SOC 174 Lecture Notes - Cognitive Dissonance, Be Forewarned, Household Division
Document Summary
The scientific approach: objectivity, drawing conclusions from data regardless of personal opinions, beliefs, or values, objectivity is difficult! Ex1: on average, women earn the same as men is a factual claim. Positive/factual statements can be checked with data (i. e. empirically tested): they are either true or false. Normative: opinions, values what"s morally, ethically, or religiously good or bad what should be the case. Ex2: women should earn the same as men is a normative statement about how the speaker wants the world to be. Calls for a moral, philosophical, religious inquiry. Science checks factual claims and calls out those that are unsupported by the data: scientific method. Soc 174: a systematic, organized series of steps that ensures maximal objectivity and consistency, scientific statements should have these qualities. Who used the method is irrelevant: disagreement. Sociology of the family: distinguish between how sociologists collect data and how they analyze data. Data collection: representative sample surveys, qualitative / observational studies, ethnography.
