Messung und Systematisierung in der Soziologie

1980 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Froese
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
The Social

AbstractThis essay is a systematic investigation of the problems concerning the measurement of theoretical qualities in the social sciences. If someone wants to measure theoretical qualities like attitudes, intelligence or aggressivity the first and most difficult task is to formulate an operationalisation. To show such operationalisations being correct is the central problem of empirical research. In this essay it is shown that no adequate methods exist to demonstrate operationalisations as true ore false statements. As long as the problem of operationalisation is treated and analysed as a problem of isolated statements it seems to be absolutely unsolvable. The problem of the correctness of operationalisations must be interpreted as the problem of the correctness of the theories in which they are used. Whether an operationalisation is accepted or not depends only on the empiricai success of the theory in which it is contained. This implies that we can only measure theoretical qualities if we have successful theories working with these theoretical qualities.

scholarly journals Social Sciences, Complexity and Sociology of the Present in Edgar Morin

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Alex Galeno ◽  
Fagner Torres de França
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Open Method ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Narrative Ability ◽  
Epistemological Basis

The article intends to revisit the contribution of the french thinker Edgar Morin (1921-) to the construction of a plural and open method of research in Social Sciences. We will have as theoretical-epistemological basis the sociology of the present, an approach of social phenomena developed by the author during three decades, from the 1940s to the 1970s, constituting the matrix of complex thinking. The present work defends the idea that the central categories of the present sociology, such as phenomenon, crisis and event, as well as the so-called living method of empirical research are still fundamental today in the sense of proposing an opening of the social sciences to phenomena increasingly more complex and multidimensional. This presupposes the researcher's subjective and objective engagement, narrative ability, and sensitivity to grasp revealing detail.

scholarly journals “Where are you from?” Adolescent formulations of place identity

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-53
Author(s):  
Donna Starks ◽  
Kerry Taylor-Leech
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Secondary School Students ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
Place Identity ◽  
School Students ◽  
Critical Awareness ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

AbstractIn globalized times, high mobility has complicated the meanings of allegiance to place, creating a need for a critical awareness of place identity. Although place identity has made important contributions to the social sciences, there is little empirical research on how it can be operationalized, or critically interrogated. In response to this need, we analyzed ways that Australian secondary school students responded to the question, “If someone asks you ‘Where are you from?’ how do you answer this question and why?”, and created a basic typology of place formulations to serve as a starting point for interpreting notions of place identity in research, professional and educational settings.

scholarly journals Transaction Cost Economics: An Assessment of Empirical Research in the Social Sciences

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey T. Macher ◽  
Barak D. Richman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
The Social ◽  
Considerable Support

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the empirical literature in transaction cost economics (TCE) across multiple social science disciplines and business fields. We show how TCE has branched out from its economic roots to examine empirical phenomena in several other areas. We find TCE is increasingly being applied not only to business-related fields such as accounting, finance, marketing, and organizational theory, but also to areas outside of business including political science, law, public policy, and agriculture and health. With few exceptions, however, the use of TCE reasoning to inform empirical research in these areas is piecemeal. We find that there is considerable support of many of the central tenets of TCE, but we also observe a number of lingering theoretical and empirical issues that need to be addressed. We conclude by discussing the implications of these issues and outlining directions for future theoretical and empirical work.

From Politik als Beruf to Politics as a Vocation

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Borchert
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
World War ◽  
Classical Text ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
The Social

Max Weber's 1919 lecture Politik als Beruf is still considered a classical text in the social sciences. The reception of the text in the Anglo-Saxon world has been profoundly shaped by the translation provided by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, first appearing in 1946. Their Politics as a Vocation is more than a vivid transposition of Weber's rather peculiar German rhetoric—it is rendered in a way that suggests a certain interpretation and makes others highly improbable. The present article traces the reception of Weber's text back to certain decisions made by the translators after World War II. It argues that the translation emphasized philosophical and ethical parts of the text at the expense of others that were more geared toward a political sociology of modern politics. Moreover, the adoption of Weber's approach in empirical research was hindered if not foreclosed by a distorted presentation of his key typologies and some central concepts.

scholarly journals Doing things with description: practices, politics, and the art of attentiveness

2020 ◽  
pp. 146879412097597
Author(s):  
Nicole Vitellone ◽  
Michael Mair ◽  
Ciara Kierans
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
The Social

In a number of linked articles and monographs over the last decade (e.g. Love, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), literary scholar and critic Heather Love has called for a descriptive (re)turn in the humanities, repeatedly taking up examples of descriptive methods in the social sciences as exemplifying what that (re)turn might look like and achieve. Those of us working as sociologists, anthropologists, science and technology studies scholars and researchers in allied social science fields thus find ourselves reflected back in Love’s work, encountering our own research practices in an unfamiliar light through it. In a period where our established methods and analytical priorities are subject to challenges on many fronts from within our own disciplines, it is hard not be struck by Love’s provocative invocation of the social sciences as interlocutors and see in it an invitation to contribute to the debate she has sought to initiate by revisiting our own approaches to the problem of description. Inspired by Love’s intervention, the eight papers that form this Special Issue demonstrate that by re-engaging with description we stand to learn a great deal. While the articles themselves are topically distinct and geographically varied, they are all based on empirical research and written to facilitate a reorientation to the role of description in our research practices. What exactly is going on when we describe an ancient papyrus as present or missing, a machine as intelligent, noise as music, a disease as undiagnosable, a death as good or bad, deserved or undeserved, care as appropriate or inappropriate, policies as failing or effective? As the papers show, these are important questions to ask. By asking them, we find ourselves in positions to better understand what goes into ‘indexing and making visible forms of material and social reality’ (Love, 2013: 412) as well as what is involved, more troublingly, in erasing, making invisible and dematerialising those realities or even, indeed, in uncovering those erasures and the means by which they were effected. As this special issue underlines, thinking with Love by thinking with descriptions is a rewarding exercise precisely because it opens these matters up to view. We hope others take up Love’s invitation to re-engage with description for that very reason.

Quality of Government

2021 ◽  
pp. 2-24
Author(s):  
Bo Rothstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Public Power ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Government Effectiveness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research And Policy ◽  
Policy Solutions

In trying to conceptualize quality of government (QoG) one enters into the same difficulties as with other central concepts in the social sciences such as power, democracy, corruption, violence, etc. It is argued that conceptual precision is necessary for creating valid and reliable measures without which empirical research and policy solutions will not be possible. The strategy used in this conceptual operation has been to try to define what could be the opposite of corruption. It is argued that quality of government should be defined as separate from quality of democracy and also government effectiveness since we want to explain the latter by the former. A number of choices for defining QoG are presented (normative vs. empirical, substantive vs. procedural, universal vs. relativistic, multi- vs. unidimensional) are presented. The suggested definition is based on the idea of impartiality in the exercise of public power. Lastly, a number of challenges to this definition are presented.

scholarly journals Tears Trigger the Intention to Offer Social Support: A Systematic Investigation of the Interpersonal Effects of Emotional Crying Across 36 Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janis Zickfeld ◽  
Niels van de Ven ◽  
Olivia Pich ◽  
Thomas W. Schubert ◽  
Sadia Malik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Comprehensive Investigation ◽  
Moderating Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interpersonal Effects ◽  
Limited Generalizability

Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and mainly human phenomenon. The persistence of this behavior throughout adulthood has fascinated and puzzled many researchers. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue that binds individuals together and triggers social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were typically conducted only across Western participants, resulting in limited generalizability. The present study examines this effect across 36 countries spanning all populated continents, providing the most comprehensive investigation of the social effects of tearful crying to-date. Next to testing possible mediating factors, we also examine a number of moderating factors, including the crier’s gender and group membership, the situational valence (positive or negative situations), the social context (in private or public settings), the perceived appropriateness of crying, and trait empathy of the observer. The current work can inform theories on crying across the social sciences.

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