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Theories and Methods - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Societies must develop ways of making decisions
      - Societies develop goals for the allocation of power and economic resources
    - - Every society has to provide an adequate standard of life for the survival of its members
    - - Specialist institutions develop to limit potential conflict
    - - Pattern maintenence - this refers to the problems faced by people when cocnflicting demands are made of them
      - Tension management - If society is going to continue to exist, then it needs to motivate people to continue to belong to society and not leave or oppose it
  - - - The theory is teleological –a thing exists because of its function or effect.
      - Contradictory –how can something be both functional and dysfunctional
      - Unscientific –impossible to falsify or verify the theory.
    - - Unable to explain conflict and change in society.
      - It is a conservative ideology that tries to maintain the status quo.
      - Legitimises the position of the powerful.
    - - Wrong (1961) –Functionalism is deterministic
      - Functionalism reifies society –treating it as a distinct ‘thing’
    - - Unable to explain diversity and instability in society.
      - Functionalism is outdated due to being a meta-narrative.
- - - - Cheap
      - Easy to find sources of material in form of media
      - Positivists see it as useful source of objective, quantitative data
- - - - They are a free source of huge amounts of data, which saves time and money
      - Statistics allow comparisons between groups
      - Official statistics are collected at regular intervals which means they show patterns and trends over time
    - - The government collects statistics for its own purpose and not the benefit of sociologists, so there may be none available on topics of interest
      - The definitions used by the state uses in collecting the data may be different from what a sociologist would use
      - If definitions change over time, it may make comparisons difficult
  - - - This provides a better basis for making generalisations and testing hypotheses
  - - - Durkheim (1897) - Statistics are 'social facts' ; true and objective measures of the real rate of crime, suicide etc.
      - Positivists use official statistics to test their hypotheses
    - - Atkinson (1971) - Official statistics lack validity
      - Statistics are socially constructed - they represent labels give to the behaviour of others
      - In his view, suicide statistics are not a representation of real life as they have come from a coroner's decision to label the deaths as suicides
- - - - Once an experiment has been conducted, other scientists can replicate it
      - The original experimenter can specify precisely what steps were followed in the original experiment so other researchers can repeat in the future
      - It is a detached method - The scientist's personal feelings have no effect on the conduct or outcome
    - - Society is a complex phenomenon - It would be impossible to identify all the possible variables that might exert an influence
      - Lab experiments cannot be used to study the past, as it is impossible to control variables that were acting in the past rather than in the present
      - Lab experiments usually only study small samples - This makes it difficult to investigate large-scale social phenomena, also reducing the representativeness
    - - The researcher needs informed consent of the research participants
      - However, this may be difficult to obtain from groups such as children or people with learning difficulties who may be unable to understand the nature and purpose of the experiment
      - It is considered wrong to mislead people as to the nature of the experiment
      - Milgram (1974) - He lied to the participants for the purpose of the research
      - The experiment may also harm the participants
    - - A laboratory is not a normal environment
      - Any behaviour in the se conditions will be unnatural or artificial
      - If people do not behave in true-to-life ways, the experiment will not produce valid results
      - Mayo (1927) - He altered different variables and the 5 female volunteers continued to increase their output
      - Mayo concluded that the workers wished to please the experimenter so they didn't respond to the change of experimental variables
    - - Interpretivists sociologists argue that humans fundamentally different from plants and other phenomena studied by natural scientists
      - We have free will and so our behaviour cannot be explained in terms of cause and effect
      - It can only be understood in terms of the choice we freely make
  - - - Each was admitted and diagnosed as schizophrenic, but when they were admitted, they ceased to complain about hearing voices
      - Rosenhan's study shows that field experiments are more 'natural', valid and realistic, and they avoid the artificiality of laboratory experiments
  - - - Durkeim (1897) - His hypothesis was that low levels of integration of individuals into social groups caused high rates of suicide
      - He argued that Catholicism had higher levels of integration than Protestantism, and he compared the suicide rates, finding that Catholics had a lower suicide rate
      - The comparative method avoids artificiality, it can be used in past events and it poses no ethical issues
- - - - The means of production - land, factories, raw materials, technology and labour necessary to produce society's goods
      - The relations of production - the relations between those involved in production, such as shared ownership or private ownership, who controls production, and the relationship between owner and non-owners
    - - Ideologies that legitimises the base and reproduces class inequality
- - - - The researcher simply observes the group or event without taking part in it
    - - The researcher takes part in in an event or the everyday life of the group while observing
    - - The researcher makes their true identity and purpose known to those being studied - The sociologist is open to what they are doing
    - - The study is carried out 'undercover'
      - The researcher's identity and purpose is kept concealed from the group being studied
    - - William Whyte's study of #Street Corner Society' was semi-overt, as he revealed his identity to some members of the group and not others
  - - - Validity
        
        By observing people, rich qualitative data that provides a picture of how they really live
      - Insight
        
        The best way to understand something is by experiencing it
        
        Sociologists call this 'verstehen' meaning empathy or understanding that comes form putting yourselves in another person's place
        
        By living as a person in the group, we can gain insight into their way of life
        
        This closeness to people's lived reality provides uniquely valid, authentic data
      - Flexibility
        
        Rather than starting with a fixed hypothesis, it allows the sociologist to enter the situation with a relatively mind about what they will find
        
        As new situations are encountered, new explanations can be formulated and the sociologist can change direction to follow them up there and then
      - Practical Advantages
        
        Yablonsky (1973) - A teenage gang is likely to see researchers who come with questionnaires as the unwelcome representatives of authority
        
        Participant observation enables the sociologist to build a rapport with the group and gain its trust
        
        Cicourel (1968) - His study of how police and problem officers categorise juveniles by making unconscious assumptions about whether they are criminal 'types'
        
        Becuase they are unaware for their assumptions; it would be pointless for the sociologists to ask them questions about these
        
        For Cicourel, the only way to get these is to observe the police directly
    - - Practical Disadvantages
        
        It is time-consuming
        
        The researcher needs to be trained so as to be able to recognise aspects of a situation that are sociologically significant
        
        It requires observational and interpersonal skills that not everyone possesses
        
        Personal characteristics such as age, gender or ethnicity may restrict what kind of groups could be studied
      - Ethical Problems
        
        Deceving people in order to gain information about them and participating in illegal or immoral activities in the cause of sociological research can be seen as immoral
      - Representativeness
        
        The group studied is usually very small and the sample is selected 'haphazardly'
      - Reliability
        
        In participant observation depends on the personal skills and characteristics of a lone researcher that is unlikely to replicate the original study
      - Bias and Lack of Objectivity
        
        The risk of becoming too involved and 'going native' makes it difficult to remain objective and the sociologist may end up presenting a biased view of the group
        
        Loyalty to the group or fear of reprisals leads to the sociologist to conceal sensitive information
        
        It may attracts sociologists whose sympathies lies with the underdog
      - Validity
        
        Positivists argue the findings from the studies are subjective and biased impressions of the observer
        
        The Hawthorne Effect - the presence of the observer may make the subjects act differently
  - - - It allows the observer to ask the kind of naive but important questions that only an outsider could ask
      - The observer can take notes openly
      - It allows the researcher to use interview methods to check insights derived from observations
      - It avoids the ethical problem of obtaining information by deceit and being expected to join in deviant activities
    - - A group may refuse the researcher permission to observe them, or may prevent them from seeing
      - Punch observed two Amsterdam police officers who told him 'we only let you see what we wanted to see'
      - It risks creating the Hawthorne Effect which undermines the validity of the data
  - - - It reduces the risk of altering people's behaviour, and this may be the only way to obtain valid information
      - Humphreys (1970) - He studied gay men's sexual encounters in public toilets and knew they would conceal their behaviour if they knew they were being observed
    - - The researcher needs to keep up an act and there is the risk of one's cover being blown by even a trivial mistake
      - The sociologist cannot usually take notes openly and must rely on memory and the opportunity to write them in secret
      - The researcher cannot ask naive but important questions
      - The addition of the researcher can still change the group's behaviour
      - It is immoral to deceive people, obtaining information
      - Covert observers may have to lie about their reason for leaving the group at the end of their research
      - They may have to participate in illegal activities for the 'role'
- - - - Quick and cheap means of gathering large amounts of data from large numbers of people, widely spread geographically
      - For example, Helen Connor and Sara Dewson (2001) posted nearly 4,000 questionnaires to students at 14 higher education instituitions around the country in their study of the factors influencing the decisions of working-class students to go to university
      - There is no need to recruit and train interviewers or observers to collect the data, because respondents complete it themselves
      - The data is usually easy to quantify, esp. where close-ended questions are used, and can be processed quickly by computer to reveal the relationships between different variables
    - - When the research is repeated, a questionnaire identical to the original one is used, so new respondents are asked exactly the same questions, in the same order, with th same choice of answers as the original respondents
      - With postal or online questionnaires, unlike with interviews, there is no researcher present to influence the respondent's answers
      - They allow comparisons, both over time annd between different societies
    - - Questionnaires are particularly useful for testing hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships between different variables
      - For instance, using the example of educational achievement, analysis of respondents' answers could show whether there is a correlation between children's achievement levels and family size
      - Questionnaires enable us to identify possible causes, they are very attractive to positivist sociologists, who take a scientific approach and seek to discover laws of cause and effect
    - - Positivists favour questionnaires because they are detached and objective, where the sociologist's personal involvement with their respondents is kept to a minimum
      - For example, postal questionnaires are completed at a distance and involve little or no personal contact with respondents
      - For this reason, positivists see them as a good way of maintaining detachment and objectivity
    - - Questionnaires can collect infromation from a large number of people, meaning that the data has a better chance of being representative of the wider population
      - Researchers who use questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain a representative sample - meaning that the findings of the questionnaires are more likely to allow us to make accurate generalisations about the wider populations
      - Respondents are not obligated to answer intrusive or sensitive questions
  - - - Data from questionnaires tends to be limited and superficial
      - They have to brief, since most respondents are unlikely to complete and return a long, time-consuming questionnaire
      - This limits the amount of information that can be gathered from each respondent
      - Incentives may have to be offered to respondents - adding to the costs
      - With postal or online questionnaires, there is no way of knowing whether the respondent received the questionnaire or whether if was completed by the person whom it was addressed to
    - - Questionnaires can have low respones rates, especially with postal questionnaires - This is because very few people actuall complete and return it
      - For example, Shere Hite's (1991) study of 'love, passion and emotional violence' in America sent out 100,000 questionnares, but only 4.5% of them were returned
      - A higher response rate can be obtained if follow-up questionnaires are sent and if questionnaires are collected by hand - but this is costly and time-consuming
      - Complex language may mean that they are only completed by educated people
      - Low response rates mean that the results are distorted and unrepresentative (unemployed may complete and full-time workers may not)
    - - Questionnaires are a very inflexible method
      - Once it has been finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they have decided to ask and cannot explore any new areas of interest should they come up during the research
      - This contrasts more flexible methods (e.g. unstructured interviews)
    - - Interpretivist such as Cicourel (1968) argue that data from questionnaires lack validity and do not give a true picture of what has been studied
      - They argue that we only gain a valid picture by using methods that allow us to get close to the subjects of the study and share their meanings
      - Ideally, the method should enable us to put ourselves in the subject's place and see the world through their eyes
      - The lack of contact means there is no way to clarify what the questions mean to the respondents or to deal with misunderstandings - There is no way of knowing whether the respondent and the researcher interpret the questions in the same way
    - - A valid method is one that gives a truthful picture of people's meanings and experiences
      - Interpretivists argue that questionnaires are more likely to impose the researcher's own meanings that reveal those of the respondent
      - By choosing which questions to ask, the researcher has already decided what is important
      - If close-ended questions are used then respondents have to fit their views into the ones on offer - producing an invalid picture of their reality
      - Martin Shipman (1997) - When the researcher's categories are not the respondent's categories, 'pruning and bending' of data is inevitable
- - - - The interviewer is conducted in the same standardised way each time, asking each interviewee precisely the same questions, word for word, in the same order and so on
    - - The interviewer has complete freedom to vary the questions, their wording order and so on from one interview to the next, pursuing whatever line of questioning seems appropriate at the time, asking follow-up questions or probing more deeply
    - - Each interview has the same set of questions in common, but the interviewer can also probe for more information
    - - Interviews with up to a dozen or so people being interviewed together
  - - - Training interviewers is relatively straightforward and inexpensive
        
        This is more costly than simply posting or emailing questionnaires to people
      - Surveys that use structured interviews can cover quite larger numbers of people with relatively limited resources because they are quick and cheap to administer
        
        However, they still cannot match the potentially huge numbers reached by postal questionnaires
      - Structured interviews are suitable for gathering straightforward factual information
      - The results are easily quantified because they use closed-ended questions with answers
    - - The large numbers who can be surveyed using structured interviews increase the chances of obtaining a representative sample of the population
      - Structured interviews generally have a higher response rate
      - For example, of the 987 people Young and Wilmott approached for their main sample, only 54 refused to be interviewed
      - This may be because people find it harder to turn down a face-to-face request
    - - Structured interviews are seen as reliable because it is easy for the researcher to standardise and control them
    - - Structured interviews usually use closed-ended questions which may not have the answers that a respondent wishes to say, meaning the data obtained is invalid
    - - Structured interviews suffer from the inflexibility that comes from having to draw up the questions in advance
      - In doing so, the researcher has already decided what is important
      - As a result, the findings may lack validity because they do not reflect the interviewee's concerns and priorities
  - - - Rapport and Sensitivity
        
        The informality of unstructured interviews allows the interviewer to develop a rapport with the interviewee
        
        This is more likely to put the interviewee at ease and encourage them to open up than in a formal structured interview
        
        William Labov (1973) - When using a formal interview technique to study the language of black American children, Labov found that they appeared to be 'linguistically deprived'
        
        However, adopting a more relaxed, informal style brought a completely different response
        
        The children opened up and spoke freely, showing that they were competent speakers
      - The Interviewee's View
        
        Unstructured interviews allow the interviewee more opportunity to speak about those things they think are important
        
        This contrasts with the structured interview, where the researcher decides in advance what questions are worth asking and limits interviewees to fixed range of possible answers
        
        By allowing them greater freedom to express their views, an unstructured interview is more likely to produce valid data
      - Checking Understanding
        
        In structured interviews, there is a great danger that the interviewee misunderstands the questions, or the interviewer misunderstands the answer
        
        Questions can be explained and follow-up questions can be asked
      - Flexibility
        
        The interviewer is not restricted to a fixed set of questions in advance, but can explore whatever seems interesting or relevant
        
        The researcher can formulate new ideas and hypotheses and then put them to the test as they arise during the course of the interview
      - Exploring Unfamiliar Topics
        
        With structured interviewers, researchers need to have some knowledge of the subject and preferably also a clear hypothesis before they start interviewing
        
        Unstructured interviews may be more useful, precisely because they are open-ended and exploratory
        
        Some sociologists use unstructured interviews as a starting point to develop their initial ideas about a topic
    - - Practical Problems
        
        Time and sample size
        
        Unstructured interviews take a long time to conduct
        
        This limits the number that can be carried out and means that the researcher will have a relatively small sample
        
        Training
        
        The interviewer needs to have a background in sociology so they can recognise where the interviewee has made a sociologically important point and so they can probe further with an appropriate line of questioning
        
        Interpersonal Skills
        
        Interviewers need to establish the rapport that is essential if interviewees are to answer fully and honestly
      - Representativeness
        
        The smaller numbers mean that it is more likely that the sample interviewed will not be representative
        
        This means that it will be harder to make valid generalisations based on the findings of interviews
      - Reliability
        
        Unstructured interviews are not standardised
        
        This makes it virtually impossible for another researcher to replicate the interviews and check the findings or compare them
      - Quantification
        
        It is difficult to count up and quantify the numbers of interviewees giving answers
        
        As a result, the lack of quantitative data makes unstructured interviews less useful for establishing cause-and-effect relationships and hypothesis testing that is preferred by positivists
      - Validity
        
        Critics argue that the fact that they involve an interaction between interviewer and interviewee colours and distorts the information obtained