Positivism

Question 1

What is the focus of Positivists?

Answer 1

Positivists take a scientific approach to the study of society. Their main focus is to find out what is going on in society, the wider picture, and how to find this out in an objective and reliable way.

Question 2

What type of methods would positivists favour

Answer 2

They want to use methods that don’t alter or distort the social situation. They will pick methods that gain representative results so they can apply this to society

• large scale studies
• quantitative data
• generalisable data

Question 3

Example of a positivist

Answer 3

Emile Durkheim

Question 4

Durkheim’s Study of suicide 1897

Answer 4

Durkheim’s initial beliefs that social phenomena have a value in society ( Youth Culture/ Crime) led him to explore the link between social change and suicide.
- Used Secondary methods in the form od death records tp quantitatively study the link

Question 5

What did Durkheim’s study find?

Answer 5

• Suicide was a result of a lack of integration, through content analysis Durkheim discovered that people were more likely to commit suicide if they were
• Single
• Without children
• Living in cities
• During peacetime

Question 6

Positivism in a sentence

Answer 6

Positivism is a belief that we should not go beyond the boundaries of what can be observed

Question 7

Criticisms of Positivism

Answer 7

• The statistics Positivists use to find their ‘laws of society’ might themselves be invalid, because of bias in the way they are collected.
• Treats individuals as if they passive and unthinking – Human beings are less predictable than Positivists suggest