(i) Problem of A Bias : First of all the sociologists have to face clearly the problem a bias. Because sociologists are also members of society, they will also have all the normal likes and dislikes that people have.
A Sociologist studying family relations with herself be a member of a family, and her experiences are likely to influence her.
(ii) Effect of personal Values Prejudices: Even when the sociologist has no direct personal experience of the group she/he is studying there is still the possibility of being affected led by the values and prejudices of one’s own social context. For example, when studying a caste or religions community other than her own the socialogist may be influenced by the altitute about that community prevalent in her own past or present social involvement.
(iii) Problem of unconscious - bias : But however self reflevine the sociologist tries to be, there is always the possibility of unconscious bias. To deal with this possibility, sociologists explicity mention those features of their own social background that might be relevant as a possible source of bias on the topic being researched. This alerts readers to the possibility of bias and allows them to mentally compensate for it when reading the research study.
Methods used by socialogist to face problems : A questionnaires how do sociologist guard against those problems or difficulties which they have to face when they try to strive for objectivity ?
One method is to vigorously and continously examine one’s own ideas and feelings about the subject of research; More generally the sociologist tries to take an outsrider’s perrpective on her/his own work. She tries to look at herself and her researcher through the eyes of others particularly those who are the subjects of her research.
(a) Meaning of Objectivity : In everyday language, the word objective means unbiased, natural or based on facts alone.
(b) Essential condition for objectvity : In order to be objective about something, we must ignore our own feelings or attitudes about that thing. On the other hand the word subjective means something that is based on individual values and preferences. Objectivity demands that everybody should ignore individual his or her personal values and preference if he/she desires to be objective. Without being objective it is not possibel to produce unbiased knowledge. It is a must to be objective if anybody wants to produce knowledge totally based on facts.
II. Complication of objectivity in discipline like Sociology : Science is expected to be knowledge based solely on facts. But this much harder to do in the social sciences than in the natural sciences.
Example : When a geologist studies rocks or a botanist studies plants, they must be careful not to let their personal biases or preferences affect their work. They must report the facts as they are, they must (for example) let their liking for a particular scientific theory or theorist influence the results of their research. However, the geologist and the botanist are not themselves part of the world they study, i.e. the natural world of rocks or of plants. By contrast, social scientists study the world in which they themselves live-the social world of human relations. This creates special problems for objectivity in a social science like sociology.
III. Many versions of the truth and sociologists : Anothor problem with objectivity in sociology is the fact that, generally, there are many versions of the ‘truth’ in the social world. Things look different from different vantage points, and so the social world typically involves many competing versions or interpretations or reality.
Example : A shop-keeper and a customer may have very different ideas about what is a ‘good’ price, a young person and an aged person may have very differnt motives of ‘good food’, and so on. There is no simple way of judging which particular interpretation is true or more correct, and often it is unhelpful to think in these terms. Infact, sociology tries not to judge in this way because it is really interested in what people think, and why they think what they think.
IV. Multiple view of point : A further complication arises from the presence of multiple point of view in the social sciences themselves. Like its sister social science, sociology too is a multi-paradigmatic science.This means that competing and mutually incompatible schools of thought co exist within the discipline.
Conclusion : All this makes ojectivity a very difficult and complicated thing in sociology. In fact, the old notion of objectivity in widely considered to be an outdated perspective. Social scientists no longer believe that the traditional notion of an ‘objective, disinterested’ social science is attainable, infact such an ideal can actually be misleading. This does not mean that there is no useful knowledge to be obtained via sociology, or that objectivity is a useless concept. It means that objectivity has to be thought of as the goal of a continuous, on going process rather than as already achieved end result.
Popular in sociology and specially social anthropology. Participant observation refers to a particular method by which the sociologist learns about the society, culture and people that he/she is studying.
This method is different from other in many ways. Unlike other methods of primary data collection like surveys or interviews, field work involves a long period of interation with the subjects of research.
II. Role of enthnographers and sociologists during participant observation : (a) Typically, the sociologist or social anthropologist spends many months-usually about a year or sometimes more-living among the people being studied as one of them.
(b) As a non-native ‘outsider’, the anthropologist is supposed to immense himself/ herself in the culture of the ‘nations’-by learning their language and participating intimately in their everyday life-in an effort to acquire all the explict and implicit knowledge and skills of the ‘insider’.
(c) Although the sociologist or anthropologist usually has specific areas of interest, the overall goal of‘participant observation.’ field work is to learn about the ‘whole way of life’ of a community.
(d) Indeed the model is that of the child : Sociologists and anthropologists are supposed to learn everything about their adoptive communities injust the holistic way that small children learn about the world.
Anthropologer collected and organised information about distant community. For example, some early anthroplogist collected datas based on the information provided by some older anthropologers (Jamaes Frezer’s) collecterd data from the book or work of Emile Durkheim.
During the last decade of 19th century and during first decade of the 20th century some early anthropologist carried out systematice surveys and first hand observation and tribal language, customs, ritual and beliefs.
Later on some anthropologist constructed a geneology of community. This may be based on the information obtained in the canses, but extends much further since involves creating a family tree for individual member and extenderd the family tree as for back as possible.
Field work by Sociologist : Sociological field work differ not so much in its content-what is done during field work-but in its context-where it is done-and in the distribution of emphasis accross different areas or topics of research. Thus, a sociologist would also live among a community and attempt to become an insider.
However, unlike the anthropologist who typically ment to remote tribal community to do field work, sociologist did their field work among all types of communities. Moreover sociological field work did not necessarily involve living in although it did involve spending most of one’s time with the member of the community.
II. Importance of Reflexivity in Sociology : One of the practical aspects of reflexivity is the importance of carefully documenting whatever one is doing. Part of the claims to superiority of research methods lies in the documentation of all procedures and the formal cutting of all sources of evidence. This evsures that others can retrace the steps we have taken to arrive at a particular conclusion, and see for themselves if we are right.
It also helps us to check and re-check our own thinking or line of document.
(ii) More than any other subject or discipline related with social science. Sociology deals with things that are already familiar to most people. All of us live in society, and we already know lot about the subject matter of sociology (several group, institution, norms, relationship and so on through over own experience.
(iii) Sociology is called social science and the scholar of this discipline - sociologist are called social scientist. As with all scientific discipline the crucial element here is method or the procedure through which knowledge is gathered. For in the final analysis, socilogist can claim to be different from by persons not because of how much they know or what they know, but because of how they acquire their knowledge. This is one reason for the special importance of scientific method in sociology.
(iv) Scholar of sociology are deeply interested in the linvd experience of people. For instance when study social phenomena like friendship or dharm or bargaining in market, the sociologist wants to know only what is observable by the bystander, but also the opinion and feelings of people involved for this sociology requires scientific method.
(v) Socilogist make efforts to adopt the point of view of the people this study to see the used
through their eyes. What does friendship means to people in different culture. What does a religious people in different culture. What does a religious people think he/she is doing when performing a particular ritual ? The Answer to questions are part of the lined experience of actors involved, and they are great interest to sociology.
(vi) Generally sociologist try to produre knowledge that can claim to be scientific. A Science is expected to be objective, to produce unbioas knowledge based solely on facts. But this is much harder to do in social sciences than in the natural sciences.
(vii) Social Scientist study the world in which they themselves live - the social world of human relation. This creates a special problems for objectivity in a social science like sociology.
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