Positivism and Interpretivism and Science

Question 1

who coined the term sociology and what did the first sociologists call themselves?

Answer 1

Comte

positivists

Question 2

what do positivists do?

Answer 2

apply logic and methods of natural science to study society for true, objective knowledge and this will also provide the basis for solving social problems and achieving progress

Question 3

what do positivists believe about society?

Answer 3

it is an objective factual reality made up of social facts that exist independently of individuals

Question 4

who said that ‘real laws are discoverable’ that will explain social patterns, how can sociology help?

Answer 4

Durkheim
sociology can discover laws that determine how society works by inductive reasoning - accumulating data through observation and measurement - as knowledge grows we begin to see general patterns

Question 5

what is verification?

Answer 5

after many patterns are confirmed we can claim to have discovered the truth in form of a general law

Question 6

like natural scientists, positivists aim to produce scientific laws about how society works which can be used to….

Answer 6

predict future events and guide social policy e.g. if we know material deprivation causes educational failure we can use knowledge to develop policies to tackle it

Question 7

why do positivists favour macro structural information of social phenomena?

Answer 7

because they see society and its structures as social facts that exist outside of us and shape our behaviour patterns

Question 8

what do positivists believe about the study of society?

Answer 8

sociology should take the experimental method used in natural science as it allows us to test hypotheses in systematic, controlled way so produces mathematically precise statements

Question 9

what doe positivists believe research should be like?

Answer 9

detached and objective, subjective feelings and values shouldn’t influence how researched is conducted or findings analysed

Question 10

Durkheim studied suicide to demonstrate that sociology was a science, he believed that if he could show that individual acts had social causes then this would establish its status as a scientific discipline, what did he do?

Answer 10

he observed patterns in the suicide rate from official statistics concluding it couldn’t be the product of individual motives so must be caused by social facts which were responsible for regulation and integration levels. he claimed to have discovered a real law; that different rates of regulation and integration produce different rates of suicide

Question 11

what are social facts?

Answer 11

forces acting upon members of society to determine behaviour

Question 12

what do interpretivists believe about the scientific approach?

Answer 12

that it is unsuitable for studying human beings

Question 13

what do interpretivists argue is the fundamental difference between the subject matter of natural sciences and the subject matter of sociology?

Answer 13

science studies matter of no consciousness where behaviour can be explained as a straight forward reaction to external stimulus.
sociology studies people who are conscious and make sense of and construct their world by attaching meanings to it.

Question 14

Mead says that rather than responding automatically to external stimuli humans have to interpret meanings of stimulus and decide how to respond, what example does he use?

Answer 14

motorist sees a red light and must interpret the meaning as stop and even then this doesn’t determine behaviour as they could disobey the signal since how they act depends on the meaning they give to the signal e.g. escaping a police car
so when people stop at a red light it isn’t because an external force determines their behaviour but because they understand and interpret the social rule concerning the meaning of red traffic lights and decide to act in accordance

Question 15

how do interpretivists argue we need to discover meanings people give to their actions?

Answer 15

we need to see the world from their view point, instead of detachment and objectivity we must put ourselves in the actors place using what Weber calls verstehen to produce personal data with high validity

Question 16

how are interpretivists divided?

Answer 16

divided on whether or not we can combine this understanding with positivist-style casual explanation of human behaviour

Question 17

what do interactionist interpretivists believe?

Answer 17

that we can have casual explanations but they reject the positivist view that we should have definite hypotheses before we start research. Favour bottom up researcher where ideas emerge gradually throughout the course of research

Question 18

what do interactionists Glaser and Strauss say?

Answer 18

that having hypotheses before the research can risk imposing researcher views of what is important on those being studied

Question 19

what do phenomenologists and ethnomethologists believe? (Garfinkel)

Answer 19

they reject the possibility of casual explanations of human behaviour
social reality is simply shared meanings/knowledge of members. sociology can only consist of the interpretive procedures by which people make sense of the world. actions aren’t governed by external causes so its not possible for cause and effect explanations

Question 20

who rejects the idea that external facts govern behaviour and proposes that individuals have free will and choose how they act on the basis of meanings. to understand suicide we must uncover the meanings of those involved instead of imposing our own meanings to a situation.
what data does he suggest should be used?

Answer 20

Douglas
qualitative data like case studies which can reveal actors meanings and give us a better idea of the real rate of suicide

Question 21

what does Atkinson argue about suicide?

Answer 21

we can never know the real rate of suicide since we can never know the meanings the deceased held.
the only thing we can study is the way the living make sense of deaths

Question 22

postmodernists argue against the idea of scientific sociology since….

Answer 22

…natural science is a metanarrative so there is no reason we should accept it as a model for sociology

Question 23

scientific sociology makes false claims about having truth and is a form of domination, give an example

Answer 23

former soviet union marxist theory claiming to have discovered scientifically the truth of the ideal society was used to justify oppression