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Research Methods (Two broad approaches to research... (Positivism (There…
Research Methods
Two broad approaches to research...
Positivism
Positivist sociologists apply natural laws, such as gravity pulling objects to the Earth's surface, to human behaviour. Say that we should treat people as objects whose behaviour can be counted, measured and observed in the same way as natural phenomena such as birds or the weather.
There are social forces or laws (
Durkheim
called them 'social facts') shaping and determining people's actions.
These are the product of the organisation of society - called the 'social structure' - positivist sociologists who study this are called structuralists
Free will and individualism are less influential than society's ability to shape our behaviour, because society is more important than the individual e.g. people are born into society and then die, and society is not generally affected or changed by this
MACRO APPROACH
Interested in
quantitative
data and
statistics
NOT
looking at things from an individual's perspective
Functionalism, Marxism and feminism tend to be positivist theories because they believe that individual behaviour is less important than value consensus, social class and patriarchy - all of which are the product of the social structure
Durkheim and Marx
Interpretivism
Max Weber
Rejected the view that humans can be treated like objects like things in the natural world. Things in the natural world aren't conscious or self-aware, e.g. atoms, animals and gravity
Weber's ideas led to the anti-positivist approach called interpretivism
Reject that human actions are shaped by social structure/laws and that they are predictable
Qualitative date
- talking to individuals, interviews, etc
Point out that when we interact we
interpret
our behaviour and that of other. E.g a family is not just a biological group but a group who interpret themselves as a family and interact accordingly.
MICRO APPROACH