Not much of an OP here. The two disciplines seem very similar to me, and no one I’ve asked so far has really been able to explain the difference. So what is it?
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of the cultural, historical, physical, and linguistic behavior of people from all parts of the globe both in the past and the present. It allows students to develop an appreciation for all the lifeways that exist or have existed on our planet and to understand how they came into being, how they interact and how they change.
The goal of anthropology is to understand the development and the behavior of people by analyzing and comparing human characteristics and customs in all times and places. The anthropology program at Kansas State University provides excellent opportunities to approach this goal because of the presence of world-renowned specialists in all major divisions of anthropology. All courses are taught by this faculty.
SOCIOLOGY
Sociology is the systematic study of social relationships at many different levels. For example,
sociologists analyze small groups, complex organizations such as bureaucracies or factories,
race/ethnic relations, gender relations, communities, nations, and even global social formations. The processes and behaviors sociologists examine include social interaction among individuals, institutional change, social policy formation, criminal and deviant behavior (and responses to such behavior), population growth and distribution, and social change and development.
The sociology program offers concentrations in general sociology and in criminology. General
sociology provides a desirable background, as either a sole or combined major, for further
professional training in law, city planning, public administration, hospital administration, and medicine, as well as for advanced graduate work in sociology or other social sciences. It also prepares students for a wide variety of careers that involve problem-solving and gathering, organizing and analyzing information (i.e., data). Such careers may involve jobs ranging from sales and management to community services and government work.
The criminology concentration prepares students for careers in the criminal justice system (including law enforcement, correctional institutions, court services) as well as advanced study in law or graduate work in sociology, criminology, or criminal justice.
I looked up once anthropology, sociology, etc. and the definitions to put it simply and mildly overlap. The other replier was mainly giving how the school he is familiar with sets up programs in these disciplines, so we can probably infer that the difference depends mainly on the university.
Like the Cheshire Cat, I have my own definitions, which are that anthropology is more concerned with what used to be called primitive activities like setting up totems, BUT ALSO with how civilized societies such as we do the same irrational activities. In other words anthropology is concerned mainly with symbols and symbolic behavior, totems, taboos, kilt wearing, tie wearing, the possible meaning of women wearing necklaces (traditionally given them by men and mild versions of what the Ubangis do in a big way: make the women bear the wealth of their man in societies where men don’t wear jewelry and so on themselves, ie., make women clothes horses), religion (worship, offering, sacrifices),
. Anthropology can get very into symbols and mysterious areas like semiotics. I heard that if you look through just recent history, the skirt length of women’s skirts go up and down but something on their bodice changes, I forget what, something minor like buttons or something, something on their bodice changes back and forth in exact synch with that undulating skirt length, and NOBODY KNOWS WHY, BUT THERE ARE LOTS OF THESE TYPE THINGS. Anthropology looks at all human experience as mediated , ie., biased, or it can anyway. Maybe that’s only some modern anthropology. It can look at things we think of as purely rational like science as a cultural artifact, a result of something cultural. Indeed, our science is basically another narrative, and narrative (myth, folk tale, etc.) are especiallyloved by anthropologists who looked for patterns among the motifs.
Modern anthropology or structuralism or post-structuralism or semotiots all look at what we say about nature as always already culturally biased. There isn’t a basic human nature and THEN we have cultural conditioning. We are always already conditioned to think of nature the way we do.
Anthropology is formally divided into Cultural Anthropology and Physical Anthropology. The latter is you study one kind of flintstone after another. Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrian. To me all these rocks looked the same but it was an interesting course anyway.
Actually, anthropology is formally divided into Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics, and Biological/Physical anthropology, which, contrary to Dan’s post is not the study of rocks, flints, etc, but rather the study of the physical evolution of humans and human cultures (It also encompasses Primate behavior).
Another (somewhat subtle) difference between Sociology and anthropology, is that sociology is more statistical and predictive, while anthropology is more experiential and descriptive. Sociologistsare more likely to gather data through questionaires, anthropologists more likely to participate or observe actual behavior.