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A theoretical perspective is a set of assumptions about reality that inform the questions we ask and the kinds of answers we arrive at as a result. In this sense, a theoretical perspective can be understood as a lens through which we look, serving to focus or distort what we see.
This brief presentation of the four major theoretical perspectives in sociology is necessarily incomplete but should at least outline their basic points. Each perspective has its proponents, and each has its detractors.
Perspectives or paradigms are frameworks or models used within a discipline to tie different concepts, analyses, explanations, and ways of formulating problems together (Drengson, 1983). Sociologists use these models to pose or address research questions.
This brief presentation of the four major theoretical perspectives in sociology is necessarily incomplete but should at least outline their basic points. Each perspective has its proponents, and each has its detractors. All four offer a lot of truth, and all four oversimplify and make other mistakes.
Paradigms are philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them. Three paradigms have come to dominate sociological thinking because they provide useful explanations: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.
Sociologists develop theories to explain social events, interactions, and patterns. A theory is a proposed explanation of those social interactions. Theories have different scales. Macro-level theories, such as structural functionalism and conflict theory, attempt to explain how societies operate as a whole.
Explain what sociological theories are and how they are used. Understand the similarities and differences between structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Sociologists develop theories to explain social occurrences such as protest rallies. (Photo courtesy of voanews.com/Wikimedia Commons)
In sociology, a theory is a way to explain different aspects of social interactions and to create a testable proposition, called a hypothesis, about society (Allan 2006). For example, although suicide is generally considered an individual phenomenon, Émile Durkheim was interested in studying the social factors that affect it.
In sociology, a few theories provide broad perspectives that help explain many different aspects of social life, and these are called paradigms. Paradigms are philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them.
The theoretical perspective can guide the collection and analysis of data by informing the qualitative methods used to collect data, such as interviews, focus groups, or observations. It can also inform the types of data that are collected and the way in which the data are analyzed.