ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the classic tools of sociology and its scientific-theoretical logic are more than adequate for investigating the culture of a society. It utilizes classic theories of cultural modernization and try to show which theories and methods can be applied in analyzing cultural change and demonstrates a specific interpretation of cultural sociology and explain what characterizes this interpretation. In 1988, Jeffrey Alexander summed up the theoretical trends in sociology and spoke of the "cultural turn" that had occurred in the social sciences. According to scholars promoting the cultural turn, theories of science were previously based on a mirror theory of knowledge: something out there in the world that can be described and explained by an independent scientific observer. The "cultural turn" led to a shift in focus, micro-sociological analyses of everyday phenomena and practices now coming to the fore. Many scholars perceive the decreasing significance of kith and kin as one of the central aspects of cultural modernization.
