THEORY AND RESEARCHtheory is clear and visible, we can all more easily
evaluate the study’s strengths and weaknesses.
WHAT IS THEORY?
Social theoryis a system of interconnected ideas. It
condenses and organizes knowledge about the
social world. We can also think of it as a type of sys-
tematic “story telling” that explains how some
aspect of the social world works and why.
Many courses in social theory emphasize the his-
tory of social thought or teach us what great thinkers
said. Classical social theorists (e.g., Durkheim, Marx,
Mills, Tonnies, and Weber) generated many innova-
tive ideas. They radically changed how we see and
understand the social world around us by developing
highly original, broad theories that laid the foundation
for subsequent generations. We continue to study
their writings because they offered many creative and
interrelated ideas. Such true geniuses who can gen-
erate many insightful ideas and fundamentally shift
how we see the social world are very rare. Despite
the value of their contributions, theory is more than
what the classical social theorists wrote. It is also
more than we learn from recent leading theorists
(e.g., Jeffrey Alexander, Pierre Bourdieu, James
Coleman, Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, and
Erving Goffman). Although theorists generate many
new ideas and theories, we all can use theory.
Theories are not static. We are constantly mod-
ifying older theories and developing new ones. The-
ories come in many shapes and sizes. Some are broad
systems of thought while others are narrow and spe-
cific explanations of one particular issue. At their
core, we use social theories to organize and system-
atize our thinking and to deepen and extend under-
standing. Because they organize knowledge, theories
also become a way to communicate effectively with
one another.
Most likely, we all encounter social theories in
daily life, although few are explicit or labeled as
such. For example, newspaper articles or television
reports on social issues usually rely on implicit
social theories or partial theories. Such theories
may be shallow and incomplete, but they contain
assumptions, interconnected concepts, and explana-
tions. For example, a news report might discuss pub-
lic support or opposition over an issue such as
legalizing same-sex marriage. The report might pro-
vide a type of social theory to explain why legaliz-
ing it is controversial; it might say that opposition
originates with religious organizations and people
who are afraid of disrupting traditional social val-
ues. This theory has several assumptions: Religious
organizations can influence new laws, some people
fight to preserve past or current social norms, and
some religious organizations and some people have
strong views about laws regarding marriage. This
theory includes concepts such as traditional values,
forms of marriage, laws, or religious organizations.
It offers an explanation: Vocal political opposition
by some organizations or by people with strong
beliefs can prevent elected government officials
from passing a law. The media are not the only
sources of theories in daily life. Political leaders fre-
quently express social theories as they discuss pub-
lic issues. A politician who says that inadequate
schooling causes poverty is expressing a type of the-
ory. Compared to the theories we use in social sci-
ence research, these implicit, partial theories are less
systematic, not as sharply formulated, and more dif-
ficult to evaluate with empirical evidence.
Social science theory is often more complex
and abstract than a typical layperson’s theory; how-
ever, a principle of good theory,parsimony, is help-
ful. It means that simpler is better, that better theories
have minimal complexity. Good theories lack redun-
dant or excess elements. If we have to two equally
convincing theories, the simpler one is better.
Most research studies have theory somewhere.
The question is less whetherwe use theory in a
study than howwe use it, or which typeof theory we
use. The place of theory is less prominent in applied
or descriptive research than in basic or explana-
tory research. The studies we conduct will be bet-
ter designed and stronger once we are aware of howParsimony The idea that simple is better; everything
else being equal, a social theory that explains more
with less complexity is better.