Sociology 2206A/B Lecture Notes - Symbolic Interactionism, Post-Structuralism, Structural Functionalism
Document Summary
A system of ideas that are used to explain the causes and/or consequences of (social) phenomena. For example, in durkheim"s suicide theory, one would have to define suicide, social integration, anomie, etc: description of the phenomena of interest. Describe everything about situation/test you"re conducting: relational statements: theories suggest ways that concepts are related to each other. Deterministic - in which the two concepts/variables always go together. As social integration increases, the suicide rate decreases. Probabilistic - in which the two concepts/variables regularly (but not always) go together. With this type of relational statement, terms such as more likely, less likely are often used when relating concepts/variables. E. g. suicide becomes less likely as integration increases. Note: probabilistic relational statements are more commonly used in social research than deterministic relational statements. General, abstract: - all encompassing with regards to time and space. E. g. structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, critical theory, post structuralism, post modernism.