What are the sub branches of sociology and anthropology?

Question

What are the sub branches of sociology and anthropology?

Answer 1

The four sub-disciplines of anthropology in the United States are:  cultural, physical (biological), linguistics, and archeology.

Anthropology has long been viewed as the study of human culture beyond our own, but that identification of us and them, emic and etic, has clearly been blurred by our multicultural society.  

Sociological sub branches include urban sociology, the sociology of deviance, feminist sociology, statistics, inequality, ethnicity and race.  

Both disciplines have divergent origins but they have convergence points in the aspects of what is to be researched.

Some of the subdisciplines of anthropology will never have any convergence points with sociology:  namely, archeology and biological anthropology.

The two subdisciplines that have some degree of convergence are cultural anthropology, and anthropological linguistics, in conjunction with sociology.

An example that there is a convergence between cultural anthropology and sociology  is in the context of big cities.

However, some institutions combine the two disciplines into one.  I had attended one college for a brief time, and found out in a short time that the reason that the two disciplines were combined into one was the result of a limited staff.  This approach is not without controversy in both fields.  Sociology is much more limited in scope than the grand field of anthropology, and seeks to study society in very industrialized conditions.  No attempt to study human society in prehistoric conditions is attempted, nor dared, in sociology.

Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx are all highly touted early sociologists.  Franz Boas, Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard, Louis Leakey, David Attenborough, etc.

If you notice from the source list provided, the programs which combine the two disciplines are small colleges.  The universities tend to recognize the two disciplines as different.

Answer 2

If you ask an American anthropologist they would answer the main four are - sociocultural, linguistics, archeaology, and physical/biological. There are various specializations in each of these four branches such as medical anthropology. Some may say there's a fifth which is applied anthropology; however, American anthropology since Boas has always somewhat been applied in nature - think Mead and Benedict, Murdock's HRAF, etc. Franz Boas and his students - Sapir, Kroeber, Mead, Benedict, Lowie, etc. - are mostly responsible for the four field approach that defines American anthropology. However, some universities in the US have split apart with biological and archaeology separate from socioculture, and many universities have a separate linguistics apartment. Sociology and sociocultural anthropology are related in a lot of ways, save anthropology's methods such as participant observation and other ethnographic methods, although some in sociology also use ethnographic methods they usually don't spend the amount of time an anthropologist does living within the community that they study. As far as branches in sociology, I'm not sure but I do know that UW Madison has a rural sociology program. Maybe a sociology major could explain that one? Hope that helps!