Common Sense Approach: Sociological Explanations In Sociology

Sociology Assessment.
I) Common Sense Approach.
Common Sense explanations in sociology are based completely on individual opinions and beliefs, because of this they may lack objectivity. When it comes to common sense perspectives it is important to acknowledge that these explanations are purely subjective and are open to interpretation due to the fact that Common Sense Perspective are very much a product of the beliefs of a particular society, culture or particular period of time. It is the re-examination of these Common Sense perspectives that result in Sociological explanations. Common Sense Perspectives fall into two category’s Individualistic and Naturalistic. Naturalistic explanations use natural or biological characteristics to explain

These explanations use research evidence to draw valid conclusions in order to explain social life and behaviour. Sociological research has been used to prove many Common Sense perspectives to be false such as ‘there is no real poverty left in modern Britain’ and ‘sickness and disease effect people at random’ are both issues that have been questioned by sociological research. Sociological explanations examine a wider range of social factors to explain these issues. When it comes to the common sense perspective of ‘Poverty and Unemployment are caused by laziness’ a sociological approach would examine other contributing factors to explain the issues of Poverty and Unemployment such as changes in the economy and skill shortages. Sociological explanations re-examine common sense perspectives by how things were in the past, how they’ve changed and how they differ from culture to culture giving a more ecologically valid view of society. With Sociological explanations it is easier to draw generalisations about social issues because of the effective research methods used to collect data. In conclusion Sociological Explanations can be achieved by maintaining objectivity and keeping personal ideas and beliefs separate from the research

Sometimes, Official Statistics can be shown in the form of projections. This means that they make predictions of issues that may arise or decrease in the future. An examples of this type of Statistic would be predicting crime rates over the next decade. They are a clear form of secondary data as they are already in existence: And are usually produced by agency’s such as the NHS, Police and Government. The data contained in official statistics is quantiative this means that it is mostly in numerical format; making it easier to analysis. Official Statistics are used in research for many reasons but most commonly to detect trends and patterns in key areas such as crime and divorce rates. Statistics can provide the researcher with information but cannot explain the reason behind it, because of this official statistics are usually only the first step in the research