Macrosociology is a large-scale approach to sociology, emphasizing the analysis of social systems and populations at the structural level, often at a necessarily high level of theoretical abstraction. Though macrosociology does concern itself with individuals, families, and other constituent aspects of a society, it does so in relation to larger social system of which such elements are a part. The approach is also able to analyze generalized collectivities (e.g. "the city", "the church"). Examples of macro-level units of analysis include, but are not limited to, the following: Nation Society Civilization International Global Origins The issue with associating a concrete definition to the term sociological abstraction, is that there is no universally accepted definition. Although the earliest form of abstraction in sociology was discussed by sociologist Talcott Parsons in the 1950s, his work in The Social System (1951) failed to identify an exact definition. Rather, he emphasized the abstract element of sociological theory and made the distinction between what constitutes a theory, on one hand, and the object it refers to, on the other. He also argued that something becomes a fact first when it has been incorporated into an abstract conceptual scheme. In the following years, the topic was discussed by Robert K. Merton, C. Wright Mills, Paul Lazarsfeld, along with other theorist, who criticized parson work on abstraction in a variety of ways. During its peak of discussion in the 1950s, the debate over the concept became so intricate, it risked being disembedded and artificial type of analysis along the lines of Parsons. Contemporary abstracting While previous studies emphasize the importance of organization, little is said about organization itself. Sociologists today focus on how organization is discerned, represented, and explained. Organization is a matter of interactions between casually differentiated parts within a complex system. The article Abstraction and the Organization of Mechanisms, goes into detail with a variety of models which represent the organization of abstraction. They visually represent the interaction between different factors and highlight casual connectivity between mechanisms. As an example, the FFL model clarifies an important aspect of abstraction. Omitting detail permits one to distinguish those underlying factors that matter from those that do not. In other words, it is easier to capture the relevant aspects and connections of the abstracted concept, when other less relevant details, are absent from the model. References Sociological terminology