Methods In Context Sociologists

What did Polsky argue?

He was a good pool player, and found his skill useful in gaining entry to the room of the poolroom hustler.

What did Patrick argue?

Joined a Glasgow gang because he looked quite young and knew one of its members from a young offenders institutions.

Then abandoned the study abruptly being sickened by the violence, leading to incomplete and invalid data

What did Fairhurst argue?

Found herself hospitalised by back trouble and used the opportunity to conduct a study on being a patient.

What did Thornton argue?

When studying the clubbing and rave scene, she saw her age and nationality as the biggest barrier.

What did Griffin argue?

To get the most accurate primary results as possible, they used medication and sun lamp treatments to change their skin colour to black, then travelling to the deep south of the USA to see what racism was like

What did Punch argue?

To be accepted by the tightly knit patrol group he was studying, he over identified with them, going native and acting as a policeman, leading to bias in his results.

2 of the police officers he worked with told him they only let him see what they wanted him to see.

What did Humphreys argue?

When studying gay men’s sexual encounters in public toilets, he had to be on the same boat as them so that they wouldn’t change their behaviour.

What did Ditton argue?

When studying theft among bread deliverymen, they had to use a toilet to take notes, arousing suspicion

What did Whyte argue?

Their study of Street Corner Society led to them unable to talk to their fellow academics at Harvard University once the research was over, and they went from a not participating observer to a non observing participant. His observation was both overt and covert as he told a few of the staff about the research

The Hawthorne Effect

If you tell participants about the research, they will act differently, making the results invalid

What did Graham argue?

Survey methods (questionnaires) are patriarchal, giving an invalid picture of women's experiences, because:

Researchers control the interview (mirrors women's subordination in real life)

Survey methods treat women as isolated individuals rather than equals

What did Willis argue?

When studying the lads, he romanticised them due to sympathy

What did Cicourel argue?

Official statistics aren’t social facts, but rather social constructs to promote capitalist beliefs

What did Young and Willmott argue?

They got results from 933 people through using structured interviews.

Percent of houses which complete the Census 2021 form?

97%

What did Brown and Gay argue?

Their study on employment differences between races are reliable as they can be easily repeated by other sociologists

What did Milgram argue?

He lied to his participants, telling them that they would be shocked, however this didn’t happen. Despite this, participants began to sweat, stutter and tremble.

What did Stein argue?

Documents on the internet weren’t checked for accuracy before publication when the internet was new, with the Hitler diaries being proven fake

What did Comte argue?

Coined the term ‘Sociology’

A Positivist who applied logic and scientific method of natural sciences to study society, allowing us to provide objective data that will enable us to problem solve without the influence of our biases.

What did Durkheim argue?

‘real laws are discoverable’

Accumulates data about the world through observation and measurement, and using them to create patterns, known as a cause and effect. It can also be supported through verificationism.

What did Mead argue?

Rather than responding automatically to external stimuli, human beings interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then choose how to respond to it, as people have free will to exercise choice.

What did Weber argue?

Verstehen: Putting themselves in the shoes of the actor to grasp meanings, interpretivists use qualitative research for this

Action Theorist (Bottom-up approach where the individual has free will and choice in making decisions)

What did Glaser and Strauss argue?

They were interactionalists who favoured a bottom-up approach (Grounded Theory). Rather than having a fixed hypothesis from the start, our ideas would emerge from the observations we make, as we can produce a testable hypothesis.

What did Garfinkel argue?

Radically anti-structuralist view, arguing society is not a real thing that determines our actions, but rather, social reality is made up of shared meanings and knowledge, arguing there is no cause and effect law.

What did Douglas argue?

Rejects positivist ideas of external facts determining our behaviour. Individuals have free will and can choose how to act. To study suicide, we must uncover the meanings of their situation, not ours.

What did Atkinson argue?

Rejects the idea that external social facts determine behaviour, agreeing with Douglas that statistics are socially constructed. However, we can never know the real rate of suicide, even with qualitative methods, as we never know what meanings the deceased held.

What did Kuhn argue?

Sciences are united through paradigms (The universally recognised variables and methods that scientists use to reach a conclusion). Sociology can’t use paradigms due to conflicting ideologies of different social groups, meaning sociology is not a science.

What did Popper argue?

The scientific community is open yet critical, falsifying existing ideas, and disagrees with Kuhn who argues scientists are conformists. Argues science is an open belief system but argues Sociology is not as theories can’t be falsified. E.g. Marxists argue there will be a revolution leading to a classless society, however, hasn’t happened yet due to the false consciousness of the proletariat.

What did Ford argue?

Uses empirical evidence (observation) to test and falsify the hypothesis of comprehensive schooling producing social mixing of pupils from different social classes.

What did Schutz argue?

Weber’s view of action is too deterministic, unable to explain the shared nature of meanings (such as making a bid by raising your arm)

What did Keat and Urry argue?

Realist theorists (Argue sociology is a science as we can observe and study the effects of a structure and determine correlation, such as finding a correlation between the student’s exam results and class) who argue that sociology likens to some aspects of the natural sciences, such as the degree of control the researcher has over the research variables.