Transcript Investigative Research

Investigative Research
Background by
Teifi Wynne
Is sociology a
science?
Value freedom
How can
sociologists
influence
social policy
Methodological
issues
What are the
social facts?
Positivism
v
Interpretivism
Source: Sociology A2 for AQA, Kidd et al, 2004
Theory & the research process
Functionalism
Feminisms
Marxism
Classical theories –
modern society
Neo-Marxism
Interactionism
Source: Sociology A2 for AQA,
Kidd et al, 2004
Debates beyond methods
So far we have discussed various types
of methods and the pros and cons of
utilising them. We are now going to
move beyond methods to discuss
‘methodologies’.
Difference
Methodology refers to the process of
how we understand society
Society
Tasking one sentence answers;
So what is society?
What parts can we say society is
composed of?
Why should there be a need to study
society?
What was the world like at the beginning
of sociology in the C18th & C19th? How
would they value knowledge?
The world in transition
Thought was moving rapidly lets look at Dr Anna Juska
picture of a world in transition..the movement to
modernity
Traditional
Agriculture
Rural
Informal control face
To face family ties
Religion /traditional
science
Modern
Industrialisation
urban
formal/bureaucratic
systems of power
secular/based on
society is ‘man made’
therefore changeable
Stage one: Positivism & Interpretivism
To gain an understanding of these
types of methodologies we must
enter their view of the social
world.
We will start with a positivists view
of the world as
Mr August (not so good looking)
greatly influenced C19th thought
to the extent that a lot of
Positivist societies were formed in
England and France in the crazy
land of Brazil there were even
Comtean churches
Positivists: time warp now in the C18th & C19th
The world in the time of the ‘founding
fathers’ they sound god like but are men who
laid down the foundations of sociological
thought (please read up on Mary
Wollenstoncraft excellent social theorist
working at the same time but merely woman.
Died in childbirth daughter went onto write
‘Frankenstein’ erotic fear!..very much
digressing here). Then again she did not
create a scientific process that established
the subject!
Positivism
Comte’s sociology was embedded with his
ideas of correct civil order.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution he
saw society as having broken down. He saw
the Revolution as a positive force because the
old structures of society were based on an
dead religious knowledge and this would not
be a good basis for shared opinions. It was
the progress of the sciences that had
undermined this basis. The Revolution offered
no grounds for the reorganization of society
because it was negative -- that is, the
Revolution destroyed the old without creating
the new.
What social theory is this beginning to sound
like?
Status & positivism
• Comte wanted to make a positive
science of society to the study of man
• To show that behaviour in the social
world is governed by laws similar to that
of the natural world
• So the logic, methods and procedures of
the natural sciences are applicable to
the study of mankind
Positivistic Scientific Enquiry
• use research methods that produce
quantitative data which measure patterns of
social behaviour
• Systematic observation and experimentation
would reveal this
• Positivists want research techniques and
sources of data that generate statistical
evidence
• Social surveys – produce general statements
about the whole population. These can be
replicated and generalised on the whole
population
P v I: Comte moving beyond Hegel
• It was sociology,
he claimed, that
would give
ultimate meaning
to all the other
sciences -- it was
the one science
which held the
others together.
• "The object of all my
labor," Comte wrote,
"has been to reestablish in society
something spiritual that
is capable of counterbalancing the influence
of the ignoble
materialism in which we
are at present
submerged."
Interpretivism
Departs from positivism in that they feel
people are more complex than science
Science deals with matter like atoms and
chemicals these have no consciousness
so behaviour can be explained in terms
of external influences
People do so they see and interpret their
world in terms of the meanings they
attach to their social reality
Atkinson & Suicide
We again need to think how the
phenomenologist Atkinson approached
his study of suicide
No objective reality waiting to be
discovered in suicide statistics
Society is socially constructed
Interpretivism
View of the world
• Actors own view of what is reality
• Subjective realities
• Important is the meaning
• Social actors attach meanings to the events in an ongoing ever changing way to create these individual
‘social realities’
• Identify the ways in which groups construct sets of
meanings and the ways in which they understand their
lives and environment
• For data to offer meanings it has to be qualitative to
explain subjects world-views in some depth
• Interviews and observation
• Participant observation
• Unstructured interviews – speak freely, their words
have more influence over the research
Macro v Micro
• Positivists study the world in a macro way
they see society as a system
• Interpretivists see the study of society in a
micro way social relationships can only be
understood in the small scale. They see
society as based on ‘social action’
war
Structure
Action
Marxism
Functionalism
Feminism
Interactionism
Phenomenology
Behaviour is shaped by structural forces
beyond our control
Class, race and gender
People can control their social world
Balance: Giddens 1984
Structuration theory
• Gidden’s says we need to utilise both theories to
understand society
• Structure and action are inevitably entwined
• Structures are formed by the actions of humans
people are reflective
• ‘reflexivity’ we are conscious beings therefore
reflect and can modify our behaviour
Balance: Giddens 1984
“Structures are sets of practices (ways of
behaviour that are continually repeated,
such as gender relations or the
relationship between education and class)
that are repeated time over time, rather
that forces which exist outside of or
external to us. ….people create these
structures through their own activities”
Source: Sociology A2 for AQA, Kidd et al, 2004 page 145
What more critique
Yep! Giddens’ bash
Are people always free to act?
Is this the same to all?
So end analysis until someone throws a
bomb on this one:
two different aspects of society that can be
and should be understood in contrast to
each other