Is sociology a science?

Question 1

Which 2 sociologists or perspectives believe sociology is a science?

Answer 1

Positivism - (Comte and Durkheim) use quantitative data and are value free to gain objective knowledge and social facts - such as Durkheim’s suicide study

Left Realists - Keat and Urry - believe that both the social and natural worlds are produced by underlying structures (class, gender) and mechanisms (teacher expectations) so there is causal relationships. However, while natural sciences are a closed system where you can measure and control variables, sociology is an open system so less exact.

Question 2

Give a piece of negative evaluation for Durkheim and Comte’s view

Answer 2

That humans cannot be studied like the natural world as they have a consciousness that reacts to the researcher and also because their meanings are internal so not directly measurable

Question 3

Give a piece of positive evaluation for Keat and Urry’s view

Answer 3

People treat meteorology as a science and that isn’t completely accurate all the time in fact it is based on common predictions like sociology

Question 4

Which 3 sociologists/perspectives believe sociology is not a science?

Answer 4

Interpretivists
Popper
Kuhn

Question 5

What are the two types of views interpretivists have?

Answer 5

Interactionists like Glaser and Strauss - they believe that causal explanations are possible but you cannot define a hypothesis beforehand (grounded theory) which is what scientists do

Ethnomethodologists and Phenomenologists like Garfinkel - they reject all causal explanations - social reality isn’t objective or studiable as it’s based on shared meanings in human consciousness

Question 6

Which sociologist argued that sociology cannot be science due to falsification?

Answer 6

Popper - scientists gain objective knowledge through making precise predictions then falsifying them (disproving them) - many sociology theories cannot be falsified such as Marx’s revolution.

Question 7

Why does Kuhn believe sociology isn’t a science?

Answer 7

Because science is based on paradigms (gravity) and sociology cannot escape from the pre-paradigmatic stage as people’s views differ too much. Such as feminists, marxists and functionalists all believing social order is based on different things.

Question 8

Define paradigm

Answer 8

A set of assumptions universally accepted in the community