Chapter 2 Flashcards
Paradigm
model or framework for observation and understanding
conflict paradigm
Karl Marx - social behaviour could be best seen as the process of conflict: trying to dominate someone and preventing getting dominated yourself
3 theory functions
- prevents being taken in by flukes
- make sense of observed patterns in ways that can suggest other possibilities
- can shape and direct research efforts, pointing toward likely discoveries through empirical observation
benefits paradigm
- 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
macrotheory
understanding big picture of institutions, whole societies and interactions among societies
microtheory
understanding social life at level of individuals and their interactions
mesotheory
studying organizations, communities and perhaps social categories such as gender
symbolic interactionism
most interactions revolved around individuals’ reaching a common understanding through language and other symbolic systems
Ethnomethodology
people are continuously trying to make sense of the life they experience, everyone is acting like a social scientist
structural functionalism
Comte, a social entity such as an organization or a whole society can be viewed as an organism
feminist paradigms
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
feminist standpoint theory
idea that women have knowledge about their status and experience that is not available to men
interest convergence
thesis that majority group members will only support the interests of minorities when those actions also support the interests of the majority group
critical (race theory)
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
critical realism
a paradigm that holds that things are real insofar as they produce effects
hypothesis
specified testable expectation about empirical reality that follows from a general proposition
operationalization
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
operational definition
the concrete and specific definition of something in terms of the operations by which observations are to be categorized
null hypothesis
suggests there is no relationship among the variables under study
deductive method
- hypothesis
- observations
- accept or reject hypothesis
inductive method
- observations
- finding a pattern
- tentative conclusion
2 important elements in science
- logical integrity
- empirical verification
ethical issues paradigm choosing
- letting their choice of paradigm bias research results
