CRIM 321 Study Guide - Final Guide: Analytical Hierarchy, Longitudinal Study, Unstructured Data
Document Summary
Ontology: nature of social work and what can be known about it (3 positions on it see below) Realism: external reality exists independently of people"s beliefs or understanding about it. Materialism: real world but that only material features o that world hold reality. Idealism: reality is only knowable through the human mind and socially constructed meanings. Epistemology: nature of knowledge and how it can be acquired (see 2 stances below) Positivism: methods of natural science are appropriate for social enquiry because human heavier is governed by law like regularities. it is possible to carry out independent, objective and value free research. Interpretivism: natural science methods are no approbate for social investigation because social world is not governed by regularities holding law like properties. So a researcher has to explore and understand social world through the participants and their own perspectives.