ABSTRACT
Sociology is a resource which people can use to understand better how the social world 'works', so that they can act more effectively in the various social spheres in which they lead their lives. This chapter establishes that sociology developed historically as a discipline intended to help people understand and deal with processes of modernisation and industrialisation and that it has the potential to play an important role in informing the choices made about work in the twenty-first century. Sociology is a scientific discipline concerned with developing theories and insights which can inform human choices, and to this end, it uses a variety of different research methods and works within a variety of different methodological assumptions. Sociology works on the assumption that no social action, at however mundane a level, takes place in a social vacuum. It is always linked back to the wider culture, social structure and processes of the society in which it takes place.
