SOC221H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Presbyterian Polity, Anomie, Cultural Capital
Document Summary
Topic: relationship between theory and data; research design. Be able to define theory, its elements and types, and understand their importance for evaluation of theory and its usefulness in empirical research. Gain some idea of characteristics that make them useful in research. Gain and understand basic information about techniques of literature search and use. Questions to guide the reading/to think about ahead of time for students. Define the three levels of theory, discussed in the book. Authors rightly claim that most research in sociology uses middle-range (meso) theories. Understand that epistemological assumptions about the possible knowledge of society are connected to ontological assumptions about its nature. Know the characteristics of positivist and interpretive approaches to sociological knowledge. After the lecture, you will see that textbook authors examine them in an order different from the order used in lectures. Focus of this class is on the relationship between theory and empirical research.
