Theory - Sociology As A Science

Question 1

What perspective sees sociology as a science?

Answer 1

Positivists.

Question 2

What do positivists think about sociology being a science?

Answer 2

People are predictable, sociology should uncover trends, the researcher should be able to test a hypothesis in a systematic and controlled way, discover cause and effect.

Question 3

Positivism - the period of enlightenment (18th century).

Answer 3

Period of discovery, development of of knowledge and understand of the world, people trusted science to explain how the world works through facts.

Question 4

Positivism - early sociology and science.

Answer 4

Durkheim and Marx wanted sociology to be as successful as science, believed scientific methods could identify human behaviour patterns, help social problems.

Question 5

Positivism - induction reasoning and verificationism.

Answer 5

Induction reasoning - accumulating data to identify patterns to support a hypothesis, gather data to interpret meanings and then conclude.
Verificationism - confirm and idea, prove something true, verify it.

Question 6

Positivism - Durkheim’s suicide study.

Answer 6

Aimed to use objective research methods to study suicide rate stats to show personal acts have social causes. Concluded suicide rates are higher in areas with high social integration (and are lower in catholic communities).

Question 7

Which perspective does not see sociology as a science?

Answer 7

Interpretivists.

Question 8

What do interpretivists think about sociology not being a science.

Answer 8

People have free will and consciousness, seek to find individual internal meanings rather than external causes, methods that don’t allow detachment.

Question 9

Interpretivism - subject mater of sociology.

Answer 9

Sociology is not a science, humans perform meaningful social actions, sociology job is to uncover the meaning of the actions.

Question 10

Interpretivism - natural vs sociology.

Answer 10

Natural science studies large inanimate matter with no free will or consciousness.
Sociology studies people who have their own free will and can make choices about their actions and behaviour of their own accord

Question 11

Interpretivism - sociologist Mead.

Answer 11

Mead argues people interpret the meaning of stimuli and choose how to respond, humans are autonomous beings who construct their own world through the meaning they give to it, not puppets of social cues.

Question 12

Interpretivism - Douglas’ suicide study.

Answer 12

Individual differences are determines by their own free will, rejects idea to use quantitative data, stats are socially constructed and easily wrongly interpreted, suicide stats only show how the living define the deaths of others rather than why somebody ended their own life.

Question 13

What do post modernists believe about sociology and science?

Answer 13

It depends on how science is defined in the first place.
Rejects science because is it a “meta narrative” so it is not any more valid than another view, science has created a risk society by creating world wide problems (global warming), claims monopoly of the truth and can be used to justify immoral actions.

Question 14

Post modernist - Popper.

Answer 14

Claims systems such as religion politics and culture all believe they have true knowledge, natural science is superior, rejects verificationism (attaining evidence to prove something right).

Question 15

Popper - fallacy of induction

Answer 15

Induction builds up evidence to verify a theory, so the fallacy of induction suggests collecting evidence contains errors due to judgements of individuals. Can never prove a theory right, only assume.

Question 16

Popper - truth.

Answer 16

No such thing as absolute truth. All knowledge is temporary and can be refuted at any time.

Question 17

Popper - falsification.

Answer 17

A scientific statement is one to be tested to be proved wrong, a good theory would stand attempts to disprove it and should make bold claims to be generalised.

Question 18

Post modernist - Kuhn.

Answer 18

Believes in paradigms, scientists accept paradigms through socialisation, it defines what their science is. Advantage to following paradigms is to accumulate knowledge and understanding.

Question 19

Kuhn - normal science.

Answer 19

Most of the time the paradigm isn’t questioned and scientists do puzzle solving within the paradigm.

Question 20

Kuhn - anomalies.

Answer 20

Scientists find contradicting evidence, if too many are fund then faith in paradigm declines and it is questioned.

Question 21

Kuhn - crisis.

Answer 21

Science enters a period of crisis and sciences must begin to create rival paradigms.

Question 22

Kuhn - scientific revolutions.

Answer 22

One paradigm will win over questioning and becomes newly accepted by the scientific community allowing normal science to return with a new principle. “Paradigm shifts” similar to religious conversions because decision to choose new one is based on emotion and rationality.

Question 23

Post modernist - realism (Keat and Urry)

Answer 23

Similarities between sociology and certain kinds of natural science in terms of degrees of control from the researcher but other than that do not believe sociology can be a science. Reject positivists view that science is concerned with observable phenomena. Reject interpretivists view that sociology and science are different.

Question 24

Realism - closed systems

Answer 24

The researcher can control and measure all the variables and can make precise predictions.

Question 25

Realism - open systems

Answer 25

The researcher cannot control and measure all the variables and cannot make precise predictions. Used when research processes are too complex to make exact conclusions.