Sociology

Sociology

The Sociological Perspective is the view that an individual's social backgrounds influence their attitudes, behaviour, and life chances. The Debunking Motif involves looking for levels of reality other than those given as the official interpretations of society. The debunking motif is related to the Sociological Imagination. According to C. Wright Mills, the 'Sociological Imagination' is the ability to recognise that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.

Auguste Comte questioned how social order was created and maintained. Comte supported the positivists' consensus approach to studying society and wanted to establish 'social facts'.

Karl Marx believed that social order was created and maintained due to conflict. The theory believes that people are controlled through force and persuasion.

Marx focuses on economic determinism, which is the idea that economic forces determine and mould all aspects of a society, and individuals' life chances. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believe that the economic system was the foundation for the society to be built on. In capitalist societies: one the dominant group becomes the bourgeoisies, those who own the means of economic production; two, the working class becomes the proletariat, which owns nothing, hence works for the bourgeoisie to survive. Strength of Marxism - It helps understand the role of conflict in bringing about social change. Weakness of Marxism

• Too much emphasis is given on the role of economic factors in causing social change.

Important

• Theory fails to recognise other forms of conflict that would cause social change, i.e. religion, gender.

• Too deterministic - individual behaviour is explained in terms of how social forces would shape them.

Max Weber examined how societies were modernised. Weberian theory examined how and why pre-industrial societies developed into industrial societies. Modernization included industrialization, urbanisation and rationalisation. Weber argued that modernisation in Europe was fuelled by the ideas of the Protestant religion. Social Action Theory stated that social change is the result of individuals acting purposefully or meaningfully with their own free will. Emile Durkheim followed the value consensus theory that social order is created and maintained due to a common agreement. People developed social solidarity in two ways: one, Pre-industrial society - Mechanical solidarity; two, Industrial society - Organic solidarity. He believed that societies can only be understood in terms of the relationship between various institutions. Supported Parsons' Organic Analogy. His study on suicide helped prove that quantitative data can be produced when conducting sociological research. Strength: A scientific approach can be taken to study society. Weakness: Sociologists criticise that the official statistics used in the suicide study were unreliable.

Science: a logical method of producing knowledge that is reliable and valid. Procedural Rule of Sociology - Popper's Hypothetico Deductive method: One. Choose a research topic. Two. Review the literature. Three. Form a testable aim and hypothesis. Four. Choose a research method. Five. Collect data. Six. Analyse data. Seven. Present conclusions.

This method can be implemented because we try to prove cause and effect relationships to establish statements predicting social behaviour. Ethical rules of sociology - Value freedom - Researchers should focus on falsification (they must try to falsify their hypothesis). Researchers shouldn't have a personal or financial stake in the outcomes of their research (big sciences manipulate findings to make results favourable to them - capitalists, media, government). In sociology, scientific knowledge is produced by mainly outlining two theories: positivism and interpretivism. Positivism - believes that the social world can be studied the same way that natural scientists study the natural world. The objective of the research is to falsify the hypothesis. Sociologists must be personally objective - value-free. Positivists try to collect quantitative data. Research methods: Experiments, official statistics, content analysis, close-ended questions in questionnaires, and structured interviews. Interpretivism - believes that social behaviour can only be understood subjectively, by understanding how people interpret situations and give them meaning. They study how individuals interact in everyday life and group settings. Interpretivists say it's not possible to predict human behaviour. Social reality and behaviour can only be understood by the one who creates it, hence, sociologists should empathise or demonstrate verstehen (verstehen - take the role of the other). Interpretivists try to collect qualitative data. Research methods: Participant observation, open-ended questions in questionnaires, and unstructured interviews. Postmodernism - the idea that people construct stories - narratives. Metanarratives are created at different times and societies to explain how the world works. In the pre-industrial era, religion was the metanarrative. In industrial societies, science was the metanarrative. People in postmodern societies have disbelief towards metanarratives. Their research method suggests the idea that it's impossible to study people as they may show demand characteristics in one way or another.