POSITIVISM AND INTERPRETIVISM

What is positivism?

prefer quantative methods as it is scientific and objective, like to use questionnairres with clsed questions, structured interviews, expirements and social statistics

Who is a famous positivist?

Durkheim

WHAT IS INTERPRETIVISM?

prefer qualatitive data, questionnaires with open questions, case studies, participant observations, Max weber (verstehen), standing in someone else’s shoes

What are theoretical considerations in choice of research?

this refer to whether research is theoretically reliable and vaid and researcher’s attitudes to what kind of data and data methods yield the best result

Define reliability

can the research be replicated effectively

Define validity

are the findings telling the truth about the situation

What do positivists aim to do?

uncover general laws about behaviour, quantative methods to study large numbers of people in a reliable, representative way

What do interpretivists aim to do?

understand and empathise with individual peoples experiences, ganing in depth insights into their lives using qualatitive methods for greater validity and better rappaports

What are social facts?

facts about society

What is the definition af a social fact?

concepts and institutions in society that arre objectively and scientifically viable (according to positivists)

Durkheim quotes bout social facts

consist of manners of acting thinking and feeling extend to the individual which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him

Explain Durkheim’s suicide study

he researched official statistics on suicid in several european countries and found that suicide rate was influenced by several social factors such as divorce rates, religion and the pace of economic and social change in the country. Further theorized that suicide rateb increased when there was either too much or too little intergration and regulation in society

Why do positivsts value social facts?

believe that social facts are veyr reliable and create hard data

When did postivism emerge?

out of the industial revolution and enlightenment

What was the enlightenment?

1650-1800, authority of the church being questioned

What are the three core beliefs of enlightenment?

undelying laws explain how the universe and society works, all men could understand this, laws could be applied to society to improve it

What/when is the birth of sociology?

18th - 19th century, new discovery in sciences, led to industrialisation and people moving to the cities, social transformation through urbanisation. eg manchester, creates new issues such as poverty, unemployment and social unrest

Who is considered the founder of sociology?

August Comte

examples of primary methods used by interpretivists:

natural experiments, small scale studies, open ended questions in questionnaires, participant observations

examples of secondary methods used by interpretivists:

newspaper articles, diaries, life histories, auto/biographies, tv, radio and documentaries

examples of primary methods used by positivists:

artificial experiments, comparative methods, closed question questionnairres,structured interviews, non participant observations

examples of secondary methods used by positivis

official statistics

What are the weaknesses of positivists?

assumes individuals are passive, people’s subjective realities are complex and demands in depth qualatative methods, social facts may be invalid and its detached, a shallow understanding of human behaviour

examples of structural theories

funtionalism, marxism and feminism

consensus theory?

functionalism

conflict theories?

marxism and feminism

examples of social action theories?

symbolic interactionism, ethnomedology

What logic do social action theories use?

inductive logic

What logic do structural theories use?

deductive logic

What do structural theories think of indivuals?

passive

What do social actions theories think of indivuals?

active

assumption of the positivist approach?

society can be studiedusing the same scientific methods as the natural sciences

assumption of the interpretivist approach?

understand society by understanding groups of people’s experiences through qualatative mthods, assume human behaviour can only be understood by exploring meanings and experiences individuals attach to their actions

advantage of interactionist approach?

deep insight into social behaviour with a focus on subjective meanings and lived experiences, researchers to understand social action from those being studied

advantage of positivist approach?

reliable, due to replicatable data helping to establish cause and effect relationships in society

Why do interpretivists believe that sociological research can’t be objective?

always have some form of bias (researcher or participant self desirablity bias, individuals are ever changing so research will inevitably be outdated, people have free will and may not engage with norms and values (research is not generalised), social reality is constructed through meanings and interpretations which are subjective and not generalisable, researchers also have forms of bias dur to the social world they inhabit

According to interpretivists why are laboratory experiments inappropiate for studying human beings?

social world is different to the natural world, people behave different to chemicals objects and forces, with everyone having different opinions and beliefs that can’t be expressed through experiments

Why do interpretivists prefer to take a micro approach to research?

need a clear verstehen, can do this with fewer participants in research, learn behaviours and opinions, reflects belief in a bottom up society, understanding indivual experiences validity

What are the weaknesses of interpretivism?

small number of people, not representative, not reliable as you can’t replicate the evidence, verstehen assumes individuals engage in rational behaviour, interpetations can be biased and lack objectivity

Strengths of interpretivisim?

individualsitic, see how social relaity is controlled through meanings and negotiations, not deterministic

What does subjectivity mean?

a form of bias, judgement based on indiviual personal impressions and feelings rather than external facts

What is a social construct?

a concept that does not exist in objective reality, but exist becasue human agree that it does

examples of subjectivity

believing in the rights of women

Why do intepretivists value subjectivity?

in depth personal account, info on a persoanl level, develop verstehen

Why does social construct theory say that social constructs exist?

for humans to make sense of the world

Examples of social constructs?

race, countries, crime, gender roles

What are the six key features of interpretivism?

society ois socially consructed, emphasis on free will, micr approach, behaviour is driven by belief and emotions, qualitative methods and accepts that interpretation of actions is subjective

What does interretism say about research?

research can’t establish social facts as society is purely subjective

Who proposed interpretivism, what did they want?

Weber and Dilithey, to take the frame of an inisder in their research

What is verstehen?

having empathy and understanding

What are the three main beliefs of Weber and Dilithey?

sociology should consider not just behaviour but motivation, reality is constructed through motivation, quantative methods can be used to understand individual subjectivity

What does Atkinson say about ethnomedology and suicide?

agreeswith douglas that the statistics are merely the labels that coroners give to deaths but disagrees that using qualititive data allows to get behind these labels. Thus, means we can never really know the meanings that the dead gave to their deaths, pointless trying to discover the real rate

What is ethnomedology?

argues that socialrelaity is simply a construct of its members, we create relaity using a stock of ommon sense knowledge

What does Atkinson focus on in the suicide study?

how coroners categorise deatjs, using qualatative methods such as observations and conversations

What do coroners use as evidence in their ‘common sense’ decision in regards to type of death?

a suicide note, mode of death, location and circumsatnces, life history

What are the three theoretical considerations in choice of research?

relaibilty, validity, theoretical perspective

What did Comte believe?

use scientific findings to bring about improvements in production through industrialisation then we can study the world and figure out how to construct a better society, should copy the metjods of the natural sciences,

What did Durkheim believe in?

retained and refined Comte’s work, believed we should be able to accuretly predict the effect of a hange in social organisation, believed in the comparitive method

What is Durkhiem’s comparitive method?

seeks to establish the cause and effect relationships in society by comparing variables

When was durkheim’s suicide study?

1897

What are Durkheim’s 4 types of suicide (briefly explain)?

anomic (breakdown of social equilibrium) altruistic (over integration of individual into society) fatalistic (burdensome societal expectations) egoistic (social isolation)

What are 3 things that Durkheim identified as affecting suicide rates?

countries, social groups and religious groups

Why may have protestants had higher suicide rates than catholics?

catholics think suicide is a sin (but then also more likely to cover it up)

Why did Durkheim choose to study suicide?

deeply personal act, so would explain social factors

How did Durkheim get evidence for his suicide study?

using statistics and then comparing the social factors that surrounded the incidence

What did Durkheim conclude about his suicide study?

rates remained stable relative to one another, so suicide rates increase when ther is too much or too little social regulation or integration, showcases how clearly factors are linked and can be applied to a variety of different populations