SOAN 2111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Nomothetic, Harriet Martineau, The Sociological Imagination

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 2111
• Professor: Linda Hunter

Document Summary

All living in society undergoing wide ranging social changes. Each concerned with the character and directions of modern society e. g. division of labor, bureaucracy. All were involved in the societies of their time: marx-news paper, weber-political activities, durkheim-encouraging social involvement, simmel-love, conflict, life, harriet martineau- (cid:449)o(cid:373)e(cid:374)(cid:859)s issues. The women founders of the social sciences by lynn mcdonald (1996) Women: did (cid:374)ot ha(cid:448)e the i(cid:374)stitutio(cid:374)s (cid:373)e(cid:374) ha(cid:448)e had to support ea(cid:272)h other(cid:859)s work, excluded from universities, no schools promoted their work, few biographies. Nature and types of sociological theory: positivism, interpretive, critical. Positivism is nomothetic- it seeks generalizable, universally applicable laws: prediction and control, logic of explanation- ability to predict environments, functionalist. Interpretive theory study of society that focuses on the meanings people attach to their social worlds (hermeneutical theorists: human communication, symbols are learned, relies on qualitative data, observe parts of society that need improvement, symbolic interaction.