Sociology Discussion Thread for 2016 Mains

barghav

can we mention Marx, Weber? they were German thinkers. first part about the emergence in Europe can be tackled. trouble is in the second part, viz. reformist orientation in US.
reference to the freedom of USA seems apt. but sociology was born post American revolution. issues of blacks, slavery, civil war, women suffrage, to name a few.

By Marx and Weber I meant how they post American orientation started adopting social reformist orientation.

ingénue

Lester Ward is usually considered the founder of American Sociology. And he though a positivist believed that developing strategies to improve the society was not just a part of evolutionary process but also superior to blind forces of nature in ensuring long range progress. He provided a criticism of laissez-faire. Another approach is that of Graham Sumner. Entirely contradictory. You may read about both of them. So which way should the answer move. @akrao_iimb Sir?

akrao_iimb

@ingenue @barghav @AgniVI Thanks for the reply. I guess there is no clarity for this question. At this point I feel it is better to just stick to what we know.

However there is one question which I would like to validate by your opinion.

Q. Which research techinque is most suitable for study of consumer behaviour and its social correlates?

I would go for Qualitative Study especially Focus Group. Although I do not have strong arguments for it, but it seems for studying behaviour of any sort qualitative methods would be appropriate. What Say?

race

Surveys, questionnaires @akrao_iimb They fall under both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

akrao_iimb

@race I guess surveys and questionnaires comes under Quantitative Methods. Atleast that's what Haralambos says.

barghav

@akrao_iimb As far as I know, these questions can have any answer. As long as we can substantiate. See for eg. if i tell quantitative with random sampling, which is what is used in most consumer behaviour understanding for products (youtube mein surveys); then we could say it is more value neutral because of the omission of the influence of the interviewer or analyst. But, the social influence or social correlates is less understood.

Qualitative stand. Will say it helps analyse the social correlates better. But, value neutrality is lesser because of the human interference.

You could also write. Quantitative analysis (Surveys and Questionnaires) with a small subjective space to explain social correlates.Like we used have in our feedback forms back in college days. With ten objective questions with one subjective explanation beneath. Which makes it a combination of quanti and quali.

Please feel free to refute.

ingénue

@akrao_iimb I haven't read research methodology much(Only few random chapters from MA IGNOU). But from my limited knowledge, I can say that qualitative and quantitative methods are not considered dichotomous these days.They are, of course,dichotomous at epistemological level. Human behaviour isn't quantifiable and qualitative methods have their own issues like lack of objectivity. And that's why mixed methods are being used these days. In this case, I would prefer as @barghav mentions in his last point, Quantitative method (questionnaire and surveys) with some space for subjective response.

Regarding whether surveys and questionnaires come under qualitative or quantitative method, yes they fall under quantitative methods. But technically, we can use either qualitative or quantitative or both the methods depending on our requirements.

race

@race I guess surveys and questionnaires comes under Quantitative Methods. Atleast that's what Haralambos says.

Thank you.

race

@akrao_iimb I haven't read research methodology much(Only few random chapters from MA IGNOU). But from my limited knowledge, I can say that qualitative and quantitative methods are not considered dichotomous these days.They are, of course,dichotomous at epistemological level. Human behaviour isn't quantifiable and qualitative methods have their own issues like lack of objectivity. And that's why mixed methods are being used these days. In this case, I would prefer as @barghav mentions in his last point, Quantitative method (questionnaire and surveys) with some space for subjective response.

Regarding whether surveys and questionnaires come under qualitative or quantitative method, yes they fall under quantitative methods. But technically, we can use either qualitative or quantitative or both the methods depending on our requirements.

Open-ended questions?
We could go for Social Surveys (Haralambos).

ingénue

@akrao_iimb I haven't read research methodology much(Only few random chapters from MA IGNOU). But from my limited knowledge, I can say that qualitative and quantitative methods are not considered dichotomous these days.They are, of course,dichotomous at epistemological level. Human behaviour isn't quantifiable and qualitative methods have their own issues like lack of objectivity. And that's why mixed methods are being used these days. In this case, I would prefer as @barghav mentions in his last point, Quantitative method (questionnaire and surveys) with some space for subjective response.

Regarding whether surveys and questionnaires come under qualitative or quantitative method, yes they fall under quantitative methods. But technically, we can use either qualitative or quantitative or both the methods depending on our requirements.

Open-ended questions?
We could go for Social Surveys (Haralambos).

Sorry? I didn't get you.. : D :P

Did you mean that all the questions that we have been discussing are open-ended? Presumably, they are..