CH 1 Sociological Research Methods

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering core sociological concepts from the lecture notes.

Sociology

the science of society.

Social facts

products of human interaction with persuasive or coercive power that exist externally to any individual.

Data

systematically collected sets of empirical observations.

Research questions

queries about the world that can be answered empirically.

Sociological research methods

scientific strategies for collecting empirical data about social facts.

Qualitative research methods

tools of sociological inquiry that involve careful consideration and discussion of the meaning of nonnumerical data.

Quantitative research methods

tools of sociological inquiry that involve examining numerical data with mathematics.

Sociological sympathy

the skill of understanding others as they understand themselves.

Research ethics

the set of moral principles that guide empirical inquiry.

Sociological theory

empirically based explanations and predictions about relationships between social facts.

Social patterns

explainable and foreseeable similarities and differences among people influenced by the social conditions in which they live.

Standpoints

points of view grounded in lived reality.

Public sociology

the work of using sociological theory to make societies better.

Sociological imagination

the capacity to consider how people's lives—including our own—are shaped by the social facts that surround us.