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theories and methods - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Non-participant observation (NPO) The researcher simply observes without taking part.
        
        Participant observation (PO) The researcher observes while taking part in the group.
        
        Overt observation The researcher's true identity and purpose are known to those being studied.
        
        Covert observation The researcher conceals their true identity and purpose, usually posing as a member of the group.
        
        Structured observation Observations are recorded using an observation schedule or checklist.
  - - - Their informality allows the interviewer to develop rapport and empathy, putting the interviewee at ease and encouraging them to open up.
        
        Training needs to be more thorough and interviewers need both sociological insight and good interpersonal skills to establish rapport.
        
        They take a long time - often several hours each. This reduces sample size.
        
        They produce large amounts of data, which takes time to transcribe. The absence of pre-coded answers makes analysis and categorisation of data difficult.
        
        They are very flexible, with no fixed set of questions. New hypotheses can be developed and tested as they arise during the interview.
        
        They are useful where the subject is one we know little about. Because they are open-ended and exploratory, they allow us to learn as we go along.
        
        Because there are no pre-set questions, they allow the interviewee more opportunity to speak about things that they think are important
    - - Involvement: For interpretivists, understanding comes through involvement. By developing rapport, the researcher can see the world through the interviewee's eyes.
        
        Grounded theory: Interpretivists reject the positivist idea that research begins with a fixed, testable hypothesis. Instead, we should approach the research with an open mind to discover the truth.
        
        Interviewees can raise issues:, bringing fresh insights. The interviewer's probing helps interviewees focus their thoughts.
        
        Open-ended questions; permit interviewees to express themselves in their own words and reveal their true meanings.
    - - Positivists reject Uls as unscientific, lacking objectivity, reliability and representativeness.
        
        Reliability: Uls are not reliable, because they are not a standardised measuring instrument.
        
        Quantification Open-ended questions mean it is harder to categorise and quantify answers.
        
        Representativeness: Sample sizes are often very small, making it harder to make valid generalisations about the wider population
        
        Validity Interaction between interviewer and interviewee undermines validity.
  - - - Some groups are easier to enter; e.g. joining a football crowd is easier than joining a criminal gang. Joining often depends on personal skills, pure chance, or the researcher's class, age, gender etc.
        
        The observer may have to overcome suspicions and win the group's trust, e.g. by befriending a key informant.
    - - Once accepted, the researcher is faced with a dilemma: they must be involved in the group to understand it fully, yet they must also be detached from the group to remain objective.
        
        The longer the researcher spends in the group, the more chance they will ease to notice things that would earlier have struck them as noteworthy.
    - - But if the research is conducted on and off over a period of time, there is a problem with
        making continual readjustments.
        
        Loyalty to the group may prevent the researcher from disclosing all they have learnt.
  - - - The researcher:
        
        Can behave normally and opt out of dangerous activities.
        
        Needs no special knowledge or personal characteristics.
        
        Can ask naive but important questions, take notes openly and use other methods to check observations.
        
        May be prevented by the group from entering.
        
        Risks creating the Hawthorne effect, undermining validity.
    - - The researcher:
        
        Must maintain an act, which can be stressful and may need detailed knowledge of the group's way of life before joining. May have to engage in dangerous activities.
        
        May have no other way of obtaining data.
        
        Cannot ask naive questions, has to rely on memory and write notes in secret, and cannot combine observation with overt methods
        
        Doesn't risk altering the group's behaviour too much.
    - - There are other practical issues for the researcher who chooses to use PO.
        
        Insight We gain insight into other people's lives by putting ourselves in their place - a process known as verstehen. This produces large amounts of rich, detailed qualitative data that give us a 'feel' for what it is like to be a member of the group.
        
        Access PO may be the only method of studying certain groups, e.g. deviants may be suspicious of outsiders.
        
        Flexibility PO is very flexible. Researchers enter the research with a relatively open mind and can formulate new hypotheses arising from their experiences
        
        Practical limitations Fieldwork is very time-consuming, sometimes taking years, and produces large amounts of qualitative data, which can be hard to analyse and categorise. The researcher needs training; observation can be stressful and sometimes dangerous. Powerful groups may be able to prevent sociologists participating
  - - - Validity: through involvement PO involves a high level of involvement with the group being studied. By experiencing the group's life first hand, the researcher gets close to people's lived reality, gaining a deep understanding of their meanings.
        
        Flexibility and grounded theory By starting without a pre-formed hypothesis or questions, researchers can modify their ideas in the course of the research to produce grounded theory: concepts and hypotheses grounded in the observed realities, rather than imposed by the researcher.
        
        By spending lengthy periods of time with a group, we are able to see actors' meanings as they develop
    - - Positivists reject the use of PO as unscientific for several reasons:
        Representativeness The group studied is often very small, selected haphazardly and therefore unrepresentative.
        
        Thus, although PO may provide valid insights into the particular group, these internally valid insights are not necessarily externally valid (generalisable to the wider population).
        Reliability PO is unsystematic and lacks reliability because it is not a standardised, scientific measuring instrument.
        
        The research depends heavily on the personal skills and characteristics of the lone researcher.
        
        Qualitative data from PO makes comparisons with other studies difficult
        Bias and lack of objectivity The researcher's deep involvement with the group results in a lack of objectivity and the danger of over-identifying with the group.
        
        The sociologist may conceal sensitive information.
        
        PO appeals to sociologists whose sympathies often lie with the underdog, such as interactionists.
        
        Positivists argue that findings from PO merely reflect the values and subjective impressions of the observer.
        
        From the large amount of data collected, the researcher must make judgments about what to omit from the final account, and this will reflect their values
    - - When positivists use observational methods, they generally favour structured non-participant observation:
        
        It is quicker, so a larger, more representative sample can be studied.
        
        The observer remains detached: they do not 'go native' and lose objectivity.
        
        It uses standardised observational categories.
        
        However, interpretivists reject structured observation because it imposes the researcher's view of reality.
    - - Covert PO raises serious ethical issues:
        
        It involves deceiving people in order to obtain information by pretending to be their friend
        
        It is normally impossible to gain informed consent.
        
        Observers may have to lie about why they are leaving the group.
        
        They may have to participate in immoral or illegal acts as part of their 'cover'
        
        PO leads to close personal attachments with the group, so the researcher risks over-identifying. This may result in condoning ethically unacceptable behaviour.
    - - PO is normally associated with 'action' perspectives, especially interactionism.
        
        Interactionists see society as constructed from the bottom up' through the face-to-face interactions of individual actors. PO is a valuable tool for examining these interactions.
        
        Structural sociologists (e.g. Marxists, functionalists) see this as ignoring the macro structural forces that shape behaviour, e.g. class inequality.
  - - - Sociologists may use a variety of documents in their research, such as:
        
        Written texts, e.g. diaries, letters, e-mails, SMS texts, websites, novels, newspapers, school reports, government reports, medical records, parish registers, bank statements, graffiti
        
        Other texts, e.g. paintings, drawings, photos, recorded or broadcast material from film,
        TV, music, radio, home video.
        We can identify different tvpes of documents:
        
        Public documents from government departments, schools, welfare agencies, businesses, charities etc, e.g. Ofsted reports, council meeting minutes, media output, company accounts, records of parliamentary debates, reports of public enquiries.
        
        Personal documents are first-person accounts of events and personal experiences, e.g. letters, diaries, photo albums, autobiographies.
        
        Historical documents are personal or public documents created in the past.
    - - Documents may be the only source of information available, e.g. when studying the past.
        
        They are a quick and cheap source of large amounts of data. Someone else has already gathered or created the information.
        
        However, it is not always possible to gain access to them
        
        Individuals and organisations create documents for their own purposes, not the sociologist's, so they may not answer the sociologist's questions.
  - - - Interpretivists believe documents give us a valid picture of actors' meanings; e.g. the rich qualitative data of diaries and letters give an insight into the writer's worldview.
        
        Thomas and Znaniecki's (1919) interactionist study of Polish migration and social change used a variety of documents: 764 letters, autobiographies, and public documents (newspaper articles, court and social work records)
        
        Because documents are not written with the sociologist in mind, they are more likely to be an authentic statement of their author's views.
        
        However, a document may lack validity. Scott (1990) identifies three reasons for this:
        - Authenticity, e.g. a famous person's supposed diary may be a forgery.
        
        Credibility Is it believable? It may lack credibility e.g. if written long after the events it describes.
        
        Misinterpretation The sociologist may misinterpret what it meant to the writer and the intended audience. Different sociologists may interpret the same document differently.
    - - Positivists regard documents as unreliable sources, since they are often not standardised.
        
        Every person's diary is unique, even when each diarist is recording the same events.
    - - Documents may be unrepresentative because some groups may not create them; e.g. the illiterate don't write letters.
        
        The evidence in the documents that we have access to may not be typical of evidence in other documents that we don't have access to.
    - - Concerns about informed consent vary according to the type of document. Public documents are already in the public domain, so no consent is required.
        
        Where documents relating to the activities of public organisations have been 'leaked' to the researcher, informed consent obviously will not have been obtained.
        
        Obtaining informed consent to use private documents can be difficult. This may include both the author and anyone else referred to in the document.
        
        With historical documents, there is less concern if those involved are dead.
    - - Content analysis is a method of analysing documents, e.g. news broadcasts, magazine stories, newspaper articles. There are two types: formal content analysis and thematic analysis
        Formal content analysis produces quantitative data from qualitative content.
        
        Usually a representative sample of material is selected. Then categories are decided on and used to code (i.e. classify) the coverage of the issue being investigated.
        
        FCA is attractive to positivists because they regard it as producing objective, representative, quantitative data from which generalisations can be made. It is also reliable.
        Thematic analysis is a qualitative analysis of the content of media texts. It has been used by interpretivists and feminists. A small number of cases are selected for in-depth analysis. The aim is to reveal the underlying meanings 'encoded' in the documents.
- - - - Radical feminists argue that the personal is political:
        
        All relationships involve power and they are political when one individual tries to dominate another. Personal relationships between the sexes are therefore political because men dominate women through them.
        
        All relationships involve power and they are political when one individual tries to dominate another. Personal relationships between the sexes are therefore political because men dominate women through them.
        
        Radical feminists therefore focus on the ways in which patriarchal power is exercised through personal relationships, often through sexual or physical violence. For example, Brownmiller arques that fear of rape deters women from going out alone at night.
        
        Sexuality Malestream sociology regards sexuality as a natural biolodical urge and thus outside the scope of sociology. Radical feminists argue that patriarchy socially constructs sexuality so as to satisfy men's desires; e.g. the portraval of women in pornography as passive sex obiects.
    - - Given that patriarchy and women's oppression are reproduced through personal and sexual relationships, these must be transformed if women are to be free.
        
        Separatism some fadical deminite a vocare separatism - living apart from men and creating a new culture of female independence, free from patriarchy.
        
        Consciousness-raising Radical feminists arque for women.only consciousness-raising groups that may lead to collective action, e.g. 'reclaim the night' marches.
        
        Political lesbianism Some radical feminists arque that heterosexual relationships are sleeping with the enemy and that lesbians argue that heterosexuesive form of sexually
  - - - Liberal feminists also want cultural change because traditional prejudices and stereotypes about gender differences are a barrier to equality. For example, beliefs that women are less rational and more dominated by emotion are used to legitimate their exclusion from decision-making roles and their confinement to childrearing and housework
    - - Liberal feminists distinguish between sex and gender:
        
        Sex refers to biological differences between males and females.
        
        Gender refers to culturally constructed differences between the 'masculine' and 'feminine' roles and identities assigned to males and females.
        
        While sex differences are seen as fixed, gender differences vary between cultures and over time. Thus, what is considered a proper role for women in one society or at one time may be disapproved of in another.
    - - Sexist attitudes and stereotypical beliefs about gender are culturally constructed and transmitted through socialisation.
        
        Therefore we must change society's socialisation patterns e.g. promoting appropiate role models in educaion and the family, and challenging gender stereotyping in the media
        
        Over time, liberal feminsts believe such actions will produce cultural change and gender equality will become the norm
        
        Liberal feminism sees men and women as equally capable of performing the same roles, traditional gender roles prevent both men and women from leading fulfilling lives.
        
        This approach is the feminist theory that is closest to a consensus view of society - gender conflicts are not seen as inevitable and can be changed.
  - - - Butler argues that the white, western middle-class women who dominate the feminist movemnt have falsely claimed to represent universal womenhood - but women are not a single entity who all share the same behaviour
        
        There is no fixed essence of what it is to be a woman, because identities are constituted through discourses and there are many difference ones in cultures and times
        
        Poststructuralism enables feminists to 'de-construct' different discourses reveal how they subordiante women
- - - - Closed systems Keat and Urry (1982) argue that lab experiments are only suitable for studying closed systems where all relevant variables can be controlled. ndividuals are unique We cannot 'match' members of the control and experimental groups exactly. Studying the past We cannot control variables that were acting in the past. Small samples Lab experiments can usually only study small samples.
        The Hawthorne effect Subjects' behaviour may change because they know they are being studied
    - - Informed consent means gaining subjects' agreement to take part, having first explained the nature, purpose and risks of the experiment.
        
        Harm to subjects Research should not harm the subjects without a compelling justification.
        
        reating subjects fairly Where the experimental group are seen to be benefiting, e.g. pupils be gaining from a trial teaching method, this is unfair to the control group.
    - - Positivists favour lab experiments for their reliability. However, even positivists recognise problems. Interpretivists criticise laboratory experiments as lacking validity.
    - - Reliability is important because replication enables us to check a researcher's results. Positivists regard the lab experiment as highly reliable because:
        
        The original researcher can specify the steps in the experiment, so others can re-run it.
        
        It produces quantitative data, so results can be compared.
        
        It is detached and obiective - the researcher just manipulates the variables and records the results.
    - - Representativeness is important to positivists because they aim to make generalisations about behaviour. However, findings may lack representativeness or external validity.
        Small samples may mean findings cannot be generalised.
        
        Lack of external validity: the more control, the more unlike the real world the experiment becomes
        
        Internal validity may also be lacking because of the artificiality of the lab environment.
    - - Interpretivists claim humans are different from natural phenomena. We have free will and choice.
        Interpretivists claim humans are different from natural phenomena.
        Our actions are based on meanings, not 'caused' by external forces. This means they cannot be explained through the cause-and-effect relationships experiments seek.
  - - - Sociologists sometimes use field experiements to overcome the lack of validity of lab experiments.
        
        They differ from lab experiments in two ways: they take place in the subjects natural surrondings, and the subjects do not know they are in an experiemnet.
        
        The researcher manipulates variables to see what effect they have; e.g. Rosenthal and Jacobson manipulated teachers' expectations by misleading them about pupils' abilities.
        Actor tests and correspondence tests are field experiments
        
        To test for discrimination in employmant, Brown and Gay (1985) sent a white and a black actor for interviews for new employees. The actors were matched for age, qualifications, etc. so any differences in job offers could have been due to discrimination.
    - - The comparative method is another alternative to lab experiments. It is carried out only in the mind of the sociologist - a 'thought experiment'. It identifies two groups that are alike in all major respects except for the one variable that they are interested in. It then compares them to see if this one difference has any effect, e.g. Durkheim's (1897) study of suicide.
  - - - They are a quick, cheap way to gather large amounts of quantitative data from large numbers of people, widely spread geographically. There is no need to recruit interviewers - respondents complete the questionnaires themselves.
        
        Data is easily quantified and can be computer-processed to reveal relationships between variables
        
        Data is often limited and superficial because questionnaires need to be fairly brief to encourage people to complete them.
        
        Incentives may be needed to persuade respondents to comolete the questionnaire.
        
        With a postal questionnaire, you do not know if it was received or who completed It.
        
        Low response rates are a major problem, sometimes caused by faulty questionnaire design. e.g. complex language. A higher response rate can be obtained by sending follow-up questionnaires.
        
        Questionnaires are inflexible and cannot explore anv new areas of inferest. Questionnaires are only snapshots
    - - Intro and exp.
        
        Hypothesis testing Positivists follow the natural science model to discover causal laws.
        
        Ouestionnaires are attractive to positivists because they yield quantitative data about variables. This enables researchers to test hypotheses and to identify correlations and cause-and-effect relationships between variables.
        
        Reliability (replicability) Other researchers can easily replicate the original research by using the same questionnaire.
      - Representativeness
        
        Positivists favour questionnaires because they are large-scale, distributed quickly and cheaply by post or e-mail over wide geographical areas and usually use sampling techniques that give a representative sample.
        However, representativeness can be undermined by low response rate, especially if those who do return their questionnaires differ in some way from those who don't.
      - Sampling
        
        Positivists aim to produce generalisations that apply to all cases. But as they cannot study every case, they must choose a sample from the population they are interested in.
        
        The sample is drawn from a sampling frame - a list of members of the research population.
        
        Different techniques for selecting a sample include: random sampling, where the sample is selected purely by chance; quasi-random sampling, e.g. selecting every 10th name in a list; stratified random sampling subdivides the population into the relevant categories and randomly selects a sample of each. Quota sampling is similar. Researchers look for the right number (quota) of people required in each category
        
        Non-representative sampling (e.g. snowball or opportunity sampling) may be used where there is no sampling frame for the population.
      - Detachment and objectivity
        
        For positivists, scientific research is objective (unbiased) and detached: values are kept separate from the research and not allowed to 'contaminate' findings. Positivists see questionnaires as a detached, scientific approach, since the sociologist's personal involvement with respondents is kept to a minimum. Unlike in an interview, no researcher is present to influence the answers.
      - Ethical issues
        
        Questionnaires pose few ethical problems. Even where questions are about sensitive issues, respondents are not obliged to answer them.
        
        Parental consent may be required for questionnaires with children.
        
        Confidentiality is assured, since most questionnaires are completed anonymously.
      - Interpretivism and questionnaires
        
        Interpretivists seek to discover the meanings underlying our actions and from which we construct social reality. They tend to reject questionnaires because they cannot yield valid data about actors' meanings.
        
        Detachment Interpretivists reject the detachment and objectivity of questionnaires because they believe this fails to produce valid data. Instead we need a subjective understanding of actors' meanings.
        
        Imposing the researcher's meanings Interpretivists aim to reveal actors' meanings. Questionnaires prevent this by imposing the researcher's framework of ideas on the respondent (the researcher has already decided what questions are important).
        
        Lying, forgetting and trying to impress create validity problems and the researcher is often unaware how far these issues affect responses.
    - - Written or self-completed questionnaires are the most widely-used form of social survey. e.g. the Census.
        Questionnaires ask respondents to provide answers to pre-set questions. These are usually closed-ended with a limited range of pre-set answers, but sometimes are open-ended, where respondents are free to answer in their own words.
  - - - Structured interviews are like standardised questionnaires. Each interview uses precisely the same questions, wording, tone of voice etc.
        
        Unstructured interviews (Uls) are open-ended. The interewer is free to vary the questions, wording etc.
        
        Semi structured interviews have the same set of questions in common, but the interviewer can also probe with additional questions.
        
        Group interviews are relatively unstructured. The researcher asks the group to discuss topics and records their views.
        In SIs, interviewees are asked a fixed set of questions, usually closed-ended with pre-coded answers, producing mainly quantitative data. Questions are read out and answers filled in by a trained interviewer. This involves a social interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee
    - - Structured interviews are quick and cheap to administer to quite large numbers of people
        
        They are suitable for gathering factual information, e.g. age, job, religion
        
        Closed-ended questions with pre-coded answers are easily quantified.
        
        Training interviewers is relatively straightforward and cheap.
        
        Response rates are usually higher than for questionnaires: people find it harder to turn
        down a face-to-face request.
        
        Structured interviews are inflexible: the interviewer must stick to the interview schedule, so no new leads can be followed up.
        
        Structured interviews are only snapshots taken at one moment in time.
    - - There are relatively few ethical problems in using SIs, since questions are generally about less sensitive topics. However:
        
        Some interviewees may feel under pressure to answer. Some feminists also regard SIs as potentially oppressive to women interviewees.
        
        Researchers should gain interviewees' informed consent, guarantee confidentiality and make it clear they have a right not to answer.
    - - Hypothesis testing :
        
        Positivists model their approach on the natural sciences, seeking laws of cause and effect
        
        Structured interviews enable them to test hypotheses by revealing correlations and posie. cause-and-effect relationships.
        Reliability:
        Structured interviews are a standardised measuring instrument. Pre-coded answers mean that a later researcher will categorise answers in the same way as the original researcher.
        
        As interviewees are asked exacly the same questions, we can compare their answers easily to identify similarities and differences.
        Representativeness:
        
        Structured interviews are relatively quick and cheap, enabling larger numbers to be conducted.
        
        Positivists need representative data as a basis for making generalisations and cause-and-effect statements about the wider population.
        
        However, those willing to be interviewed may be untypical, resulting in unrepresentative findings.
    - - They give interviewers little freedom to explain questions or clarify misunderstandings
        
        tructured interviews usually use closed-ended questions, forcing interviewees to choose from a limited number of pre-set answers.
        
        Interviewees may lie or exaggerate.
        
        The researcher has decided in advance what is important, which may not be what the interviewee thinks is important - thus imposing the researcher's ideas.
    - - Oakley argues that this positivistic, 'masculine' approach to research values objectivity and regards 'science' as more important than the interests of the people it researches.
        
        Graham (1983) claims that Sis distort women's experiences because they impose the researcher's categories on women.
    - - All interviews involve a social interaction, which may undermine validity.
        
        Status differences between interviewer and interviewee may affect honesty or willingness to cooperate.
        
        Cultural differences may lead to misunderstandings over meanings of words.
        
        Social desirability: interviewees may give false answers to make themselves seem more interesting.
        
        Interviewer bias: interviewers may ask 'leading' questions, influence answers by tone of voice, or identify too closely with interviewees.
        Though all interviews risk distorting the data, SIs may be less susceptible because the interaction is reduced, e.g. by following a fixed list of pre-set questions.
  - - - Marxism and stats
        
        Marxists see official statistics as performing an ideological function; e.g. politically sensitive data revealing the exploitative nature of capitalism may not be published.
        
        The definitions used in official statistics also conceal the realitv of capitalism: e.g. the definition of unemployment has often been changed, thereby reducing official unemployment rates.
      - Feminism and stats
        
        Many feminists reject the use of the quantitative survey methods that are often used to gather official statistics as a patriarchal model of research.
        
        Official statistics are created by the state, which maintains patriarchal oppression. They conceal or legitimate gender inequality; e.g. official statistics define full-time housewives as 'economically inactive
      - Interpretivists reject the positivist claim that official statistics are obiective social facts - statistics are merely social constructs.
        
        For example, official statistics on mental illness are a record of the number of people that doctors decide are suffering from a mental illness.
        
        To end up as a statistic, the individual must go through a series of interactions with medical professionals, family etc.
        
        Interpretivists argue that the statistics do not show the 'real rate' of mental ilness, but merely the decisions made by doctors to label people as mentally ill.
        
        Soft statistics, e.g. crime statistics, are less valid because they are often compiled from the decisions made by agencies such as police or courts. There is a 'dark figure' of unreported and/or unrecorded cases.
        
        Hard statistics, e.g. births and deaths, are much more valid; very few go unrecorded.
    - - Advantages
        
        Only the state has the resources to conducts expensive large scale surveys and sociologists can access these for free to use in their research.
        
        Only the state has the power to compel individuals to supply certain data. This reduces the problem of non-response
        
        Official statistics are collected at regular intervals showing trends and patterns.
        Disadvantages
        
        There may be no statistics available on the topic the sociologist is interested in.
        
        The definitions the state uses may be different from the sociologist's.
        
        The state may change the definitions it uses, making comparisons over time difficult.
    - - Positivists assume official statistics are reliable, objective social facts - a major source of representative, quantitative data that allows them to identity and measure behaviour patterns and trends. Statistics can be used to develop and test hypotheses, identify correlations and discover causal laws
        Representativeness
        
        Because they are very large-scale, some official statistics are extremely representative.
        Statistics from official surveys may be less representative because they are often only based on a sample of the relevant population. However, these surveys are still much bigger than most sociologists could afford to carry out.
        
        Great care is taken with sampling procedures to ensure representativeness when conducting official surveys.
        Reliability
        
        Statistics from official surveys, e.g. the Census, are particularly reliable. These are carried out using a standardised measuring instrument administered in the same way to all respondents.
        
        Statistics from registration data, e.g. births and deaths, result from standard procedures-so any properly trained person will allocate a given case to the same category.
    - - Official statistics are quantitative data created by the government or other official bodies on stats of birth and death rate, exam results etc
- - - - Weber saw both structural and action approaches as necessary for understanding human behaviour, arguing that an adequate explanation involves two levels:
        
        The level of cause, explaining the objective structural factors that shape behaviour.
        
        The level of meaning, understanding the subjective meanings that individuals attach to their actions.
        
        In his study of the rise of capitalism, at the level of structural cause, the Protestant Reformation introduced a new belief system, Calvinism. This changed people's worldview, leading to changes in their behaviour.
        
        At the level of subjective meaning, work had a religious meaning for the Calvinists, as a calling by God. As a result, they accumulated wealth and became the first modern capitalists.
    - - Weber classifies actions into four types, based on their meaning for the actor:
        
        Instrumentally rational action, where the actor calculates the most efficient means of achieving a given goal.
        
        Value-rational action towards a goal that the actor regards as desirable for its own sake, e.g. worshipping god in order to get to heaven.
        
        Traditional action is customary, routine or habitual action.
        
        Affectual action expresses emotion, e.g. weeping out of grief
  - - - Symbolic interactionism focuses on how we create the social world through our interactions. These interactions are based on the meanings we give to situations, conveyed through symbols, especially language.
    - - 1 Symbols versus instincts
        Unlike animals whose behaviour is governed by instincts, we respond to the world by giving meanings to the things that are significant to us. We create a world of meanings by attaching symbols to the things around us.
        Therefore there is an interpretive phase between a stimulus and our response to it, in which we interpret its meaning.
        2 Taking the role of the other
        We interpret other people's meaning by taking their role, i.e. putting ourselves in their place, seeing ourselves as they see us.
        
        This ability develops through interaction. Young children internalise significant others such as parents, while later in life we see ourselves from the point of view of society in general-the generalised other.
    - - Blumer identified three key principles of interactionism:
        
        Our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, people etc. They are not automatic responses to stimuli
        
        These meanings arise from interactions and are to some extent negotiable and changeable.
        
        The meanings we give to situations are mainly the result of taking the role of the other. Blumer argues that although our action is partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others, there is always some room for choice in how we perform our roles.
    - - Labelling theorists use three key interactionist concepts:
        
        Definition of the situation Defining something labels it. Thomas argues that if people define a situation as real, it will have real consequences: if we believe something to be true, this will affect how we act and in turn may affect those involved.
        
        Looking-glass self Cooley argues that our self-concept arises out of our ability to take the role of the other. Others act as a looking-glass to us: we see our self mirrored in how they respond to us and we become what they see us as.
        
        Career Becker and Lemert apply this concept, e.g. to mental patients. The individual has a career running from 'pre-patient' with certain symptoms, through labelling by a psychiatrist, to hospital in-patient, to discharge etc. 'Mental patient' may become our master status.
    - - Whereas labelling theory sees the individual as the passive victim of other people's labels, Goffman describes how we actively construct our 'self' by manipulating other people's impressions of us.
        
        This is a dramaturgical approach: it uses analogies with drama, e.g. 'actors', 'scripts,'props', 'backstage' etc.
        1 Presentation of self and impression management
        Two key dramaturgical concepts are the presentation of self and impression management - we seek to present a particular image to our audiences, controlling the impression our 'performance' gives.
        
        impression management techniques include tone of voice, gestures, props and settings such as dress, make-up, equipment, décor and premises.
        
        As in the theatre, there is a 'front' stage where we act out our roles, while backstage, we can step out of our role and 'be ourselves', e.g. teachers' behaviour in the classroom and staffroom.
        2 Roles
        There is a 'gap' or role distance between our real self and our roles, which are only loosely scripted by society and allow us a lot of freedom in how we play them.
        
        Role distance implies that we do not always believe in the roles we play. We may be calculating, manipulating audiences into accepting an impression that conceals ou true self.
  - - - In philosophy, the term 'phenomenon' describes things as they appear to our senses. Some philosophers argue that we can never have definite knowledge of what the world outside is really like; all we can know is what our mind tells us about it.
    - - Schutz applies this idea to the social world. We share the categories that we use to classify the world with other members of society.
        
        He calls these shared categories typifications. These enable us to organise our experiences into a shared world of meaning.
        -The meaning of an action varies according to its social context. Meaning is given by the context, not by the action itself, so meanings are potentially unclear and unstable.
        
        Fortunately, typifications make social order possible, because they give members of society a shared 'life world' of commonsense knowledge that we can use to make sense of our experience.
        
        Schutz calls this 'recipe knowledge': like a recipe, we can follow it without thinking too much, using it to make sense of the everyday world.
        
        The social world is an inter-subjective one that can only exist when we share the same meanings.
        
        The fact that society appears to us as a real, objective thing outside of us simply shows that all members of society share the same meanings. In turn, this allows us to cooperate and achieve goals.
  - - - Ethnomethodology also rejects the idea of society as a real objective structure 'out there'.
        
        Garfinkel argues that social order is created from the 'bottom up'. It is something members of society actively construct in everyday life using their commonsense knowledge.
        
        The sociologist's task is thus to uncover the taken-for-granted rules people use to construct social reality.
        
        Indexicality refers to the fact that meanings are always potentially unclear. This is a threat to social order, because if meanings are unclear or unstable, communication and cooperation becomes difficult and social relationships will break down.
        
        Reflexivity is the use of our commonsense knowledge to construct a sense of meaning and order, and so prevent indexicality occurring.
        
        Language is of vital importance in achieving reflexivity. It gives us a sense of reality existing 'out there', although in fact all we have done is to construct a set of shared meanings.
        
        Garfinkel used breaching experiments to disrupt people's expectations of a situation (e.g. students behaving like lodgers in their parents' home).
        
        These show how the orderliness of everyday situations is not inevitable and how we use our commonsense, taken-for-granted assumptions to actively create social order.
  - - - Giddens seeks to combine the two approaches into a single unified theory of structure and action.
        
        He argues that there is a duality of structure. Structure and agency (i.e. action) are two sides of the same coin; neither can exist without the other:
        
        Our actions produce, reproduce and change structures over time and space, while these structures are what make our actions possible in the first place.
        
        Giddens calls this relationship structuration.
    - - For Giddens, structure has two elements:
        
        Rules The norms, customs and laws that govern action.
        
        Resources both economic resources and power over others.
        
        Rules and resources can be either reproduced or changed through human action. However, our actions generally tend to reproduce rather than change them. This is because society's rules contain a stock of knowledge about how to live our lives, so our routine activities tend to reproduce the existing structure of society.
        
        We also reproduce existing structures because we have a deep-seated need for ontological security - a need to feel that the world is orderly, stable and predictable.
    - - Change can happen because:
        
        We 'reflexively monitor' (reflect upon) our actions and we can deliberately choose a new course of action. In late modern society, where tradition no longer dictates action, this is even more likely.
        
        Our actions may have unintended consequences, producing changes that were not part of our goal
- - - - Positivists believe it is possible and desirable to apply the logic and methods of the natural sciences to the study of society, to solve social problems and achieve progress
        
        Reality exists outside and independently of the human mind so, like the natural world, society too is an objective factual reality.
        
        Reality is patterned, and these empirical (factual) patterns or regularities can be studieo through systematic observation and measurement.
        
        From this, sociologists can discover the laws that determine how society works, by using inductive reasoning verified through research evidence.
        
        Positivists aim to produce scientific laws about how society works in order to predict future events and to guide social policies.
    - - Positivists believe sociology should take the natural science experimental method as the mode for research because the investigator can test a hypothesis in a systematic and controlled way
        Positivists use quantitative data to measure patterns of behaviour (e.g. suicide rates). Ins allows them to produce statements about the relationship between the facts they are investigating, and thereby discover laws of cause and effect.
        Positivists use methods that give maximum objectivity and detachment, i.e. quantitative methods such as experiments and official statistics.
  - - - Inderpretivists do not believe sociology can or should adopt the logic and methods of ne natural sciences, because these are unsuited to the study of human beings.
        For interpretivists, sociology is about people's internal meaninos, not external cause anerefree sociology cannot be a science, because science only deals with laws or cate and effect, and not meanings.
        Because of this, interpretivists reject the use of natural science methods and cause
    - - interpretivists argue that there is a fundamental difference between the subject matter of the natural sciences and that of sociology.
        
        Natural science studies matter, which has no consciousness. Its behaviour is an automatic reaction to an external stimulus; matter doesn't choose how to act.
        
        Sociology studies people, who do have consciousness and choice. People make sense of their world by attaching meanings to it and these are internal to their consciousness.
        
        Individuals are not puppets manipulated by external 'social facts', but autonomous beings who construct their social world through the meanings they give to it.
    - - The purpose of sociology is to uncover these meanings.
        Interpretivists argue that to discover the meanings people hold, we need to see the world from their viewpoint using what Weber calls verstehen (empathetic understanding) to grasp their meanings.
    - - Interactionists believe we can have causal explanations, but through a 'bottom-up' approach, or grounded theory. Rather than entering the research with a fixed hypothesis, as positivists do, ideas emerge gradually from the observations made.
      - Phenomenologists and ethnomethodologists such as Atkinson completely reject the possibility of causal explanations of human behaviour. Their radically anti-structural view argues that society is not a real thing 'out there'.
    - - Postmodernists also reject natural science as a model for sociology, because they see it as merely a meta-narrative - just somebody's 'big story' - not as 'the truth'
        
        Science's account of the world is no more valid than any other, so there is no reason why science should be the model for sociology.
        
        Furthermore, a scientific approach is dangerous because it claims a monopoly of the truth and excludes other points of view - it is a form of domination.
        • Poststructuralist feminists share this view of scientific sociology. The quest for a single, scientific feminist theory is a form of domination, since it excludes many groups of women.
    - - Positivists see natural science as inductive reasoning or verificationism applied to the study of observable patterns. However, not everyone accepts the positivists' portrayal of the natural sciences and there are three major alternative views.
  - - - Popper rejects the positivist view that science is based on verificationism: the idea that we can prove a theory true by gathering evidence that supports it.
        
        Instead, what makes science unique is the opposite of verificationism - the principle of falsificationism. This is the idea that a statement is scientific if it is capable of being falsified (disproved) by the evidence.
        
        A good theory therefore is one that (a) is in principle falsifiable but when tested, in fact stands up to all attempts to disprove it and b) explains a great deal
        • All knowledge is provisional - there can neveroe austere mat any knowledge is true. A theory that appears true is simply one that has withstood attempts to falsity it so far.
        
        " For a theory to be falsifiable, it must be open to criticism from other scientists so that its flaws can be exposed and better theories developed.
    - - - Much sociology is unscientific because its theories could not under any circumstances be proved false, e.g. Marx's prediction that there will be a revolution - some day.
        
        However, sociology can be scientific by producing hypotheses that could be tested and in principle falsified.
        
        Popper acknowledges that sociological ideas may be of value because they may become testable at some later date and meanwhile can still be examined for clarity and logical consistency.
  - - - A paradigm is a shared framework held by members of a given scientific community - a kind of culture.
        
        The paradigm defines what their science is and provides them with a set of shared basic assumptions, principles and methods that allows them to do productive work.
        
        Scientists are socialised into the paradigm through their education and training, and come to accept it uncritically as true.
        
        A science cannot exist without a shared paradigm. Without one, there will only be rival schools of thought or perspectives, not a unified science.
        
        Normal science For most of the time, the paradigm goes unquestioned and scientists do
        'puzzle solving' within the paradigm.This allows the scientific community to accumulate knowledge.
        
        Anomalies However, from time to time, scientists obtain findings contrary to those predicted by the paradigm. If too many such anomalies are found, confidence in the paradigm declines.
        
        Crisis The science enters a period of crisis and scientists begin to formulate rival paradigms.
        
        Scientific revolution Eventually, one paradigm wins out and becomes accepted by the scientific community, allowing normal science to resume, but with a new set of basic assumptions and principles.
    - - Sociology is divided into competing perspectives so it is currently pre-paradigmatic and pre-scientific according to Kuhn's model of science.
        
        Sociology could only become a science if such disagreements were resolved and whether his Is even possible is open to doubt; e.g. even within perspectives, there are often disagreement Postmodernists argue that a paradigm would also not be closirable in sociology - too much like a meta-narrative.
  - - - Realists such as Keat and Urry stress the similarities between sociolocy and certain kinds of natural science in terms of the degree of control the rescarcher has over the variables being researched.
        Closed systems are those where the researcher can control and measure all the relevant variables and make precise predictions, e.g. through laboratory experiments.
        Open systems are those where the researcher cannot control and measure all the relevant variables and so cannot make precise predictions.
        
        Sociologists study open systems where the processes are too complex or large-scale to make exact predictions.
        -Realists reject the positivist view that science is only concerned with observable phenomena; e.g. physicists cannot directly observe the interior of a black hole in space, but they can still study it.
        
        Both natural and social science attempt to explain the causes of events in terms of underlying structures by observing their effects; e.g. we cannot directly see 'social class", but we can observe its effects on people's life chances.
        
        Unlike interpretivists, therefore, realists see little difference between natural science and sociology, except that some natural scientists are able to study closed systems under laboratory conditions.
- - - - Modernist theories (e.g. Marxism) are part of the Enlightenment project - the idea that through reason and science, we can discover true knowledge and progress to a better society.
    - - Modern society emerged from the late 18 century. Its characteristics include the nation-state; capitalism; mass production; scientific thinking; technology; individualism and the decline of tradition.
    - - Globalisation - the growing interconnectedness of societies - is occurring for several reasons:
        
        Economic changes Global networks dominate economic activity. The growth in transnational companies (TNCs) drives globalisation forward.
        
        Technological changes, e.g. the internet and air travel create time-space compression.
        
        Political changes The fall of communism and the growth of transnational bodies have created opportunities for global capitalism.
        
        Changes in culture and identity Westernised global culture makes it harder for cultures to exist in isolation. Globalisation undermines traditional sources of identity.
    - - Rapid changes linked to globalisation have led to new questions:
        
        What kind of society do we now live in - modern society, or a new, postmodern society?
        
        What kind of theory can explain today's society - postmodernism, or some version of modernism?
        
        The Enlightenment project - can we achieve true knowledge to improve society?
        Three theories offer answers to these questions: postmodernism; theories of late modernity; Marxist theories of postmodernity.
  - - - For postmodernists, we now live in a new era: postmodernity. Postmodern society is a fundamental break with modernity and requires a new kind of theory to explain it.
    - - Postmodernists argue that there are no objective criteria to prove whether a theory is true.
        
        Therefore any theory claiming to have the truth about how to create a better society, e.g. Marxism, is a mere meta-narrative - just someone's version of reality.
        
        We should celebrate the diversity of views rather than seek to impose one version of the truth.
    - - In postmodern society, the media create hyper-reality - the media's signs appear more real than reality itself, leaving us unable to distinguish image from reality.
        
        If we cannot even grasp reality, we have lost the power to change it to improve society - the Enlightenment project is unachievable.
    - - The media produce an endless stream of images, making culture unstable and fragmented; there is no longer a coherent set of shared values. People cease to believe any one version of the truth.
        
        Identity becomes destabilised: we can change it simply by changing our consumption patterns, picking and mixing media-produced images to define ourselves.
    - - It ignores the ruling class' use of the media as a tool of ideological domination.
        
        It is wrong to claim people cannot distinguish between reality and media image.
        
        By assuming all views are equally true, it becomes just as valid to deny the Nazis murdered millions as to affirm it.
        
        Critics argue that we can use knowledge to solve human problems.
  - - - Unlike postmodernism, theories of late modernity (TLM) argue that today's rapid changes are not the dawn of a new, postmodern era, but a continuation of modern society.
        
        We are now in late or high modernity. Key features of modernity have now become intensified; e.g. change has always been typical of modern society, but now it has gone into overdrive.
        
        Unlike postmodernism, TLM subscribe to the Enlightenment project.
    - - High modernity has two key features that encourage globalisation and rapid change:
        Disembedding is 'the lifting out of social relations from local contexts of interaction'. Factors such as credit break down geographical barriers and make interaction more impersonal.
        Reflexivity Tradition and custom no longer serve as a guide to how we should act.
        
        We are thus forced to become reflexive - to reflect on and modify our actions in the light of information about risks.
        
        This means we are continually re-evaluating our ideas. Under these conditions, culture becomes increasingly unstable.
    - - We now face new high consequence risks, e.g. environmental harm. Beck calls these 'manufactured risks' as they result from technology, not nature.
        
        However, unlike postmodernists, Giddens and Beck believe we can make rational plans based on objective knowledge to reduce these risks and achieve progress.
  - - - Like Beck and Giddens, but unlike postmodernists, Marxists Jameson (1984) and Harvey (1989) believe in the Enlightenment project of achieving objective knowledge to improve society.
        
        However, they agree with postmodernists that we have moved from modernity to postmodernity.
        
        But rather than see this as a new type of society, Marxists see it as merely the most recent stage of capitalism.
    - - Postmodernity arose out of the capitalist crisis of the 1970s, which gave rise to a new way of achieving profitability, which Harvey calls 'flexible accumulation' (FA).
        
        FA involves the use of ICT, an expanded service and finance sector, job insecurity and working 'flexibly' to fit employers' needs. It involves production of customised products for 'niche' markets and brings many of the features of postmodernity:
        
        Customised products promote cultural diversity.
        
        Leisure, culture and identity become commodities produced for profit.
        
        Global financial markets and ICT produce compression of time and space.
        
        It brings political changes, especially the weakening of the working-class movement. In its place, a variety of oppositional movements emerge, e.g. feminism, environmentalism.
- - - - The organic analogy Functionalists see society as like a biological organism. Parsons identifies three similarities between society and an organism.
        
        System Both are self-regulating systems of inter-related, interdependent parts that fit together in fixed ways. In society, the parts are social institutions, individual roles etc.
        
        System needs Organisms have needs that must be met if they are to survive; e.g. society's members must be socialised if society is to continue.
        
        Functions The function of any part of a system is the contribution it makes to meeting the system's needs and thus ensuring its survival. For example, the circulatory system of the body carries nutrients to the tissues. Similarly, the economy meets society's need for food and shelter.
    - - Parsons' central question is 'how is social order possible?' How are individuals able to cooperate harmoniously?
        
        Social order is achieved through a central value system or shared culture: a set of norms, values, beliefs and goals shared by members of a society.
        
        Parsons calls this value consensus. He sees it as the glue that holds society together.
    - - Value consensus makes social order possible by integrating individuals into the social system and directing them towards meeting the system's needs.
        For Parsons, the system has two mechanisms for ensuring that individuals conform to shared norms and meet the system's needs:
        
        Socialisation Through socialisation in the family, education, work etc, individuals internalise the system's norms and values so that society becomes part of their personality structure.
        
        Social control Positive sanctions reward conformity, negative ones punish deviance.
        
        Socialisation and social control ensure that individuals are oriented towards pursuing society's shared goals and meeting its needs.
        
        By following social norms, each individual's behaviour will be relatively predictable and stable, enabling cooperation to occur.
    - - Parsons' model of the social system is like a series of building blocks:
        
        Norms At the bottom of the system specific norms or rules govern individuals actions.
        
        Status-roles are 'clusters' or sets of norms that tell us how the occupant of a status (social position) must act; e.g. teachers must not show favouritism.
        
        Institutions are clusters of status-roles; e.g. the family is an institution made up of the related roles of mother, father, child etc.
        
        Sub-systems are groups of related institutions. For example, shops, farms, factories and banks form part of the economic sub-system.
        -The social system These sub-systems together make up the social system as a whole.
    - - Parsons identifies four basic needs, summarised as AGIL' from their initial letters. Each need is met by a separate sub-system of institutions:
        
        Adaptation of the environment to meet people's material needs (e.g. food, shelter). These are met ny the economic sub-system
        
        Goal attainment Society needs to set goals and allocate resources to achieve them. This is the function of the political sub-system.
        
        Integration The different parts of the system must be integrated together to pursue shared goals. This is performed by the sub-system of religion, education and the media.
        
        Latency refers to processes that maintain society over time. The kinship sub-system provides 'pattern maintenance' and 'tension management", ensuring individuals are motivated to continue performing their roles.
    - - Parsons identifies two types of society, each with its own typical pattern variables or sets of norms.
        
        Traditional societies with ascribed status. Relationships are broad and multi-purpose; norms are particularistic (treating different people differently); immediate gratification is emphasised; the group's interests come first - collective orientation.
        
        Modern societies with achieved status. Relationships are limited to specific purposes, oin, are universalstic (same rules for everyone); deferred gratification is emphasised; individualistic orientation.
    - - Change is a gradual, evolutionary process of increasing complexity. Just like organisms, societies move from simple to complex structures. - In traditional society, a single institution - kinship - performs many functions, e.g. providing political leadership, socialisation and religious functions.
        
        As society develops, the kinship system loses these functions, to factories, political parties, schools, churches etc.
        
        This is structural differentiation - a gradual process in which separate, functionally specialised institutions develop, each meeting a different need.
        
        Gradual change occurs through moving (or dynamic) equilibrium: as a change occurs in one part of the system, it produces compensatory changes in other parts.
  - - - The functionalist Merton argues that Parsons is wrong to assume that society is always a smooth-running, well-integrated system. He criticises three key assumptions made by Parsons:
        
        Indispensability Parsons sees everything in society - family, religion etc - as functionally indispensable in its existing form. Merton argues that this is an untested assumption and that there may be 'functional alternatives'.
        
        Functional unity According to Parsons, all parts of society are tightly integrated into a single whole, so a change in one part affects all other parts. However, complex modern societies have many parts, some of which may be only distantly 'related' to one another and may have 'functional autonomy' (independence) from others.
        
        Universal functionalism For Parsons, everything in society performs a positive function for society as a whole. Yet some things (e.g. poverty) may be functional for some groups (e.g. the rich) and dysfunctional for others (e.g. the poor).
    - - Merton also makes a useful distinction between 'manifest' (intended) and 'latent' (unintended) functions.
        
        This distinction helps to reveal the hidden connections between social phenomena that the actors themselves may be unaware of.
        
        For example, the manifest function of the Hopi Indian rain dance was to cause rain, but the latent function was to promote solidarity during hardship caused by drought.
  - - - Teleology is the idea that a thing exists because of its purpose or function. For example, functionalism claims that the family exists to socialise children - it explains the existence of the family in terms of its effect.
        
        Unfalsifiability Functionalism is unscientific because its claims are not falsifiable by testing. For example, it sees deviance as both dysfunctional and functional - something which could never be disproved!
    - - Postmodernists arque that functionalism cannot account for the diversity and instability that exist in today's society.
        Functionalism is an example of a meta-narrative or 'big story' that attempts to create a model of the workings of society as a whole. Such an overall theory is no longer possible because today's society is increasingly fragmented.
    - - Wrong criticises functionalism's 'over-socialised' or deterministic view of individuals in which they have no free will or choice - they are mere puppets whose strings are pulled by the social system.
    - - Marxists argue that 'shared' values are not agreed but imposed on society in the interests of the dominant class.
        
        Conflict theorists see functionalism as a conservative ideology legitimating the status quo, e.g. assumptions of 'indispensability' help to justify the existing social order as inevitable
- - - - Marxism is a perspective based on the ideas of Karl Marx (1818-83). Like Durkheim, Marx saw both the harm caused by modern industrial society and the promise of progress that it held.
        Like Durkheim, Marx believed that it was possible to understand society scientifically (he described his theory as 'scientific socialism" and that this knowledge would point the way to a better world. In these ways, Marxism is a continuation of the Enlightenment project.
        Marx was not just a theorist; he was also a revolutionary socialist and his ideas came to form the basis of communism. Marxism subsequently became the official doctrine of the former Soviet Union.
    - - Materialism is the view that humans are beings with material needs, such as food and shelter, and must work to meet them using the forces of production.
        
        At first these forces are just unaided human labour, but over time people develop tools, machines etc. Humans also cooperate with one another, entering into social relations of production - ways of organising production.
        
        As the forces of production develop, the social relations of production also change. A division of labour develops that eventually becomes a division between two classes - a class that owns the means of production and a class of labourers.
        
        Production is then directed by the class of owners to meet their own needs. The forces and relations of production together are the mode of production.
    - - In the earliest stage of human history - primitive communism - everything is shared and there are no class divisions. But as the forces of production grow, different types of class society develop.
        
        In class societies, one class owns the means of production, enabling them to exploit the labour of others for their own benefit. In particular, they can control society's surplus product - the difference between what the labourers actually produce and what they need to subsist.
        
        Marx identifies three successive class societies:
        
        Ancient society, based on the exploitation of slaves legally tied to their owners.
        
        Feudal society, based on the exploitation of serfs legally tied to the land.
        
        Capitalist society, based on the exploitation of free wage labourers.
    - - Capitalism is based on the division between a class of owners, the bourgeoisie or capitalist class, and a class of labourers, the proletariat or working class. But unlike earlier class societies, capitalism has three distinctive features.
        
        The proletariat are legally free and separated from the means of production. Thus, because they do not own any means of production, they have to sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie in return for wages.
        
        Through competition, ownership of the means of production becomes concentrated in ever fewer hands; e.g. today's giant transnational corporations. This drives small independent producers into the ranks of the proletariat - they become proletarianised.
        Competition also forces capitalists to pay the lowest wages possible, causing the immiseration (impoverishment) of the proletariat.
        
        Capitalism continually expands the forces of production in its pursuit of profit, production becomes concentrated in ever-larger units and technological advances de-skill the workforce.
        
        Concentration of ownership and the de-skilling of the proletariat together produce class polarisation. That is, society divides into a minority capitalist class and a majority working class who 'face each other as two warring camps'.
    - - Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction. Polarising the classes, bringing the proletariat together in ever larger numbers and driving down their wages means capitalism creates the conditions under which the working class can develop a consciousness.
        The proletariat then moves from being merely a class in itself to becoming a class for itself, whose members are class conscious - aware of the need to overthrow capitalism.
    - - The class that owns the means of material production (e.g. factories, land) also owns and controls the means of mental production - the production of ideas.
        
        The dominant ideas in society are therefore the ideas of the economically dominant class - spread by institutions such as religion, education and the media.
        
        However, as capitalism impoverishes the workers, they begin to see through capitalist ideology and develop class consciousness.
    - - Arenation is the result of our loss of control over our labour and its products and therefore our separation from our true creative nature.
        Under capitalism, alienation reaches its peak because workers are completely separate under d have no control over the forces of production, and because the division of labor is at its most intense.
    - - The state exists to protect the interests of the class of owners who control it - the ruling class The state is made up of 'armed bodies of men': the army, police, prisons, courts etc.
        Previous revolutions had always been one minority class overthrowing another, but the proletarian revolution that overthrows capitalism will be the first revolution by the majority against the minority.
        It will abolish the state, create a classless communist society, abolish exploitation, replace private ownership with social ownership, and end alienation.
    - - Class:
        
        Marx sees class as the only important division. Weber argues that status and power differences can also be important sources of inequality; e.g. a 'power elite' can rule without actually owning the means of production, as in the former Soviet Union
        
        Marx's two-class model is simplistic. Weber sub-divides the proletariat into skilled and unskilled classes, and includes a white-collar middle class of office workers.
        Economic determinism:
        
        Marx's base-superstructure model is criticised for economic determinism. It fails to recognise that humans have free will and can bring about change through their conscious actions.
        
        Marx's base-superstructure model is criticised for economic determinism. It fails to recognise that humans have free will and can bring about change through their conscious actions.
    - - The absence or failure of revolutions in the West has led many Marxists to reject the economic determinism of the base-superstructure model. They have sought to explain why capitalism has persisted and how it might be overthrown. Two models have emerged.
        
        Humanistic or critical Marxism, e.g. Gramsci, has some similarities with action theorie and interpretive sociology.
        
        Scientific or structuralist Marxism, e.g. Althusser, is a structural approach with some similarities to positivist sociology.
  - - - For structuralist Marxists such as Althusser, it is not people's actions but social structures that shape history. The task of the sociologist is to reveal how these structures work.
        •Althusser's version of Marxism rejects both economic determinism and humanism.
    - - Marx stated that society's economic base determines its superstructure of institutions, ideologies etc, and that contradictions in the base cause changes in the superstructure.
        Althusser's structural determinism is more complex. In his model, capitalist society has three structures or levels:
        
        The economic level, comprising all those activities that involve producing something in order to satisfy a need.
        
        The political level, comprising all forms of organisation.
        
        The ideological level, involving the ways that people see themselves and their world.
    - - Although the economic level dominates in capitalism, the other two levels perform indispensable functions. The state performs political and ideological functions that ensure the reproduction (continuation) of capitalism.
        • He divides the state into two 'apparatuses':
        
        The repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) or 'armed bodies of men' that coerce the working class into complying with the will of the bourgeoisie. This is how Marxists have traditionally seen the state.
        
        The ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) manipulate the working class into accepting capitalism as legitimate. This is a much wider definition of the state than the traditional Marxist view.
    - - For structuralist Marxists, free will, choice and creativity are an illusion - everything is the product of underlying social structures.
        Humans are merely puppets and these unseen structures are the hidden puppet master, determining all our thoughts and actions.
        For Althusser, socialism will not come about because of a change in consciousness - as humanistic Marxists argue - but because of a crisis of capitalism resulting from what he calls over-determination: the contradictions in the three structures that occur relatively independently of each other.
- - - - Even when sociologists conduct research into social problems, there is no guarantee that government policy-makers will act on their findings.
        
        Many factors affect whether or not policy-makers use sociologists' research findings to shape their policies. These include electoral popularity, how far the researcher's value-stance matches the government's political ideology, the cost of implementing proposals, support or opposition from interest groups, and the possibility that critical sociology (e.g. Marxism) may be regarded as too extreme.
    - - A social problem is some piece of social behaviour that causes public and/or private misery and calls for collective action to solve it, e.g. poverty or crime.
        
        A sociological problem is any pattern of relationships that calls for sociological explanation.
        
        The two overlap, but a sociological problem can also include behaviour that society doesn't normally regard as a problem, e.g. why people are law-abiding.
        
        Many sociologists are interested in solving social problems through their research; e.g. sociologists who feel strongly about poverty or inequality have conducted research aimed at discovering solutions to these social problems.
        
        Some sociologists are employed by government departments such as the Home Office or the Department of Education, often having a direct input into policy-making.
  - - - Early positivists saw sociology as a science that would both discover the cause of social problems and provide their solutions. Science and reason could be used to improve society.
        
        Functionalists see society as based on value consensus, so the state serves the interests of society as a whole, implementing rational social policies for the good of all.
        
        For both functionalists and positivists, the sociologist's role is to provide the state with objective, scientific information on which it can base its policies.
        
        Functionalists favour policies that are sometimes referred to as 'piecemeal social engineering' - cautious, bit-by-bit change rather than wholesale, radical change.
    - - • The social democratic perspective on social policy favours a major redistribution of wealth and income from the rich to the poor.
        
        Sociologists should be involved in researching social problems and making policy recommendations to eradicate them. Townsend's research on poverty has led him to make recommendations for policies such as fairer, higher benefit levels.
    - - For postmodernists, it is impossible to discover objective truth. All knowledge produced by research is uncertain, and so sociological findings cannot provide a satisfactory basis for policy-making.
        
        Sociologists can only take the role of 'interpreters', offering one view of reality among many, and not the role of 'legislators' (law-makers).
    - - In the Marxist view, social policies serve the interests of capitalism, not those of society as a whole.
        
        Social policies provide ideological legitimation for capitalism; e.g. the welfare state gives it a 'human face'
        
        They maintain the labour force for further exploitation; e.g. the NHS keeps workers fit enough to work
        
        They are a means of preventing revolution; e.g. the creation of the welfare state was a way of buying off working-class opposition to capitalism
        
        For Marxists, the sociologist's role should thus be to reveal the exploitation that underpins capitalism and the way in which the ruling class use social policies to mask this.
    - - Feminists see society as patriarchal, benefiting men at women's expense. They see the state's social policies perpetuating women's subordination.
        
        Research by liberal feminists has had an impact in a number of policy areas; e.g. anti-discrimination and equal pay policies.
        
        Some radical feminist ideas have also had an influence on social policy, e.g. the establishment of women's refuges for women escaping domestic violence.
        
        However, many Marxist and radical feminists reiect the view that reformist social policies can liberate women and call for more radical changes that the existing state cannot deliver.
    - - The New Right believe that the state should have only limited involvement in society; e.g. state welfare provision should be minimal.
        
        State intervention undermines people's sense of responsibility, leading to greater social problems
        
        Murray argues that policies such as universal welfare benefits and council housing for lone parents act as ‘perverse incentives' that encourage a dependency culture.
        
        The New Right see the role of sociologists as being to propose policies that promote individual responsibility and choice.
        
        The New Right support a strong law and order policy and research by right realist criminologists, e.g. Broken Windows, has been influential in the introduction of zero tolerance policies.
- - - - For the early positivists Comte and Durkheim, sociology's job was to discover the truth about how society worked and to improve human life.
        
        Sociologists would be able to say with scientific certainty what was best for society.
        
        Marx too saw himself as a scientist. He believed he had discovered the truth about society's future and the inevitability of classless society.
    - - Weber distinguishes between value judgments and facts. He argues that a value can neither be proved nor disproved by the facts - they belong to different realms. However, he still sees an essential role for values in sociological research:
        
        Values as a guide to research We can only select areas of study in terms of their value relevance to us.
        
        Data collection and hypothesis testing Sociologists must be as objective as possible when actually collecting the facts, e.g. not asking leading questions, and the hypothesis must stand or fall solely on whether or not it fits the observed facts.
        
        Values in the interpretation of data Facts need to be set in a theoretical framework to understand their significance. This is influenced by the sociologist's values, which must therefore be stated explicitly.
        
        Values and the sociologist as a citizen Scientists and sociologists are also citizens. They cannot dodge the moral issues their work raises or the uses it is put to by hiding behind
        
        • Weber thus sees values as relevant when choosing what to research, when interpreting data and in the use the findings are put to - but they must be kept out of the actual process of gathering data.
        
        Sociology cannot tell us what values or goals we should hold.
        
        But it can tell us what means we should adopt if we want to achieve certain goals that we value and the consequence of holding those values
  - - - 20th century positivists argued that their own values were irrelevant to their research because science is concerned with matters of fact, not value, so sociologists should remain morally neutral
        
        Gouldner argues that by the 1950s, American sociologists in particular had become mere 'spiritless technicians' hiring themselves out to organisations such as government and the military.
        
        For Gouldner, they were dodging the moral issues that their work raised, e.g. in helping to prevent revolutions in South America.
    - - Myrdal and Gouldner argue that sociologists should not only identify their values. They should also openly 'take sides", espousing the interests of actual groups.
        
        It is undesirable to be value-neutral since, without using thier own values to guide their research, sociologists are merely putting their services up for sale.
    - - The interactionist Becker asks: if all sociology is influenced by values, 'Whose side are we on?'
        
        Traditionally functionalists and positivists have taken the viewpoint of the powerful: the police, psychiatrists etc.
        - Becker argues that we should take the side of the underdog: criminals, mental patients etc.
        
        Identifying with the powerless links to the methods interactionists favour, e.g. PO, which they see as revealing the meanings of these 'outsiders'.
        
        Gouldner adopts a Marxist perspective, arguing that it is not enough to describe the underdog's life - sociologists should be committed to ending their oppression.
        
        According to Gouldner, we should not be celebrating 'the man on his back'; we should be supporting 'the man fighting back'
    - - Most research is funded by government, businesses etc, and who pays for research may control its direction and the questions it asks.
        
        Funding bodies may prevent publication of the research if its findings prove unacceptable.
        
        Sociologists may want to further their careers. This may influence their choice of topic.
        
        They may censor themselves for fear of harming their career.
    - - For Gouldner, all research is inevitably influenced by values.
        
        Values influence the topics that sociologists of different perspectives choose, the concepts they develop and the conclusions they reach.
        
        Sociologists' values influence choice of methods; e.g. Becker's support for the underdog leads him to choose qualitative methods to reveal the underdogs world.
    - - If all perspectives involve values, are their findings just a reflection of their values, not objective facts? Relativism argues that:
        
        Different groups and individuals have different views as to what is true and these reflect their own values and interests.
        
        There is no way of judoing whether any view is truer than any other.
    - - Postmodernists take a relativist view - there are no 'privileged accounts' of society that have special access to the truth.
        
        From a relativist standpoint, there is no single absolute or objective truth. What you believe to be true, is true - for you.
        
        Any perspective claiming to have the truth is just a meta-narrative or 'big story' based on values and assumptions.