Methods in Context Flashcards
Durkheim - Is Sociology a Science?
Pose questions, gather observable & measurable data, find causal links to generate hypotheses
Social Integration cant be measured like science can
NO
Popper - Is Sociology a Science?
Science is falsifiable - Black swan
Sociology can be falsifiable - Marx
Sociologists work in open systems - NO
Durkheim - Can sociology be objective?
YES! by reaching hypotheses based on directly observable & measurable, it can be value free
Stats dont have values
But sociologist impose their values in their hypothesis - NO
Becker - Can sociology be objective?
NO! sociologists cannot be value free because it is their moral duty to be value laden & champion the underdog!
Trying to be objective in research causes the opposite to happen
However, by being so unapologetically biased, it makes it easy to claim that sociology lacks academic rigour
NO
Modernity
modernists developed metanarratives (big over-arching theories) that attempted to provide a coherent explanation for
influenced by The Enlightenment, a time when academics looked
to science to unlock secrets of the universe so favoured quantitative data
World described by ED and KM isnt the same as today
Post-Modernity
Postmodernists say we are at the end of the metanarrative where people reject the notion that a single theory can coherently explain life in contemporary societies
reflected a loss of trust in science because rather than make the world better (as Enlightenment theorists claimed) science has helped to destroy the planet & enabled genocide
meant that societies were mono-cultural ideas such as the universal nuclear family has disappeared & globalization and the media have connected the planet
Mies - Sociology and Gov Policy
No Relationship! Radical feminists want women not politicians to effect change by revolution
politicians would only tinker with the systems with minor reforms but radical feminists thought patriarchal system to corrupted to be repairable
However, the extreme message of radical feminism alienated rather than radicalized most women - sociology has impacted gov policy
Chubb and Moe - Sociology and Gov Policy
Potential Relationship! we can have a relationship with government policy if ideologies match
sociologists often research issues that governments are grappling with e.g. improving quality of schools
Chubb & Moe’s New Right ideological approach had similar values to those of Mrs Thatcher giving her a solution to an issue she was desperate to resolve even though the researcher is not leading the actual study, s/he can play their role in gathering data that will have a direct impact on decisions taken by politicians
However, Labour would have rejected these ideas because they opposed marketization of education - socio influences gov policy
Mies - Choice of method
reject idea that feminists should be value free, instead must use research to show evils of patriarchy
have agency & have ability to shape own reality need to show how nuclear family is detrimental to women so women reject heterosexual relationship
Tries to shock women
However this scares them away - led RFs to unstructured interviews
Delamont - Choice of method
rejects the way that all other perspectives present their research so that the reader is led to a particular conclusion
the reader is not given access to all of the data the writer compiled, instead gets a highly edited and selected picture
However, the data will still have the author’s fingerprints on it, the writer picked their subjects & what evidence to seek
Therefore, the desire to allow the reader to impose their own truth on data shapes the way findings are presented
