Editor’s Introduction: Constructionism as Interpretive Tradition and as Emergent Deviance in Sociology

Editor’s Introduction: Methods of Interpretive Sociology

The Rationale The term 'interpretive' in the discussion of sociological methods is the most common translation of the German word 'verstehen,' but the German term is also translated as 'understanding'. There are many discussions and disputes over the translation of words between languages. What can be said about the meaning of interpretive method in sociology can be seen in discussions and disp...

Science as a Service [Guest editors' introduction]

Editors introduction: biobanks as sites of bio-objectification

* Correspondence: [email protected] Brunel University London, London, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Biobanks and biorepositories have become increasingly important and prevalent since the 1990s as holders and distributors of biological material. They exhibit significant diversity in form and function, from the very small to the very large, fr...

Sociology as a Vocation

What does it mean to live for sociology, today? In attempting to answer this question I return to Max Weber’s famous lectures delivered toward the end of his life—one on science as a vocation and the other on politics as a vocation. He presented ‘‘Science as a Vocation’’ in November 1917 toward the end of World War I and the more pessimistic ‘‘Politics as a Vocation’’ in January 1919 after Germ...

AS Sociology For AQA

Culture is a significant concept for sociologists because it both identifies a fundamental set of ideas about what sociologists' study and suggests a major reason for the existence of Sociology itself – that human social behaviour can be explained in the context of the social groups into which people are born and within which they live their lives. In this Chapter we're going to explore a range...