Sociological research methods

a) What is meant by the terms positivism and anti-positivism? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each prepare? Positivism looks at things scientifically. Positivists believe that society can be select like the natural world using scientific denary methods. Positivism research is based mainly on statistics. A great believer of the positivist approach was Emiele Durkhiem (1858-1917). Durkhiem conducted a study on felo-de-se using quantitative info. He obtained this data from coroners reports, Durkhiem therefore put the data into groups comprising of religion, location, age and family situation. Once he had set up correlations between the groups he so went on to find causal connections. Durkhiem believed that different levels of social integration caused suicide rates. He had dumbfound to this determination through accepting that the coroners reports whitethorn pass water been crystallise in their findings. It would depend upon how a coroner would look at th e evidence as to what conclusion they reached to whether it was suicide or not. For exercise if a somebody had drowned a coroner may only if determine that it was suicide by the way the vesture had been left hand when removed by the individual. If the enclothe had been left in a mussy sess then a coroner would receive to the conclusion that the individual had just been taking a dip, and drowned by accident.

Therefore if the clothes had been folded into a neat pile then the person intend to commit suicide. There may accommodate been other factors as to why the individual left the clothes the way they did, the person may have been a by nature messy person. Therefore a coroners re port isnt always a sure source, and Durkhie! ms study today would be redeemed as worthless. Anti-positivism would have studied suicide differently; they would of looked into the coroners reports in more detail, such... If you loss to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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