SOC 1100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Critical Theory, Antipositivism, Formal System

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1100
• Professor: Deanna Behnke- Cook

Document Summary

Know how to apply the sociological perspective: be curious and ready to ask questions about the world around you. What people accept as truth differs around the world. Science a logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation is one form of truth. Scientific evidence gained from sociological research often challenges common sense. Science a logical system that bases knowledge on direct, systematic observation. Empirical evidenceinformation we can verify with our senses. 2. 2: research orientations: three ways to do sociology. Scientific sociologystudies society by systematically observing social behaviour. Scientific or positivist sociology: requires carefully operationalizing variables and ensuring that measurement is both reliable and valid, observes how variables are related and tries to establish cause and effect. Is well suited to research in a laboratory: demands that researchers be objective and suspend yheir personal values and biases as they conduct research. Interpretive sociologyfocuses on the meanings that people attach to behaviour.