SOCIOLOGY 201 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY Fall 2003

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SOCIOLOGY 201INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGYFall 2003

• Instructor
• Mark Durieux

WELCOME!
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A little bit about me

• Backgrounds in Education, Social Work, and
  Sociology.
• I teach at U of C, MRC, and Athabasca U.
• My U of C website
• www.ucalgary.ca/mbdurieu

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About this course

• Lets have a look at the course outline,
  calendar, etc. (handout).
• Blackboard.
• Questions? Concerns?

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Todays Agenda

• Qualities of mind that we need today. (Small
  group discussion).
• From the sociological point of view
• Video?
• Text, chapters 1 2.

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To begin

• Id like to start off this course with a small
  group exercise that will ask you to address an
  important practical question.
• Which qualities of mind do you feel are proving
  to be essential to our survival as a species in
  this complex and difficult world today?

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Well, let me give you sociologys answer to
  this critically important question.
• Which is really a response in terms of other,
  specific, questions.
• Over the next few slides I borrow heavily from
  another introductory text, Robert Brym et al.
  (2003) Sociology Your compass for a new world.
  pp. 10-13.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• We all realize by the time we are in our preteens
  that we live in a society.
• But perhaps we dont fully appreciate the extent
  to which society also lives in us.
• That is, patterns of social relations affect your
  innermost thoughts and feelings, influence your
  actions, and thus help shape who you are.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures
Calgary Herald, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004, p. B3
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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Sociologists call relatively stable patterns of
  social relations
• social structures.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• One of the sociologist's main tasks is to
  identify and explain
• the connection between people's personal troubles
  and the social structures in which people are
  embedded.
• This is harder work than it may seem at first.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Why?
• Because in our everyday lives, we usually see
  things mainly from our own point of view.
• Our experiences appear unique to each of us.
• If we think about them at all, social structures
  may appear remote and impersonal.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• To see how social structures operate inside us,
  we require sociological training.
• An important step in that training involves
  recognizing that three levels of social structure
  surround and permeate us.
• Think of these structures as concentric circles
  radiating out from you

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Microstructures are patterns of intimate social
  relations.
• They are formed during face-to-face interaction.
• Families, friendship circles, and work
  associations are all examples of microstructures.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Understanding the operation of microstructures
  can be useful.
• Let us say you are looking for a job.
• You might think you would do best to ask as many
  close friends and relatives as possible for leads
  and contacts.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• But, sociological research shows that people you
  know well are likely to know many of the same
  people.
• After asking a couple of close connections for
  help landing a job, you would therefore do best
  to ask more remote acquaintances for leads and
  contacts.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• People to whom you are weakly connected (and who
  are weakly connected among themselves) are more
  likely to know different groups of people.
• Therefore, they will give you more information
  about job possibilities and ensure that word
  about your job search spreads farther.
• So, you are more likely to find a job faster if
  you understand "the strength of weak ties" in
  microstructural settings.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Macrostructures are patterns of social relations
  that lie outside and above your circle of
  intimates and acquaintances.
• Macrostructures include class relations,
  bureaucracies, and patriarchy (the traditional
  system of economic and political inequality
  between women and men in most societies).

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Understanding the operation of macrostructures
  can also be useful.
• Consider, for example, one aspect of patriarchy.
• In our society, most married women who work
  full-time in the paid labour force are
  responsible for more housework, child care, and
  care for the elderly than their husbands.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Governments and businesses support this
  arrangement insofar as they provide little
  assistance to families in the form of nurseries,
  after-school programs for children, seniors
  homes, and so forth.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Yet an aspect of patriarchy -- the unequal
  division of work in the household -- is a major
  source of dissatisfaction with marriage,
  especially in families that cannot afford to buy
  these services privately.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Thus, sociological research shows that where
  spouses share domestic responsibilities equally,
  they are happier with their marriages and less
  likely to divorce (Hochschild with Machung,
  1989).
• So, in marriages that are in danger of
  dissolving, it is appropriate for us to try to go
  beyond situations where partners blame themselves
  and each other for their troubles.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• And realize that forces other than incompatible
  personalities often put stress on families.
• Understanding how the macrostructure of
  patriarchy crops up in everyday life, and doing
  something to change that structure, can thus help
  people lead happier lives.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Global structures are the third level of society
  that surrounds and permeates.
• International organizations, patterns of
  worldwide travel and communication, and the
  economic relations between countries are examples
  of global structures.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Global structures are increasingly important as
  inexpensive travel and communication allow all
  parts of the world to become interconnected
  culturally, economically, and politically.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Understanding the operation of global structures
  can be useful, too.
• For instance, many people are concerned about the
  world's poor.
• They donate money to charities to help with
  famine relief.
• Some people also approve of the Canadian
  government giving foreign aid to poor countries.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• But many of those same people do not appreciate
  that charity and foreign aid alone do not seem
  able to end world poverty.
• That is because charity and foreign aid have been
  unable to overcome the structure of social
  relations among countries that have created and
  now sustain global inequality.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Lets stay with this a bit.
• Britain, France, and other imperial powers locked
  some countries into poverty when they colonized
  them between the seventeenth and nineteenth
  centuries.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• In the twentieth century, the poor (or
  "developing") countries borrowed money from these
  same rich countries and Western banks to pay for
  airports, roads, harbours, sanitation systems,
  basic health care, and so forth.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Today, poor countries pay far more to rich
  countries and Western banks in interest on those
  loans than they receive in aid and charity.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• Thus, it seems that relying exclusively on
  foreign aid and charity can do little to help
  solve the problem of world poverty.
• Understanding how the global structure of
  international relations created and helps
  maintain global inequality suggests new policy
  priorities for helping the world's poor.
• One such priority might involve campaigning for
  the cancellation of foreign debt in compensation
  for past injustices.

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From Personal Troubles to Social Structures

• As these examples illustrate, personal problems
  are connected to social structures at the micro,
  macro, and global levels.
• Whether the personal problem involves finding a
  job, keeping a marriage intact, or figuring out a
  way to act justly to end world poverty,
  social-structural considerations broaden our
  understanding of the problem and suggest
  appropriate courses of action.

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The Sociological Imagination

• Almost half a century ago, C. Wright Mills (1959)
  called the ability to see the connection between
  personal troubles and social structures
• the sociological imagination.
• He emphasized the difficulty of developing this
  quality of mind.
• What follows is a close, but not exact, quotation
  from Mills book by the same name, pp. 3-4.

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The Sociological Imagination

• Neither the life of an individual nor the history
  of a society can he understood without
  understanding both.
• Yet people do not usually define the troubles
  they endure in terms of historical change....
• The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually
  impute to the big ups and downs of the society in
  which they live.

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The Sociological Imagination

• Seldom aware of the intricate connection between
  the patterns of their own lives and the course of
  world history,
• ordinary people do not usually know what this
  connection means for the kind of people they are
  becoming and for the kind of history-making in
  which they might take part.

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The Sociological Imagination

• They do not possess the quality of mind essential
  to grasp the interplay of 'people' and society,
  of biography and history, of self and world.
• They cannot cope with their personal troubles in
  such a way as to control the structural
  transformations that usually lie behind them.

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The Sociological Imagination

• What they need...is a quality of mind that will
  help them to see...what is going on in the
  world and...what may be happening within
  themselves.
• It is this quality...that...may be called the
  sociological imagination. (Mills, 1959 313)

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CALGARY HERALDTUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2003 A13
NAOMI LAKRITZ OPINION
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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• When Michigan's Lake Superior State University
  compiles its next annual list of tiresome words
  and tedious phrases, it can add root causes to
  the roster requiring immediate banishment from
  the vocabulary.

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• That tired old term reared its rhetorical head
  last week after an incident on the Edmonton LRT
  in which 30 aboriginal kids beat up five
  non-aboriginal teens riding the train late at
  night.

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• University of Alberta sociologist Bryan Hogeveen
  used the dreaded phrase when an Edmonton journal
  reporter phoned him for his views on the
  incident.

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• (Adding police and security guards to the LRT)
  doesn't address the root cause of the problem,
  Hogeveen said.

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• Now, granted the reporter called him for
  comment, which is standard journalistic practice,
  but did Hogeveen have to use standard academic
  practice and blame root causes for evil?
• Click here for the entire article.

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In response

• By now, I hope the sociological message is clear
• Sociology doesnt have all the answers
• But its got

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One essential question
I - S ???

• Which, we sociologists believe, will lead us to
  wiser, more humane, social relations.

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• With that, developing a sociological imagination
  also leads us to ask other, critically important,
  questions, such as
• How much of our lives are socially conditioned?
• vs. authentically our own?

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• Lakritz wants to hold the Aboriginal youths
  SOLELY responsible for their actions.
• She would claim that evil is the cowardice to
  face up to personal choice and responsibility
• Evil hides behind the flimsy excuses of root
  causes.

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Sociological mumbo-jumbo aside, LRT kids were
jerks

• In sociological terms, what we are considering
  here is known as the debate over
• AGENCY VS. STRUCTURE
• Strong parallels to philosophys
• Free will vs. determinism
• To what extent do we author our own lives vs.
  have it authored for us?

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And now on to the text

• All of these matters, however, dont belong to
  philosophical speculation.
• To sociology, they are matters of empirical,
  social scientific investigation.

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And now on to the text

• But lets start with the basics

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What is sociology anyway?

• Simply, the study of society (a product)
• But more than that
• It's the study of society in very particular ways
  (a process)

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The process is quite specific

• It involves
• a distinctive perspective
• three major theoretical paradigms
• the logic of science

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Sociologys distinctive perspective

• The general in the particular
• The strange in the familiar
• The individual in social context
• What are the benefits of this perspective?
• On a micro (personal, small picture) level
• On a meso (group, middle picture) level
• On a macro (institutional, large picture) level

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Sociologys distinctive perspective contd

• What are the origins of the sociological
  perspective?
• The social transformations of the 18th and 19th
  centuries in Europe were enormous and occurred on
  three fronts
• Science
• Social change
• Industrial technology
• Growth of cities
• Political change
• Marginal voices

Back
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The general in the particular

• Sociology helps us see general patterns in what
  particular people DO.
• Although every individual is unique, society acts
  differently on various categories of people (say,
  children compared to adults, women versus men,
  the rich as opposed to the poor).
• We begin to think sociologically by realizing how
  the general categories into which we fall shape
  our particular life experiences.

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The general in the particular
Society
You
Category
This is a big part of the sociological
imagination. Its theoretical thinking.
back
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The strange in the familiar

• For example, one of our most familiar (and
  cherished) ideas is the myth of individual (free)
  choice
• We may not be as free as we think...
• Even our choice of names is socially conditioned.
• Would you go and see a movie starring Tom
  Mopother? Right. And thats why Tom Mopother
  changed his name!

back
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The individual in social context

• What could be more individual a choice than to
  end one's own life?
• Yet Durkheim showed that suicide is a very
  sociological phenomenon.
• the more socially integrated people are -- and
  this varies by categories such as gender, wealth,
  and religion -- the less likely they are to
  commit suicide.
• For more on suicide from a Canadian p.o.v.
  see p. 5 and Fig. 1-1.

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The individual in social context Fig. 1-1
back
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What are the benefits of this perspective?

• On a micro (personal) level
• Its enlightening
• Teaches us to critique the truth of common
  sense.
• Its strategic
• teaches us to see realistically what our viable
  options are.
• it's empowering...
• the more strategically we can think, the more
  active we can be in our world
• it's a global survival strategy...
• in an increasingly complex and diverse world

back
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What are the benefits of this perspective?
contd

• On a meso (group) level
• applied sociology can
• influence public policy
• prepare you for the working world
• with advanced training, lead to careers in and
  outside of academia

back
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What are the benefits of this perspective?
contd

• On a macro (institutional) level
• Helps us think globally!
• We can study the larger world and our place in it
• With a sociologically informed global perspective

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Global Map
Its all about industrialization!
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Why should we seek a global perspective?

• Societies are increasingly interconnected.
• The problems of other societies foreshadow our
  own
• We gain insight into our own lives by thinking
  globally

back
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science

• What ought the world to be like?
• Preoccupation of many, from the earliest times
• What is the world like?
• only with folks like Auguste Comte and Emile
  Durkheim did people begin to move toward
  comprehending the world as it actually "is."

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Comte, the positivist

• Early social thought consisted mostly of utopian
  philosophical speculation.
• In contrast, Auguste Comte, the father of
  sociology (he actually coined the term), felt
  that social thought and explanation should be
  scientific.

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Comte, the positivist

• This approach has now been termed positivism
• a path to understanding based on
  empiricism/science.
• Comte believed that societies invariably progress
  through three stages.

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Comte, the positivist
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Comte, the positivist

• The theological stage
• religious explanations, first and final causes
  (the origin and purpose) of all effects supposes
  all phenomena to be produced by the immediate
  action of supernatural beings
• The metaphysical stage
• philosophical, and highly abstract
• The scientific or positive stage.
• Empiricist, experimentalist, studying the
  inter-relationships between elements of society

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Comte, the positivist

• This was a very specific understanding of what
  science was.
• Tried to build on the success of the natural
  sciences.
• He believed that society, like all things in the
  natural world, operated according to certain
  causal mechanisms which were law-like.

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Comte, the positivist cont'd

• This positivistic view of sociology is still
  alive and well today,
• even though we now realize that human behavior is
  far more complex than the movement of planets or
  the actions of other living things.
• Human beings are creatures of imagination and
  spontaneity, so what humans do can never be
  explained or predicted fully by the rigid
  laws of a "causal" society.

Back
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Industrial technology

• New scientific discoveries and technological
  advances within the context of a factory-based,
  industrial economy
• meant that home-based manufacturing (or cottage
  industry) was destroyed
• workers were drawn out of their homes and into a
  large, urban, and anonymous industrial labour
  force, toiling for strangers -- the factory
  owners.
• With that, there was a rapid breakdown of
  tradition and social bonds that had previously
  guided small communities for centuries.

Back
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Growth of cities

• European cities grew with amazing speed
• Not only did the factories attract people in need
  of work (pull)
• but rural landowners were compounding the
  migration by forcing tenant farmers to give up
  their lands and so look for work in those new
  factories (push).
• Cities grew to unprecedented size and with that
  came social problems of the new urbanization
  -pollution, crime, and homelessness among many.

Back
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Political change

• The economic development and growth of cities
  also fostered new ways of thinking.
• Obligations to God and political rulers gave way
  to concerns for individual liberty and individual
  rights.

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Political change

• With the French Revolution, the Western world
  broke with political and social tradition.
• Sociologists, whether they were conservative like
  Comte or radical, like Marx were or all concerned
  with the degeneration of society.

Back
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Marginal voices

• the sociological perspective also originated in
  the thinking of people like
• Harriet Martineau
• scholar, translated Comte
• anti-slavery
• anti-factory worker exploitation
• Nellie McClung
• Canadian, woman, suffragette
• W.E.B. Du Bois
• racial oppression and exploitation in the U.S.

back
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three major theoretical paradigms

• The Structural-Functional Paradigm
• The Social-Conflict Paradigm
• The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm

• By the way whats a paradigm?
• Simply a basic image of society that guides
  thinking and research

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm

• sees society as a theoretically complex system
• parts work together to promote solidarity and
  stability
• so, the emphasis is on social structure
• meaning relatively stable patterns of human doings

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• But the emphasis is also on what each part does
• to promote the integrity of society as a whole.
• The discussion is then on the functions of the
  parts.

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• Drawing initially on a biological metaphor (since
  dropped)
• Every institution (relatively stable patterns of
  human doings) functions to reproduce society as a
  whole.

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• More recently Robert Merton's corrections
• functions could be

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• manifest
• consequences for society both recognized and
  intended
• The manifest function of higher education is to
  provide people with the information and skills
  needed to perform jobs.
• latent
• consequences unrecognized and unintended
• The latent function of higher education is to
  make the college or university into a marriage
  brokering site.
• Also, keep high school grads from flooding the
  labour market and causing economic distress.

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• also functions could be dysfunctional
• institutions could lead to social breakdown or
  undesirable consequences
• Not every structure, custom, idea, belief, and so
  forth has positive functions.
• For example, rabid nationalism can be highly
  dysfunctional in a world of proliferating nuclear
  arms.

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• Another example of dysfunction
• Bureaucracies can become so enmeshed in the
  formalities of their red tape processes that
  they lose site of their goals
• And so fail to achieve their purposes
• So bureaucratic processes can be dysfunctional

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• And what about crime?
• Does it have a manifest function? Latent
  function? Or is it dysfunctional?
• Any thoughts on this?

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The Structural-Functional Paradigm contd

• structural-functionalism criticisms
• Is society really that stable?
• What happened to conflict?
• Do our many inequalities that generate tension
  and conflict really contribute to the betterment
  of society?
• a conservative paradigm

back
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The Social-Conflict Paradigm

• theorizes that society is an arena of inequality
• conflict and change
• it is not society as a whole that benefits !
• but only a privileged few
• Those who benefit do so on the backs of others

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The Social-Conflict Paradigm contd

• educational tracking -- an example
• Secondary schools channel students into academic
  or vocational preparation will be
• Structural- functionalists when would view
  tracking as a good thing
• Matches schooling and ability
• This benefits society
• The conflict theorist shows that tracking has
  less to do with ability than social background
• The social standing of one generation is passed
  on to the next

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The Social-Conflict Paradigm contd

• social conflicts moral component
• Not only does the social conflict paradigm try to
  explain society
• It also tries to change it
• It has a humanist concern
• Stands against oppression
• Stands for Personal and Social flourishing

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The Social-Conflict Paradigm contd

• Marx
• The philosophers have only interpreted the
  world, in various ways the point, however, is to
  change it."

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The Social-Conflict Paradigm contd

• Note the short discussion of Feminism on p. 20
• The basic idea here is that feminism is a variant
  of conflict theory because
• It stresses that there are those in society who
  achieve great privilege at the expense of others
• Except this time, the privileged are not the
  upper classes but men the oppressed not lower
  classes but women.

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The Social-Conflict Paradigm contd

• Social conflict critical evaluation
• The focus on conflict means that shared values
  and interdependence -- those things that unify a
  society -- tend to get overlooked.
• Social conflict is also a very political approach
• Is scientific objectivity possible?
• But isn't everything political?

back
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The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm

• A bridging criticism of both S-F SC
• Everything is painted in terms of categories
  that is, with a broad brush
• Where are the individual human beings?
• This leads us to symbolic-interactionism

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The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm contd

• Symbolic interactionists see things from a micro
  perspective
• They theorize that society is the product of the
  everyday interaction of individuals
• How can this be?

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The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm contd

• From the S I perspective, social reality results
  from our shared interpretations of the world
• How we (mutually) define our
• Surroundings
• Obligations
• Selves
• This makes the world what it is

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The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm contd

• SI then and now
• Max Weber verstehen
• Sociologist tries to understand a people -- a
  category of people -- by understanding the point
  of view of those people
• BUT -- This point of view is at some point
  sociological
• For example, Goffman showed how personality as
  it interprets the world and orients us to it is
  often conditioned by our everyday social
  experiences and our mutual histories Simmel
  Durkheim.

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The general in the particular from the S.I.
perspective
Verstehen
Society
You
Category
But, the question of AGENCY
This is a big part of the sociological
imagination. Its theoretical thinking.
97
The Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm contd

• SI critical evaluation
• The emphasis in symbolic interactionism is about
  how people interact with each other
• So symbolic interactionism is therefore about
• how individuals actually experience society
• The risk is that by bringing things down to such
  a micro perspective, the broad effects of culture
  and other factors such as class, gender, and race
  become lost.

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Applying the paradigms the sociology of sport

• I will leave this section to you.
• Try to see how the three paradigms can be used to
  theorize sport in far different ways.
• This should help to solidify your understanding
  of the paradigms.

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Chapter 2 Sociology Perspective, Theory, and
Method

• Adapted from Macionis Gerber (2004, 2002)
  Sociology

100
The process of sociology (contd)

• It involves
• a distinctive perspective
• (last time)
• three major theoretical paradigms
• (last time)
• the logic of science
• (today)

101
The logic of science

• I pick up the discussion on p. 30.
• Each of the paradigms we looked at last day uses
  science in some way to make its case.

102
The logic of science (contd)

• So, beginning on page 30, we find a discussion of
  three sociological frameworks
• The first framework, scientific sociology is
  not introduced explicity

103
The logic of science (contd)

• These frameworks are really ways of knowing or
  epistemologies that are rooted in each of the
  three paradigms.

104
The logic of science (contd)

• I think it's important for you to see this
  straight one-to-one correspondence, just so that
  you don't become confused by the next few
  sections.

105
Frameworks ? Paradigms

• scientific sociology ? positivism
  structural-functionalism
• interpretive sociology ? symbolic
  interactionism
• critical sociology ? social conflict
• Now to and lets remember

106
Framework 1 Scientific sociology

• Scientific sociology comes out of the
  structural-functionalist paradigm
• Which, as we saw, has its origins in the natural
  sciences.

107
Scientific sociology

• What is science?
• a logical system of falsification that bases
  knowledge on direct, systematic observation
  (empiricism).
• The value of evidence is its ability to challenge
  what we take as common sense.

108
Concepts, variables, and measurement

• Concept A basic element of science
• a mental construct
• or idea
• or representation
• or signifier
• of the world.
• concepts point to and stand for certain aspects
  of social reality
• family the economy gender race or
  social class.

109
Concepts, variables, and measurement contd

• Variable a concept whose value changes from case
  to case.
• The familiar variable price, for example,
  changes from item to item in a supermarket.
• Similarly, people use the concept social class
  to size up others as upper class, middle
  class, working class, or lower class.

110
Concepts, variables, and measurement contd

• But if things/concepts change
• We need to know
• whether or not
• to what degree
• they change
• this requires measurement.
• a procedure for determining the value of change
  or variation of a variable in a specific case.

111
Concepts, variables, and measurement contd

• When you measure a variables variation across
  many, many cases
• You need to aggregate or combine all those
  observations in ways that will make them
  manageable and comprehensible

112
Concepts, variables, and measurement contd

• This is what univariate (one variable)
  descriptive statistics do collect many
  observations on one or more variables variation
  and aggregate the whole mess, making it easier to
  understand.

113
Reliability and validity

• Of course, measurement has to be consistent
• Thats reliability
• If I step on a bathroom scale 10 times in a row
  and my weight values bounce around dramatically
  with every time I step on
• Thats unreliable.

114
Reliability and validity contd

• Once we have measurement reliability, THEN we can
  worry about validity
• Are we measuring what we hope were measuring?
• Even though the bathroom scale consistently /
  reliably says Im 120 lbs. (!)
• That doesnt mean the scale is a valid measure of
  my weight!

115
Correlation and cause

• Scientific sociology is interested in
  establishing cause-and-effect.
• Achieving this begins with finding a relationship
  (correlation) between two variables
• X Y
• Height Weight
• Education Tolerance
• This indicates that the two variables seem to go
  together
• Without saying that one goes before the other in
  time
• Or that one unambiguously influences (or causes)
  the other

116
Correlation and cause contd

• The previous slide demonstrates that it is
• a long way from a correlation to a causal
  statement.
• 3 criteria for establishing causality
• 1 A correlation or relationship between two
  variables
• 2 Time order.
• Did X really come before Y?
• 3 Given 1 2 above, is the relationship
  between X and Y unambiguously genuine
• This means we have to rule out other possible
  explanations for the relationship

117
Correlation and cause contd

• This is all assumed when we hypothesize a causal
  relationship between X and Y.
• It is diagrammed as
• X Y
• X independent (causal / upstream)
  variable
• Y dependent (effect / downstream /
  outcome) variable

118
The ideal of objectivity

• Another goal of scientific study is objectivity,
  or personal neutrality.
• Weber thought that
• although our values can move us to investigate an
  issue
• They should not interfere with our pursuit of
  empirical truth.

119
The ideal of objectivity contd

• Researchers (unlike politicians) must try to stay
  open-minded and willing to accept whatever
  results come from their work, whether they like
  them or not.
• This is the scientific commitment to the logic of
  falsification

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120
Framework 2 Interpretive sociology

• Can the science used to study the natural world
  be used to study people?
• Interpretive sociologists say No.
• Humans dont simply behave.
• Please note my terminology a bit different but
  the basic idea is the same
• They act on the basis of meanings.
• And it is the sociologists job to understand the
  meanings that move people to act.

121
Framework 2 Interpretive sociology contd

• So interpretive sociology differs from scientific
  sociology in three important ways
• It focuses on meaningful action, not mere
  behaviour
• Social reality is not out there its in
  here, in the mind.
• As a result, interpretive sociology tends not to
  take place in the laboratory but in field
  reality of everyday life.

122
Framework 2 Interpretive sociology contd

• The key to the sociologists success is what
  Weber called verstehen
• This is the sociologists understanding of the
  meanings others have of the world.
• This is what Anthony Giddens calls
• The Double Hermeneutic
• Double interpretation
• Our interpretation of others interpretations

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123
Framework 3 Critical sociology

• If interpretive sociology questions what we can
  know (causality vs. meaning)
• Critical sociology questions how scientific
  sociology can know anything
• It is so laden with issues of power, privilege
  oppression
• Scientific sociology (positivism) seen as
  conservative ideology

124
Framework 3 Critical sociology

• The objective here is to create a new egalitarian
  relationship with the research subject
• Now a research co-creator.
• Sociologists now politically active
• Notice how different from value-free sociology

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125
And lets remember

• There are a couple of other important issues that
  apply to all three of the frameworks weve looked
  at
• Research and gender
• Research ethics

126
Research and gender

• Regardless of the framework a sociologist
  subscribes to
• They should be aware of how feminist critique
  relates to their endeavors
• How can gender influence research?

127
Research and gender contd

• Androcentricity seeing the world from a males
  privileged perspective
• The opposite gynocentricity is potentially
  just as much a problem, but it occurs far less
  frequently
• Overgeneralizing.
• sociologists use data obtained from men to
  support conclusions about all people.
• Gender blindness.
• Failing to consider gender at all.

128
Research and gender contd

• Double standards.
• Researchers must be careful not to judge men and
  women differently.
• For example, a family researcher who labels a
  couple man and wife implies the work of one sex
  is more significant than that of the other.

129
Research and gender contd

• Interference.
• When research participants react to the sex of
  the investigator in ways that interfere with the
  project.

130
Research and gender contd

• For instance, while conducting research in
  Sicily, Maureen Giovannini (1992) found many men
  reacted to her as a woman rather than as a
  researcher.
• Gender dynamics kept her from certain activities
  such as private conversations with men that were
  deemed inappropriate for single women.

131
Women as methodologists

• Please review this section on your own.

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132
Research ethics

• Formal guidelines for conducting research are
  available.
• They deal with such things as
• Technical competency
• Disclosure of findings
• The need to protect the rights and welfare of
  research participants
• Privacy, confidentiality, anonymity
• Informed consent
• The use of deception in research
• Honesty re sources of funding

133
Research Methods

• A research method is a systematic plan for
  carrying out your research.
• Four are widely used
• Experiments
• Surveys
• Participant observation
• Use of existing sources

134
Experiments

• Experiments are best used to test hypotheses and
  establish cause-and-effect relationships
• An experimenter gathers the evidence needed to
  accept or reject the hypothesis in three steps

135
Experiments

• measuring the dependent variable (the effect)
• exposing the dependent variable to the
  independent variable (the cause or treatment)
• measuring the dependent variable again to see if
  the predicted change took place.

136
Experiments contd

• Most experiments occur in laboratories
• Best control when determining spuriousness
• However, it is sometimes possible to do
  experiments in the field (that is, in social
  reality).

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137
Surveys

• A survey is a research method in which
  respondents answer a series of statements or
  questions in a questionnaire or an interview.
• The most widely used of all research strategies
• well suited to studying what cannot be observed
  directly, such as political attitudes or
  religious beliefs.

138
Surveys contd

• A survey targets some population, such as
  unmarried mothers or adults living in rural
  counties of Manitoba.
• If the population is too large or is unknown
• Then how surveys use a a sample of the
  population
• Sometimes though, for purposes of complete
  accuracy, the entire population is surveyed.
• This is called a census.

139
Surveys contd

• Surveys tend to take one of two forms
• Questionnaires typically pen and paper, filled
  out by the respondent.
• questions can be open- or closed-ended.
• Interviews done face to face with a researcher
  asking the questions and probing for further
  information.

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Participant observation

• Here and the investigator observes people as they
  go about some aspect of their everyday lives
• Also known as fieldwork.
• This is a flexible methodology, useful when
  immersing oneself in complex and/or unfamiliar
  social reality.
• Participant observers want an insiders
  viewpoint which is often impressionistic
  --without sacrificing objectivity.
• The methods strength is insightfulness.

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Using available data

• sociologists can save time and money by
  re-analyzing data that has been collected by
  others.
• Called secondary analysis.
• Interestingly, there are huge amounts of such
  data available, from, for example, Statistics
  Canada, and many other sources.

142
Using available data

• Often the data is of surprisingly good quality.
• However, it can also be the case that the data
  available does not quite match the sociologists
  needs, or is of inferior quality.
• Moral always be critical of secondary data.

143
Using available data (contd)

• Please review the following sections on your own
• content analysis
• historical analysis
• technology and research

144
The interplay of theory and research

• Be able to distinguish between the following
  types of research
• Inductive
• Deductive

Source Babbie (2001). The Practice of Social
Research. p. 59
145
Finally

• I will leave the section called Putting it all
  together ten steps in sociological
  investigation to you to read.