Debates Flashcards
1
Q
Positivism
A
- Scientific study of sociology
- Key Thinkers - Auguste Comete & Emilé Durkheim
- There are laws of society
- There are objective, external causes of patterns of social action
- Look at trends or large groups, not individuals and use qualitative methods
- Sociologists need to be detached from the world they are studying (value free & objective)
Auguste Comte - The Founder of Scientific Sociology
- Introduced the word sociology in 1839
↳ sociology = science of society - Tried to determine the nature of human society and the laws and principles underlying its growth and development
- Argued that social phenomena can be like physical phenomena copying the methods of natural sciences
Emilie Durkheim - Postivism and Quantitive Sociology
- Rejected much of the details of Comte’s philosophy ‘postivism’ and retained and refined its method
- Sociology should be able to predictaccurately the effect ochanges in social organisation eg increase in unemployment or a change in the education system
- Primary means of researching society should be the comparative method: comparing groups and looking for correlations or relationships between 2 or more variables
↳ seems to establish the cause and effect relationships in society by comparing variables -
Study Of Suicide: we could study a personal act such as suicide using a scientific/quantitative approach
↳ studies suicide rates across several countries and using official statistics, Durkheim found that suicide rates went up when there was either too much/little social regulation
↳ if the suicide rate can be affected by social factors (social facts) every other action will be
↳ 5 factors: individualism, excessive hope, too much freedom, atheism, weakening of the nation and the family
↳ this type of scientific method claims to be valid because it’s findings are only based on directly observable facts and not speculation about the possible causes of suicide
2
Q
Positivist Claims
A
- Social facts exist independently of the individual such that individuals are effectively seen as ‘puppets’, simply reacting to social forces
- We should aim to explain patterns of human behaviour or general social trends
↳ they are interested in getting to the bigger picture - Quantitative research methods such as official statistics, structured questionnaires and social surveys are better than qualitative methods because they are more reliable
- Scientific methods allow the researcher to remain detached from the research process
↳ the values of the researcher should not interferes with the results of the research and knowledge should be objective
3
Q
Criticisms of Positivism
A
- Deterministic: humans are less predictable than Positivists suggest
- Max Weber: humans aren’t just puppets of society and they do have more freedom than positivists suggest
- Humans are a lot more complex so we need in-depth qualitative methods to understand why they behave in the way they do
- Bias may be involved and so the statistics may be invalid
- By remaining detached, we actually get a very shallow/limited view/understanding of human behaviour
4
Q
Interpretivism
A
- Rejected postivisms structural views of society
- Sometimes called ’anti-positivism’
- Human behaviour is a result of micro level interactions in daily life and how individuals interpret these micro-level interactions
- Disagree that social laws exist governing human behaviour, and instead argue human beings attribute meanings to their actions and different people can engage in the same action for different reasons; depending on how they’ve interpreted their experiences
- We need to ask individuals why they are doing what they are doing in order to understand human action
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Weber: understand individual motives to understand changes in the social structure
↳ verstehen is important to achieve - Mead - Symbolic Action Theory: actions are based on the meanings we give to other peoples actions
- Becker - Labelling Theory: labelling by authorities determine identity
- Goffman - Dramaturgical: individuals actively construct their identity by manipulating symbols
5
Q
Interpretivist Approaches to Research Methods
A
- Prefer qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews, participation observation and personal documents
- Individuals are not just puppets who react to external social forces as Positivists believe
- Individuals are intricate and complex and different people experience and understand the same ‘objective reality’ in very different ways and have their own, often very different, reasons for acting in the world
-In order to understand human action we need to see the world through the eyes of the actors doing the acting - Aim to gain insight from the respondents, to gain an empathetic understanding of why they act in the way that they do from their own subjective point of view
↳ Weber - Verstehen
Example of an approach - Ethnography and Case Studies
- Ethnographies: in depth study of the way of life of a group of people in their natural setting
↳ typically very in-depth and long-term and aim for a full multi-layered account of the culture of a groups of people - Mainly used participant observation, but researchers will use all other methods to get even richer data such as interviews and analysis of any documents associated with that culture
- Case studies: involve researching single case of example of something using multiple methods
6
Q
Example of an Interpretivist study - Paul Willis Learning to Labour
A
- Study of 12 lads using participant observation, general observation, informal interviews and group discussions
- Aimed to explore the relationship between anti-school subcultures of the lads and how this resulted in the likelihood of them taking manual non-skilled jobs when they left school, often reproducing their class positions
- Working class boys were actively choosing to create an anti school and deviant a sub-culture which rejected school, therefore preparing them for a life of unskilled labour
- They interpreted this approach as being masculine and believed the other pupils who focused on their studies as inferior
- The boys recognised the realities of their situation and by rejecting school, they condemned themselves to never have the opportunity to change their class position
7
Q
Is sociology a science? - Positivism
A
- Sociology can be treated as a science
-
Comte: sociology should be based upon the same methods as natural science
↳ if we can find ‘facts’ about society we could then identify a cause and effect relationships and laws in society -
Durkheim: social facts, institutions, beliefs and values of society, should be treated the same way as the objects and processes or the scientific world
↳ social facts can be objectively measured, quantified and statistically analysed and from these methods, correlational and casuational relationships can be drawn, leading to scientific theories and explanations of society
↳ society can be measured in the same way as the natural world
↳ based his beliefs upon his research in suicide; suicide rates differ hugely in different cultures & therefore something in society must be causing this, not just psychological differences
↳ found a link between suicide and other social facts such as religion and location
↳ used a scientific method and eventually created a ‘real law’ about society which shows that using these methods in sociology is appropriate
8
Q
Advantages of Postivist View of Sociology as scientific
A
- Scientific methods give sociology more status
- Positivist methods are more likely to get funding that Interpretivist methods
- Positivist methods are necessary to get representative data that covers national populations and are the only methods that allow us to make cross national comparisons and to look at global issues
- Does seem to be don’t truth in many of the ‘laws’ uncovered by Positivists
↳ eg most recent data of suicide shows the patterns are pretty much the same as what Durkheim found
9
Q
Criticisms of the Positivist View
A
- Social action theorists (interactionists/interpretivists): the social world is socially constructed
- You cannot understand the world, or human action without understanding the meanings people attach to their actions
- Postmodernists: you can only understand the world through language, thus there is no way to observe it directly
10
Q
Karl Popper - Science is Imperfect
A
- Positivists believe we can apply the logic of the natural sciences to society
↳ believe that sociology can be a science - Popper isn’t a postivist but he isn’t an interpretivist either: he believes that the logic of science still gives us the best knowledge that we can have but questions the methods scientists use to come to conclusions
- Use an inductive approach: look at evidence and introduce theories
- In principle, sociology trying to be scientific is a good thing
- Science should involve the hypothetico-deductive method: drawing up a specific question or idea for research (hypothesis) which is based on previous research, observation and hunches
Poppers features of the scientific method
1) Hypothesis formation: forming ideas or ignored guesses about the possible causes of some phenomena
↳ for a hypothesis to be scientific, it must be capable of being tested against evidence derived from systematic observation and/or experimentation
2) Falsification: the aim of testing hypothesis against the evidence is to try to prove them wrong
3) Prediction: through establishing cause and effect relationships rooted in evidence, precise predictions of what will happen in the same circumstances in future can be established
4) Theory formation: if the hypothesis is capable of being tested against evidence and cannot be shown to be false, and predictions appear sound, then there can be some confidence that the hypothesis is sound
5) Scrutiny: a scientific theory will be scrutinised by other scientists and stand until someone else proves an existing theory false
Science and Objectivity
- Underpinning the scientific method is the principle of objectivity
↳ eliminating personal biases, emotional involvement and political views (their values) from their research - Science relies on accurate measurements which can be tested independent from the individual scientist who first reports it
↳ it depends on the other scientists being able to reproduce and test the scientists findings - Rather than aiming to prove a hypothesis correct, Popper instead believed you should try to falsify your hypothesis
11
Q
Popper - Science is….
A
- Statements that are capable to being falsified rather than being verified
- A discipline that makes big generalisations and bold statements
- Open to criticism and review and this leads to new better scientific theories and advances being constantly developed
- Science thrives in the open or liberal societies: one’s that believe in free expression and the right to challenge accepted ideas
↳ closed societies are dominated by an official belief system that claims to have an absolute truth; whether a regulation or political ideology such as Marxism
↳ such believe systems stifle the growth of science because they conflict with the provisional, falsifiable nature of scientific knowledge
12
Q
Thomas Kuhn - Paradigms and Scientific Revolution
A
- We tend to see scientists as objective and neutral and working together to refine scientific knowledge which is generally seen as changing gradually as new evidence helps and develop existing theories
↳ disagreed with this arguing that the evolution of scientific knowledge is limited by ‘paradigms’: a basic world view which provides a framework for thinking about the world
↳ includes basic assumptions about the nature of reality, which limited the kind of questions scientists ask in their research - Most scientists built their careers working within the dominant paradigm ; effectively ignoring any evidence which doesn’t fit in with their general framework , and any scientist who trues to ask questions outside the ‘dominant paradigm’ is marginalised and not taken seriously
- ‘Rogue Scientists’ who look at the world differently do exist, and engage in alternative research and when sufficient evidence builds up which contradicts already existing paradigms, a ‘paradigm shift’ occurs, in which the old paradigms are rejected and a new dominant paradigm comes into force
- Example: Sutton - science surrounding climate change: some (marginal) scientists were finding evidence of a link between the burning or fossil fuels and a warming climate in the 1950s, but this was largely dismissed by the scientific community until the 1990s, but today this is widely accepted
- Argued that scientific knowledge shift in a series of ‘revolutions’ as new paradigms came to replace the old paradigms
- Science should not be seen as being characterised by consensus: rather there are a number of competing paradigms within science and not all of them get taken seriously by those with power
- Criticised by Lakatos: modern science is much more open to testing new ideas today than it was in the past
13
Q
Modernity, Postmodernity and Science
A
- Modernity = the belief that there was ‘one truth’ and science could reveal it, tied up with ideas in the Enlightenment
- Postmodernists: challenge the idea that science produces the truth about the natural world
- Rorty: scientists have just replaced priests as the source of truth - we want experts to explain the world to us however there are still many unanswered questions about the nature of reality even with science
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Lyotard: criticises the view that science stands apart from the natural world
↳ language shapes the way we think about the world, and while scientific language may open to our eyes to some truths, it just closes our eyes to others
14
Q
Realist Views of Science and Open and Closed Systems
A
- Sociology can be scientific, there are similarities in sociology and the study of natural sciences, in the same way that open-systems such as meteorology are scientific
Sayer
- Two types of science: those which operate in closed systems, such as physics and chemistry, and those which operate in open systems such as meteorology (& sociology)
- Closed systems: only have a limited number of variables interacting, all while can be controlled, which makes it possible to carry out lab experiments and for precise predictions to be made
- Sciences such as meteorology operate in closed systems, where you cannot control all of the variables
↳ these sciences recognise unpredictability - EG: meteorology is still scientific: there is still forecasting models based on observation which allows us to predict with some degree of certainty when certain weather events will happen, and these models can and are being refined
- Moreover, open systems sciences are engaged in trying to find ‘underlying structures’ which cannot be directly observed such as magnetic fields which can interfere with weather patterns
- Sociology can be scientific in the way meteorology is scientific. but not scientific in the way physics or chemistry can be scientific
- Quantitative sociology can revel hidden structures (such as class structure) and make broad predictions about what percentage of people from a lower class background will fail, compared to those from a middle class background, without being able to predict exactly who will fail and without us being able to see that class structure directly
15
Q
Can sociology be value free?
A
- Value Freedom refers to the ability of the researcher to keep their own values (personal, political and religious) from interfering with the research process
↳ the extent to which one can be objective in research and avoid bias - The idea that ‘facts’ should not be influenced by the researcher’s own beliefs is a central aspect of science
↳ so when we say that sociology can and should be value free it’s the same as saying sociology can and should be scientific
