![]() When sociologists ask questions at this level, they're taking a broad focus, looking at the large-scale structures that shape society. An orientation towards the macro means looking at the big. In other words, sociology is concerned with both the macro and the micro. Now, if we want to talk about different kinds of questions and perspectives in sociology, a good place to start is with something we brought up last episode: the fact that sociology looks at society at all levels, at all scales, from the huge to the tiny. And raw facts always need some kind of perspective in order to make them useful. The perspective you take will dramatically change what kinds of questions you want to ask. All sciences ask different kinds of questions and have different assumptions for answering them. Or you can just understand it as simply X number of grams of rubber moving through space. In physics, you can understanding a bouncing ball as a nearly uncountable multitude of fundamental particles, each with its own wave function, and all held together by different kinds of forces at the quantum scale. All scientific disciplines make assumptions about the world, and all scientific disciplines use different perspectives, depending on the questions they're asking. Math doesn't need multiple "perspectives." But actually, they do. Now, all this might sound kind of unscientific: Physics doesn't need "interpretation" exactly. ![]() But if you're trying to understand why people protest, then trying to understand how they're pursuing their interests might be better. For instance, if you're trying to understand how and why society can hold together at all, then looking at protests as signs of strain or disruption might be more useful. The other important things is that those two different answers will be useful in different situations, for answering different kinds of questions. But the important thing to understand is that either answer requires you to make some assumptions about the social world. Is 5% an acceptable unemployment rate? Or should we be trying to lower it? Is six feet tall actually tall? And are protesters who are blocking a highway disrupting the order of society or are they struggling for their interests? The answer to that last one is, of course, both. Raw facts are things like "the unemployment rate last year was 5%," or "Sam is six feet tall," or "today a group of people with signs blocked the highway." By raw, I mean that these facts are just simple descriptions of empirical reality. But you need the assumptions that these paradigms provide, because raw facts don't interpret themselves. And that might sound kind of prejudicial at first, like you're going into the study of society ith certain biases in mind. These paradigms are the fundamental assumptions that sociologists have about the social world, the ones that guide their thinking and research. ![]() And in sociology, theoretical paradigms are key. Instead, a paradigm is basically a model for how you thing about things - a set of concepts and theories that frames your perspective on a certain topic, whether it's Russian literature or public art or the laws of physics. Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?Ī paradigm is not some kind of high-tech parachute. Mark, Les Aker, Robert Kunz, William McGraw, Jeffrey Thompson, Jason A Saslow, Rizwan Kassim, Eric Prestemon, Malcolm Callis, Steve Marshall, Advait Shinde, Rachel Bright, Kyle Anderson, Ian Dundore, Tim Curwick, Ken Penttinen, Caleb Weeks, Kathrin Janßen, Nathan Taylor, Yana Leonor, Andrei Krishkevich, Brian Thomas Gossett, Chris Peters, Kathy & Tim Philip, Mayumi Maeda, Eric Kitchen, SR Foxley, Justin Zingsheim, Andrea Bareis, Moritz Schmidt, Bader AlGhamdi, Jessica Wode, Daniel Baulig, Jirat Thanks to the following Patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever: Get a free trial here: Ĭrash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at This week we introduce sociology’s three major theoretical paradigms, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each paradigm.Ĭrash Course is made with Adobe Creative Cloud.
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