...Chapter 2 Sociological Investigation I. The Basics of Sociological Investigation. A. Sociological investigation begins with two key requirements: 1. Apply the sociological perspective. 2. Be curious and ask questions. B. Sociology is a type of science, a logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation. Science is one form of truth. Scientific knowledge is based on empirical evidence, or information we can verify with our senses. C. Scientific evidence sometimes contradicts common sense explanations of social behavior. 1. SOCIOLOGY IN FOCUS BOX (p. 28)—Is What We Read in the Popular Press True? The Case of Extramarital Sex. Every day, we see stories in newspapers and magazines that tell us what people think and how they behave. But a lot of what we read turns out to be misleading or even untrue. Take the issue of extramarital sex, which refers to a married person having sex with someone other than his or her spouse. A look at the cover of many of the so-called women’s magazines you find in the checkout aisle at the supermarket or a quick reading of the advice column in your local newspaper might lead you to think that extramarital sex is a major issue facing married couples. II. Three Ways to Do Sociology. There are three ways to do research in sociology: positivist sociology, interpretive sociology, and critical sociology. A. Positivist Sociology. 1. Scientific sociology is the study of society based on systematic observation of social behavior. The scientific...
Words: 1736 - Pages: 7
...rules in the first place. Empirical Science is based purely around observation and measurement, and the vast majority of research involves some type of practical experimentation. This can be anything, from measuring the Doppler Shift of a distant galaxy to handing out questionnaires in a shopping center. This may sound obvious, but this distinction stems back to the time of the Ancient Greek Philosophers. Cutting a long story short, Plato believed that all knowledge could be reasoned; Aristotle that knowledge relied upon empirical observation and measurement. This does bring up one interesting anomaly. Strictly speaking, the great physicists, such as Einstein and Stephen Hawking, are not scientists. They generate sweeping and elegant theories and mathematical models to describe the universe and the very nature of time, but measure nothing. In reality, they are mathematicians, occupying their own particular niche, and they should properly be referred to as theoreticians. Still, they are still commonly referred to as scientists and do touch upon the scientific method in that any theory they have can be destroyed by a single scrap of empirical evidence. The Scientific Method Relies Upon Data The scientific method uses some type of measurement to analyze results, feeding these findings back into theories of what we know about the world. There are two major ways of obtaining data, through measurement and...
Words: 5706 - Pages: 23
...A. Components 1 and 2 Revisions I did not receive the revisions at my mailing address, I emailed you last week and you informed me no revisions were necessary and that you mailed them out. I fear it got lost, and still have not received them. B. Annotated Bibliography of 5 Articles 1.) Strickler, Jennifer and Nicholas L. Danigelis. 2002. Changing Frameworks in Attitudes Toward Abortion. Sociological Forum, Vol. 17, No. 2, 187-201. The article looks at the issue of legal abortion, and attitudes have changed over the years. The researchers examine how the determinants of abortion attitudes have changed between 1977 and 1996, using data from the General Social Surveys. There are several reasons to explain how the approval of abortion has increased between 1977 and 1996. By the 90s, abortion had been legal for two decades, the population had become more educated and more secular, and other sociodemographic trends were consistent with increasing desire for contraceptive methods. For the study, the 20 years are divided into four periods of relatively equal duration and subsample size: 1977–80, 1982–85, 1987–91, and 1993–96. From this, it is noted that early time periods, whites were more approving of abortion than blacks, that pattern had reversed by the late 1980s. As part of their research study, they used weights to control for the effects of over sampling blacks in 1982 and 1987. The dependent variable was a summated Abortion Approval Scale based on the number of “yes”...
Words: 2790 - Pages: 12
...Democracy, Religion and Inequality University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business Bachelor Thesis International Economics and Business Name Student: Yitian Jing Student ID Number: s2012790 Student email: y.jing@student.rug.nl Date Thesis: Jun. 5th, 2012 Name Supervisor: Dr. Robbert K. J. Maseland First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to my advisor, Dr. R. K. J. Maseland, for his academic guidance and encouragement throughout the research. He has been very generous sharing his experiences on institutional and cultural determinants on economy, as well as on academic research methodology and beyond. I would not have finished such a thesis paper without his support. His effort and patience would never be forgotten. Abstract The democracy’s inequality decreasing effect has been appealing to researchers for long but lacks concentrated argumentation and empirical evidence, as well as the interaction between democracy and religion. This paper conduct an empirical analysis covering time period of 1978-2010 with 86 countries to test the hypotheses of whether democracy decreases inequality and whether an egalitarian religion decreases the influence of democracy. The result shows the direct effect of democracy is weak, however, the hypothesis of religion’s effect on the democracy’s influence is partially confirmed. Therefore, democracy itself has minor influence on inequality while a large proportion of the effect is...
Words: 7824 - Pages: 32
...Social Construction of Reality: Meaning- What you know to be real is real because you were taught to believe it. 1. Social Psychology 2. Symbolist Interactionism Scientific Methods: 1. Observation 2. Generalization 3. Interpretation 4. Prediction Science: 1. Systematic Observation 2. Measurement Sociological Perspective: 1. Questions can be answered through observation Natural Science vs. Social Science: 1. Natural Science= Biology/ Hard Science 2. Social Science= Psychology/ Soft Science Theory: 1. A set of ideas used to explain cause and effect. Reactivity or the Hawthorn Effect: 1. If you know someone is watching you, you will always act differently. Sociological Imagination: By C. Wright Mills 1. We as researchers need to use our imagination to come up with creative ways to study human behavior. Institution: 1. An excepted way of doing things 5 Major Social Institutions: 1. Family 2. Religion 3. Healthcare 4. Economics 5. Education Founders of Sociology: 1. August Comte- Positive thinker - Comedern Sociology - Social Force - Social Statics- The force of cooperation and cohesion (Togetherness) - Social Dynamics- The forces of conflict and change Karl Marx: - Negative thinker father of communism Communism- There is no rich and no poor everyone is equal 1. 1800’s Germany 2. Industrial Revolution 3. Father of Communism 4. Wrote the communist manifesto along with Frederick Engles 5. Father of conflict theory - Rich...
Words: 545 - Pages: 3
...Assignment Title:- How can we apply sociological perspectives in HSC? |STUDENT DECLARATION | |I understand the rules of plagiarism and I declare that the work produced for this assignment is my own. | | | |Student Signature ____________________________________Date_____________ | |Assignment Launch Date |Tuesday 3rd November 2011 | |Assignment Hand in Dates |Assignment 1 |2011 | | |Assignment 2 |2011 | | | | | | | |GRADING CRITERIA | |To achieve a pass grade you must show that you |To achieve a merit you must show that you are |To achieve a distinction you must show | |are able to: |able to: ...
Words: 1176 - Pages: 5
...chapter one Sociology: Perspective, Theory, and Method What sets human beings apart from all other forms of life? Why is sociology an important tool for your future? How should you respond to people whose way of life differs from your own? ISBN: 0-536-12116-8 Societ y: The Basics, Eighth Ed itio n by Jo hn J. Ma cio nis. Published b y Prentice -Hall. Co pyright © 2006 by Pear son Edu cation, In c. ISBN: 0-536-12116-8 L The sociological perspective shows us patterns of behavior common within a society. Here, a member of Brazil’s Pataxo tribe offers a traditional greeting to a visitor. Societ y: The Basics, Eighth Ed itio n by Jo hn J. Ma cio nis. Published b y Prentice -Hall. Co pyright © 2006 by Pear son Edu cation, In c. I f you were to ask 100 people, “Why do couples marry?” it is a safe bet that at least ninety would reply, “People marry because they fall in love.” Indeed, it is hard for us to imagine a happy marriage without love; likewise, when people fall in love, we expect them to think about marriage. But is the decision about whom to marry really so simple and so personal? There is plenty of evidence that if love is the key to marriage, Cupid’s arrow is carefully aimed by the society around us. In short, society has a number of “rules” about whom we should marry. What are they? Right off the bat, society rules out half the population because U.S. laws (despite recent actions in cities such as San Francisco and likely...
Words: 22891 - Pages: 92
...Midterm Exam Part 1 – Assignment Question 1 _____ is considered the first female sociologist and argued that injustices such as slavery and women’s inequality stunted a society’s moral development. • Auguste Comte • Émile Durkheim • Karl Marx • Harriet Martineau Question 2 The ability of individuals and groups to exercise free will and to make social change is referred to as: • Structure • Agency • Free choice • Individualism Question 3 Patterned social arrangements that have an enabling or constraining effect on agency are referred to as: • Structure • Institutions • Free will • Socialization Question 4 Accepted social behaviors and beliefs are referred to as: • Norms • Culture • Social status • Values Question 5 The relationship between agency and structure is _____, as ______. • one-sided, agency influences structure • one-sided, structure enables or constrains agency • reciprocal, they both have an effect on one another • nonexistent, there is no relationship between the two Find the midterm exam answers here just a click away SOC 100 Midterm Exam Part 1 - Assignment Question 6 _____ established the first rules for conducting sociological research and examined the impact of modern society on social solidarity. • Auguste Comte • Émile Durkheim • Karl Marx • Harriet Martineau Question 7 _____ believed that nearly all known societies are characterized by some system of division by economic class, which results in...
Words: 789 - Pages: 4
...How triangulation Ensures Validity and Reliability in Social Science Research 1.0 Introduction Triangulation has been defined as the use of more than one approach to the investigation of a research question in order to augment confidence in the findings (Bryman, 2004). For Yeasmin & Rahman, (2012) triangulation is a process of verification that increases validity by incorporating several viewpoints and methods. When applied in the social sciences, it refers to the combination of two or more theories, data sources, methods or investigators in one study of a single phenomenon to converge on a single construct, and can be employed in both quantitative (validation) and qualitative (inquiry) studies. This paper provides a historical background and the development of triangulation as a concept and its application. The paper also presents an overview of various concepts linked to triangulation as applied in social research Finally the paper discusses the benefits and challenges of triangulation offering some relevant examples that guide in understanding the concept. 2.0 Background of Triangulation Originally triangulation was a method used to determine the location of a fixed point based on the laws of trigonometry. The laws state that if one side and two angles of a triangle are known, the other two sides and angle of that triangle can be calculated. Triangulation though not defined was used in the early civilizations of the ancient Egypt and Greece...
Words: 2593 - Pages: 11
...FORMULATION OF ACCOUNTING THEORY: PURPOSE AND APPROACHES A TERM PAPER (2) ON ADVANCED ACCOUNTING THEORY (ACC 821) PRESENTED BY EKERIA, Victor IKYUME, Chiahemba James OGBOLE, Philip Osemudiamen SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR A.E. OKOYE DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMEN SUDIES IGBINEDION UNIVERSITY, OKADA MARCH, 2015 Abstract As tasks of accounting became more difficult and focus shifted to users’ needs, a theory became necessary. Existence of a need for information for decision making (decision usefulness) in face of information asymmetry led to development of means, tools and techniques for satisfying decision making needs (formulation of accounting theories) This paper briefly discusses the purpose/importance for accounting theory and various approaches to the formulation of an accounting theory under two headings, namely: (1) traditional approaches, and (2) new approaches. The paper finally highlights the critiques of the accounting theory approaches Table of Content 1.0.0. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 1 2.0.0. Meaning of Accounting Theory………………………………………………………… 2 2.1.0. Needs and Purpose for Accounting Theory…………………………………………….. 3 3.0.0. Early Attempts at Accounting Theory……………………………………………………...3 4.0.0. Approaches to the for Formulation of Accounting Theory……………………………….5 4.1.0. 4.1.0. The Traditional Approaches………………………………………………………..5 4.1.1. Non – Theoretical, Practical, or Pragmatic (Informal) Approaches……...
Words: 4446 - Pages: 18
...Chapter 2 – Examining the Social World: How Do We Know? Ballantine, Roberts, and Korgen. Our Social World: Condensed, Fourth Edition. © 2015 SAGE Publications The Development of Sociology • Social thought before sociology: strongly influenced by religion and philosophy • Modern sociology arose in 19th century Europe, influenced by several conditions: – Colonialism: exposure to other cultures – Industrial Revolution & French Revolution: desire to know how dramatic change could be systematically explained – Advances in the natural sciences: desire to apply scientific method to the social world Ballantine, Roberts, and Korgen. Our Social World: Condensed, Fourth Edition. © 2015 SAGE Publications The Development of Sociology August Comte & the science of society • Coined the term “sociology” in 1838 • Thought society’s problems could not be understood by philosophical or religious speculation; scientific knowledge was needed • Two main concerns – What holds society together? (social statics or structure) – Why is there change in society? (social dynamics or process) Ballantine, Roberts, and Korgen. Our Social World: Condensed, Fourth Edition. © 2015 SAGE Publications The Development of Sociology Early sociology after Comte • Focus on massive social and economic change brought by Industrial Revolution • Focus on relationship between micro-, meso-, and macro-level processes • Early sociological theorists: Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Harriet...
Words: 2442 - Pages: 10
...Lecture #1: Defining Sociology and Using our Sociological Tools; Please read Ch. 1 Hello everyone and welcome to the start of what will hopefully be a wonderful semester. This semester we will be examining and analyzing science and technology using a sociological discipline. In the beginning of every lecture I will introduce the vocabulary. These words will be significant for the lecture, so put them to memory because you just might see them later, wink, wink, and wink. Vocabulary: Sociology: The systematic study of human societies. It is the scientific study of human social life, behavior, groups, culture and societies. Culture: A way of life including widespread values (about what is good and bad), beliefs (about what is true), and behavior (what people do every day). Social Problems: A condition that undermines the well-being of some or all members of a society and that are usually a matter of public controversy. Sociological Imagination: Is the quality of mind that enables one to see the connection between personal troubles and social structures. Theory: A statement of how and why specific facts are related. Structural-Functional: A theoretical framework that sees society as a system of many interrelated parts. Social-Conflict: A theoretical framework that sees society as divided by inequality and conflict. Symbolic-Interaction: A theoretical framework that sees society as the product of individuals interacting with one another. Technology: the practical use...
Words: 3637 - Pages: 15
...27 collective effectiveness. This finding illustrates how the impact of social ties on individuals’ perceptions manifests itself in different ways. Moreover, it shows that there is a privileged path (highlighted with bold arrows in Figures 1 and 2) leading to strong participation in social movements. Of all perceptions, individual effectiveness is the factor in the decision process that most closely influences the level of participation in both the Bern Declaration and the WWF. Prospective members with a strong feeling that if they engage in protest, their participation will serve at least to a certain extent to bring about social change will actualize their potential for mobilization at the highest level of involvement. Individual effectiveness is also one of the perceptions of the model that is most influenced by social networks, directly but also indirectly via interest in the political issue and the perception of the organization’s effectiveness . This last result highlights the close interweaving between social ties and individual effectiveness. In other words, it stresses the interconnectedness of relational factors and human agency, and demonstrates that both structuralist and rationalist accounts are indispensable to explanation of individual participation. Conclusion Social networks matter, but they do so by performing various functions in the process of individual participation. They intervene at least three different ways. First, they intervene in the socialization...
Words: 4914 - Pages: 20
...First Year LLM Degree Program Syllabus Semester I Paper - I Legal Theory - I Paper - II Constitutional Law - I Paper - III Research Methodology Semester II Paper - I Legal Theory - II Paper - II Constitutional Law - II Paper - III Law and Social Change ~YllabUS for tbe LL.M. Programme Note: The topic title of the syllabus is merely indicative. In order to keep up with the recent developments in law and the development of various concepts and ideologies, the subject faculty will supply detailed syllabus during the course of the scheme. The subject faculty will also supply the seminar topics for each student for each semester separately. The student should ensure that they are allotted the seminar topics in each of the subjects at the beginning of the semester itself. LEGAL THEORY I 1. Nature of jurisprudence 2. Meaning of Law 3. Natural Law theories 4. Classical Positivism 5. Pure Theory of Law 6. Analytical School of Law 7. Sociological School of Law 8. American Realism 9. Scandinavian Realism 10. Historical and Anthropological Jurisprudence 11. Marxist Theories of Law and State 12. Feminist Jurisprudence 13. Postmodernist Jurisprudence 12 SUGGESTED READINGS 1. Lloyd's introduction to jurisprudence 2. Jurisprudence by Dias 3. Jurisprudence by Mahajan 4. Jurisprudence by Bodenheimer 5. Jurisprudence by Wayne Morrison 6. Concept of Law H.L.A. Hart 7. Social Dimension of law by Julius Stone 8. Law in the Changing Society by Friedman 9. Law...
Words: 1218 - Pages: 5
... | |Status |Completed | |Attempt |34 out of 40 points | |Score | | |Time |1 hour, 2 minutes out of 2 hours. | |Elapsed | | |Instructio|This quiz consist of 20 multiple choice questions. The first 10 questions cover the material in Chapter 1. The | |ns |second 10 questions cover the material in Chapter 2. Be sure you are in the correct Chapter when you take the quiz. | Question 1 2 out of 2 points | | | |[pic] |What term refers to any change in a subject's behavior caused by the awareness of being studied? | | | | | |Answer...
Words: 843 - Pages: 4
