The book examines the world of sociology and its global features and trends. It covers themes such as: sociologies in the world, major research areas in sociology, collaboration and interdisciplinarity, and contemporary challenges, pertinent issues and debates.Sociology as a discipline has a history of two centuries which has varied between countries. Its presence across the world is felt now more than ever. Over the years, sociology has been established as a discipline and contributed to the advancement of knowledge about society through scientific research. This facilitated the development of knowledge in other areas and disciplines as well. What sociology is doing globally, the contributions it has made to our knowledge of society and social phenomena, and the direction in which it is moving are of interest to both academics and the general public. There are many books that describe the global character of sociology, but a fully research-based empirical work is yet to arrive on the market. This book fills that gap. It is about sociologies around the world. Viewed from a global perspective, this research-based study examines the world of sociology and its global features and trends. Specifically, the book deals with the trends in sociology; the broad and general areas of fields, subfields and research areas; the prominent, flourishing, emerging and/or declining areas of sociology; the origin of sociological knowledge; geographical regions and countries; the characteristics of global sociology in terms of language, research methodology, disciplinary backgrounds, interdisciplinarity and authorship; the relationships between the country of affiliation of authors and research areas; the effects of gender of the author and its interrelationships with the discipline, department, research areas and collaboration. The book will be an important resource for students, teachers, practitioners, researchers and the public.The aim of this book is to examine the world of sociology and its global features and trends. It is viewed from a global perspective and exercises sociologies in different parts of the world which are integral. More specifically, the study examines sociology through sociological research, across countries where the discipline exists. The book deals with themes such as sociologies in the world, major research areas in sociology, collaboration and interdisciplinarity, and contemporary challenges, pertinent issues and debates. The book has eight chapters.The topics the book deals with include the trends in sociology as inferred from sociology publications; the broad and general research areas that are evident in sociology at the global level; the prominent, flourishing, declining and/or emerging areas of sociology; the origin of sociological knowledge — geographical regions and countries; the characteristics of global sociology in terms of language, research methodology, disciplinary backgrounds, interdisciplinarity and authorship; the relationships between the country of affiliation of authors and research areas; the differences in the departmental affiliation and disciplinary backgrounds of authors; the gender of the author and its interrelationships with the discipline, department, research areas and collaboration; the effect of gender, discipline and collaboration of authors on the impact of sociology; and the key outlets and the location of the outlets of sociological research.
