41. Please explain and define how sociologists give variables in their sociological research

The characteristics of the homeless are additional variables used in the study, known as control variables. A control variable is a factor held constant to test the relative impact of the independent variable. Earlier, we noted that family income has an important influence on the relationship between mothers working outside the home and the likelihood that their children will come to be viewed as delinquents. If researchers had not introduced the control variable of family income, they might have reached a misleading conclusion concerning the effects of mothers' working outside the home.

Control variable A factor held constant to test the rela­tive impact of an independent variable.

42. Explain how sociologists use definite method(s) for gathering data

In order to test a hypothesis and determine if it is supported or refuted, researchers need to collect information. To do so, they must employ one of the research designs described later in the chapter. The research design guides them in collecting and analyzing data.

Selecting the Sample: As a means of evaluating the relationship between mental illness and homelessness, David Snow and his colleagues developed a sample from information collected by social service agencies in Austin, Texas. A representative sample is a selection from a larger population that is statistically found to be typical of that population. There are many kinds of samples, of which the random sample is frequently used by social scientists. For a random sample, every member of an entire population being studied has the same chance of being selected.

Теор вопросы:

1. The scientific methods of sociology.

An area of inquiry is a scientific discipline if its investigators use the scientific method, which is a systematic approach to researching questions and problems through objective and accurate observation, collection and analysis of data, direct experimentation, and replication (repeating) of these procedures. Scientists affirm the importance of gathering information carefully, remaining unbiased when evaluating information, observing phenomena, conducting experiments, and accurately recording procedures and results. They are also skeptical about their results, so they repeat their work and have their findings confirmed by other scientists.

2. Social ideas of Auguste Comte.

Auguste Comte was the first to develop the concept of "sociology." He defined sociology as a positive science. Positivism is the search for "invariant laws of the natural and social world." Comte identified three basic methods for discovering these invariant laws, observation, experimentation, and comparison. He is also famous for his Law of the Three Stages. These three stages are the theological, metaphysical, and positivist. Comte discussed the difference between social statistics and social dynamics; which have been renamed social structure and social change. Comte’s ideas have had a major role in developing structural functionalism. His major goal was to integrate theory and practice.

3. Sociology as a science.

Sociology can be considered a science as it involve systematic methods of empirical research, analysis of data and the assessment of theories. In addition,it asks questions which can be quantified.

4. Social ideas of Emile Durkheim.

Durkheim was concerned primarily with how societies could maintain their integrity and coherence in the modern era, when things such as shared religious and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. In order to study social life in modern societies, Durkheim sought to create one of the first scientific approaches to social phenomena. Along with Herbert Spencer, Durkheim was one of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in keeping the society healthy and balanced, and is thus sometimes seen as a precursor to functionalism. Durkheim also insisted that society was more than the sum of its parts. Thus unlike his contemporaries Ferdinand T�nnies and Max Weber, he focused not on what motivates the actions of individual people (methodological individualism), but rather on the study of social facts, a term which he coined to describe phenomena which have an existence in and of themselves and are not bound to the actions of individuals. He argued that social facts had an independent existence greater and more objective than the actions of the individuals that composed society and could only be explained by other social facts rather than, say, by society's adaptation to a particular climate or ecological niche.

5. Social ideas of Maxs Weber.

Max Weber and World Religion

Durkheim based his arguments on a very small range of examples even though he claimed that his ideas apply to religion in general.Max Weber by contrast embarked on a massive study of religions world wide. Weber made detailed studies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and ancient Judaism and in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism wrote extensively about the impact of Christianity on the history of the west. Weber concentrated on a connection between religion and social change something to which Durkheim gave little attention. Unlike Marx Weber argues that religion is not necessarily a conservative force on the contrary religiously inspired movements have produced dramatic social transformation. Protestantism particularly Puritanism was the source of capitalist outlook found in the modern west.

The early entrepreneurs were mostly Calvinists. Their drive to succeed which helped initiate western economic development was originally prompted by a desire to serve God. Material success was for them a sign of divine favour. Analyzing the eastern religions Weber concludes that they provided inseparable barriers to the development of industrial capitalism of the kind that took place in the west. For example Hinduism is what Weber calls an ‘other-worldly’ religion that is its highest value stress escape from the toils of the material world to a higher plane of spiritual existence.