Sociological theory is constantly evolving and should never be considered complete. Grand theories attempt to explain large-scale relationships and answer fundamental questions such as why societies form and why they change. Macro-level theories relate to large-scale issues and large groups of people, while micro-level theories look at very specific relationships between individuals or small groups. Theories vary in scope depending on the scale of the issues that they are meant to explain. Rather than rely on individual experience Durkheim created a theory to help guide his research. Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than Catholics in Durkheim’s society, and his work supports the utility of theory in sociological research. Durkheim gathered a large amount of data about Europeans who had ended their lives, and he did indeed find differences based on religion. He studied social ties within a group, or social solidarity, and hypothesized that differences in suicide rates might be explained by religion-based differences. A theory is a generalization involving more than one variable.įor example, although suicide is generally considered an individual phenomenon, Émile Durkheim was interested in studying the social factors that affect it. In sociology, a theory is a way to explain different aspects of social interactions and to create a testable proposition, called a hypothesis, about society (Allan 2006). Sociologists study social events, interactions, and patterns, and they develop a theory in an attempt to explain why things work as they do. Sociologists develop theories to explain social occurrences such as protest rallies.
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