Sociology can and should be a science

Question 1

What are the four reasons why sociology can, and should be a science

Answer 1

Positivists

Objectivity

Paradigm shift

Some sociology can be falsified

Question 2

Name the pairs

Answer 2

Positivist vs interpretivists

Objectivity vs committed sociology

Paradigms shift vs paradigms

Some sociology can be falsified vs falsification

Question 3

Positivists

Answer 3

Many positivist sociologists want sociology to be perceived and to follow the same structure as natural science

They believe sociology can gain true objective knowledge, similar to the natural science

This allows sociologists to use objective information to solve social problems and achieve progress

By using official statistics, Durkheim was able to make comparisons of suicide statistics across Europe
The large amount of data he used allowed his findings to be representative

Question 4

Objectivity

Answer 4

Positive sociologist value objectivity and prefer keeping opinions out of the research process

They argue that sociologist should be value free and not impose their values in study
They want sociological data to be objective, so it’s not clouded by subjective opinions which means there’s high validity

If a sociologist was to impose their own values, the validity is compromised as there is researcher bias and opinions

Question 5

Paradigms shift

Answer 5

Sometimes science goes through a paradigm shift, which is moving away from the paradigm, which is a shared set of assumptions
When the scientific community accepts the competing part, this becomes the new paradigm, which indicates a paradigm shift has occurred

In Sociology paradigm shifts have occurred and sociologist, such as functionalist, and Marxist agreed that we are in a modern society, and a new theory of sociologists have emerged and they argued that a paradigm shift has occurred in sociology

Question 6

Some sociology can be falsified

Answer 6

Some aspects and theories can be falsified and can be proven wrong by others
For example, theories have managed to falsify the new right belief that single parent families leads to life of crime

Theories such as feminism and left realists Critise new right for this assumption and have proved murray wrong