Week

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CHAPTER  TWO  
Paradigms,  Theory,  and  Social  Research  
• Logical  explanations  are  what  theories  seek  to  provide.  
• Theories  function  in  three  ways  in  research.  
• First,  they  prevent  our  being  taken  in  by  flukes.
• Second,  theories  make  sense  of  observed  patterns  in  a  way  that  can  
suggest  other  possibilities.
• Third,  theories  shape  and  direct  research  efforts,  pointing  toward  likely  
discoveries  through  empirical  observation.  
• Theory  relates  directly  to  “why”  questions.  
• Whereas  theories  seek  to  explain,  paradigms  provide  ways  of  looking.  In  
and  of  themselves,  paradigms  don’t  explain  anything;  however,  they  
provide  logical  frameworks  within  which  theories  are  created.  
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• Paradigms  are  general  frameworks  or  viewpointsà “points  from  which  to  
view.”  
• Paradigms  underline  different  explanations  or  theories—the  fundamental  
models  or  frames  of  reference  we  use  to  organize  our  observations  and  
reasoning.  
• The  paradigms  of  the  social  sciences  offer  a  variety  of  views,  each  of  
which  offers  insights  the  others  lack  and  ignores  aspects  of  social  life  that  
the  others  reveal.  
• Paradigms  also  help  determine  which  concepts  we  see  as  relevant  and  
important.  

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 https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_principles-­‐of-­‐sociological-­‐inquiry-­‐qualitative-­‐and-­‐quantitative-­‐
methods/s05-­‐02-­‐paradigms-­‐theories-­‐and-­‐how-­‐the.html

Paradigm Emphasis Assumption

Objectivity,  knowability,  and  deductive   Society  can  and  should  be  studied  
Positivism
logic empirically  and  scientifically.

Reality  is  created  collectively  and  that  

Truth  as  varying,  socially  constructed,  and  
Social  constructionism social  context  and  interaction  frame  our  
ever-­‐changing
realities.

Social  science  can  never  be  truly  value-­‐

Critical Power,  inequality,  and  social  change free  and  should  be  conducted  with  the  
express  goal  of  social  change  in  mind.

Inherent  problems  with  previous   Truth  in  any  form  may  or  may  not  be  
Postmodernism
paradigms knowable. 4
• Some  social  science  paradigms:
• Macrotheory and  Microtheory (The  basic  distinction  between  macro-­‐ and  
microtheory cuts  across  the  other  paradigms  we’ll  examine).
• Early  Positivism  –(Comte-­‐-­‐religious  belief  could  be  replaced
with  scientific  study  and  objectivity).  
• Social  Darwinism,  survival  of  the  fittest,  social  Darwinists  industrial  civilizations  was  
easily  seen  as  the  evolution  of  progressively  “fitter”  forms  of  society.  
• Conflict  Paradigm  
• Symbolic  Interactionism  
• Ethnomethodology  
• Structural  Functionalism  
• Feminist  Paradigms  
• Critical  Race  Theory  
• Rational  Objectivity  Reconsidered  
• Postmodernism
• Critical  realism
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• Social  Theory  
• Science  is  based  on  observation.  
• “fact”  refers  to  some  phenomenon  that  has  been  observedà It  is  a  fact,  for  
example,  that  Barack  Obama  defeated  John  McCain  in  the  2008  presidential  
election.  
• Scientists  aspire  to  organize  many  facts  under  “rules”  called  laws:  laws  as  
universal  generalizations  about  classes  of  facts.  Laws  must  be  truly  universal.  
law  is  an  observed  regularity    (e.g.  Newton's  law  of  universal  gravitation).
• There  are  no  social  science  laws  that  claim  the  universal  certainty  of  those  of  
the  natural  sciences.  
• Theories,  by  contrast,  are  systematic  sets  of  interrelated  statements  intended  
to  explain  some  aspect  of  social  life.  Thus,  theories  flesh  out  and  specify  
paradigms.  Whereas  a  paradigm  offers  a  way  of  looking,  a  theory  aims  at  
explaining  what  we  see.
• A  theory  is  a  systematic  explanation  for  observations  that  relate  to  a  particular  
aspect  of  life.  For  example,  someone  might  offer  a  theory  of  juvenile  
delinquency,  prejudice,  or  political  revolution.  
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• Deductive  and  Inductive  Reasoning
• Deductive  research  begins  with  a  theory,  from  which  we  may  derive  
hypotheses—which  are  then  tested  through  observations.  Inductive  
research  begins  with  observations  and  proceeds  with  a  search  for  
patterns  in  what  we  have  observed.  In  a  quantitative  study,  we  can  search  
for  correlations  or  relationships  between  variables.  
• For  example,  once  a  relationship  has  been  discovered  between  gender  
and  religiosity,  our  attention  turns  to  figuring  out  logical  reasons  why  that  
is  so.  
• Most  qualitative  research  is  oriented  toward  the  inductive  rather  than  the  
deductive  approach.  

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• Theory  and  research  interact  through  a  never-­‐ending  alternation  of  
deduction  and  induction.  A  good  example  is  the  classic  work  of  Emile  
Durkheim  on  suicide  ([1897]  1951).  
• When  Durkheim  pored  over  table  after  table  of  official  statistics  on  
suicide  rates  in  different  areas,  he  was  struck  by  the  fact  that  Protestant  
countries  consistently  had  higher  suicide  rates  than  Catholic  ones  did.  
Why  should  that  be  the  case?  
• His  initial  observations  led  him  to  create  inductively  a  theory  of  religion,  
social  integration,  anomie,  and  suicide.  His  theoretical  explanations  in  
turn  led  deductively  to  further  hypotheses  and  further  observations.  

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•Sherlock  Holmes  -­‐ Dr.  Watson’s  inquiry  (Doyle  
[1891]  1892:  13):  
•“What  do  you  imagine  that  it  means?”
“I  have  no  data  yet.  It  is  a  capital  mistake  to  
theorise before  one  has  data.  Insensibly  one  
begins  to  twist  facts  to  suit  theories,  instead  of  
theories  to  suit  facts.”  
•Is  this  inductive  or  deductive?
•Inductive  –(e.g.  grounded  theory)
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 Axioms  or  postulates  are  fundamental  assertions,  premise,  starting  point  that  is  
taken  to  be  true,  on  which  a  theory  is  grounded.  

• In  a  theory  of  juvenile  delinquency,  we   • In  a  theory  of  juvenile  delinquency,  we  
might  begin  with  axioms  such  as might  begin  with  axioms  such  as
• “Everyone  desires  material  comforts”  and   • “Young  people  desire  to  feel  safe”
• “The  ability  to  obtain  material  comforts   • The  ability  to  feel  safe  is  greater  in  
peaceful  social  contexts  than  violent  
legally  is  greater  for  the  wealthy  than  for   social  contexts”
the  poor.”  
• From  these  we  might  proceed  to  
• From  these  we  might  proceed  to   propositions:  specific  conclusions,  derived  
propositions:  specific  conclusions,  derived   from  the  axiomatic  groundwork,  about  
from  the  axiomatic  groundwork,  about  the   the  relationships  among  concepts:  We  
relationships  among  concepts:  We  might   might  reasonably  formulate  the  
reasonably  formulate  the  proposition  that proposition  that
• “Youth  from  the  violent  social  contexts  
• poor  youths  are  more  likely  to  break  the   are  more  likely  to  break  the  law  than  
law  to  gain  material  comforts  than  are  rich   youth  from  the  peaceful  social  contexts  to  
youths.   attain  a  sense  of  security”
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• Hypothesis  is  a  specified  testable  expectation  about  empirical  reality,  that  
follows  from  a  more  general  proposition.  
• A hypothesis is  a  tentative  statement  about  the  relationship  between  two  or  
more  variables. Hypotheses  are  derived  from  theories  and  propositions.  
• Examples:
• Children  who  eat  a  breakfast  high  in  protein  perform  academically  better  in  
school  than  children  who  eat  cereal  for  breakfast.  
• The  size  of  an  individual’s  social  network  is  related  to  participation  in  volunteer  
activities.
• Diagnosing  early  stages  of  schizophrenia  can  help  to  prevent  full  onset  of  the  
illness.
• To  what  extent  does  petty  crime  in  youth  lead  to  violent  crime  when  there  is  
access  to  guns?  (http://behavioralsciencewriting.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-­‐to-­‐write-­‐hypothesis.html)
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• There  are  three  main  elements  in  the  traditional  model  of  science:  theory,  
operationalization,  and  observation.  
• Traditional  model  of  science  follows,  deductive  reasoning:  From  a  general  
theoretical  understanding,  the  researcher  derives  (deduces)  an  expectation  and  
finally  a  testable  hypothesis.  
• Theory  is  an  attempt  to  explain  events,  forces,  materials,  ideas  or  behavior.  
Theory  is  a  general  explanation  of  problems,  actions  or  behavior.
• For  example,  as  social  scientists  we  might  have  a  theory  about  the  causes  of  
juvenile  delinquencyà Let’s  assume  that  we  have  arrived  at  the  hypothesis  
that  delinquency  is  inversely  related  to  social  class.  That  is,  as  social  class  goes  
up,  delinquency  goes  down.  
• Operationalization To  test  any  hypothesis,  we  must  specify  the  meanings  of  all  
the  variables  involved  in  it,  in  observational  terms.  
• In  the  present  case,  the  variables  are  social  class  and  delinquency  (define  
concepts  of  social  class  and  delinquency  to  give  them  meaning).  Once  we  have  
defined  our  variables,  we  need  to  specify  how  we’ll  measure  them.  
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• Operationalization  means  specifying  the  exact  operations  involved  in  
measuring  a  variable.  
• Operationalizing  delinquency  through  a  survey  (there  are  many  ways  to  test  
hypothesis,  each  of  which  allows  for  different  ways  of  measuring  variables).  
• We  might  operationalize  delinquency in  the  form  of  the  question  
• “Have  you  ever  stolen  anything?”  
• Those  who  answer  “yes”  will  be  classified  as  delinquents  in
our  study;  
• Those  who  say  “no”  will  be  classified  as  nondelinquents.  
• Income  level  can  also  be  operationalized  through  income  brackets.
• Delinquency  and  social  class  may  mean  different  things  for  different  
people/groups.  For  the  researcher  testing  a  hypothesis,  however,  the  meaning  
of  variables  is  exactly  and  only  what  the  operational  definition  specifies.  
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• Observation
• The  final  step  in  the  traditional  model  of  science  involves  actual  observation,  
looking  at  the  world  and  making  measurements  of  what  is  seen.  (hypothesis  
testing-­‐what  kind  of  data  produced,  what  does  it  show  us)
• Disconfirmability is  the  possibility  that  observations  may  not  support  our  
expectations—is  an  essential  quality  of  any  hypothesis.
• If  there  is  no  chance  that  our  hypothesis  will  be  disconfirmed,  it  hasn’t  said  
anything  meaningful.  
• For  example,  the  hypothesis  that  juvenile  delinquents  commit  more  crimes  
than  do  non-­‐ delinquents  cannot  possibly  be  disconfirmed,  because  criminal  
behavior  is  intrinsic  to  the  idea  of  delinquency.  

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