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An overview of social science, focusing on the positivist approach. It discusses the methodology used in social science research, the assumptions of positivism, and how it differs from other approaches like interpretive and critical. It also covers the positivist assumptions about science and human behavior, research designs, and the interpretive and critical approaches.
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Comte & Durheim early proponents of positivism.
Sociology should model itself on the physical & biological sciences.
Sociologists should study “social facts”!
Social fact is any way of acting, thinking, or feeling that is socially learned & socially enforced.
Sociologists study social facts objectively …just as biologists or geologists study their subject matter.
Social facts are expressed in patterns or regularities in social behavior & can be studied using statistics.
Interpretive sociologists argue that values are relative & what is deemed appropriate or inappropriate varies across time & societies. Researchers should try to understand (empathetically) & explain values of people being studied.
Research designs favored by interpretive sociology include: participant observation, in- depth interviews, and focus groups.
Key question for interpretive sociologists is does the explanation make sense to the people whose behavior is being explained.
Interpretive research does not lend itself to generalization or replication.
Comte saw the natural & social sciences using similar methodologies but warned that sociology could not be reduced to “lower - order” sciences such as psychology or biology. So in doing research on terrorism….
A sociologist would focus on social variables (educational & family backgrounds; values & attitudes…and how these relate to other social variables (e.g., rise of religious fundamentalism, globalization & anti-Americanism).
A psychologist / psychiatrist might focus on early childhood experiences, individual traumas, group brainwashing & personality/ brain/ genetic, disorders.
Social Facts are ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that are external to us (exist independently of us ), and yet influence out actions, thoughts, and feelings.
Social facts include: norms, values, customs, fads, fashions, laws, trends, attitudes, etc.
Sociology attempts to explain & predict social phenomenon using social variables!
Sociologists assume that social variables cause or create social behaviors. Few social phenomenon are purely individual or random…even something like suicide is related to several social variables (has social causes)!
Theoretical Level …abstract, general statement of a research problem (e.g., Merton’s Theory of “Anomie” as a general explanation of criminal or deviant behavior ). Good theories help determine important social variables.
Conceptual Level …conceptually (verbally or linguistically define) key social variables. Often obtained from dictionaries and/or research done by others. Good conceptual definitions help develop good observations or measurements of key variables.
Operational Level …how we empirically observe or measure the key variables (e.g., what question(s) on a survey will measure political views).
