SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: French Revolution
Document Summary
Statistics and qualitative methods are the two dominant methodological traditions in sociology. Many of the most influential sociologists of all time didn"t use either. Our textbook doesn"t really discuss (case study) Topic: sociologists generally use comparative-historical methods to answer big questions about large processes that occurred in the past. Data: rely heavily on historical sources for data rather than statistical or qualitative data. Archival sources, history books, newspapers and periodicals, secondary literature, etc. Quantitative and qualitative data used but less relevant. Little statistical data going back into the past. Can"t really do interviews if people are dead. But can be if looking at more recent events. There are actually two distinct methods in chs. Historical data of certain kinds, books, records. Comparison: compares cases to explore why they are similar and why they are different; two basic types. What kind of mechanisms, what kind of structure, quantify certain data from different historical books, i. e. what kind of people were mentioned.
