Reminder

1. Reminder • Next week email and bring copy of HW1 • Use Rebelmail

2. Chapter 2 Paradigms, Theory, And Research

3. Theory and Research Theory functions three ways in research: • Theories prevent our being taken in by flukes. • Theories make sense of observed patterns in ways that can suggest other possibilities and causal connections. • Theories can direct research efforts, pointing toward likely discoveries through empirical observation.

4. Paradigms • Frames of reference we use to organize our observations and reasoning. • Often implicit, assumed, taken for granted. • We can see new ways of seeing and explaining things when we step outside our paradigm.

5. Paradigms

6. Social Science Paradigms: • Positivism • Post-positivism • Conflict • Symbolic interaction • Ethnomethodology • Structural Functionalism • Feminist • Race

7. Social Science Paradigms: Macrotheory • Macrotheory deals with large, aggregate entities of society or whole societies. • Struggle between economic classes, international relations

8. Social Science Paradigms: Microtheory • Microtheory deals with issues at the level of individuals and small groups. • Dating behavior, jury deliberations, student faculty interactions

9. Social Science Paradigms: Conflict • Marx suggested social behavior could be seen as the process of conflict: • Attempt to dominate others. • Attempt to avoid domination.

10. Social Science Paradigms: Ethnomethodology • People are continuously trying to make sense of the life they experience. • One technique is to break the rules and violate people’s expectations.

11. Social Science Paradigms: Structural Functionalism • A social entity, such as an organization, can be viewed as an organism. • A social system is made up of parts, each of which contributes to the functioning of the whole. • This view looks for the “functions” served by the various components of society.

12. Social Science Paradigms: Feminism • Focuses on gender differences and how they relate to the rest of social organization. • Draws attention to the oppression of women in many societies, and sheds light on all kinds of oppression.

13. Paradigm v. Theory • What’s the difference? • Theories tend to be much more narrow and specific • The theory of distributive justice may fit in a larger paradigm (i.e. conflict paradigm) • Conflict over wealth is based on both actual wealth of an individual but also relative or comparable wealth. • Not always obvious: Realism; Rational Choice

14. Examples of Theories • Modernization • Social Capital

15. Rational Choice Theory In choosing lines of behavior, humans make rational calculations with respect to: • the utility of an action in reference to the preference hierarchy • For example, congress members want “good” policy, but their primary preference is to get reelected (Mayhew 1974). • the costs of each alternative action in terms of utilities foregone • i.e. cost/benefit analysis • “Utility maximization”

16. Rational Choice Theory Emergent social phenomena -- social structures, collective decisions, and collective behavior -- are ultimately the result of rational choices made by utility-maximizing individuals. Emergent social phenomena that arise from rational choices constitute a set of parameters (e.g. incentives and constraints) for subsequent rational choices of individuals in the sense that they determine: • the distribution of resources among individuals • the distribution of opportunities for various lines of behavior • the distribution & nature of norms & obligations in a situation.

17. Reductionism Jumping ahead a little (see chapter 4) Two meanings: 1. suggesting a phenomenon can be explained in terms of a single factor or type of factors (i.e. biological) 2. explaining a phenomenon in terms of lower-order concepts (opposite of ecological fallacy) Social science wants to produce a parsimonious model of the complex world, but we don’t want to be reductionists. Finding the balance of parsimony and realistic model and/or explanation.

18. Induction v. deduction

19. Research Design (paper) • Deductive • Because you will have to choose a theory before actually collecting any data/observations • Don’t have to mention any paradigms • Not going to invent a new theory. Instead, borrow one that you uncover in your readings/literature review.