SOCI 201 Study Guide - Final Guide: Spurious Relationship, Mcdonaldization, Premarital Sex
19 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Scientific: the study of society based on systematic observation of behaviour (also known as positivism: gather empirical evidence (facts that we can verify with our senses by seeing, hearing, or touching) This approach is best suited for research in a laboratory: uses concepts, variables, and measurements. Concept: a mental construct that represents some part of the world in a simplified form (ie. using concepts to label aspects of social life such as the family, the economy, gender, ethnicity, or social class) Variable: a concept whose value changes from case to case (ie. social class can be divided into middle class, working class, or lower class) Operationalize: specifying exactly what is to be measured before assigning a value to a variable (ie. sociologists have to specify how they plan on combining the variables into one score) Someone may attend church due to pressure or out of habit.
