Relationship between theories and methods
- Created by: Kaitlint11
- Created on: 18-03-23 15:43
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- Relationship between theories and methods
- Structural approaches
- functionalism& marxism say best way to understand society, to view it as real 'thing' which exists above and beyond us all
- shapes our lives, provides social world
- our role is to generally conform
- researcher should look for general patterns of behaviour
- top-down approach (how organisation of society affects individuals)
- tend to use quantitative methods
- positivism = the belief that the methods used in studying natural world can be used when studying social world (sociology can be scientific)
- Interpretive approaches
- bottom-up approach (research must start at bottom and work up)
- only way to understand society is to look at world through eyes of individual as part of social groups
- activities & beliefs of individuals that make up social world
- favour qualitative methods (allow researcher to see world from same perspective as those studied)
- social action theory
- see sociology different from natural sciences
- people don't simply react to external stimuli, interpret meaning of stimuli before reacting
- Triangulation
- using variety of methods (quantitative & qualitative)
- improves validity and reliability or research
- results from 1 method can be checked against other
- advantages & disadvantages of quantitative and qualitative can be balanced out
- Structural approaches
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