Theory & Methods

Question 1

UK Census

Answer 1

Questionnaire
- 10 yearly questionnaire completed online / post on the whole UK population.
- Source of official statistics.

Question 2

Young + Willmott

Answer 2

Structured Interview
- Researched extended family.
- Formal and standardised.

Question 3

CSEW

Answer 3

Survey
- Victim survey.
- Sample size of 50 000,
- Uncovers crimes not reported to the police.

Question 4

Archer

Answer 4

Interview
- Yr10 + 11 students from w/c backgrounds + a broad range of ethnicity.

Question 5

Willis

Answer 5

Unstructured Group Interview, Participant Observation
- Research of lads + schooling.

Question 6

Venkatesh

Answer 6

Observation, Interview
- Interviewed people at all levels.
- Participated in the life on the gang.
- Become ‘gang leader for a day’.

Question 7

Patrick

Answer 7

Covert Observation
- Joined Glasgow gang through connections.
- Nearly blew his cover.

Question 8

Thomas + Znaniecki

Answer 8

Secondary Data: Personal Documents
- Studied letters from Polish migrants to America.
- Interactionalists: interested in meanings.

Question 9

Rosenthal + Jacobson

Answer 9

Experiment
- Studied teacher’s expectations through fake IQ test results to see the effect on pupil performance.
- Interactionism: what people believe to be true will have true effects.

Question 10

Weber (Social Action)

Answer 10

Verstehen - walking in someone else’s shoes.
- Rich, valid data can be acquired through participant observation + unstructured interviews…
- Used case study (secondary data) on Calvinists, giving him a detailed insight.

• Structural cause - social institutions.
• Subjective meaning - people’s interpretation of structures.

Question 11

Durkheim (F)

Answer 11

• Official statistics are ‘social facts’ - true + objective measures of the real date of crime, suicide, etc.
• Positivist: sociology as a science - discover the causes of behavioural patterns / social problems that stats reveal + provide solutions - improve society.
• Sociologists can discover laws that determine how society works.

Question 12

Parsons (F)

Answer 12

• Organic analogy - function of each part of society helps to meet the needs of the system.
• Integrated into society through socialisation + social control.

Question 13

Marx (M)

Answer 13

• Bourgeoisie exploit the labour of the proletariat through ideology + hegemony.
• Revolution for communist society.

Question 14

Gramsci (M)

Answer 14

• People have free will so socialism will occur when people become conscious + overthrow capitalism.
• Encourages political action.

Question 15

Althusser (M)

Answer 15

• Individuals are passive puppets.
• Controlled by ideological + repressive state apparatus.

Question 16

Oakley (F)

Answer 16

Distinguished between sex + gender.
- Sex - biological differences.
- Gender - socially constructed ideas about roles + identities.

Question 17

Firestone (F)

Answer 17

• Patriarchy due to women’s biological capacity to bear + care for infants.
• Dependent on men.

Question 18

Walby (F)

Answer 18

• Dual systems feminist.
• Capitalism + patriarchy are interrelated.
• E.g. cheap female labour.

Question 19

Cooley (Symbolic Interactionism)

Answer 19

• Self-concept - ability to take the role of the other.
• Looking-glass - we become what others see us as.

Question 20

Goffman (Symbolic Interactionism)

Answer 20

• Dramaturgical approach - construct ourselves by manipulating people’s impression of us.
• E.g. props, language.

Question 21

Giddens (LM)

Answer 21

• Rapid change is a characteristic of late modernity.
• Disembbedding + reflexivity.
• Structure + Action co-exist.

Question 22

Popper

Answer 22

• Falsification.
• Sociology is unscientific + can’t necessarily be proved false.

Question 23

Garfinkel

Answer 23

• Ethnomethodology.
• Indexicality - nothing has a fixed meaning + everything is dependent on context.

Question 24

Comte

Answer 24

• Positivist.
• Sociology discovers truth about how society works.
• Scientific certainty on what is best for society.

Question 25

Gouldner

Answer 25

Research is influenced by values:
- Choice of methods, perspectives, topics.

Question 26

Becker

Answer 26

• Interactionalists - reveal meanings.
• Take the side of the underdog.

Question 27

Murray (NR)

Answer 27

• New Right: role of sociologist is to propose policies that promote individual choice.
• Policies like universal welfare benefits act as ‘perverse incentives’ that encourage a dependency culture.

Question 28

Mayo

Answer 28

• People worked harder under surveillance.
• Hawthorne effect.