Key Perspectives in Sociology

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Unit One:                        Key Perspectives in Sociology

Date:                                17th December 2007

Name:                        Jules Hindle        

Assignment No:                1

Introduction

During this assignment I will be looking at the difference between sociology and common sense, investigating the different methods used by sociologists in their research, exploring ‘The Sociological Imagination’ and discussing the benefits and limitations of Marxism and Functionalism.


Sociology and common sense         

Sociology is the study of human society or, according to Haralambos & Holborn (2004), ‘the study of people in social groups’.  It provides us with a unique insight into our societies, cultures and behaviour within.  Those critical of sociology might say that sociological findings are merely common sense but we should be wary of writing things off as simply ‘obvious’.   Sociological research is about looking beyond assumptions and aims to provide proven facts and statistics about human society.  Made simple, common sense can be described as every-day thinking born of assumption whereas sociology is facts and figures and seeks the truth, based on research.

Sociological research                          

Research is crucial to sociology and sociologists use various methods of research in an attempt to gain a better knowledge of human society.  The type of method used depends on the type of insight required but most studies fall into two main categories:  qualitative and quantitative methods.

Qualitative methods are concerned with people and observations, where sociologists look at the detail of people’s lives.  Observations can be either participant or non-participant observations.  During participant observations the researcher will join the group being studied, participate in their activities and generally adopt their way of life.  The researcher can be participating overtly, where the group are aware of the researcher’s presence, or covertly, where they go under cover. This can be an extremely effective way to source of information, especially those groups of people often difficult to reach such as religious sects and young offenders.  During non-participant observations researchers merely observe and record information from a distance.  

Quantitative

Sociologists often use quantitative methods such as social surveys to investigate a social process or present patterns in social relationships.   They will collect information using questionnaires, where people are given a set of written questions to fill in, or structured interviews, where people are asked a specific set of questions and the researcher fills in the answers.   The researcher will survey a sample of people from a group; these can either be random, where the people questioned are not predetermined or non-random, where the researcher targets specific people in the group.   Sociologist who use these methods are often called positivist sociologists, they want to put a scientific method on sociology and are generally concerned with numbers and statistics.  They present their data in the form of numbers so that it can be measured and compared.  These are a primary source of information and provide a snapshot of information of that time.

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Sociologists also use secondary research methods such as other people’s research.  These tend to be of a quantitative nature.


The following is an example of a piece of research used by sociologists:

Types of assault occurring between family members

In 1980, R. E. and R. Dobash carried out a study into Violence against Wives.  As a part of their research they used the above figures, compiled from statistics gathered in 1974, on domestic assaults reported to the police in all of Edinburgh and one district of Glasgow (cited Taylor et al 2005).

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