sociology will not be
concluded by analysing behaviour of one person only but it required to analyse analyse the data
of whole group or society. Therefore, it is essential for researcher to analyse how many people
they are selecting to observe their behaviour in appropriate time phase. Hence, it is essential for a
researcher to focus on both qualitative data and quantitative data to conduct their research on
sociology.

Alienation
Alienation is the situation where individual get isolated from their environment and from
their friends and family and live alone. This is the situation where a individual like to live alone
and maintain distance from their social groups (Hascher and Hadjar, 2018). Here, individual are
considered as introvert. Human alienation have various kind of symptoms like feeling helpless,
feeling left out of conversation, refusing to obey rules, feeling unsafe when interacting with
individual or a group of individual and many others. There are various kind of types of human
alienation like cultural estrangement where an individual feel that they are removed from
established values. Normlessness is another alienation type where people are feeling dis
connected from their social groups. There are various kind of causes of human alienation like
mental related cause where an individual have mental health disorders, social cause where a
individual feels disconnected from their society, job related cause where a individual feel alone
due to their job situations like the work which is given to them is not matched by their
specialization, extra working hours at workplace and many others. It is essential to treat well
with those people who feel alienation behaviour. It is also essential that such kind of people must
be cared appropriately and they need some extra care then normal person because most of the
alienated people think to finish their life and attempt suicide. Hence, providing positivity and
motivate them to life their social life openly will be the best treatment for such kind of people.
Social movements
Social movement is the way where lot of people gather at one place and ask for social
rights. The main aim of each member in social movement which is informal in structure is
having common goal and they raise their voice against some happening in their surroundings
(Koubi and et. al., 2021). For example, the movement of “black life matters” is a social
movement where people speak against those actions and practices which were held in their
society like discriminating with black skin coloured people. Hence, here people gather in front of
parliament and come on streets to force the government to make strict actions and new laws to
stop this discriminating behaviour with black people. Another example of social movement is
Guild Socialism Movement which was help in England during 1906 where workers of factories
stop working in their factories and move toward the street and raise their voice to delegate power
to workers which are working in industries. They also need that their employer will treat well
with them and treat them as they are important part of their organisation. After this movement,

many laws and rules were made related to rights of workers. Hence, it is analysed that social
movement is a action of social groups to influence their government to take actions on such
practices which will help them to improve the quality of their life. It is essential for social groups
that they must focus on the aim and objective of their social movement and the aim should be
legally correct.
Sustainability
Sustainability is the way of fulfilling own needs by focusing on the needs of future
generation. In simple words, companies and individuals must use their resources in such a way
tat they will make their remaining resources useful for their future generation (Moore and et. al.,
2017). Sustainability concept is adopted by most of the firms especially by retailing companies
where they reduce the use of plastic bags and use paper bags to offer their products to their
customers. There are five principles of sustainability which are mentioned below-
 Enhance liveability- This means that organisations must perform those activities and
practices for sustainability which will help them to enhance livelihood of those
community which require to develop the quality of their life. For example giving food to
needy people, health and convenience facilities and many others.
 Create opportunity for economic prosperity- It is essential that the sustainability
practices will done with the main aim of economic prosperity and economic growth. For
example, when a company is planting more trees then they are making their nation
beautiful and greener which will help humans too. Hence, this is a opportunity for
economic prosperity which provide benefit to economy.
 Foster environmental responsibility- It is essential for a company to focus on their
activities and try to perform only those sustainability activity which will help them to
protect their environment. For example, recycling, waste management, planting more
tress, reducing the use of plastic bags and many others.
 It must have legal acceptance- It is essential for companies to have those sustainable
activities which are legally right and accepted by both community and government easily.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded that a research on social groups include both qualitative and quantitative
data. Alienation is the concept where individual need loneliness and they maintain distance from
their social groups. It is also concluded that social movement is done to influence government to
accept their demand and make laws related to human rights. It is also concluded that
sustainability is the process where companies focus to fulfil their needs and demands by saving
resources for future generation.
Section 2
Community and social cohesion are in decline in the contemporary society
INTRODUCTION
This essay looks at the concepts of social cohesion and community cohesion. These are
important areas in sociology as it they ae related to behaviour of individuals in groups and
formation of strong community identified which dictate social behaviour of individuals
throughout their lifetimes (Dayrit and Mendoza, 2020). Theories related to social cohesion are
included in this essay along with the reasons for declining social cohesion in the contemporary
society. In addition to this, the dims ions and features of social cohesion are also included in this
report which are used to describe the current degree of social cohesion.
Concept and theories of social cohesion
Social cohesion is defined as the process of building shared values and communities of
interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income and facilitating creation of a sense that
people are engaged in a common enterprise facing challenges together and that they are the
members of same community. Another definition of social cohesion states that it is a
characteristic of society that shows interdependence between individuals of the society. It can be
said that social cohesion is in a decline in contemporary society because of increasing social and
lack of economic inclusive growth in the world. The rise in divide between peoples and
communities because of differences in ideologies and material conditions.
Different theorists have tried to identify the reason between lack of social cohesion. Karl
Marx was an influential thinker who looked at the material differences and its impact on social
cohesion between different class (Fan, Jiang and Mostafavi, 2020). The contribution of Marxism

to social conflict theory provides a significant look at do reasons lack of behind social cohesion.
The Marxist perspective focuses on systems contradictions as opposed to system maintenance
and argues that classical flicked is pervasive in a capitalist society. This leads to reduction in
social cohesion as individuals enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent
of their will.
On the other hand, the conservative perspective on social cohesion is that individuals
integrating society are not able to form communities with social cohesion because of lack of
models. Morality and following moral codes of the society helped societies of the past maintain
social cohesion for a long period which is absent from the current time period. This perspective
leans towards a sense of homogeneity in relation to social cohesion. In this case social cohesion
is a form of strict unity which builds a unified community for long time period.
There are five dimensions of social equation which include belonging versus isolation,
inclusion versus exclusion, participation versus non-involvement, legitimacy versus illegitimacy
and recognition versus rejection. In the contemporary society, isolation and alienation of
individuals is increasing (Fonseca, Lukosch and Brazier, 2019). This can be due to various
reasons such as poor health, illness, feeling cut off from family, lack of transport or career
problems. Multiculturalism has increased inclusion of different members all over the glove yet
exclusionary views towards immigrants and other social groups are spreading on a global scale.
In addition to this involvement in following traditions is also reducing. On the other hand,
participation and recognition in social groups with similar ideologies on online as well as offline
spaces is also improving.
The low degree of various dimensions of social cohesion showcases the reasoning of
declining social cohesion in the current world. Increase in exclusion and isolation also negatively
affects community cohesion. Community cohesion is defined as the aspect of unity and
attachment showcased by members of specific community which increases their unison. Lack of
social cohesion affects community cohesion as individuals are not inclined towards forming long
standing tightly connected communities but instead aim to develop temporary groups which lack
attachments on the basis of similar ideologies to achieve political, social or economic objectives.
This situation has arisen because of increasing activity on social media enables individuals to
form fleeting virtual connection and stops them from becoming part of solid social community.
This creates a society which lakes social and community cohesion.

The main features of social cohesion are reciprocal loyalty and solidarity, strength of
asocial relations and shared values, sense of belonging, trust among individuals and reduction of
inequality and exclusion (Jennings, and Bamkole, 2019). Digital technology has facilitated
creation of a virtual society where communities lack trust and solidarity on common values can
be broken very easily. Strong and loyal connections are not formed and lack of physical
interaction limits creation of sense of belonging in the virtual world. In addition to this, cyber
bullying is prevalent concept on digital platforms and social networks which increases exclusion
and unequal treatment of different groups (Zhang, Han and Ba, 2020). In this way the increased
importance of digital technology and platforms in social lives of individuals has affects social
cohesion and community cohesion in society negatively and is one of the primary reasons behind
degraded state of strong communities and social groups in the current time.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it is determined that the current society does not rank highly in social
cohesion. In relation to Marxism, the lack of social cohesion can be related to the conflict theory
and the class divided which isolates individuals. The lack of reducing morals and weak moral
fiber of the society is also a factor which has led to decline in social cohesion in contemporary
times. One of the primary reasons for this is the increasing dependency on virtual technologies
and platforms to builds social connection. This leads to social isolation and creates exclusionary
environment. Cyber bullying and lack of physical communication and interaction also affects
social cohesion and creation of strong communities. In this way lack of social cohesion also
affects community cohesion as groups with trust and loyalty are not foamed digitally.

REFERENCE
Book and journal
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Fonseca, X., Lukosch, S. and Brazier, F., 2019. Social cohesion revisited: a new definition and
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Hascher, T. and Hadjar, A., 2018. School alienation–Theoretical approaches and educational
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Jennings, V. and Bamkole, O., 2019. The relationship between social cohesion and urban green
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Koubi, V. and et. al., 2021. Environmental migrants and social-movement participation. Journal
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