Objectivity, value freedom and commitment. Flashcards
Objectivity - Interpretivists
WEBER - facts do not prove values as Durkheim suggests or vice versa.
Objectivity desirable in some stages of research and not others.
1- Topic - meaningless infinity of facts, choose topic based on value relevance to ourselves.
2- Collecting data - Objective.
3- Interpreting data, need values to give theoretical framework, need to declare so people can identify bias.
4- Use -Need values to ensure research used for good not bad - Einstein and quantum physics.
Value commitment - Modern positivists
Values irrelevant as need to appear scientific and due to the social standing of sociology.
Value commitment - committed sociology.
GOULDNER- Need values otherwise just sell out services irregardless of cause - fight disease or spread it. Sociologists of the 1950s spiritless technicians.
Impossible not to have - paymaster or sociologist will effect.
MRYDALL_ Openly espouse one group otherwise on the side of the oppressor.
BECKER - ‘Whose side are we on’ Take side of the underdog, need to gove them an opportunity to reveal true social reality.
GOFFMAN to understand view of the mental patient we must take their side.
BUT GOULDNER - romanticises
Marxists- should take side of radicals fighting or hange, not passives.
Value commitment - relativism
Adopted by postmodernists
No one true reality or perception, need to hihglight diversity of perceptions. All research is subjective
Value commitment - practical
Advance careers
Paymaster will choose topic and questions so is shaped by their values, also have power to conceal ie 1980 Black Report.
Objectivity - Positivist
POSITIVIST
COMTE AND DURKHEIM - Values irrelevant to research. Objective real world that if study objectivity and scientifically can identify the patterns and the correct way of living. Enlightenment project.
MARX-
Scientific study of the advancement of the proletariat - historical materialism, help deliver the best for society. Need to discover objective truth.
