positivism vs inteprretivism

Question 1

verstehen

Answer 1

empathetic understanding of human behaviour, walking in someone else’s shoes

Question 2

social construction means

Answer 2

phenomena that is created by society and not naturally occuring, this varies from culture to culture

Question 3

interpretivist sociologists

Answer 3

weber, garfinkle, bulmer, goffman, cooley, mead, husserl

Question 4

what type of data do interpetivists prefer?

Answer 4

qualitative, methods like unstructured interviews, observations and open questionnaires

Question 5

types of interpretivism: interactionism

Answer 5

• there can be causal explanation in sociology but there is no need for a hypothesis before starting research
• by starting with a hypothesis, Glaser and Strauss argue that researchers run the risk of imposing their own views on the data rather than those of the actors being researched
• instead there should be a grounded theory which means allowing ideas to emerge as the data is collected which can later be used to produce a hypothesis (inductive)

Question 6

types of intepretivism: phenomenology and ethnomethodology

Answer 6

• rejects the idea that there can be a cause or explanation for human behaviour and that society is not out there determining our actions
• they argue instead that society is a shared set of meanings and knowledge
• thet are interested in finding out what these shared meanings are and where they come from

Question 7

induction (positivist)

Answer 7

accumulating data about the world through careful observation and measurement

Question 8

causality

Answer 8

the relationships between cause and effect, how one stimuli can lead to a certain action

Question 9

interpetivist approach to sociological research

Answer 9

to understand the world aronud you, empathy is required in order to understand the meanings attached to the action

Question 10

positivist approach to sociological research

Answer 10

sociology should approach research the same way as natural sciences, it should be objective and logical

Question 11

what type of data and methods do positivists prefer

Answer 11

quanitative, methods such as closed questions, structured interviews, experiments

Question 12

positivist sociologists

Answer 12

durkheim, comte

Question 13

what sociological pespectives are positivist?

Answer 13

structural approaches like functionalism, feminism and marxism

Question 14

what sociological pespectives are interpetivist?

Answer 14

social action theories like symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and ethnomethodology

Question 15

why do positivists require objective quantitative research?

Answer 15

• this leads them to uncover and measure patterns which will lead them to create the social facts that govern society
• enable to discover the cause and effect that determine human behaviour
• research should be detached from subjective feelings and interpretations, so that it is factual and scientific