RI Approaches in the Social Sciences 2023

Approaches in the Social Sciences – A Summary (Students’ Version) Approach Positivist Social Science (PSS) Interpretive Social Science (ISS) Critical Social Science (CSS) In a nutshell The approach of the natural sciences: preference for quantitative data, experiments, surveys, statistics. Positivists seek rigorous, exact measures and ‘objective’ research. The dominant approach in the Western countries, especially in the 60s and 70s (still so in North America but not so in Europe) “Postivist social science is an organized method for combining deductive logic with precise empirical observations of individual behavior in order to discover and confirm a set of probabilistic causal laws that can be used to predict general patterns of human activity.” (95) There is only one logic of science so social science must be like natural science Example of fields: public health administration, criminal justice, market research, policy analysis, program evaluation The world of society is not the same as the world of nature. Emphasis on gathering qualitative data to acquire an in-depth understanding of how people create meaning in everyday life and maintain their social worlds. The primary goal for SS according to ISS is empathetic understanding – deep understanding with shared meaning. “In general, the interpretative approach is the systematic analysis of socially meaningful action through the direct detailed observation of people in natural settings in order to arrive at understandings and interpretations of how people create and maintain their social worlds.” (101-2) Social research must be reflexive: it must criticize itself as well as its subject matter. Combines PSS and ISS to inquire beyond surface illusions to uncover the real structures in the material world to help people build better lives. “In general, CSS defines social science as a critical process of inquiry that goes beyond surface illusions to uncover the real structures in the material world in order to help people change conditions and build a better world for themselves.” (108) Some proponents (Title of Work) ▪ Auguste Comte (The Course of Positive Philosophy) ▪ John Stuart Mill (A System of Logic) ▪ Emile Durkheim (Rules of the Sociological Method) ▪ David Hume ▪ Max Weber (Essays in Sociology) ▪ Wilhem Dilthey (Introduction to the Human Sciences) ▪ Talcott Parson (The Structure of Social Action) ▪ Karl Marx (Capital; Theses on Feuerbach) ▪ Theodor Adorno (Sociology and Empirical Research) ▪ Max Horkheimer (Traditional and Critical Theory) ▪ Sigmund Freud, Herbet Marcuse Typical process of research ▪ Deduce hypothesis from a general theory; this hypothesis will likely explain complex patterns in terms of a few key variables; ▪ Make predictions based on hypothesis (which must be measurable); ▪ Gather data to precisely measure the factors that the theory identifies; ▪ Use statistics to formally test the predictions to corroborate the hypothesis (where the sample size is usually very large) ▪ Personally talk with and observe specific groups of people (sample size usually small); ▪ Learn what the group feels about certain issues that are of everyday concern to them; ▪ Put what people say into the context of their daily affairs; ▪ Describe findings (of what the specific group of people think) in terms of what other researchers can understand. ▪ Begin with a point of view/agenda/moral standpoint; ▪ Examine larger social and historical context; ▪ Uncover problems in society (eg. racial discrimination) by examining many sources closely and finding an underlying pattern of exploitation; study the effects of these problems on specific people groups; ▪ Find solutions (given her moral standpoint) to help overcome the problem; ▪ Takes actions to overcome that problem (eg. appeal to politicians, involving the press). E.g. of ISS vs CSS approach (110) E.g. of extended case method (115) Some typical methods used ▪ Collection of data (eg census) ▪ Clinical behavioral studies ▪ Collation of aggregate answers to a questionnaire ▪ Experiments, surveys and statistics – quantitative Interested in collecting and analyzing ‘objective’ observations. ▪ Examination of conversations ▪ Participant observation in the field ▪ Analysis of nonverbal communication ▪ Bracketing: identifying then setting aside taken-for- granted assumptions used in a social scene. It reveals what “everyone knows”: what people assume but rarely say. It makes visible significant features of the social scene that make other events possible and is the underlying scaffolding of understandings on which actions are based (106). Interested not in aggregate answers of many people, but in placing each person’s answer in context. Note: such capturing of people’s subjective sense of reality is only possible by indirect means: what we experience initially are gestures, sounds, and actions and only in the ▪ Utilizes methods from both PSS (eg. collection of economic data) and ISS (eg. personally examine living conditions). Interested in changing the status quo, getting problems addressed.

process of understanding do we take the step from external signs to the underlying inner life (102). E.g. of difference in PSS vs ISS methodology (101) Associated names Logical empiricism, post-positivism, naturalism, covering law model, behaviorism, the scientific approach. Hermeneutics, symbolic interactionism, constructionism, ethnomethodology, cognitive, idealist, phenomenological, subjectivist and qualitative sociology. Dialectical materialism, class analysis, structuralism. Reason for research (Q1) Instrumental orientation: To discover natural laws so people can predict and control events (such as to alter social relations, improve policies and predict what happens) These laws of human behaviour are viewed to be universal. Practical orientation: To understand and describe meaningful social action (not just the external, observable behaviour but actions that have meaning or intent) in everyday life; to share someone else’s perspective. (107) Social action “is the action to which people attach subjective meaning and is activity with a purpose or intent” (102). A physical reflex is not a meaningful social action but a deliberate wink directed towards other people would be. Action orientation: To smash myths and empower people to change society radically; to explain a social order in such a way that it becomes itself the catalyst which leads to the transformation of that social order. In short, to change the world. (108-9) E.g. on racial discrimination (109) Nature of social reality (Q2) Stable preexisting patterns or order that can be discovered; it is “waiting to be revealed” (96) Positivists are realists: there is a real world out there that we can discover. People experience it in similar ways. Things are as they appear, created out of a natural order of the world. Thus, race, gender, and measurements of space and time just “are”. Implications: for e.g., males commit more crime than females due to “maleness” Cumulative: social reality as stable and regular, the laws we discover today will hold in the future, and we can add more and more knowledge each day. Language is able to accurately reflect reality (103) Fluid definitions of a situation created by human interaction. (although people often take social reality for granted and behave as if it were natural, objective, part of fixed reality – e.g. of number of days in a week; 102-3) Interpretivists tend to be idealists/nominalists: the social world is what people perceive it to be. People may or may not experience social reality in the same way. Reality is not discovered but constructed. Social reality is somewhat distinct from physical reality but is nonetheless linked to it (e.g. of c