Positivism vs Interpretivism Flashcards
Theoretical perspective
Functionalism is a consensus perspective that sees society as being peaceful and harmonious and working for the mutual benefit of all its members, Marxists and Feminists are conflict perspectives which see society as operating for the benefit of the powerful groups in
society such as the ruling class and men.
Methodological perspective
There are two main methodological approaches - views on how society should be researched.
They are called Positivism and Interpretivism.
Positivism
Developed in the 19th century during the time of Enlightenment - time of scientific and technological progress - when it was believed that science can be used to solve all of humanity’s problems.
Promoted by Auguste Comte who created the term
Sociology
Positivism argues Sociology is a science and society and human behaviour can be studied using the same methods natural sciences
What do scientists base their research upon
1)Facts – they aim to discover facts backed up with evidence
2)objectivity -unbiased
3)Reliability - the research method is systematic/methodical and can be replicated the exact same way over and over again
and get the same results.
4)Quantitative data – the method gathers quantitative data
This enables scientists to discover cause and effect relationships between variables
Durkheim and his research to prove sociology was a science
Researched into suicide and used an inductive method
he first collected the data (stats on suicide), analysed it (compared suicide rates for different groups of people – age, gender, religion, where they lived, etc) and then developed a theory (social isolation causes suicide).
Why is sociology a science
it discovers social facts and the causal relationships between them. Just like in Biology and other natural sciences there are natural facts that have a causal effect on each other
Methods use by positivist
Positivists use research methods such as questionnaires, structured
interviews, experiments and statistics in their research as these methods are objective, reliable and quantitative.
Why is positivist approach deterministic
they argue humans have very little choice about how they behave as external forces govern human behaviour, people react to stimuli in the environment and behave in a predictable and consistent way
Interpretivism
argue Sociology is not a science.
Human behaviour is very different from that of the natural world because, unlike natural
phenomena, people possess consciousness and free will.
Therefore, scientific approaches are inappropriate for researching human behaviour.
What did Weber say
Weber who argued that in order to understand
human behaviour Sociologists must use the concept of verstehen - empathetic understanding – and this can only be achieved by putting ourselves in the shoes of those we are researching. Only
by feeling what they feel can we truly understand their behaviour.
humans behave according to the meanings we attach to the situation we find ourselves in and our
interaction with people around us.
Key things about interpretivits
to understand human behaviour is to gain subjective understanding of the meanings individuals
attach to their actions. This can only be achieved through qualitative data which will allow us to interpret the meanings
people attach to their actions.
Methods used by Interpretivists
participant observations, unstructured interviews and
personal documents. These methods produce valid data – a true picture of human behaviour. These methods will enable the
sociologists to achieve verstehen – they will fully understand why people behave the way they do.
However data is subjective as sociologist interpret the data. Could be biased
Douglas research into interpretivism
Douglas argues that to understand suicide, we must first understand how the deceased defined their action.
He favours qualitative methods such as case studies of each suicide.
However, despite all the detailed analysis, the wrong conclusion can still be reached. The only person who knows what happened is the deceased.
Douglas argues that suicide statistics are social constructs- they are created by all the concerned parties after a person dies. May lie about the reason for suicide (hiding suicide note from police so record the death as an accident)
Therefore, we can never know the true extent or reasons for suicide.
