Sociological Theories Flashcards
1
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Positivism: what is it?
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- ‘Sociology’ was coined by Comte, a positivist who believed we can apply the logic / methods of natural sciences to society.
- This would give us objective knowledge to help solve social problems
- Positivists favour macro / structural explanations of society, like functionalist and Marxism, as they see society / its structures as social facts that shape our behaviour patterns
2
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Positivism: Patterns, laws & inductive reasoning
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- Positivists argue that reality is patterned, and we can observe these pattens - such as water boils at 100 degrees
- They believe that as in natural sciences, sociologists should observe, identify and measure patterns in society and then explain them: this is inductive reasoning - discovering laws that determine how society works
3
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Positivism: verificationism
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- After, we can develop a theory from our observations in order to explain them.
- Once further observations have confirmed / verified the theory, we can claim to have discovered the truth or ‘law’
- This approach is called verificationism - inductive reasoning claims to verify a theory
- Therefore, positivists deep to find the causes of the patterns they’ve found by producing statements about how society works
These can be used to predict future events and guide social policies, such as policies to tackle material deprivation because we know it causes educational failure.
4
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Positivism: Objective quantitative research
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- Positivists believe sociologists should adopt the research process of natural scientists, where a hypothesis is tested in a systematic and controlled way.
- This is why they use quantitative data to find and measure patterns of behaviour - it allows them to produce mathematically precise statements on the relationship between the facts they are investigating.
- Essentially, positivists use quantitative data to discover laws of cause and affect relationships that determine behaviour.
- This means that researchers should be detached and objective in their process, not allowing their own subjective values influence how they do their research / analyse their findings
- Because there’s the risk of contaminating data with subjectivity, positivists like very detached methods like questionnaires, structure interviews and official statistics
5
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Positivism & Suicide
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- Durkheim (1897) studied suicide to show that sociology was a science with its own distinct subject matter
- He believed that if he could prove an act as individual as suicide had social causes, sociology could be established as a scientific discipline
- The study used quantitative data from official statistics, where Durkheim found patterns in the suicide rate, like higher Protestant rates than Catholic
- He concluded that the levels of integration and regulation were the social facts responsible for this pattern
6
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Interpretivism: what is it?
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- Interpretivists don’t believe sociology is a science, nor should it try to be
- They criticise positivism as being inadequate for the study of human beings
7
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Interpretivism: the subject matter of sociology
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- Interpretivists argue that the subject matter is meaningful social action, which can only be understood by successfully interpreting the meanings / motives of actors involved
- This means that sociology isn’t a science as it deals with human meanings, not laws of cause and effect - our actions are based on interpreting to stimuli and the choosing of how to respond, not an automatic reaction to stimuli.
- Interpretivists argue that we’re not puppets manipulated by social facts, but autonomous beings who construct the social world through the meanings we give to it
8
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Types of interpretivism: Interactionalists
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- Interactionalists believe we can have casual explanations instead of the positivist approach of a definite hypothesis before starting research
- Instead, its a bottoms up approach of having ideas through the research itself rather than a fixed hypothesis
9
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Types of interpretivism: Phenomenologists & Ethnomethologists
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- Completely reject the possibility of casual explanations of human behaviour, and instead take the anti-structuralist approach that says society isn’t even a real thing that determines our actions
- This view argues that social reality is simply the shared meanings / knowledge of its members, that society only exists in the consciousness of people
- Therefore, the subject matter of sociology is the interpretive procedures we use to make sense of the world, which can’t have the cause and effect relationships with external forces that positivists claim
10
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Interpretivism: Verstehen & qualitative research
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- Interpretivists reject the logic / methods of natural sciences, so they therefore reject quantitative methods of study
- They argue that we need to see the world from the subjects viewpoint to understand the meanings they give their actions
- This is why we must put ourselves in the others shoes (Verstehen) to understanding meanings - qualitative methods like unstructured interviews, personal documents and participant observations are best
11
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Interpretivism: Postmodernism, feminism & scientific sociology
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- Postmodernists do not believe that sociology is a science. This is because they see science as a meta narrative (big story) and no more valid than other accounts of the world, which is why we shouldn’t use the same approach for sociology
- They also reject science because it dominates itself as ‘correct’ compared to many other viewpoints in the world, which means scientific sociology makes false claims about the truth as well as excluding other theories
- Poststructuralist feminists agree, arguing a dominant, scientific feminism excludes many groups of women, and some argue quantitative methods oppress and don’t actually portray women’s experiences.
12
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Interpretivism & suicide
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- Douglas (1967) rejects the positivist view that external social facts determine out behaviour, and instead argues that individuals have free will and actions are based on meanings. Therefore, we have to uncover the meanings of those involved to understand suicide.
- He also argues that we should use qualitative data from case studies of suicide to reveal actors meanings and get a better idea of the real suicide rate, rather than use objective official statistics
13
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Popper: The fallacy of induction
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- Argues that inductive reasoning and verificationism aren’t the distinctive features of science.
- Instead, he argues we should reject verificationism due to the ‘fallacy of induction’ - where verification ignores that new evidence can come in at any time and prove a theory wrong
14
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Popper: Falsification
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- This is the opposite of verificationism - where a scientific statement is capable of being proved wrong via evidence
- Popper says a good theory is one that is falsifiable in principle, but stands up to all attempts to disprove it.
Essentially, all knowledge is temporary and refutable at any moment
15
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Popper: is sociology a science?
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- Popper argues sociology isn’t a science because its theories can’t undergo falsification
- For example, Marxism says there will be a working capital requirement (WCR) that leads to a classless society, but there also wont be due to false class consciousness
—> this prediction cannot be falsified as Marxism will be correct either way - However, he thinks some sociology can be falsified, which opens the debate back up as to whether it’s a science. E.g. Ford (1969) hypothesises that comprehensive schooling would cause mixing of social classes, and then tested and falsified this idea through her research
16
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Kuhn (1970): what is a paradigm?
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- A paradigm is essentially the norms and values of a scientific group, such as physicists
- This is because the paradigm defines what the science is, as well as a framework of assumptions, principles and methods that researchers use to/ work around
17
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Kuhn (1970): scientific revolutions
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- Overtime, science has undergone paradigm shifts, where old central ideas are replaced by new ones
- There’s pre-science (discovery period with no central paradigm), normal science (established paradigm supports theories), and revolutionary science (paradigm is challenged/ replaced, normal science continues).
18
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Kuhn (1970): is sociology a science:
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- Sociology is pre-paradigmatic, therefore pre-scientific
- It has no shared paradigm / dominant perspective, and cannot be a science until there is one
- Postmodernists argue that a paradigm isn’t desirable anyway because its essentially a meta narrative that silences minority views
Realists (extra perspectives):
- Argue science studies both observable phenomena and underlying unobservable structures, which would technically make Marxism and interpretivism scientific
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