Objectivity and Values

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Key Terms and Theorists

Key theorists:

Comte

Durkheim

Marx

Weber

Gouldner

Becker

Goffman

Key terms:

committed sociology - intentionally allowing values to enter research; 'taking sides'

funding - sources of money sociologists use to conduct their research

relativism - no absolute or objective truth; the view that there are many truths

research process - choosing a topic, defining a hypothesis, data collection and interpretation of the data

objectivity - absence of bias or preconceived ideas, notion that we can look at something and see the truth, unaffected by values or opinion

positivists - view sociology as a science and have values of objectivity, reliability and representativeness

sociologist as a citizen - sociologists are citizens who should not dodge moral/political responsibility

subjectivity - bias or lack of objectivity, individual viewpoint or values that influence perception or judgement

value freedom - idea that values can and should be kept out of research

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Relativism is the belief that all perspectives have truth, and thus quantitative data is not better than qualitative. Postmodernists take a relativist view of knowledge.