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Theory and Methods - Coggle Diagram
Theory and Methods
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Sociology and science
Positivism
Objective quantitative research:
- Positivists believe that as far as possible sociology should take the experimental method used in the natural sciences as the model for research since this allows the investigator to test a hypothesis in the most systematic and controlled way.
- Positivists use quantitative data to uncover and measure patterns of behaviour, this allows them to produce mathematically precise statements about the relationship between the facts they are investigating. Positivists seek to discover the laws of cause and effect that determine behaviour.
- Positivists believe that researchers should be detached and objective, they shouldn’t let their feelings, values and prejudices influence how they conduct their research or analyse their findings.
- In sociology, we are dealing with people and there is a danger that the researcher may ‘contaminate’ the research.
- Positivists, therefore, employ methods that allow maximum objectivity and detachment, and so they use quantitative methods.
Positivism and suicide:
- Durkheim (1897) believed that if he could prove that even such a highly individual act had social causes, this would establish sociology’s status as a genuinely scientific discipline.
- Using quantitative data from official statistics, Durkheim observed that there were patterns in the suicide rate, for example, rates for Protestants were higher than for Catholics.
- He concluded that these patterns couldn’t be the product of the motives of individuals but were social facts.
- According to Durkheim, the social facts responsible for determining the suicide rate were the levels of integration and regulation.
- Thus, Durkheim claimed to have discovered the ‘real law’: that different levels of integration and regulation produce different rates of suicide. If you have too much or too little of each this can cause suicidal thoughts, so need to have a balance
- He says there are 4 types: fatalistic, egoistic, altruistic, and anomic (teenage suicide).
- Research that is happening is empirical
balance.
Patterns, laws, and inductive reasoning:
- For positivists, the reality isn’t random or chaotic but patterned and we can observe these empirical patterns or regularities.
- Positivists believe, in Durkheim’s words, that ‘real laws are discoverable’ that will explain these patterns.
- Induction involves accumulating data about the world through careful observation and measurement. As our knowledge grows, we begin to see general patterns.
Verificationism:
- For positivists, the patterns we observe, whether in nature or society, can be explained in the same way – by findings the facts that cause them.
- Positivist sociologists thus seek to discover the causes of the patterns they observe. Like natural scientists, they aim to produce general statements or scientific laws about how society works.
- These can be used to predict future events and to guide social policies.
- Positivists favour ‘macro’ or structural explanations of social phenomena. This is because macro theories see society and its structures as social facts that exist outside of us and shape our behaviour patterns.
- Comt (seen as the founding father of sociology) wrote during the enlightenment period:
- Rationality
- Logic
- Objectivity
- Process: methodology
AO3:
- People act emotionally.
- Lack of capacity to explore other answers. People may have different views than just x or y on a questionnaire.
- Not universally testable, you aren’t going to get the same result every time, humans are individuals that have different mindsets. Viewed as macro, but possibly should be looked at in a micro view.
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Interpretivism
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Verstehen and qualitative research:
- Interpretivists reject the logic and methods of the natural sciences.
- They argue that to discover the meanings people give to their actions, we need to see the world from their viewpoint.
- For interpretivists, this involves abandoning the detachment of objectivity favoured by positivists, and instead put us in the place of the actor, using what Weber (interactionist) calls verstehen.
- Interpretivists favour the use of qualitative methods, these produce richer, more personal data high in validity and gives the sociologist a subjective understanding of the actor’s meanings and lifeworld.
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The subject matter of sociology:
- Interpretivists argue that the subject matter of sociology is meaningful social action, and we can only understand it by successfully interpreting the meanings and motives of the actors involved.
- They say sociology is about unobservable internal meanings, and sociology is a science as science only deals with laws of cause-and-effect and not human meanings.
- Many interpretivisms reject the use of natural science methods and explanations as a model for sociology, they argue that there is a fundamental difference between the subject matter of natural science and that of sociology:
- Natural science studies matter, its behaviour can be explained as a straightforward reaction to an external stimulus.
- Sociology studies people, their actions can only be understood in terms of attached meanings, and meanings are internal to people’s consciousness.
- Mead argued that rather than responding automatically to external stimuli, human beings interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then choose how to respond.
- Individuals aren’t puppets on a string, manipulated by external ‘social facts’ as positivists believe, but autonomous beings who construct their social world through the meanings they give to it.
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Globalsation, modernity and postmodernity
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