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Soc 3326 Only

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I. Development of sociology

• Sociology is a social science because it conducts research.
  
  
• Sociology develops in the late 1700s and early 1800s with a concern on moral decline in the context of a great social transformation--the industrial revolution and urbanization (factory cities)
  
  
• Sociology's development was part of the development of science and modernism
  
  
• Social science has intellectual precursors--e.g., Giambattista Vico (1600s-1700s) and his book, The New Science
  
  
  • since God created nature, he alone can explain it
    
    
  • since humankind created society, humankind can explain it
    
    

II. Scientific Method

theory ---> hypotheses ---> research design ---> data gathering ---> data coding/entering ----> analysis---> empirical generalizations ---> theory


III. Another approach: grounded theory
data gathering ---> theory


IV. Social research terms:

• quantitative vs. qualitative
• variables (empirical; dependent and independent)
• operationalization (from concepts to variables)
• cross-sectional study
• longitudinal study
• exploratory research
• historical study
• survey
• sample
• random sample
• experimental and control groups
• research instrument (questionnaire, interview schedule)
• database/dataset
• field research (ethnography)
• participant observation
• informants (not informers)
  
  

V. Research and Theoretical

• Perspectives
• Symbolic Interaction
• Functionalism
• Conflict Theory
• Conflict vs. Order Perspective
  
  

VI. Critics of Science

• Postmodern perspective
• Paul Feyeraband--Against Method and Farewell to Reason