sociology and value free

Question 1

why can and should sociology be value free?

Answer 1

• early positivists
• modern positivists
• positivists
• methods

Question 2

why cannot and should not sociology be value free? (value free/value laden)

Answer 2

• committed sociologists
• criticisms of funding bodies
• interpretivists
• limitations of experiments

Question 3

early positivists

Answer 3

Comte - enlightenment project
sociology could discover factual knowledge which could be used to improve society
sociology is the ‘science’ of society and its job is to find out the truth of how society works and with this knowledge - could fix social problems
therefore, sociology can and should be value free because sociologists can say for certain what really is best for society.

Question 4

committed sociologists (value free)

Answer 4

Gouldner - committed to discipline
sociologists should openly ‘take sides’ and advocate for the values and interests for certain social groups e.g. working class, women, ems etc - should implement their values
feminists agree and think that sociologists should openly be on the sides of women so that they have a voice in a patriarchal society.
emphasising with these participants allows verstehen
therefore, sociology cannot and should not be value free because values are necessary to help those disadvantaged in society

Question 5

modern positivists

Answer 5

morals were irrelevant to research - as natural science doesn’t include opinions or morals, sociology shouldn’t.
sociologists should remain morally neutral as their job is to establish the truth about people’s behaviour, not judge it
1950s sociologists seen as ‘problem takers’ whereby hired by businesses or military to solve their problems.
they kept their values and interests out of the research because they were being paid to find out facts - not implement their values.
therefore, sociology can and should be value free because sociologists need to find out facts in order to help parts of society to grow.

Question 6

criticisms of funding bodies

Answer 6

the body that it is funding the research usually has some sort of control of the direction that the research goes in.
the sociologist is likely to embody the values and interests of the paymasters
sometimes, funding bodies may even block the publication of research if it goes against their interests
all research is inevitably influenced by values - whether it is the values of the funding body or the sociologist
therefore, sociology cannot and should not be value free because it is impossible to keep all values out of research

Question 7

positivist (value free)

Answer 7

all research should be objective, implementing values in research lowers the validity and makes the results biased
Durkheim used official statistics to research suicide - doing this allowed him to keep all his thoughts and opinions out of the research
therefore, sociology can and should be value free because it ensures that the research is valid

Question 8

interpretivist (value free)

Answer 8

sociologists should implement values in research as it allows them to gain in-depth, qualitative data
Douglas criticises Durkheim - by using statistics to research suicide, he wasn’t able to gain an understanding of why people did it.
official statistics are socially constructed - a coroner decides whether something is convicted a suicide or not so can be subjective to different people - lacks validity
therefore, sociology cannot and should not be value free because imposing values allows the researcher to gain verstehen.

Question 9

methods (experiments)

Answer 9

sociologists should be objective when carrying out research methods and should aim to follow the same principles as natural sciences
Milgram - used a laboratory experiment to study obedience, was value free as no researcher bias or involvement
researchers remained detached and objective in experiments
therefore, sociology can and should be value free because it allows scientific methods to be used, allowing objectivity

Question 10

limitations of experiments

Answer 10

value free research methods such as lab have many weaknesses and isn’t appropriate to use in sociology
- hawthorne effect
- cannot fit all societal issues in a lab e.g. poverty, patriarchy, capitalism etc
therefore, sociology cannot and should not be value free because such methods are not suitable to research sociology and social issues.