A-LEVEL
SOCIOLOGY:
THEORY
●Sociology and science: 2 - 4
●Objectivity and values: 5
●Functionalism: 6
●Marxism: 7 - 10
●Feminist theories: 10 - 13
●Action theories: 13 - 16
●Globalisation, modernity and postmodernity: 16 -
19
●Social policy: 20 - 21
, 2
Sociology and science
● Positivism
○ Possible + desirable to apply the logic/methods of natural sciences to study of
society → true objective knowledge → basis for solving social problems
○ Society = objective factual reality
○ Reality = patterned + DURKHEIM: ‘real laws are discoverable’ that will explain
these patterns
■ Inductive reasoning; accumulating data about the world through careful
observation and measurement →patterns → theory → verification → law
■ Patterns can be explained by social facts
○ Research:
■ Experimental method; allows the investigator to test a hypothesis in the
most systematic + controlled way - examining each possible causal
factor to observe its effect while excluding all other factors
■ Quantitative data - uncover + measure patterns of behaviour - produce
mathematically precise statements about the relationship between the
facts they are investigating → cause and effect laws
■ Detached + objective methods
○ Durkheims study of suicide
■ Sociology was a science; highly individual act had social causes
■ Quantitative data from official statistics - patterns - Protestants >
Catholics → social fact caused by other social fact (integration +
regulation)
■ ‘Real law’ + sociology’s own unique subject matter of social facts +
explained scientifically
● Interpretivism
○ Meaningful social action - can only understand be interpreting meanings
○ Unobservable internal meanings not external causes → not a science - only deals
with laws of cause and effect
○ Natural science studied matter which has no consciousness → straightforward
reaction to external stimulus vs sociology studies people who have
consciousness - make sense of world by attaching meanings internal to people’s
consciousness
■ MEAD: human beings interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then
choose how to respond to it - free will
○ WEBER: put ourselves in the place of the actor - verstehen - empathetic
understanding of actors meanings
○ Interactionists: can have causal explanations
■ GLASER + STRAUSS: grounded theory
○ Phenomenologists / ethnomethodologists eg GARFINKEL: completely reject
causal explanations - radical anti-structuralist view: society is not a real thing ‘out
, 3
there’ shaping our actions - social reality = shared meanings of its members,
exists only in people’s consciousness
■ Subject matter = interpretive procedures that people use to make sense
of the world - people’s actions are not governed by external causes → no
cause-and-effect
○ DOUGLAS - interactionist: suicide
■ Uncover its meanings for those involved - behaviour determined by free
will not social facts - qualitative data from case studies
■ OS = not objective social facts but social constructions resulting from
coroners labelling certain deaths as suicide
○ ATKINSON - ethnomethodologist: suicide
■ Never know the ‘real rate’ of suicide even using qualitative methods -
never know for sure the meanings the deceased held
■ Living make sense of the dead - interpretivist procedures coroners use to
classify deaths - everyone has a stock of taken-for-granted assumptions
to make sense of situations → uncover what this is + how coroners use it
● Postmodernism
○ Natural science = meta-narrative - does not have special access to the truth
○ Claims a monopoly of truth + exclude other points of view → scientific sociology
is a form of domination
● Poststructuralist feminists
○ Quest for a single, scientific feminist theory = domination - covertly excludes
many groups of women
○ Quantitative scientific methods = oppressive + cannot capture reality of women’s
experiences
● Undesirable - science → risk society not progress
● Popper:
○ Fallacy of induction - never prove by verificationism
○ Scientific statement = in principle is capable of being falsified
○ All knowledge is provisional, temporary, capable of refutation at any moment -
never be absolute proof - good theory is just withstanding attempts to falsify it
○ Science = public activity - thrives in open (free expression, challenge accepted
ideas) vs closed (dominated by official belief systems - claim to have absolute
truth) societies eg Galileo
○ Sociology
■ Much is unscientific = not falsifiable - eg Marxism revolution
■ Can be scientific - Ford
■ Untestable ideas are not worthless - testable at later date, examine them
● Kuhn:
○ Paradigm - defines what their science is - culture accepted uncritically due to
socialisation
SOCIOLOGY:
THEORY
●Sociology and science: 2 - 4
●Objectivity and values: 5
●Functionalism: 6
●Marxism: 7 - 10
●Feminist theories: 10 - 13
●Action theories: 13 - 16
●Globalisation, modernity and postmodernity: 16 -
19
●Social policy: 20 - 21
, 2
Sociology and science
● Positivism
○ Possible + desirable to apply the logic/methods of natural sciences to study of
society → true objective knowledge → basis for solving social problems
○ Society = objective factual reality
○ Reality = patterned + DURKHEIM: ‘real laws are discoverable’ that will explain
these patterns
■ Inductive reasoning; accumulating data about the world through careful
observation and measurement →patterns → theory → verification → law
■ Patterns can be explained by social facts
○ Research:
■ Experimental method; allows the investigator to test a hypothesis in the
most systematic + controlled way - examining each possible causal
factor to observe its effect while excluding all other factors
■ Quantitative data - uncover + measure patterns of behaviour - produce
mathematically precise statements about the relationship between the
facts they are investigating → cause and effect laws
■ Detached + objective methods
○ Durkheims study of suicide
■ Sociology was a science; highly individual act had social causes
■ Quantitative data from official statistics - patterns - Protestants >
Catholics → social fact caused by other social fact (integration +
regulation)
■ ‘Real law’ + sociology’s own unique subject matter of social facts +
explained scientifically
● Interpretivism
○ Meaningful social action - can only understand be interpreting meanings
○ Unobservable internal meanings not external causes → not a science - only deals
with laws of cause and effect
○ Natural science studied matter which has no consciousness → straightforward
reaction to external stimulus vs sociology studies people who have
consciousness - make sense of world by attaching meanings internal to people’s
consciousness
■ MEAD: human beings interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then
choose how to respond to it - free will
○ WEBER: put ourselves in the place of the actor - verstehen - empathetic
understanding of actors meanings
○ Interactionists: can have causal explanations
■ GLASER + STRAUSS: grounded theory
○ Phenomenologists / ethnomethodologists eg GARFINKEL: completely reject
causal explanations - radical anti-structuralist view: society is not a real thing ‘out
, 3
there’ shaping our actions - social reality = shared meanings of its members,
exists only in people’s consciousness
■ Subject matter = interpretive procedures that people use to make sense
of the world - people’s actions are not governed by external causes → no
cause-and-effect
○ DOUGLAS - interactionist: suicide
■ Uncover its meanings for those involved - behaviour determined by free
will not social facts - qualitative data from case studies
■ OS = not objective social facts but social constructions resulting from
coroners labelling certain deaths as suicide
○ ATKINSON - ethnomethodologist: suicide
■ Never know the ‘real rate’ of suicide even using qualitative methods -
never know for sure the meanings the deceased held
■ Living make sense of the dead - interpretivist procedures coroners use to
classify deaths - everyone has a stock of taken-for-granted assumptions
to make sense of situations → uncover what this is + how coroners use it
● Postmodernism
○ Natural science = meta-narrative - does not have special access to the truth
○ Claims a monopoly of truth + exclude other points of view → scientific sociology
is a form of domination
● Poststructuralist feminists
○ Quest for a single, scientific feminist theory = domination - covertly excludes
many groups of women
○ Quantitative scientific methods = oppressive + cannot capture reality of women’s
experiences
● Undesirable - science → risk society not progress
● Popper:
○ Fallacy of induction - never prove by verificationism
○ Scientific statement = in principle is capable of being falsified
○ All knowledge is provisional, temporary, capable of refutation at any moment -
never be absolute proof - good theory is just withstanding attempts to falsify it
○ Science = public activity - thrives in open (free expression, challenge accepted
ideas) vs closed (dominated by official belief systems - claim to have absolute
truth) societies eg Galileo
○ Sociology
■ Much is unscientific = not falsifiable - eg Marxism revolution
■ Can be scientific - Ford
■ Untestable ideas are not worthless - testable at later date, examine them
● Kuhn:
○ Paradigm - defines what their science is - culture accepted uncritically due to
socialisation
