Sociology

A

Direct Observation

Firsthand observations of some aspect of society have a long history in sociological research. Sociologists have obtained information through participant observation—that is, by temporarily becoming or by pretending to become members of the group being studied. Sociologists also obtain firsthand information by relying on knowledgeable informants from the group. Both methods have also been used by social anthropologists. Several classical studies of American sociology, in fact, were patterned on anthropological accounts of nonliterate peoples, in that they attempted to present complete pictures of life in representative U.S. communities. Examples are the studies by the American sociologists Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd of a midwestern city (Muncie, Indiana) and the account by the American educator William F. Whyte, based largely on participant observation, of an Italian working-class neighborhood in Boston. These studies were conducted in the 1930s and early 1940s, when anthropological fieldwork served as a model for sociologists and the association between the two disciplines was very close. See also Anthropology.

In recent years, detailed firsthand observation has been applied to smaller-scale settings, such as hospital wards, religious and political meetings, bars and casinos, and classrooms. The work of the Canadian-born sociologist Erving Goffman has provided both models and a theoretical rationale for such studies. Goffman is one of several sociologists who insist that everyday life is the foundation of social reality, underlying all statistical and conceptual abstractions. This emphasis has encouraged intensive microsociological investigations using tape recorders and videocameras in natural rather than artificially contrived “experimental” social situations.

Sociologists, like historians, also make extensive use of secondhand source materials. These generally include life histories, personal documents, and clinical records.

Although popular stereotypes have sometimes pictured sociologists as people who bypass qualitative (direct) observation of human experiences by reducing them to quantitative (statistical) summaries, these have never been accurate. Even in the United States, where quantitative social research has been admired and where sociology distanced itself from the humanistic disciplines of philosophy, history, and law, qualitative research has always had a strong tradition.

---

---

B

Quantitative Methods

Increasingly refined and adapted to computer technology, quantitative methods continue to play a central role in the discipline, especially in the United States. Quantitative sociology includes the presentation of large amounts of descriptive statistical data, sampling techniques, and the use of advanced mathematical models and computer simulations of social processes. Quantitative analysis has become popular in recent years as a way to reveal possible causal relations, especially in research on social mobility and status attainment.

C

Survey Research

The term survey research means the collection and analysis of responses of large samples of people to polls and questionnaires designed to elicit their opinions, attitudes, and sentiments about a specific topic. For a time in the 1940s and 1950s, the construction and administration of surveys, and statistical methods for tabulating and interpreting their results, were widely regarded as the major sociological research technique. Opinion surveys, especially in the form of preelection polling and market research, were first used in the 1930s; today they are standard tools of politicians and of numerous organizations and business firms concerned with mass public opinion.

Sociologists use surveys for scholarly or scientific purposes in nearly all subfields of the discipline, although surveys have been most often used in the study of voting behavior, ethnic prejudice, responses to mass communications, and other areas in which probing subjective attitudes is appropriate. Although surveys are an important sociological research tool, their suitability for many types of investigation has been widely criticized. Direct observation of social behavior cannot be replaced by verbal answers to an interviewer's standard list of questions even if such answers lend themselves easily to statistical tabulation and manipulation. Observation enables a sociologist to obtain in-depth information about a certain group; the sample survey, on the other hand, allows the sociologist to secure uniform but superficial information about a much larger portion of the population. Survey research usually does not take into account the complex structure of relations and interactions among individuals that shapes their social behavior.

V

Emerging Trends

Since the 1960s sociology has ceased to be primarily an American subject. In sociological theory, in particular, a partial reversal has occurred, with European theories influencing American sociologists. The revival and absorption into the academy of Marxist thought, always more influential in Europe, has been central to this trend. Yet the separation of Marxist theory from direct involvement with political movements has resulted in almost as many varieties of scholarly Marxism as there are of sociological theory in general.

Sociology expanded enormously in both Europe and the United States in the 1960s and thereafter. In addition to theoretical diversification, new subfields came into being, such as the sociology of gender (spurred by feminist movements), which includes analysis of gender-based social roles and inequalities, and the study of emotions, aging, and the life course. Older subfields, such as historical and comparative sociology, were revitalized, as was the broad movement toward sociological practice, which encompasses applied sociology, and policy analysis. Sociological practitioners apply their knowledge through their roles as consultants, planners, educators, researchers, and managers in federal, state, and local government, in nonprofit advocacy organizations, and in business—especially in the field of marketing, advertising, insurance, human resources, and organizational analysis.

Since the 1960s sociologists have made greater use both of traditional research methods associated with other disciplines, such as the analysis of historical source materials, and of more sophisticated statistical and mathematical techniques adapted to the study of social phenomena. Development of increasingly complex computers and other devices for handling and storing information has facilitated the processing of sociological data.

Because of the wide diversity in research methods and theoretical approaches, sociologists working in a particular subfield often have more in common with workers in a complementary discipline than with sociologists specializing in other subfields. A sociologist of art, for example, stands much closer in interests and methods to an art historian or critic than to a sociologist who constructs mathematical models of occupational mobility. In theory, methods, and subject matter, no single school of thought or topic dominates sociology today.