Priyamvada Ashok MhaddalkarAIR 13 · CSE 2021 · 226 wordsTheir whole copy
Opening · a definition
Values are subjective judgements on the desirability of a social phenomenon.
Body · points
VALUE FREE SOCIOLOGY
→ The founding fathers of sociology emphasized on the unity of method with natural sciences.
→ August Comte, Emile Durkheim strongly advocated value-free sociology through objectivity in social research.
→ Objectivity helps to study facts as they are through the scientific method of empiricism and verification which is followed by positivists.
→ This helps to distinguish
Sociology from common sensical knowledge.
However as highlighted by Gunnar Myrdal total objectivity is an illusion.
→ Interpretivists like Max Weber emphasize on understanding the meaning of social action and accept that complete objectivity is not possible.
→ Values influence different aspects of social research : choice of topic , choice of perspective, etc. A study of Mexican village Tepoztlán highlights how different perspectives influence the results. Robert Redfield who studied the village from functional
perspective found harmony in the village whereas Oscar Lewis who studied it from Marxist perspective found it to be conflict-ridden.
→ Symbolic interactionists, phenomenologists and ethnomethodologists → emphasize that humans possess subjective consciousness and hence remaining value-free while understanding the meanings of social action from the perspective of the social actor is not possible.
Close · a summary
Thus, while different perspectives in sociology attach a different level of importance to being value free it is important to produce bias-free results in a sociological research.