IS SOCIOLOGY A SCIENCE?

Question 1

Popper

Answer 1

• “hypo-deductive method”
• Observe what you want to study, then form a hypothesis than is falsifiable.
• Then make predictions and conclusions from there.

Question 2

Impact of Empirical Evidence

Answer 2

Data collection from the real world, our senses

Question 3

Objectivity and Sciences

Answer 3

• Data being independent of any subjective elements

Question 4

Values Freedom and Science

Answer 4

• Keeping values out of research to allow for it to be scientific.

Question 5

Comte - Positivism

Answer 5

• Social statistics: forces holding society together
• Social dynamics: forces causing social change
• Society acts according to its own set of laws, similar to the physical world and so it should be studied as a social science, using empirical data.
• Knowledge can be gained to improve the human condition.

Question 6

Key features of science

Answer 6

• Objective
• Empirical
• Structured questionnaire
• Validity
• Reliability
• Operationalisation
• Observable
• Sample
• Large-scale
• Macro

Question 7

Inductive Reasoning

Answer 7

• Bottom-up approach
• Identity patterns and trends amongst data, then formulate a hypothesis and then develop conclusions and theories.

Question 8

Verificationism

Answer 8

• Developing a theory that explains all our observations to data, confirms the theory is true.

Question 9

Methods used in positivism

Answer 9

• Quantitative data demonstrating cause and effect
• Structured questionnaire and interview, official statistics
  Reliable data
• Detached and objective

Question 10

Example - Suicide (positivism)

Answer 10

• Durkheim (1987) used official statistics to show Sociology is a science. He identified patterns and trends e.g. Rates for Protestants higher than Catholics. Concluded that social facts responsible are levels of integration and regulation.

Question 11

Subject Matter

Answer 11

• The difference between sociology and natural sciences is that they study things without consciousness.
• Humans have consciousness and the way they react to things is a result of their interpretation.
• A sociologists job is to uncover the meaning of this interpretation.

Question 12

G.H. Mead

Answer 12

• Humans interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then choose how to respond.
• The job of a sociologist is to uncover these meanings.

Question 13

Verstehen and Qualifications

Answer 13

• Seeing the world from the point of view of the person who is being studied
• Empathetic understanding

Question 14

Interpretivism types:

Answer 14

• Interactionists: we have causal explanations and rejects the view of developing a hypothesis before starting research.
• Glaser and Strauss: favours a bottom-up approach
• Ethnomethodologists and Phenomenologists (Garfinkel): society is not a real thing but on,y exists in people’s consciousness.

Question 15

Interprestist methods

Answer 15

• Qualitative e.g. Unstructured questionnaires, participant observations and personal documents.
• Validity, richer, personal and subjective understanding.

Question 16

Example - Suicide (imterpretivist)

Answer 16

• Douglas (1967) individuals have free will and choose how to act.
• To understand suicide we must understand what it means for the individuals, this can be better done through qualitative data rather than official statistics.

Question 17

What is a Paradigm?

Answer 17

• Kuhn argues that a paradigm is a set of norms that tells scientists how to think and behave. Involves principles, methods, assumptions and techniques.
• Believes science cannot exist without a shared paradigm and therefore sociology cannot be a science because it does not withhold one specific paradigm, but has many.

Question 18

Keat and Urry (1982)

Answer 18

• Sociology uses open systems where processes are too complex to many exact predictions.
• e.g. Crime rate has too many factors involved to be predicted exactly.