Positivism And. Two Approaches Of Interpreting Social Reality

Positivism originated with August Comte. It was considered a philosophical approach that replaced speculation with science. Positivist theorists believe

Social construction of reality/pg. 117: The use of background assumptions and life experiences to define what is real.

Most people are unaware of the social construction of reality. This is the process through which truth and knowledge are “discovered, made known, reaffirmed, and altered by the members of a society (Newman 29).” One main component of any society is the way individuals are organized and how these organizations cause them to interact with each other. This classification, or social stratification, is based on class, race, and gender. Although they are contrasting concepts, class, race, and gender are interconnected systems of power and inequality. It is not the categories themselves that cause resources and opportunities to be distributed differently, but rather the meanings people attach to them. Social order is a product of human activity.

The study was interpretive a form of qualitative methodology allowed the researcher's made comments on interpretive relies upon the human subject as the instruments to measure some phenomena, and typically involves

Sociological Theory: Positivistic, Interpretative, and Critical Comment on the three types of sociological theories, explain and argue, based on your library or Internet research, which type of theory is the most appropriate theory for sociology to adopt. The three general types of sociological theory are positivistic, interpretive and critical theory. In determining which theory is the most appropriate for sociology to adopt,a basic understanding of each theory's strengths and weaknesses is necessary. In defining each of these theories, it is important to determine the ontological basis orthe theory's basis for determining what is knowable; the epistemological basis or the theory's relationship between the knower and the knowable; and,

Positivist sociologists would argue that unstructured interviews are a disadvantage for sociologists to use in sociological research because it cannot be quantified. As unstructured interviews are mainly open-ended questions, the answers cannot be pre-coded. This lack of quantitative data makes unstructured interviews less useful for establishing a cause-and-effect relationship and hypothesis testing that positivists prefer. For example, it is impossible to quantify how a woman might feel after experiencing domestic violence, making it difficult to establish a relationship between the actions taken against women and the long term psychological effect. Therefore, unstructured interviews are a disadvantage when used in sociological research. However, interpretivist sociologists may see the

Positivism is a theoretical point of view which concentrates on social facts, scientific methods and quantitative data. The research methods that are commonly used by positivists are questionnaires, structured interviews, structured non-participant observation and official statistics. These methods are used as they are objective and reliable. One sociological study that used positivist methods was Durkheim’s Suicide Study. Durkheim used official statistics to study suicide and demonstrate society as a science with its own distinct subject matter.

Critically Analyse and Evalute The Different Sociological Perspectives On The Types of Family And Households In Britain. Evaluate Their Functions And Roles. To What Extent Do They Take Into Account The Diversity of Family Types In Britain?

What internalizes the values, norms, and beliefs by an individual that also allows them to function as a member of society? Is it really human nature, or does it depend on agents of socialization? Most importantly, why is society the way it is? Society is developed through a number reasons, including a combination of an understanding of needs and wants of others as well as oneself, the influences on others, and social interactions. The significance of the Social Construction of Reality in contemporary society depends on the limits of socialization, theories of socialization, agents of socialization, social interactions, and the social construction of reality.

Research paradigms are ‘the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by members of a given community’ (Kuhn, 1970, p.175). The three most common paradigms are positivism, constructivism or interpretivism and pragmatism. Each of these can be categorised further by examining their: ontology, epistemology and methodology. Fundamentally, ontology is the nature of reality, epistemology describes the relationship the investigator has with their version of reality, and methodology is the various techniques and tools used to analysis their research.

In the scientific realism, quantitative research techniques are used because the researcher is working to establish a cause-and-effect relationship using questionnaires, observations, and test which all produce numerical data. Scientific realist thinks that they can accurately capture effective research through a real social and psychological world (Lodico, Spaulding, Voegtle, 2010). While social constructivism uses qualitative research to challenge others to understand social phenomena as a whole from a context specific perspective and that the only way to achieve this goal is to become involved with the participants of the study. This requires that the type of data collected must bring the researcher in contact with the participants and it can be done through interviews, videos, or in-depth observations (Lodico, Spaulding, Voegtle, 2010). Researchers who take on an advocacy/liberatory believe political, economic, and social context are key, and its focus is through liberation and deepening of an individual’s skill set. Advocacy –liberatory is brought on by postmodernism because they believe in small communities and how it can make a better life for those in the community (Long, 2012). An advocacy- liberatory fall in line with that of action research and includes qualitative methods, and this research is inductive and serves as a catalyst for change (Long, 2012).

The social science paradigm also known as Post positivism consists of testing hypothesis and research questions that are developed through reasoning. This is done through measurements and observation. Social scientists aspire to science and they seek to study human behaviour, interaction and thought in an organized way; which we can then measure, generalize and replicate. Like any research, post-positivism needs to be backed up by evidence. When a social science research sets out a research project, it is their goal to find evidence that can either agree or disagree with the hypothesis or theories. Post positivism, compared to positivism allows more interaction with the participants of the research project and seeks to highlight the relationship between universal properties between the variables. The best way to understand post positivism is by comparing it to positivism and the interpretive paradigm. Compared to positivism, post positivism is more tolerant for value-based information, however is not focused on qualitative information like the interpretive paradigm, instead the research is mainly focused on quantitative data.

As a sociologist Comte, is also known for his thoughtful ambitions which led him to formulate the ideas of Positivism and framed “law of the three stages” of mankind (Bourdeau, 2015). As the founder of positivism/positive philosophy Comte believed positivism could be used to counter negativism (Bourdeau (2015). He understood social change would create order and progress through positivity. As an influential scholar of sociology one of his beginning approaches was to clarify the subject of sociology from the other sciences (Bourdeau (2015).

Deciphering from all the above research philosophy the author would adopt an Epistemological Approach. This approach allows the researcher the in-depth desires to gain knowledge with respect to a particular phenomenon related to the thesis topic; performance management systems in the Radiology Department at E.W.M.S.C. The author shall decipher is what is the nature of the relationship between the knower and what can be known.

This sociological study will define the relationship between public sociology to the tradition of Positivism. Historically, Positivistic Theory is based on a strict adherence to the scientific aspects of economy and materialism, which seek to analyze society in terms of the physicality of culture and social phenomenon. These traditions stem from the growth of scientific thought and economic analysis found in Marxism, and other ideologies that analyze the material qualities of a culture. In this manner, the growth of Public Sociology is an important development in the necessity of changing social institutions to transform society. This more aggressive form of public sociology relies heavily on social protest, institutional change, and other aspects of social and cultural dynamics that can alter the values of a given society. In this manner, social change is the primary focus of Public Sociology, which contrasts the materialism of positivism as a purely quantitative evaluation of society. In this manner, the use of scientific method and quantitative studies in Positivistic Theory are the major difference in how society is measured in the more institutionally activist methods of Public Sociology that seek to change civilization.