research methods in sociology

The question ( Outline the two main troditional approaches to sociology and different perspectives within them. Explain why structulist and interpretivists approaches to sociology influence the development of different approaches to social research and comment on the strengths and weaknesses of different sociological methods and tuypes of data)

Sociology is an attempt to operationalize research and understand social life, the way human beings interact with one another and the nature of society. There are many sociological methods involving a variety of tools and techniques applied to achieve these aims. The type of method of research chosen to by sociologists depends on many things. However the main research methods stem from two distinct theoretical approaches to sociology. These two main perspectives in sociology are positivitivisum, which focuses on maintaining scientific method in its approach to sociology and interpritivisum which instead focuses heavily on individual choice and people’s perceptions of situations.
Posotavism is centred on the idea that sociology should aim to be as scientific as possible using the same methods of the natural sciences, (e.g. physics and chemistry). They argue that although it would be unrealistic to expect sociologist to carry out experiments due to an array ethical and practical implications, it is possible and desirable that sociologists should stick using quantitive methods to measure and explore society much in the same way that the established and respected sciences, physics and chemistry measure and explore the natural world.
A key idea underpinning positivist thought is that human behaviour is moulded and controlled by the social structures which exist within society such as the family, the education system and the workplace.These phenomena are referred to as social facts. Social facts exist externally to people’s minds yet control and restrain their behaviour. The founder of positivistisum claimed that social facts could be observed and measured quantitatively and He believed that sociology should focus solely on the study of them for this reason. Arguing that as feelings, motivations and interpretations could not be measured in such a way they were irrelevant in the study of sociology.

Variations in posotivisium .. Marxism and functionalism differ in their approaches.
There are two main criticisms of the positivist approach the first is that it is to deterministic as it doesn’t take into account peoples free will and ability to change their own lives. The second is that it is too simplistic as it doesn’t take into account that peoples different interpretations of a situation and how these interpretations can change the meaning of statistics gathered. interprativisum emerged as a counter to positivism in response to these criticisms. interpritivisum is less deterministic than posotivitisum and believes that since human beings think, reflect and see the world in varying ways, scientific methods are inappropriate for the study of society. rather than believing in the power of social structures as external forces acting upon people they focus on peoples own free will and ability to shape the world around them. interprativists argue that as the architects of social structures people’s perceptions and feelings, being the driving force for their actions, rather than being overlooked should be central in sociology. a key element in interpritivum is the idea of verstehen which (losely translated means (meaningful understanding) it is about putting yourself in the shoes of the person and Delving into the reasons and the meanings which that action has for people. this leads interprativists to the use of qualitive data that consists of words, giving thorough descriptions of the feelings, attitudes and perspectives of gropus or individuals. such qualitive methods include participant and non participant observation, informal(unstructured in depth interviews) open ended questionnaires ,personal diary’s and letters. positivists alternatively are more likely to use Marco research as they aim to draw sweeping statistical conclusions. positivists use methods such as structured questionares/ or interviews or secondary numerical data such as government statistics like gov census data or crime statistics.
..this kind of research has many befits for example in the use of government statistics the results of a macro scale research across a large demographic can be used to shed light on social issues. the advantage of using this kind of data is that due to the comprehensiveness of the coverage the results are likely to be far more representative than any research that the sociologist could have conducted themselves. It would not be possible for most sociologists to conduct research of their own on this scale and so in using government statistics the sociologist gains useful comprehensive, representative data that has been collected over a long timespan at no cost to themselves. The fact that gov stats are generally collected over a long timespan also allows for the possibility of before and after studies and for comparisons to be made. for example using gov sats it is possible to make comparisons between the health of working class and middle class families, and afterwards conduct a before and after study to test the effectiveness of a government policy’s on reducing inequality’s in health. evidently this kind of data is extremely useful in planning and evaluating social policy and has many befits. There are however some criticisms. A interpritavists criticism of government statistics is that they are a product of a system of interpretations and decision making by those who have power rendering them simply social constructions rather than real observable facts. interpritivists also question the validity of stats they point out that stats dont show the full picture. for example the crime statistics do not cover the dark number of unreported crimes . as proven by the British crime survey whereby ppl were asked about whether they had bin the victim of a crime which they didn’t report to the police. it was discovered that many crimes tend to be unreported du to there natuere. through this surey it was discovered that sexual offenses are largely unreported due to the victims fear of humiliation at the hands of the justice system, petty crimes are often unreported due to the victim perceiving that nothing could be done to help them and domestic crimes are commonly unreported due to the victims fear of repercussions. The survey demonstrates perfectly one case in which the feelings and ideas of the people involved alters the statistics and of numerical data being taken at taken at face value obfuscating the truth. another method commonly used by positivists is structured interviews or questionnaires. An advantage of these kinds of methods is that is that the results can be complied to create numerical data, Compared , repeated and general conclusions can be drawn from the findings. The structure keeps the research scientific and reliable. interpritivists are critical of such structured questionnaires and interviews as they believe that the importance of the interpretations of the questions are overlooked and the opinions of the interviewee as a result are two influential; that what the interviewer misguidedly believes to be important combined combined with a lack of understanding about what the people being interviewed consider important leads to the wrong answers being asked , the research missing the point and the truth not being discovered.
Instead interpritivists prefer to use methods which are aimed at understanding, using qualitive data. Unstructured interviews and questionnaires mean that the interviewee is not limited by the imposing framework of the research and Participant observation means that the researcher can gain more insight in to the perspectives of the people being researched.
Posotivists criticism of these methods is that by failing to 2 collect numerical data no general solid conclusions can be drawn and sociology remains at the level of insight and can’t be repeated in a way that tests reliability and so hypotheses can’t be scientifically proven. all methods have their pitfalls and both of the traditional approaches have their shortcoming’s this is why most modern sociologists would now adhere to realism rather than two one or another of these two polarised positions, incorporating both approaches: still using scientific techniques they recognise that these methods are not absolutely foofproof and recognise that humans are reflective and statistics can be relative. Each data collecting method has its strengths and limitations. The best way to ensure that the findings meet the three key criteria of being reliable, valid and representative is to use triangulation. Triangulation is the name given to the process by which the results of one from of data collection are tested against the results of a few others thereby incorporating both qualitive and quantitive data.