One sort of sociologist believes that social phenomena
like race, class, deviance, and injustice are as real as natu-
ral phenomena and should be studied just as objectively.
The other sort believes that social phenomena exist only
through human interaction, so they can’t be studied objec-
tively at all. One uses numbers (quantitative methods), and
the other uses words (qualitative methods). They have
different theories. They publish in different journals.
Sometimes departments are split into two camps, each
accusing the other of not doing “real sociology.”
However, a sociologist who sits down to compare
research methods with a chemist or even biologist will find
substantial differences. Other scientists work with objects
(carbon isotopes, microorganisms) that have no volition,
no motivation, no emotion. OK, maybe the higher mam-
mals do, but even they have no hidden agenda, they don’t
care about presenting themselves in the best possible light,
and simply being observed doesn’t make them reevaluate
their lives. When the object of study is intelligent and
aware, you need different techniques and different propo-
sitions. For this reason, sociology is a socialscience.
On the other end of the conference table, the sociolo-
gist talking to the humanities scholar will also find substan-
tial differences. Humanities scholars look at texts (books,
movies, art, music, philosophical treatises) for their own
sake. The artists may have described the society they lived in, but the description is
always an artistic vision, not meant to be taken as real life. Sociologists try to get at
the real life. They engage in systematic observation and hypothesis testing, draw a
representative sample. They worry about validity and reliability. And they claim that
their research has revealed something about what it was really like to live in a past
society (or in a contemporary society). For this reason, sociology is a social science.
Some of the questions that sociology poses for itself also distinguish it from the other
social sciences. For example, economists follow the processes of individuals who act
rationally in markets, such as the labor market. Sociologists are interested in such rational
economic calculation but also study behavior that is not rational and that is collective—
that is, sociologists typically understand that behavior cannot be reduced to the simple
addition of all the rational individuals acting in concert. Psychologists may focus on those
group processes—there are branches of psychology and sociology that are both called
“social psychology”—but our everyday understandings of psychology are that the prob-
lems we observe in our lives can be remedied by adequate therapeutic intervention. Soci-
ologists think these “private troubles” actually more often require social solutions. For
example, your individual income may be enhanced by working harder, changing your
job, or winning the lottery, but the social problem of poverty will never be solved like
that—even if every person worked harder, switched jobs, or won the lottery.Getting beyond “Common Sense”
However, sociology is not just “common sense”—the other rhetorical retreat from
engagement with complex social issues. In fact, very often what we observe to be true
turns out, after sociological examination, not to be true. Commonsense explanations
trade in stereotypes—“women are more nurturing”; “men are more aggressive”—that
are never true for everyone. What’s more, common sense assumes that such patterns10 CHAPTER 1WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?© The New Yorker Collection 1986. J. B. Handelsman from cartoonbank.com.
All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission.