SOCI 313 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Verstehen, Antipositivism
24 Sep 2015
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Document Summary
Positivism: social sciences should use methods of inquiry that are used in natural sciences, empiricism: knowledge must be based on info gathered through the senses, deductive approach (hypothesis testing) can be used to acquire knowledge o. Induction provides knowledge for generalizations/laws: purpose of theory is to generate testable hypothesis, science must be conducted in an objective manner. Interpretivism: natural observation, limited in ability to produce social knowledge, inductive methods should be used to understand subjective meanings of people"s actions, researchers should develop an empathetic understanding of the people studied (verstehen, weber) Objectivist: social phenomena have a reality independent of our perceptions, assumption/bias in research toward formal properties of social groups or interactions. Soft constructionist: there is an objective social reality, however, perceptions can be false as they have been constructed to justify some form of domination rather than objective social reality.
