interpretivism vs positivism

• interpretivism -

  verstehen - empathic

  understanding of human

  behaviour. Walking in

  someone else's shoes
• interpretivism

  social construction - phenomena that is created by society and not naturally occurring - will vary from culture to culture
• interpretivism - approach to sociological research

  • to understand the world you need to be empathetic in order to understand the meanings attached to action
• interpretivism - preferred data type and methods

  • qualitative data
  • unstructured interviews
  • observations
  • open questionnaires
• types of interpretivism

  1. interactionism
  2. phenomenology and ethnomethodology
• types of interpretivism - interactionism

  • there can be causal explanations in sociology but there is no need for a hypothesis before starting research
  • GLASER AND STRAUSS - by stating a hypothesis at the start of the study researchers run the risk of imposing their own views on the data rather than those of the actors being researched
  • instead there should be a grounded theory which means allowing ideas to emerge as the data is collected which can later be used to produce a testable hypothesis
• interpretivism - phenomenology and ethnomethodology

  • rejects the idea that there can be cause explanations for human behaviour and that society is not out there determining our actions
  • instead they argue that society is a shared set of meanings and knowledge
  • they are interested in finding out what these shared meanings are and where they originate from
• positivism - social facts

  • are things such as institutions, norms and values which exist external to the individual and constrain the individual
• positivism - induction

  • involves accumulating data about the world through careful observation and measurement
• positivism - causality

  • means the relationships between cause and effect - how one stimuli can lead to a certain action
• positivism - approach to sociological research

  • sociology should approach research in the same way as the natural sciences - should be objective and logical
• positivism - objective quantitative research

  • quantitative data and should follow the experimental method of the natural sciences
  • this will allow them to uncover and measure patterns of behaviour which will lead them to create social facts which govern society
  • by using quantitative data the positivists believe that they can uncover cause and effect that determine human behaviour
  • research should be detached from subjective feelings and interpretations it is claimed that a scientist's beliefs and values have no impact on their findings and sociologists should be the same
• positivism - preferred data type and methods

  • quantitative data
  • closed questions
  • structured interviews
  • experiments
• positivism - sociological perspectives

  • structural approaches
  • Functionalism
  • marxism
  • feminism
• positivism - sociologists

  • durkheim
  • comte