Interpretive sociology and qualitative methods

Interpretivists believe that analysis ought to start at the bottom - with theories that stress hwo people perceive the world and interact with each other. These theories include interactionism and there is also an overlap with postmodernism. These various approaches are typically referred to as interpretive or phenomenological approaches.

Bryman argued that if there is one distinction to be made regarding the different aims of positivist and interpretivist research it is that while positivist research sets out to explain human behaviour through analysing the forces that act upon it, interpetive sociology sets out to understand varieties of human behaviour by being able to emphasise with it.

Weber and verstehen:

- for Weber society was very different from an inanimate object. It…