Socio as a science

• Popper (no)

  -A key feature of a science is falsification rather than providing supporting evidence

  -Many sociological concepts are subject to interpretation of individuals so can't be falsified

  -e.g. many reasons for underachievement in education, which are often an internal reaction to external stimuli -> pupils may react differently so impossible to disprove as based on correlation rather than cause and effect
• Counter to Popper- Kuhn (Paradigms)

  -Natural scientists don't always work on these principles

  -Uses paradigms to explain that overtime, disproving evidence builds up and outweighs evidence of the existing paradigm

  -Therefore, science doesn't always abide by the principle of falsification
• Positivists (yes)-

  -Durkheim argued for the existence of social facts which are directly observable behaviours that could be recorded and measured.

  -e.g.- he used official stats to demonstrate how researchers could objectively measure the impacts of social changes on the population by looking at suicide.
• Interpretivist counter to positivism-

  -Atkinson and Douglas- the decision to record a verdict as suicide was down to coroners interpretation and was influenced by other factors such as, mental health -> subjective and unscientific

  -Weber- socio should be studied using qualitative methods and emphasises verstehen (Weber)

  -Willis - qualitative example
• Post modernism-

  -We can't seek to understand things in the same way as the natural sciences as there is no one set idea about how things work

  -Lyotard- rejection of metanarratives.