Theory and Methods

Question 1

Positivism

Answer 1

• Durkheim and Comte describe themselves as positivists.
• Positivists believe that it is possible to apply the logic and methods of natural sciences to the study of society and in doing so will gain true and objective knowledge.
• They refer to this as ‘objective factual reality’, which can help us solve social problems and achieve progress (under the enlightenment project).

Question 2

Patterns, Laws and Inductive Reasoning

Answer 2

• For positivists, reality is not random or chaotic, but e can observe patterns in behaviour, like empirical facts.
• They do this through inductive reasoning. Which involves gathering an accumulation of data about the world through measurement and observation.
• The more observations we make and the more data we can accumulate, the more we can verify our theory.
• Patterns we observe, whether in nature or society, can all be explained in the same way - by finding the facts that cause them. For example, physics explains how the apple falls from the tree.
• Positivists seek to discover the causes of the patterns they observe. They can then predict future events and guide social policy.

Question 3

Objective Quantitative Research

Answer 3

• Positivists use quantitative data to uncover and measure patterns of behaviour, as well as analysing ‘laws’ of cause and effect.
• They prefer lab experiments, questionnaires, official statistics, comparative experiments and structured interviews.

Question 4

Durkheim’s Study of Suicide

Answer 4

• Durkheim chose to study suicide to show that sociology is a science with its own distinct subject matter.
• He believed he could prove that even such a highly individual act like suicide had social causes, to establish sociology as a genuinely scientific discipline.
• Using official statistics, he observed that there were patterns in the suicide rate, such as how Protestant rates were higher than Catholics. He determined that these much be social facts: forces acting upon members of society to determine their behaviour.
• According to Durkheim, the social facts responsible for determining suicide rates were the levels of integration and regulation in each person’s life. Thus, for example, Catholics were less likely than Protestants to commit suicide because Catholicism was more successful at integrating its members.
• This, he claims to have a ‘real law’ that different levels of integration and regulation produced different rates of suicide.

Question 5

Interpretivism: Social Action

Answer 5

• Interpretivists argue that subject matter is meaningful social action and that we can only understand it by successfully interpreting the motives and meanings of actions involves – something science fails to do.
• Science deals with cause and effect but sociology deals with human beings. Because of this perspective many interpretivists reject the use of quantitative research methods in sociology.
• Natural science studies matter without consciousness however sociology involves people with consciousness and who construct their world by attaching meaning to him.
• Meade argued that rather than responding automatically to stimuli, human beings interpret meaning and then choose how to respond to it. For example, stopping at a red light may seem automatic, but may include considerations of important, authority, responsibility and social judgments.
• For interpretivists, individuals are not puppets on a string manipulated by social facts. Rather, each individual responds to the world differently based on how they build meanings from the world around them.

Question 6

Qualitative Research and Verstehen

Answer 6

• Interpretivists argued that we need to see the world from the actor’s point of view. They reject quantitative research methods in favour of qualitative ones:
  o Unstructured interviews
  o Participant observations
  o Case studies
  o Life course analysis

Question 7

Types of Interpretivism

Answer 7

• Interactionists:
  o Causal explanations
  o Don’t need hypotheses
  o Hypotheses risk bias and distort reality
  o Ideas emerge from observations
• Phenomenologist and Ethnomethodologists:
  o Social reality is the shared knowledge of its members
  o Cause and effect don’t exist
  o People’s actions are not governed by external forces
  o Don’t attempt to explain social events
  o Seek to understand how social actors construct social events and meaning

Question 8

Interpretivism and Suicide

Answer 8

• Douglas rejects there comes interpretation of the data. He argues that individuals have free will and choose to act on the basis of meaning.
• To understand suicide we must uncover its meaning for those involved.
• He also rejects his use of quantitative data, which he argues is a social construction resulting from how coroners labelled deaths as suicide. He would prioritise qualitative data from case studies in order to determine actors meanings.
• Unlike Douglas, Atkinson, an ethnomethodologist, argues that the statistics can be inaccurate as you can only guess the meanings for example an accidental overdose. We can only understand the dead by understanding how the living makes sense of them for example labelling a death as suicide and why.

Question 9

Other Views on Scientific Sociology

Answer 9

• Postmodernists regard natural science is simply a metanarrative. Despite its claim to have special access to the truth, science is just one more ‘big story’ and so there is no reason sociology should model itself on science.
• In fact, given the postmodernist view that there are many there’s many different truths as there are points of view, a scientific approach that claims monopoly of truth is dangerous. A scientific sociology is not just false; it is a form of domination.
• For example, Marxism, which claims to mould the scientific truth on an ideal society, or used to justify oppression in the USSR.
• Postmodernist feminists share this view. They argue that the quest for a single, scientific feminist theory is a form of domination, since it could virtually excludes many groups of women. Some all the feminists argue that the quantitative scientific methods favoured by positivists are also oppressive and cannot capture the reality of women’s experiences.
• Some writers all show argues science is an undesirable model because it is not always progressive. For example, risk SoC come up with nuclear weapons and climate change, undermines the idea that science inevitably brings benefits to humankind.

Question 10

Can Sociology be a Science?

Answer 10

• Positivists and interpretivists both agree that science is based on inductive reasoning on verificationism.
• However, a number of sociologists and philosophers have put forward very different views on what science is and whether sociology can be a science.
• Popper notes how there are many systems of thought that claim to have knowledge of the world, such as religions and ideologies.
• We can only prove a theory wrong comment not right, so verificationism cannot be achieved. For example, You can only disprove that all swans are white. Therefore, science is based upon the principle of falsification rather than verification. For example, everybody believed that the shouldn’t spun round the earth until it was disproven.
• ‘All knowledge is provisional, temporary, capable of refutation at any moment’.

Question 11

Open Belief Systems

Answer 11

• In Popper’s view, science is an open belief system. It thrives in liberal societies because of free expression, however close society you’re dominated by an official belief system that claims absolute truth.
• This shows science is unscientific because many of its ideas cannot be tested because they can’t be falsified.
• For example, Marx argued that there would be a revolution upon class consciousness. This cannot be falsified because if there is a revolution he’s right and if there’s no revolution it’s because we’re under the false class consciousness and he’s also right.
• Therefore, sociology cannot be a science.

Question 12

Paradigms

Answer 12

• Kuhn argues science governed by paradigms or dominant ways of thinking. The community defines what science is until scientist what to think and how to think on what questions they should research: pusher shelving.
• Science cannot exist without a shared paradigm and therefore it is a closed system.
• Pull your solving is not always successful, and from time to time there were anomalies that mean the paradigm needs to be reformulated. Signs reaches a crisis point and rival paradigms formed to create a scientific revolution.
• Therefore, sociology is not yet a science because it is preparadigmatic (divided into schools of thought). Sociology could only be a science if its disagreements are resolved, which post modernists criticise as creating a meta narrative anyway.
• Some physics has competing paradigms.

Question 13

Realism, Science and Sociology

Answer 13

• Keat and Urry stress the similarities between sociology and some kinds of natural sciences. They distinguish between open and closed belief systems.
• Realists argue that sociologists study open systems: the processes are too complex to make exact predictions. For example, we can’t predict crime rate precisely because there are too many variables.
• Realists also reject the positivist view that science is only concerned with observable phenomena for example physics is theoretical.
• For realists, both natural and social sciences attempt to explain the causes of events in terms of underlying structures and processes that are not observable innately, other than the observations of their effects.

Question 14

Sociology and Values

Answer 14

• Values are the beliefs and opinions of the sociologist.
• Positivist aimed for value freedom, where researchers collected and published without bias or values. This supposedly creates objectivity and respectability.
• Early positivists like contained Durkheim and Comte argue that the creation of a better society is not about values, but it is the job of science to uncover the truth about society (‘the Enlightenment Project’).
• It is debated whether Marx was a positivist. We know he definitely saw himself as a scientist. He believed that his method of historical analysis revealed the truth about the stages of society that would lead to a classless society.
• Weber argued that values are important when deciding what to research, but whilst conducting the research.

Question 15

Value Freedom and Commitment

Answer 15

• By the mid-20th century, modern voice to this tended to argue that their own values were irrelevant. They wanted to appear scientific and were now hired to solve the problem of governments, businesses and the military, creating an agenda.
• This reflected a desire to make sociology respectable.
• Sociologists such as Marxist, feminists and interactionists argued for a committed sociology, where they could and should take sides.
• Gouldner argues that by the 50s, sociologists had become spiritless technicians dash problem takers not problem makers dash who avoided criticising their paymasters.

Question 16

Taking Sides

Answer 16

• Myrdal argues that sociologists should openly take sides because it is both impossible and undesirable to be without values, as it would mean selling services to the highest bidder.
• Becker argues that values are always present and positivists tend to take the sides of the powerful: police, psychiatrist etc. We should always try to take the side of those underrepresented and give them a voice. This is reflected in Verstehen-based methods.
• Gouldner criticises Becker for being romantic and sentimental. He adopts a Marxist view, arguing sociologists should take the side of those fighting back, such as rebels. Here, we choose to promote the views of those ready to end oppression, rather than those only willing to complain.

Question 17

Other Issues

Answer 17

• Funding controls on values and methods.
• Researchers may choose methods in topics that advance their careers, not that our objective or accurate.
• Postmodernists take a relativist view. They argue all perspectives involved values and we cannot know which is true. There are many truths each perspective is another version of reality.

Question 18

Functionalism

Answer 18

• Many of the key functionalist ideas can be traced back to Durkheim in the 19th century. However, it was Parsons who developed functionalism as a systematic theory in the mid-20th century.
• It became the dominant school of thought in sociology in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in the US.
• Functionalism is a structural, modernist theory that focuses on the needs of the social system as a whole and how these needs shape the features of society.
• It is also a consensus theory, based on agreement among members over values, goals and rules.
• Functionalism is a macro theory that shows the goals of the Enlightenment project. Functionalists believe that we can obtain true knowledge of the functioning of society and this knowledge can be used to improve society.
• Functionalists follow the organic analogy. Parsons argued social order is achieved through the existence of a shared a culture and central value system. Which provides A framework for cooperation and appropriate behaviour undervalued consensus.
• Individuals are integrated into the social system by socialisation and social control.
• Parsons identifies for basic needs to keep the system working:
  o Adaptation: meets members material needs through the economic strip system.
  o Goal attainment: society needs to set goals and allocate resources to achieve them through the political ship system.
  o Integration: and the different parts of the system will be integrated together in order to pursue goals comment socialised by religion, education our media.
  o Latency: purchases maintain society over time by socialisation and tension management.

Question 19

Types of Society

Answer 19

Functionalists believe that society has moved from a traditional system based on collective interests and particularistic standards, to a modern system post industrialisation with universalistic standards and based on achieved status is.

Question 20

Evaluations of functionalism

Answer 20

• Merton criticises Parsons’ system theory for three reasons:
  o Indispensability: it is an untested assumption that institutions can only exist as they do now.
  o Functional unity: complex parts Oh no inherently linked by an organic analogy.
  o Universal functionalism: not everything performed positive functions for everyone.
• We cannot assume, as Parsons does, that society is always a smooth running, well integrated society.
• Feminist criticised functionalism for adhering to a male stream, unquestionably consensus based approach to sociology which ignores how society is not functional for women.
• Marxists or should blame functionalism for ignoring conflict. But ignoring how the bourgeoisie exploits the private area and justifying inequality as functional, they form part of the ideological state apparatus.
• Action theory see functionalism as deterministic, assuming people are passing on puppets in society and ignoring freewill. Society is a construct.
• Postmodernist might argue there is no value consensus, and society is too chaotic and fragmented to explain by single meta narrative.
• Functionalism is unscientific as you can’t test the theories objectively.

Question 21

The New Right

Answer 21

• The New Right is a political theory that believes in the rigid preservation of institutions like the family.
• They support a ‘free’ neoliberal economy comment including through the privatisation of schools.
• They blame the breakdown of the nuclear family for causing boys, especially black boys, to seek a ‘perverse loyalty and love’, driving them to anti-school and criminal subcultures.
• They see diversity is bad.
• They have informed New Labour and Tory policies.
• Theorists include Phillips, Sewell, Chubb and Moe and Murray.
• They believe in austerity and market competition.
• They are ‘tough on crime’ and focus on environmental and target harden prevention.

Question 22

Marxism

Answer 22

• Marxism has at least one thing in common with functionalism: society shapes individuals’ behaviour and ideas.
• However, they differ sharply:
  o They reject that social structure is harmonious and based on consensus of values. Instead, it is based on a conflict of economic interests between unequal classes.
  o Marxists reject the functionalist view that society is stable and stress the potential for sudden revolutionary change. Stability is only the result of the dominant class being able to impose their will on society.
• Marxism is based on the ideas of Marx, who believed it was possible to understand SoC scientifically and that this knowledge would point towards a better society. Marx did not see progress is smooth or gradual, but as a contradictory process in which capitalism would increase human misery before giving way to classless communist society.
• Jones argues that alienation is still relevant today. Marx predicted globalisation based on capitalist greed. Capitalism has, as written in the Communist Manifesto, has lurched from ‘crisis to crisis’, for example from the 2008 Financial Crash to the 2020s Cost of Living Crisis.
• Weber argues that social and power differences are just as important as class, and that non-capitalistic social ideas can bring about change.

Question 23

The Two Marxisms

Answer 23

• Since Marx’s death in 1883, the absence of revolutions in the west as led many Marxists to reject the economic determinism of the base-superstructure model. Instead, they have tried to explain why capitalism has persisted and how it might be overthrown. Two broad approaches can be identified:
  o Humanistic/Critical Marxism: Similar to action theories and interpretivism. Includes Gramsci, drawing on Marx’s early writing of alienation and subjectivity. Voluntaristic and encourages class consciousness and resolution.
  o Scientific/Structuralist Marxism: Similar to positivism. Includes Althusser and draws on Marx’s later work, where he writes about ‘laws’. Scientific and deterministic, discussing inevitable but spontaneous economic collapse.

Question 24

Marxism, Gramsci and Hegemony

Answer 24

• Gramsci refers to ‘hegemony’ as the ideological or moral leadership of society: the ruling class maintains its power through the domination of ideas, not through economic determinism.
• The transition to communism will never come about simply as a result of economic forces.
• Even though mass unemployment and falling wages may create the preconditions for revolution, ideas play a role in determining whether or not change will occur.
• Dominance is maintained by:
  o Coercion (army, police etc.)
  o Consent (hegemony, ideas etc.)
• While the Bourgeoisie can control the spread of ideas through institutions, the ruling class are the minority who can only rule by alliances with ideological compromises. The Proletariat can see through the hegemony by a dual consciousness that sees the reality, and can create a counter-hegemony to win leadership, with the help of ‘organic intellectuals’.
• Underplays economic factors stopping revolution, such as not striking because of being unable to lose pay.
• Willis writes that the lads ‘partially penetrate’ Bourgeoisie ideology to see meritocracy as a myth.

Question 25

Althusser’s Structural Marxism

Answer 25

* It is not people's actions but social structures that really shaped history and these are the subject of objective scientific inquiry. * Althusser rejects the base-superstructure model, but put forward a structural determinism theory. Drawing on Craib’s ‘structural determinism’, his model of capitalist society has three structures and levels: o Economic level: means of production o Political level: organisations o Ideological level: interpretations of self and the world * In the base-superstructure model, there is a one way causality column the economic base determines everything about the other two levels. However, in all two years model, the political and ideological of we have partial independence from the economic level. They can affect what happens to the economy. * He argues that the state in charge the reproduction of capitalism through the repressive state apparatus on the idle ideological state apparatus. * He criticises humanism for overemphasising the ‘free’ world, which he argues is an illusion. * Thompson accuses Althusser of elitism. Because he under-emphasises the impact of working class suffering and revolutionary ideas, Althusser’s claims that blindly following the views of a Communist Party of organic intellectuals will save working people are elitist.

Question 26

Feminism

Answer 26

* Feminists see society is male dominated and seek to describe under explain unchanged the position of women in society. It is therefore both a theory of women’s subordination and a political movement. * There are 4 main types of feminism: o Radical feminism promotes separatism o Liberal feminism promotes a March of progress o Marxist feminism suggests that gender and class oppression are interlinked o Different/Black feminism envelopes multiple perspectives on how women are oppressed

Question 27

Liberal Feminism

Answer 27

* Liberal feminists believe all human beings should have equal rights on this includes gender equality. * They argue laws and policies against sex discrimination in employment on education can secure equal opportunities for women. * Liberal feminists also campaign for cultural change, breaking stereotypes and prejudices that are a barrier to equality. * They reject that biological differences make women more emotional unless rational. * There is a difference between sex and gender, according to Oakley. * They say that changes in socialisation and culture are creating change in driving auntie discriminatory laws and policies. The studies have demonstrated that gender is socialised and surgeon exists. * They are criticised for being overly-optimistic about the March of Progress. * Walby argues they offered no explanation of the overall structure of gender inequality.

Question 28

Radical Feminism

Answer 28

* Radical feminism emerged in the 1970s, seeing society as a patriarchy in which men take control and exploit women, especially in the form of unpaid domestic labour under sexual services. * The personal is political: patriarchal oppression is direct and personal. It occurs not only in the public spirit, but also in the private sphere often through sexual or physical violence. * They argue women need to lead separate lives from men to avoid patriarchy. Lesbianism is the only non-oppressive form of sexuality. * Somerville argues that heterosexuality makes it unlikely that the nuclear family will be replaced by single sex households.

Question 29

Marxist Feminism

Answer 29

* They disagree that patriarchies and oppressive product of stereotyping. * Women subordination in a capitalist society results from their expressive world making them economically dependent. * They are often a cheap reserve army of labour common reproducing the labour force and acting as a safety valve for male anger at an economic system that doesn't serve them. * Barrett suggests that the ideology of familism means we must give more emphasis to women's consciousness and motivations, on the role of idle allergy in making oppression normal. * Hartman suggests that this doesn't explain why women are not men do the unpaid labour, because Marxism is sex blind.

Question 30

Dual Systems Feminism

Answer 30

* Hartman says that patriarchal capitalism is the division of domestic labour unpaid work, reinforcing each other. * Walby argues the two systems are interrelated but their interests aren't always the same. Capitalism demands cheap female labour but patriarchy wants to keep women in their home.

Question 31

Difference Feminism

Answer 31

* Women are not a homogeneous group. * Feminism claims are false universality based on the experiences of white, western, heterosexual, middle class women. * Butler argues post structuralism allows feminisms To deconstruct different discourses to analyse how they subordinate women. * Segal suggested that poststructuralism abandons any notion of real common objective social structures that cause discrimination.

Question 32

Social Action Theory

Answer 32

* Weber saw both structural and action approaches is necessary for a full understanding of human behaviour. * He said that an adequate sociological explanation had two levels: o Level of course: structural factors o Level of meaning: individual choices * For example, in his study of the Protestant ethic, he deemed the structural cause to be the new belief system and the meaning as how work took on a new religious meaning for the Calvinists. * However, there are an infinite number of subjective meanings that the actions actors may give to the actions. Weber attempts to classify them into four types, based on their meanings for the actor: o Instrumentally rational action: efficient way of achieving a goal o Rational value action: action towards a goal that is desired for its own sake, for example religion to get into heaven. o Traditional action: habits o Affectual action: expresses emotions * Schutz argues Weber’s view of action is too individualistic and cannot explain the shared nature of meanings. For example, the bidder at an auction knows that raising their arm means a bid, but how does everyone else?

Question 33

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 33

* Mead argues that our behaviour is not shaped by fixed, pre-programmed instincts. Instead, we respond to the world by giving meanings to things that are significant toys, which we do by attaching symbols to the world. Unlike animals, we do not simply respond to a stimulus in a pre-determined way. Instead, we have an interpretive phase: where we interpret the meaning given actor before responding. * We imagine other people’s meanings by taking on the role of others- putting ourselves in the place of another person and seeing ourselves as they see us. Our ability to take the role of the other developed through our social interaction. We take on the role of significant others and later come to see ourselves from the perspective of the wider community the generalised other. * Blumer developed these key ideas and identified 3 key principles: o Our actions are based on perceived meanings and are not automatic o Meaning arise from the interaction process is non-negotiable o Meanings are the result of interpretive procedures * This contrasts strongly with functionalist views, which the individuals are puppets, possibly responding to the system’s needs. Socialisation on social controls ensure that individuals conform to society's norms and perform their roles in fixed unpredictable ways. * By contrast, Blumer argues that action is partly predictable because we internalise the expectations of others and it is not completely fixed. There is always room for negotiation and choice.

Question 34

Labelling Theory

Answer 34

* Labelling theory develops interactionism to look at key areas in education, health and crime. The label is how we define a situation. Thomas argues that if people define situation is real then it will have real consequences. * The looking glass self- suggested by Cooley, argues we develop self-concept based in our ability to take on the note of the other, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy. * Becker uses this concept to identify how individuals take on a state space labelled as their master status. * Goffman describes the dramaturgical model: how we actively construct ourselves by manipulating other people's impression of us. He described this using an analogy of actions using scripts, props and resting backstage. He refers to impression management and rose the different to our true selves. This is arguably exaggerated by social media.

Question 35

Phenomenology

Answer 35

* Phenomenology is an interpretivist approach developed by Schutz. He argued that we make sense of the world through shared concept or categories called ‘typifications’, which served to clarify and stabilise meanings, allowing us to communicate and cooperate. In doing so, we give the world the appearance of being natural, orderly and real, but it is actually a construction. * Meanings are assigned by typifications according to context. Without this, social order would be impossible. * Common sense typifications are ‘recipe knowledge’, which we follow without thinking too much.

Question 36

Ethnomethodology

Answer 36

* Garfinkel builds on phenomenology, rejecting the very idea of a real, objective structure out there. He views social order as being created from the bottom up, and accomplishment constructed by members of society using common sense knowledge. * While interactionists are interested in the effects of meanings, as no methodology is interested in the methods of rules we used to produce meanings on the first place. * Indexicality discusses how nothing has a fixed meaning and everything is contextual. This is a threat to social order. * Reflectivity enables us to behave as if meanings are clear and obvious. * Garfinkel is interested in the method used to achieve reflexivity. In the case of suicide, coroners seek patterns that are not there and perform a confirmation bias. Durckheim is equally just operating on common sense, taking statistics is social folks to create false Lloyds stop * Craib suggests that findings in this theory are trivial and explained by common sense themselves. For example, one study found that in phone calls, only one person usually speaks at a time.

Question 37

Giddens’ Structuration Theory

Answer 37

* Giddens describes a duality of structure: structure and action are two sides of the same coin, and neither can exist independently. Through our actions, we produce and reproduce structures which make our actions possible for example language. * Structure has two elements: rules and resources. Both can be reproduced through human action, and are usually not changed because we value order and stability. * Action can also change society through reflective monitoring and unintended consequences. * Archer argues he underestimates the power of structures to resist change for example slavery.

Question 38

Methodology

Answer 38

* Interactionism rejects positivist define Lowe's. It suggests objective approaches through interpreter based methods. * Participant observation is favoured, as well as other qualitative approaches. * We can give examples including: o Willis and the lads for social action theory o Weber and the Protestant ethic for social action theory o Cicourel for phenomenology o Young for labelling o Cohen for labelling o Atkinson for ethnomethodology o Garfinkel for ethnomethodology * Social action theorists value Verstehen and report. They reject official statistics as socially constructed.