Sociology- methods

• What do positivists do?


  • Study the social world like the natural world
  • Search for social facts
• What do interpretivists do?

  Interpretivists argue that we are not controlled by society we negotiate norms and values through our interactions. We therefore need to study these interactions.
• Approaches to theoretical issues

  • Functionalists- Focus on those aspects of society which shows how social institutions contribute to society as a whole
  • Marxist- More likely to emphasise inequality and to investigate this
  • Feminists- Focus on inequality but with gender
• What are the advantages of qualitative secondary sources?

  • Valuable, or the only, sources of information in an area
  • They are useful for interpretivists who wish to gain insights into the worldview or ideologies of those who produced them
  • They may be very useful for assessing people's concerns or worries.
• What are the disadvantages of qualitative secondary sources?

  • Authenticity
  • Credibility
  • Representativeness
  • Meaning

  Scott suggests these.
• What is content analysis?

  Content analysis is a research method that quantifies qualitative data by categorising and tallying the content of media to reveal biases in media reporting. For example, the Glasgow Media Group used content analysis to show statistical evidence of biases in TV
• What are quantitative secondary sources?

  These include a range of statistical data produced by groups such as companies and charities. A major source of this data is the official statistics generated by the government, both local and national. This includes census data as well as demographic statistics on things like birth rates
• Why are health statistics inaccurate?

  • They are simply a record of doctors' decision-making
  • Doctors may diagnose illnesses or the causes of death incorrectly, therefore recorded illnesses and cause-of-death statistics may not be accurate
  • Not all sick people go to the doctor and not all people who persuade the doctor they're sick
  • Private medicine operates to make a profit, and therefore is perhaps more likely to diagnose illness
• Why might crime statistics be inaccurate?

  • They only include crimes known to the police
  • Low clear-up rates. Only about 1 in 4 of all crimes are reported to the police are recorded by them is 'cleared up', potentially the other 75% of known offences are committed by different criminal types than those who come before the courts
  • Unreported crimes
• Examples of sample techniques:

  • Random sampling
  • Systematic sampling
  • Stratified random sampling
  • Quota sampling
  • Multistage/cluster sampling
  • Snowball sampling