Talk:Sociological perspective

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject on Sociology This article is supported by the Sociology WikiProject, which gives a central approach to sociology and related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article Sociological perspective, or visit the project page for more details on the projects.
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.

I don't think this is a very good definition of a sociological perspective. Generally the term is used to describe that fact that sociology contains a huge number of different prespectives or theoretical frameworks such as marxism, functionalism, postmodernism etc. It is a bit rough to say that a sociological perspective is one unified perspective that looks at anything in one particular way.


I agree. There isn't even one dominant sociological perspective (some sociologists claims to the contrary) I'm noting problem. That Rubington quote is awful. - RedHouse18

I'm pasting the old content below: User:RedHouse18

Sociological perspective is the most general paradigm (a point of view, a distinct way of thinking) specific to the field of sociology. Sociological perspective focuses not on individuals but their group, or society, and attempts to explain human social structures, including cultural and governmental institutions and forms of activity and interpersonal relations using social facts or social forces.

Rubington (2002) defines sociological perspective as "a [sociological] way of looking at things. [...] It includes a basic orienting idea from which one's conceptualization and analysis follow, and it reflects a particular set of ideas and assumptions regarding the nature of people and society". It means that the sociologists are not limited to common sense knowledge, they try to investigate what lies beyond the commonly accepted reality and understand some of the rules that govern human behaviour in the society.

Social scientists usually follow one or more of the several specific sociological paradigms.

[edit] References

Making a bit of a change here. While Marx definately brought conflict theory to the forefront and is the father of the school of thought, I don't think the majority of sociologists think of it soley being his perspective. Kackisback 02:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A single, common sociological perspective

I don't agree, i think that although the terms 'sociological perspective' and 'sociolgoical paradigm' are sometimes used interchangeably, that doens't mean that the other use of 'sociological perspective' in void. Perhaps the quote by Rubington is not a great quote, but the second part of the paragraph certainly sums up what is meant by a 'sociological perspective': It means that the sociologists are not limited to common sense knowledge, they try to investigate what lies beyond the commonly accepted reality and understand some of the rules that govern human behaviour in the society.

It is possible to have a single sociological perspective, when you compare it to another type of perspective, ie. a common sense perspective. Certainly, all general text books on sociology, and introduction to sociology courses that i have come across talk about a sociological perspective, a common way that sociology has of approahcing any phenomena that involves seeks real explanations and not just relying on common sense views of things. I think it is important to have that somewhere in this article. JenLouise 04:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The stuff on this page is simply repeated from the sociological paradigm page, so it is useless. I am going to try and rewrite this page, so bear with me over the next few days. JenLouise 05:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)