Method and objectivity

Everyone tries to make sense of the society around them. What makes a sociologist different is how they gain knowledge: through method, careful and checkable procedures for collecting and verifying information.

• A method is a technique for collecting data (a survey, an interview, observation). Methodology is the study of method: the general questions about how scientific knowledge is gathered, which go beyond any one technique.
• Sociologists study everything from a shopkeeper talking to a customer to relations between nations. They want to understand both the outsider's view (how a situation looks from outside) and the insider's view (how the people in it see and feel it).

The problem of objectivity. Objectivity means being unbiased, neutral, and going by facts. It is harder in sociology than in the natural sciences.

• A geologist is not part of the world of rocks he studies. A sociologist is part of the social world she studies: she has a family, a community, a gender, beliefs and interests, and these can colour what she notices and how she explains it.
• There are often many versions of 'truth' in society: different groups see the same event differently.
• Sociology has competing schools of thought (functionalist, conflict and others), which can explain the same thing in different ways. This makes sociology a multi-paradigmatic discipline.

Dealing with bias:

• Reflexivity (self-reflexivity): the researcher examines her own ideas and attitudes while doing the research, looking at herself as if from outside.
• Careful documentation: recording every step, the procedures used and the sources of information, so that others can check them.
• Declaring one's background: stating the features of one's own social background that might create bias, so readers can judge.
• So objectivity today is seen as a continuous process, an effort that never ends, not a final achievement.

Example (new): a researcher who grew up in a big city studies farmers' attitudes to new seeds. She keeps a diary of her own first reactions, notes where she found each fact, and tells readers that she has never farmed herself.