Chapter 2

Question 1

Paradigm

Answer 1

model or framework for observation and understanding

Question 2

conflict paradigm

Answer 2

Karl Marx - social behaviour could be best seen as the process of conflict: trying to dominate someone and preventing getting dominated yourself

Question 3

3 theory functions

Answer 3

1. prevents being taken in by flukes
2. make sense of observed patterns in ways that can suggest other possibilities
3. can shape and direct research efforts, pointing toward likely discoveries through empirical observation

Question 4

benefits paradigm

Answer 4

• better able to understand the views and actions of others who are operating from a different paradigm
• we can profit from stepping outside our paradigm, we can see new ways of seeing and explaining things

Question 5

macrotheory

Answer 5

understanding big picture of institutions, whole societies and interactions among societies

Question 6

microtheory

Answer 6

understanding social life at level of individuals and their interactions

Question 7

mesotheory

Answer 7

studying organizations, communities and perhaps social categories such as gender

Question 8

symbolic interactionism

Answer 8

most interactions revolved around individuals’ reaching a common understanding through language and other symbolic systems

Question 8

Ethnomethodology

Answer 8

people are continuously trying to make sense of the life they experience, everyone is acting like a social scientist

Question 9

structural functionalism

Answer 9

Comte, a social entity such as an organization or a whole society can be viewed as an organism

Question 10

feminist paradigms

Answer 10

reveal treatment of women or the experience of oppression but often point to limitations in how other aspects of social life are examined and understood

Question 11

feminist standpoint theory

Answer 11

idea that women have knowledge about their status and experience that is not available to men

Question 12

interest convergence

Answer 12

thesis that majority group members will only support the interests of minorities when those actions also support the interests of the majority group

Question 13

critical (race theory)

Answer 13

likely refers to a non-traditional view, one that may be at odds with the prevailing paradigms of an academic discipline or with the mainstream structure of society

Question 14

critical realism

Answer 14

a paradigm that holds that things are real insofar as they produce effects

Question 15

hypothesis

Answer 15

specified testable expectation about empirical reality that follows from a general proposition

Question 16

operationalization

Answer 16

to test any hypothesis we must specify the meanings of all variables involved in it, specify how we’ll measure the variables we have defined, developing operational definition

Question 17

operational definition

Answer 17

the concrete and specific definition of something in terms of the operations by which observations are to be categorized

Question 18

null hypothesis

Answer 18

suggests there is no relationship among the variables under study

Question 19

deductive method

Answer 19

1. hypothesis
2. observations
3. accept or reject hypothesis

Question 20

inductive method

Answer 20

1. observations
2. finding a pattern
3. tentative conclusion

Question 21

2 important elements in science

Answer 21

• logical integrity
• empirical verification

Question 22

ethical issues paradigm choosing

Answer 22

• letting their choice of paradigm bias research results