Topic 4- The relationship between theory and methods Flashcards
Positivists
Society is a reality external to individuals
Interpretivists
Society is socially constructed set of meanings shared by a social group
What do positivists believe
Social behaviour can be measured and explained objectively
What is positivists research most likely to involve
Involve large scale research on large numbers of people
Criticisms of positivist approach
Don’t produce a true account of society as they impose the researchers own framework of assumptions on those being studied
What do interpretivists believe
More concerned with understanding the meanings that individuals give situations and how these perceptions direct social action
What is interpretivists research most likely to involve
Inductive approach to form theories which is a more open ended process
Criticisms of the interpretivist approach
-Lacks reliability
-Hawthorne effect
-Close relationship
Feminist methodology
Main focus is upon the unequal position of women in societies
Miles (1983)
Much positivist research has a masculine bias on social life and ignores the experience of women
What approach to feminist researchers use
Interpretivist approaches
Westmarland
Positivist large scale surveys and official statistics may be useful to discover the scale of problems
Methodological pluralism
Using a variety of methods
