SOCA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Meritocracy, Statistical Significance, Participant Observation
Document Summary
Research: research can often be used to better understand our social world, it can lead to policy decisions, debunking of myth, and challenging of paradigms. School curriculum, access to social welfare, etc. It is often ignored by policy makers when it does not fit their political agenda (ex. Housing and schooling: can be used for political purposes ex. claims. How we know: concrete experience, gained directly through our sense, develops patterns, abstract experience, occurs in the mind, defined by imagination, employs concepts and propositions. Concepts: abstract terms used to organize concrete experience . Term: define the world: epistemology: study of knowledge, particularly the theories, methods, and scope used to. Slide 7: tall tales are half truths, cracking knuckles will lead to arthritis . Knowledge based on tradition: authority, belief based on an authoritative source. Bell curve, clash of civilizations, etc: casual observation, deductions made at first glance or based on memory. Memory has been found to be unreliable.
