It was when Durkheim introduced the ideas of anomie and social solidarity that he began to explain the difference in suicide rates. At this point, Durkheim's analysis was still in the data stage he had not proposed an explanation for the different suicide rates of the two groups. Durkheim found that Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than were Catholics. By aggregating data for large groups of people in Europe, Durkheim was able to discern patterns in suicide rates and connect those patterns with another concept (or variable): religious affiliation. In his now classic work, Suicide, Emile Durkheim was interested in explaining a social phenomenon, suicide, and employed both data and theory to offer an explanation. In order to understand the social world around us, it is necessary to employ theory to draw the connections between seemingly disparate concepts.Īnother example of sociological theorizing illustrates this point. If Putnam had not proposed a relationship between the two elements of social life, we may not have realized that television viewing does, in fact, reduce people's desire to participate in and their time dedicated to civic life. Data alone are not particularly informative. In the theory proposed above, the astute reader will notice that the theory includes two components: The data, in this case the findings that civic engagement has declined and TV watching has increased, and the proposed relationship, that the increase in television viewing has contributed to the decline in civic engagement. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce some of the more well-known and most commonly used grand and middle-range theories in sociology. Because such theories are dependent on context and specific to certain situations, it is beyond the scope of this text to explore each of those theories. There are many middle-range and micro-range theories in sociology. Sociological theory is developed at multiple levels, ranging from grand theory to highly contextualized and specific micro-range theories. What's more, it is an explanation of one phenomenon with another: part of the reason why civic engagement has declined over the last several decades is because people are watching more television. The relationship is an inverse one - as one goes up, the other goes down. In this case, the concepts are civic engagement and television watching. This element of Putnam's theory clearly illustrates the basic purpose of sociological theory: it proposes a relationship between two or more concepts. The more television people watch, the lower their involvement in civic life will be. ![]() While there are a number of factors that contribute to this decline (Putnam's theory is quite complex), one of the prominent factors is the increased consumption of television as a form entertainment. ![]() ![]() Putnam found that Americans' involvement in civic life (e.g., community organizations, clubs, voting, religious participation, etc.) has declined over the last 40 to 60 years. ![]() An example of a sociological theory is the work of Robert Putnam on the decline of civic engagement. In other words, a theory is an explanation for why or how a phenomenon occurs. A theory is a proposed relationship between two or more concepts. Sociologists develop theories to explain social phenomena.
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