Approaches to Sociological Research

A social survey is a large-scale approach that gathers data from many people using standardised tools such as questionnaires or structured interviews, allowing the researcher to find patterns and compare groups across a representative sample.

An ethnographic approach is an in-depth study of a whole way of life, usually carried out through participant observation, in which the researcher joins a group to understand its norms, values and meanings from the inside.

Strength 1 — very high validity. Because the researcher studies a whole way of life in its natural setting, usually by joining the group, the data reflects how people really behave rather than what they say in a questionnaire. This means ethnography produces a true, in-depth picture of social life, which is exactly the kind of valid data interpretivists value.

Strength 2 — it captures meaning (verstehen). By spending time inside the group, the researcher comes to understand the norms, values and meanings that members attach to their actions. This empathetic understanding lets the sociologist explain WHY people act as they do, something a standardised survey could never reveal because it only measures behaviour, not the meaning behind it.

A longitudinal study is an approach that studies the same sample of people repeatedly over a long period of time, sometimes many years or even decades.

Strengths. Its key advantage is that it can show change and trends over time, because the same people are revisited again and again — something a one-off 'snapshot' study cannot do. This makes it possible to identify cause-and-effect sequences, for example how childhood poverty or family background shapes later educational achievement, since the researcher can see what came first. It can therefore produce highly valid insights into how social processes develop.

Limitations. Longitudinal studies are very costly and slow, requiring long-term funding and commitment, which is impractical for most researchers. They also suffer from sample attrition: over the years participants drop out, move away, lose interest or die. This shrinks the sample and can make it unrepresentative, because those who remain may differ systematically from those who leave, biasing the findings. Keeping the same sample also means the original questions may become dated.

Overall, the longitudinal approach is uniquely powerful for studying change over time and uncovering cause-and-effect sequences, but its expense and vulnerability to attrition mean it is best reserved for research questions that are specifically about how something develops across the life course.

This is the positivist view, associated with Comte, who coined the term 'sociology', and Durkheim. It argues that society is an objective reality made up of 'social facts' which exist outside the individual and can be studied just like the facts of nature.

First, positivists argue the scientific method works for society as well as nature. By forming hypotheses and testing them against quantitative data, sociologists can uncover cause-and-effect relationships and law-like patterns or correlations, such as links between social class and educational achievement.

Second, scientific methods such as questionnaires, structured interviews and official statistics are standardised, so they can be repeated by other researchers and produce consistent results. This makes the data reliable, which positivists see as essential if sociology is to be taken seriously as a science.

Third, positivists believe sociology should be objective and value-free, with the researcher's personal opinions kept out so the data records social facts as they really are. Durkheim's classic study used official suicide statistics to show that suicide rates varied systematically between groups and over time, demonstrating that sociology can uncover real social forces scientifically. For these reasons, supporters argue sociology should use the same methods as the natural sciences.

Several arguments challenge the claim that sociology should copy the natural sciences.

First, interpretivists argue that people are not like the objects studied by natural scientists. Humans have consciousness, free will and meanings: they interpret situations and act on those interpretations. The scientific method measures behaviour but cannot capture the meanings behind it, so it produces data that lacks validity. Weber argued sociology needs verstehen — an empathetic understanding of why people act — which a laboratory or questionnaire cannot give.

Second, the 'social facts' that positivism measures may be socially constructed. Interactionists point out that official statistics, such as crime or suicide figures, depend on definitions and recording decisions, so they are not neutral facts at all. Studying them 'scientifically' may simply reproduce these biases.

Third, philosophers of science doubt that sociology is a science even by scientific standards. Popper argued that a discipline is scientific only if its statements can be falsified, and some sociological theories are framed so they can never be disproved. Kuhn argued real sciences share a single paradigm, whereas sociology is split between competing perspectives, so it is not yet a science in that sense.

Finally, total objectivity and value-freedom — which science demands — may be impossible in sociology. Gouldner attacked the 'myth of value-freedom', and Becker argued that sociologists inevitably take sides. Funding bodies and the researcher's own values can shape research, so the neutral 'scientist' stance is unrealistic when studying human society.

Whether sociology can and should be a science is one of the oldest debates in the discipline. Positivists argue that society can be studied with the same methods as the natural sciences, while interpretivists insist that human beings are too different from natural objects for this to work. This essay argues that sociology can be scientific in a broad, realist sense, but that it cannot simply copy the natural-science model and cannot fully escape values.

The case that sociology can and should be a science. Positivism, founded by Comte and developed by Durkheim, holds that society is an objective reality made of 'social facts' that exist outside the individual and shape behaviour. Using the scientific method — forming and testing hypotheses with quantitative data — sociologists can discover cause-and-effect relationships and law-like patterns. Standardised methods such as questionnaires, structured interviews and official statistics are reliable because they can be repeated and re-tested, and they allow representative, generalisable findings. Durkheim's study of suicide is the classic demonstration: using official statistics, he showed that suicide rates varied systematically between groups and remained stable over time, which he explained as social facts produced by levels of integration and regulation. Positivists also argue research should be objective and value-free, so that conclusions rest on evidence rather than opinion. Realism, associated with Bhaskar, strengthens this case by arguing that science does not only study what is directly observable: it studies underlying structures and mechanisms in open systems where variables cannot be fully controlled. On this view, sociology can be scientific in a broader sense because it studies real but unobservable social structures.

The case against. Interpretivists reject the idea that people can be studied like objects in nature. Human beings have consciousness, free will and meanings; they interpret situations and act accordingly, so the most important aspect of social life — meaning — cannot be measured numerically. Weber argued sociology requires verstehen, an empathetic understanding of why people act, achieved through qualitative methods that prioritise validity over reliability. Furthermore, the 'social facts' positivism measures may be socially constructed: interactionists show that statistics depend on definitions and recording decisions, so they are not neutral. The philosophy of science also raises doubts: Popper argued a discipline is scientific only if its claims can be falsified, and some sociological theories cannot be; Kuhn argued real sciences share a single paradigm, whereas sociology is divided between competing perspectives. Finally, the values debate undermines the scientific claim to objectivity. Gouldner attacked the 'myth of value-freedom', and Becker argued sociologists inevitably take sides; funding bodies and the researcher's own background shape research, making total objectivity unattainable.

Evaluation. The positivist case is strong where the aim is to identify patterns and trends across large populations, and realism rightly shows that 'science' is broader than the laboratory. However, the interpretivist critique is powerful: a sociology that measures behaviour without capturing meaning gives a shallow picture of social life, and high reliability is of little use if validity is low. The values argument is decisive against the strongest version of the claim: if total value-freedom is impossible, sociology cannot match the supposed neutrality of the natural sciences.

Conclusion. Sociology can be studied scientifically in the broad sense of being systematic, evidence-based and capable of uncovering real social structures, and it should aspire to rigour and objectivity. But it cannot and should not simply copy the methods of the natural sciences, because human beings act on meanings and because values inevitably shape research. The most defensible position is that sociology is a science of a different kind — one that combines explanation with understanding — rather than an imitation of physics.