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.

• 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

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

• 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.

Official statistics are quantitative data created by the government or other official bodies on stats of birth and death rate, exam results etc

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.

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.
  

• 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.

• 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 society is an objective social reality 'out there that shapes our behaviour.
• Instead, they argue that people's actions depend on the meanings they give to situations, so we can only understand their actions if we understand their meanings.
• Interpretivists therefore use qualitative methods that reveal the actor's meanings, such as unstructured interviews, participant observation and personal documents.
• They arque that the unstructured nature of these methods means that the data generated is high in validity.

Unstructured interviews (Uls) have no standardised format and give the interviewer freedom to vary the interview. The result is rich, detailed, qualitative data that gives an insight into the meanings and world of the interviewee.
Group interviews are usually relatively unstructured. The researcher asks the group to discuss topics and records their responses.

• 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.
  
  
  

• 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
  

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.
  
  

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.
  
  

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.
  
  
  
  

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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'.

• 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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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.
  
  
  

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.
  
  
  
  

• Liberalism is concerned with the human and civil rights and freedoms of the individual, believing that all human beings should have equal rights.
• Reformism is the idea that progress towards equal rights can be achieved by gradual reforms in society, without the need for revolution.
• Liberal feminists (sometimes called reformist or 'equal rights' feminists) believe women can achieve gender equality through reform and promoting equal rights.
• Liberal feminists have documented the extent of gender inequality and discrimination, thus legitimising the demand for reform in areas such as equal pay and employment practices.
  
  
  
  

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.
  
  
  
  

Dual systems feminists combine Marxist and radical feminism in a single theory. The two systems are:

• Capitalism - an economic system.
• Patriarchy - a sex-gender system.
• Dual systems theorists, e.g. Hartmann, see capitalism and patriarchy as two intertwined systems that form a single 'patriarchal capitalism'.
• To understand women's subordination, we must look at the relationship between their position both in the domestic division of labour (patriarchy) and in paid work (capitalism), because the two systems reinforce each other.
• Walby argues that capitalism and patriarchy are inter-related, but that the interests of the two are not always the same:
  -Capitalism demands cheap, exploitable female labour for its workforce.
  -But patriarchy wants to keep women subordinated within the domestic sphere.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Difference feminists do not see women as a single homogeneous group - differences of class, ethnicity, sexuality etc all lead to different experiences of patriarchy. Hence they emphasise diversity.
• Difference feminists argue that previous feminist theory has claimed a 'false universality for itself: it claims to apply to all women, but in reality it is only about the experiences of white, western, heterosexual, middle-class women.
• Essentialism They claim that liberal, Marxist and radical feminists are essentialists. That is, they see all women as essentially the same. As a result, they fail to reflect the diversity of women's experiences and they exclude other women and their problems.
  
  
  
  

Poststructuralism is concerned with discourses - ways of seeing, thinking or speaking abour something. The world is made up of many, often competing, discourses, e.g. religious, scientific, medical and artistic.

• Power to define By enabling its users to define others in certain ways, a discourse gives power over those it defines; e.g. by defining childbirth as a medical condition and healthy women as patients, medical discourse empowers doctors and disempowers women.
• Poststructuralists argue that the Enlightenment project, with its talk of reason, humanity and progress, is simply a form of power/knowledge that legitimates the domination of western, white, middle-class males over other groups.
  
  

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

Weber saw both structural and action approaches as necessary for understanding human behaviour, arguing that an adequate explanation involves two levels:

1. The level of cause, explaining the objective structural factors that shape behaviour.
2. 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:

1. Instrumentally rational action, where the actor calculates the most efficient means of achieving a given goal.
2. 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.
3. Traditional action is customary, routine or habitual action.
4. 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:

1. Our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, people etc. They are not automatic responses to stimuli
2. These meanings arise from interactions and are to some extent negotiable and changeable.
3. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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.
  
  
  
  
  
  

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.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• 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.
  
  
  

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.