Similarities Between Constructivism And Positivism

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

The Goldstein (1985) tripartite model differentiates the drug-crime relationship in three types. According to Levinthal (2012), the three major types of drug related violence including (1) pharmacological violence, (2) economic compulsive violence, and (3) systemic violence. Studies confirm, drug related violence are linked; however, factors deviate with each individual (Levinthal, 2012).

Constructivism is the learning theory that focuses on observation by acquiring data and thereafter reexamining, altering, and updating information to be useful in the present time. Humans process experiences, knowledge, and conception of life based on their impressions of their past. As individuals experience an unfamiliar event, they will attempt to integrate it with their knowledge and past, therefore replacing old outdated or incorrect data with new more pertinent information (Kerka, 1997). This learning theory states that learning is an ongoing process and not about merely comprehending available data without questioning, processing, and updating previously learned information (Allen, 2005).

There exists conflicting theories among sociologists in the area of determining why a person is considered to be a deviant, and the reasons behind why he or she has committed a deviant act. From a positivistic perspective, deviance is based on biological or social determinism. Alternatively, from a constructionist perspective, deviance is created and assigned by society. Both perspectives seek to give a theory for why a person may become known as deviant. Although they both view similar acts as deviant, the basic differences between positivists and constructionists theories are clear.

Positivism or more specifically, logical positivism, is “maintained that science is value free, independent of the scientist, and obtained using objective methods” (McEwen & Wills, 2007, p.8). This leads to no biased interpretation of the data. In summary, objectivity and facts are the basis of received view.

Crime and drugs are related in several ways. One being, drug production, manufacture, trafficking or possession of illegal drugs may comprise crime. Secondly, drug use could possibly increase the possibility of other crimes like murder or kidnapping. Finally, use of drugs can be connected to bigger problems, such as, the use of illegal weapons and other shapes of violence and terrorism. You may wonder, what causes certain people to participate in criminal activities while abusing illegal drugs?

CRIMINOLOGYDoes drug use cause crime, does crime cause drug use or is the relationship entirely co-incidental?INTRODUCTIONIn this paper I will look at the amount and type of crime caused by drugs, the relationship between drugs and crime and the relationship between alcohol and crime.

Crimes that are drug related are numerous in the United States also attract media attention. But, not enough attention is given to this matter because crimes are committed all the time. To find out the difference between drug related and non drug related crimes one would need to ask themselves if drugs play an important role in the decisions of people while under the influence of drugs Seddon (2000). More specifically, “Does illegal drug usage affect the occurrence of violent crimes?”

The positive theory is the final stage in which truth is told through sciences;

There has been speculation that the decriminalization of all drugs in Portugal has caused a rapid increase in the number of crimes and homicides in Portugal. Between 2001- 2006, the number of homicides increased by 40% from 105 to 148 per year (Murkin, 1). This may be attributed to the fact that now that drugs are legal, drug availability is more prevalent making it much harder for dealers to compete for customers and eventually resulting in turf battles ending in homicides. This could also be a product of directly drug related murders since getting high, causing the person be have less judgment over his or her self, may lead to reckless actions. However, there has been no concrete evidence supporting that the decriminalization of drugs or drug use itself has had any impact on this rise in homicide rate. This is merely a coincidence statistically but may have deeper prevalence if examined much closer. Crime in general since 2001 in Portugal has increased as well, however, these are mostly associated with petty thefts and robberies (Murkin, 1). This, as well, seems associated with the decriminalization of drugs, but researchers have deduced that this increase in document crimes is due to the fact that police officers can now focus their efforts on dealing with these criminals and other offenders of the law rather then having to deal with drug related crimes everyday. This enables more dangerous criminals to be focused on and decreases the number of drug related offenders in

A lot of people link drug abuse with crime, at times even with violent crime. This association comes from psychopharmacological association that imply that people may engage in criminal acts after taking some kind of substance known to undermine their judgment as well as self-control result in paranoid thoughts and distortion of inhibitions (Sewell, Poling and Sofuoglu, 189). Though all substances that affect the central nervous system might result in this kind of relationships, scientific information indicates that some type of drugs have a more strong effect than others. Such drugs are alcohol, cocaine, phencyclidine and amphetamines (McCauley, Ruggiero, Resnick and Kilpatrick, 136). Inversely, cannabis and heroin are less associated with desire to commit

Both Marxist and positivist stress the need for a rigorous scientific method, for scientific analysis of the social phenomenon and natural world.

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.

Constructivism is a coherent theory of learning that emerged as a prevailing paradigm in the last part of the twentieth century. Constructivism is a theory which brings cogitation to pedagogy (Bruner, 1966). Constructivism capitalizes on the ways in which human beings create their own personal construct of reality by understanding and experiencing the world. The main underlying assumption of constructivism is that individuals are actively involved right from the birth in constructing personal meaning.

Positivism is a rigorous and formal way to collect and analyze data that was developed around the 1960’s by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who is also credited with formalizing it. Studies are clear and straight forward and researchers believe that there is only one method that all sciences should rely on. Positivism believes