Social science theories
1] a tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies (e. Theory seeks to question why humans inhabit the world the way they do and how that came to be, looking at power relations, and social structures and norms. 3] to this aim, social theory examines: how humans relate to each other and the society they find themselves in, how this has changed over time and in different cultures[4], and the tools used to measure those things. As a matter of necessity, social theory looks to interdisciplinarity, combining knowledge from multiple academic disciplines in order to enlighten these complex issues,[3] and can draw on ideas from fields as diverse as anthropology and media theory as a distinct discipline emerged in the 20th century and was largely equated with an attitude of critical thinking and the desire for knowledge through a posteriori methods of discovery, rather than a priori methods of theory of an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to instead as "social criticism" or "social commentary". 1 example of questions posed by social thought provides general theories to explain actions and behavior of society as a whole, encompassing sociological, political, and philosophical ideas. Social theory is used to make distinctions and generalizations among different types of societies, and to analyze modernity as it has emerged in the past few centuries. 5]:10 classical social theory has generally been presented from a perspective of western philosophy, and often regarded as theory has its roots in both european and non-european philosophical and sociological thought, through thinkers such as: confucius, mozi, saint ius (551–479 bce) envisaged a just society that went beyond his contemporary society of the warring states. The term, société, was probably first used as key concept by rousseau in discussion of social relations. Expressed as stories and fables, it may be assumed the pre-socratic philosophers and religious teachers were the precursors to social theory articles: sociology in medieval islam, muqaddimah, and is evidence of early muslim sociology from the 14th century: ibn khaldun, in his muqaddimah (later translated as prolegomena in latin), the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history, was the first to advance social philosophy and social science in formulating theories of social cohesion and social conflict. 5]:15 these ideas did not draw on ideas of the past from classical thinkers, nor involved "blindly" following religious teachings and authority of the of the classical theories had one common factor: they all agreed that the history of humanity is pursuing a certain fixed path. They differed on where that path would lead: social progress, technological progress, decline or even fall, etc. Social cycle theorists were much more skeptical of the western achievements and technological progress, however, arguing that progress is but an illusion of the ups and downs of the historical cycles. The classical approach has been criticized by many modern sociologists and theorists, among them karl popper, robert nisbet, charles tilly and immanuel the 19th century, questions involving social order gained importance.
The french revolution freed french society of control by the monarchy, with no effective means of maintaining social order until napoleon came to power. Three great classical theories of social and historical change emerged: the social evolutionism theory (of which social darwinism forms a part), the social cycle theory and the marxist historical materialism of 19th-century classical social theory has been expanded upon to create newer, more contemporary social theories such as multilineal theories of evolution (neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernization, theory of post-industrial society) and various strains of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social theory became most closely related to academic sociology while other related studies such as anthropology, philosophy, and social work branched out into their own disciplines. Such subjects as "philosophy of history" and other such multi-disciplinary subject matter became part of social theory as taught under ts to recapture a space for discussion free of disciplines began in earnest in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the 1970s, programs in social and political thought were established at sussex and york. Others followed, with various emphases and structures, such as social theory and history (university of california, davis). Cultural studies programs extended the concerns of social theory into the domain of culture and thus anthropology. A chair and undergraduate program in social theory was established at the university of melbourne and a number of universities now specialize in social theory. Social theory at present seems to be gaining more acceptance as a classical academic cal social theory[edit]. In the nineteenth century, the scientific method was introduced into study of society, which was a significant advance leading to development of sociology as a the 18th century, after montesquieu's the spirit of the laws established that social elements influence human nature, the pre-classical period of social theories developed a new form that provides the basic ideas for social theory, such as: evolution, philosophy of history, social life and social contract, public and general will, competition in social space, organistic pattern for social description and so forth. 5]: philosophers, including jean-jacques rousseau, voltaire, and denis diderot, developed new social ideas during the enlightenment period that were based on reason and methods of scientific inquiry. He revealed the origin of inequality, analyzed the social contract (and social compact) that forms social integration and defined the social sphere or civil society. Smith explained that social forces could regulate the market economy with social objectivity and without need for government intervention. First "modern" social theories (known as classical theories) that begin to resemble the analytic social theory of today developed almost simultaneously with the birth of the science of sociology.
Auguste comte (1798–1857), known as the "father of sociology" and regarded by some as the first philosopher of science,[12] laid the groundwork for positivism – as well as structural functionalism and social evolutionism. Karl marx rejected comtean positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a science of society based on historical materialism, becoming recognised as a founding figure of sociology posthumously. The field may be broadly recognised as an amalgam of three modes of social scientific thought in particular; durkheimian sociological positivism and structural functionalism, marxist historical materialism and conflict theory, and weberian antipositivism and verstehen r early modern theorist, herbert spencer (1820–1903), coined the term "survival of the fittest". Sorokin argued that "history goes in cycles," and presented the social cycle theory to illustrate their point. Ferdinand tönnies (1855–1936) made community and society (gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, 1887) the special topics of the new science of "sociology", both of them based on different modes of will of social of the 19th century pioneers of social theory and sociology, like saint-simon, comte, marx, john stuart mill or spencer, never held university posts. Durkheim's seminal monograph, suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates amongst catholic and protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or -modern social theory[edit]. Information: post-modern feminism, postmodernism, and term "postmodernism" was brought into social theory in 1971 by the arab american theorist ihab hassan in his book: the dismemberment of orpheus: toward a postmodern literature. 15] users of the term often argue that their ideals have arisen as the result of particular economic and social conditions, including what is described as "late capitalism" and the growth of broadcast media, and that such conditions have pushed society into a new historical theory today[edit]. The past few decades, largely in response to postmodern critiques, social theory has begun to stress free will, individual choice, subjective reasoning, and the importance of unpredictable events in place of deterministic necessity. A not uncommon view among contemporary sociologists is that there are no great unifying 'laws of history', but rather smaller, more specific, and more complex laws that govern opher and politician roberto mangabeira unger has more recently attempted to revise classical social theory by exploring how things fit together, rather than to provide an all encompassing single explanation of a universal reality. He begins by recognizing the key insight of classical social theory of society as an artifact, and then by discarding the law-like characteristics forcibly attached to it. Unger argues that classical social theory was born proclaiming that society is made and imagined, and not the expression of an underlying natural order, but at the same time its capacity was checked by the equally prevalent ambition to create law-like explanations of history and social development. The human sciences that developed claimed to identify a small number of possible types of social organization that coexisted or succeeded one another through inescapable developmental tendencies or deep-seated economic organization or psychological constraints.
16]:g his efforts "super-theory", unger has thus sought to develop a comprehensive view of history and society, but to do so without subsuming deep structure analysis under an indivisible and repeatable type of social organization or with recourse to lawlike constraints and tendencies. 16]:165 his most forceful articulation of such a theory is in false necessity: anti-necessitarian social theory in the service of radical democracy, where he employs deep-logic practice to theorize human social activity through anti-necessitarian begins by formulating the theory of false necessity, which claims that social worlds are the artifact of human endeavors. In order to explain how we move from one formative context to another without the conventional social theory constraints of historical necessity (e. Feudalism to capitalism), and to do so while remaining true to the key insight of individual human empowerment and anti-necessitarian social thought, unger recognized that there are an infinite number of ways of resisting social and institutional constraints, which can lead to an infinite number of outcomes. The chicago school included focus on patterns and arrangement of social phenomenon across time and place, and within context of other social variables. They sought to frame theories within ideologies of human marx wrote and theorized about the importance of political economy on society, and focused on the "material conditions" of life. 5]:4 his theories strongly centered around capitalism and its affect on class-struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Was defined by jean-françois lyotard as "incredulity towards metanarratives" and contrasted that with modern which he described as "any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse... Theories include:Social constructionist al choice ural functionalism – influenced by spencer and action – influenced by weber and ct theory – influenced by marx, ic interaction – influenced by george herbert social thought[edit]. Known french social thinkers are claude henri saint-simon, auguste comte, and émile h social thought[edit]. Social thought, with thinkers such as herbert spencer, addressed questions and ideas relating to political economy and social evolution. The political ideals of john ruskin were a precursor of social economy (unto this last had a very important impact on gandhi's philosophy). German philosophers and social thinkers included immanuel kant, georg wilhelm friedrich hegel, karl marx, max weber, and georg n sociology[edit].
Italian social scientists include antonio gramsci, gaetano mosca, umberto eco, and vilfredo theory in academic practise[edit]. Theories are distinct from scientific theories; social theory can guide scientific inquiry by promoting scientists to think about which topics are suitable for investigation and how they should measure them. Useful) theoretical orientation within which to develop a potentially helpful theory is the bedrock of social e of questions posed by social theorists[edit]. Questions addressed by social thinkers often centered around modernity, including:Can human reason make sense of the social world and shape it for the better? Issues relating to modernity that were addressed by social thinkers include social atomization, alienation, loneliness, social disorganization, and y of the social sciences. Cambridge: cambridge university oks has a book on the topic of: introduction to ote has quotations related to: social international social theory a: a journal of social and political ogical theory research network of the european sociological harris, why is social theory so "difficult". Wang, social ries: social theoriesinterdisciplinary subfields of sociologyhidden categories: articles with weasel words from june 2010wikipedia articles needing reorganization from may 2010wikipedia articles needing style editing from august 2017all articles needing style editingarticles that may contain original research from august 2017all articles that may contain original researchall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from september 2012articles with unsourced statements from february 2012cs1 maint: multiple names: authors logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia out wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this a bookdownload as pdfprintable dia commonswikiquote. A non-profit nuke error: - version error has error has nuke error: - version error has error has health education microsite search health education ising and corporate -archiving health education mobile search oral and social sciences theories and models: are they used in unintentional injury prevention research? Trifiletti; e-mail: ltrifile@ for other works by this author on:Search for other works by this author on:Search for other works by this author on:Search for other works by this author on:Download citation file:© 2017 oxford university microsite search oral and social sciences theories and models have the potential to enhance efforts to reduce unintentional injuries. The authors reviewed the published literature on behavioral and social science theory applications to unintentional injury problems to enumerate and categorize the ways different theories and models are used in injury prevention research. The authors conducted a systematic review to evaluate the published literature from 1980 to 2001 on behavioral and social science theory applications to unintentional injury prevention and control. Electronic database searches in pubmed and psycinfo identified articles that combined behavioral and social sciences theories and models and injury causes. The authors identified some articles that examined behavioral and social science theories and models and unintentional injury topics, but found that several important theories have never been applied to unintentional injury prevention.
When behavioral and social sciences theories and models were applied to unintentional injury topics, they were most frequently used to guide program design, implementation or develop evaluation measures; few examples of theory testing were found. Results suggest that the use of behavioral and social sciences theories and models in unintentional injury prevention research is only marginally represented in the mainstream, peer-reviewed literature. Both the fields of injury prevention and behavioral and social sciences could benefit from greater collaborative research to enhance behavioral approaches to injury and safety behaviors contribute to many of today's public health problems. Using car safety seats (centers for disease control and prevention, 1991) and having working smoke alarms (national safe kids campaign, 2004) are just two examples of the many health behaviors that have been shown to effectively reduce institute of medicine committees have published literature reviews on social and behavioral risk factors and behavior change interventions for leading causes of morbidity and mortality (institute of medicine, 2000, 2001). Both committees found substantial support for the application of behavioral sciences theory to identify determinants of disease and develop effective interventions, although neither report addressed the use of theory for unintentional injury the breadth of research integrating behavioral and social sciences with injury prevention has grown in recent years, the use of specific behavioral and social sciences theories and models has varied widely, and as the primary basis for research or program design, behavioral and social sciences remain under-represented in the field of unintentional injury prevention. With a few exceptions, these fields remain somewhat segregated, and as students and new professionals in health education have limited exposure to the field of injury prevention and control, so do the up and coming injury researchers and practitioners have limited interactions with health education and the behavioral and social es and models help specialists focus on what is changeable and the most suitable areas or targets for change. Glanz and rimer, 1995)theories and models can be useful in planning, implementing and evaluating interventions. Theories and models help program planners and researchers go beyond basic unchangeable risk factors (e. Glanz and rimer, 1995)advances in behavioral and social sciences and increased attention to behavior change research and theory and model development provide new opportunities for reducing injuries. Several other recent works have likewise emphasized the need for greater integration of behavioral and social sciences theories with the development of injury interventions (gielen, 1992; sleet and gielen, 1998; gielen and girasek, 2001; thompson et al. Many studies have been published focusing on a behavioral aspect or behavioral approach to injury prevention (sleet and hopkins, 2004), the extent to which researchers have used behavioral and social sciences theories or models as the basis for research or program activities is unclear. To enumerate and briefly categorize behavioral and social science theory applications to unintentional injury prevention, the authors reviewed the published us literature indexed in two electronic databases, pubmed and psycinfo. The aims of this review were to: (1) identify and enumerate the articles that describe applications of behavioral and social sciences theories and models to unintentional injury prevention, (2) describe which behavioral and social sciences theories and models have been applied to which unintentional injury topics, and (3) develop and apply a categorization system to describe how these theories and models have been applied.
Strategy and authors designed the search strategy to identify articles that combined injury causes and theories and models. The selection of articles was limited to unintentional injury theories and models included in this review were among those identified by glanz et al. 2002) as the most widely used or ‘dominant’ theories and models in health education and health promotion today. These included: health belief model, theory of reasoned action or theory of planned behavior, stages of change or transtheoretical model, precaution adoption process model, protection motivation theory, social learning theory, social cognitive theory, community organization theory, organizational change theory, diffusion of innovation theory, precede proceed model and social marketing. In addition to these theories and models being the most extensively used in health education and health promotion, they focus on multiple levels of the ecological framework from the individual and interpersonal level to the organizational and community es that combined the injury filter with each theory and model were executed using pubmed and psycinfo. The subject scope of articles included in pubmed is biomedicine and health, broadly defined to encompass those areas of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical sciences and bioengineering needed by health professionals and others engaged in basic research and clinical care, public health, health policy development or related educational activities. To be included, an article had to apply one or more of the selected theories or models to an unintentional injury problem. Article review form and authors developed a standardized abstraction form to classify and describe key characteristics of each article, including: (1) study aims, (2) theories and models addressed in the article, and (3) the way behavioral and social science theory was used. Few research studies analyzed featured behavioral and social sciences theories or models as the basis for the research or program the 453 articles identified in pubmed identified in a search for the health belief model, only eight (1. Similarly, of the 611 citations identified for social cognitive theory in a pubmed search, only three (0. Whereas in psycinfo, a search on social cognitive theory and injury led to the greatest number of articles (n = 32, 6. For several of the major behavioral and social sciences theories, there were no injury topic applications. From pubmed citations, the theories and models that had no injury applications included the precaution adoption process model and organizational change; in psycinfo, these were the precaution adoption process model, protection motivation theory, community organization, organizational change, precede proceed model and social marketing.
Theories most frequently used in unintentional i summarizes health behavioral and social sciences theories and models by injury topic. Theories or models that were not applied to unintentional injury topics were excluded and totals are not provided because some studies used more than one theory or model. Theories and models were used most often in motor vehicle injury prevention studies (n = 12), followed by bicycle injuries and helmet use (n = 10) and pedestrian injury prevention interventions (n = 2). 1994 view large how theories and models are ii summarizes the use of theory according to the aforementioned categorization system developed for this study. It was possible for the same article to be categorized in multiple categories and under multiple theories. Using nine theories, there were 43 instances when the theory or model was used to guide the design, program or measures in the study. Of the nine that did this, the health belief model, theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behavior, social learning theory and precede proceed model had the most citations. The remaining five theories and models, precaution adoption process model, protection motivation theory, community organization, diffusion of innovation and social marketing, had either one or two articles that used them as a or model by three-part categorization of theory use theory used to guide design, program or measures measurement of theory or constructs tested theory health belief model dedobbeleer and german, 1987; glik et al. 1994 view largethere were seven instances where the theories and models were used to develop or evaluate a measure of the theory or model and its constructs. Review found an abundance of empirical public health research that used the selected behavioral and social sciences theories and models, and applied them to unintentional injury prevention. While injury prevention should be no exception, results from our review suggest that there are few scholarly applications of the most commonly used theories to this important public health problem. Some theories and models have been used in injury prevention research, but many others have yet to be applied. Our results identified enormous gaps in the research on behavioral and social sciences theories and models applied to unintentional injury were several limitations in this study.
This may explain why we found more frequent use of the precede proceed model when compared with other theories and models. Researchers and practitioners whose work includes both theories and models and injury prevention should pay careful attention to the selection of keywords that will be used in searches. Because we chose to focus our search on the most frequently used and cited behavioral and social sciences theories and models, some important behavioral and social sciences constructs were excluded from our search and review. For the purposes of this paper, we restricted our focus to the most commonly used behavior change theories and models in health promotion and health there are identified gaps in the literature enumerated here, some progress has been made in merging injury and health education—that progress is illustrated in part by the inclusion of theories and models in major injury textbooks (rivara et al. 2004), published reviews summarizing theory and injury (gielen and sleet, 2003), and the introduction of dissertation and fellowship awards for behavioral and social sciences and injury prevention research supported through, the centers for disease control and prevention, the society for public health education, and the international union for health promotion and broader question of whether the development and application of theory approaches to injury prevention behavior will improve prevention effectiveness is largely unanswered from this review because so few studies have been conducted to date. There is no shortage of injury problems for testing old theories or developing new ones. For professionals who want to use behavioral sciences theories or models in injury prevention, this paper can provide a starting point to identify which theories and models already have been applied to specific injury topics, and in what ways they have been directions and next steps for this research include updating and expanding the review to include other searchable databases. Extending this work to evaluate the robustness of the findings when theory is applied to a particular injury prevention topic would be a logical next step with the ultimate goal of knowing what theories and models work best for specific injury prevention topics. A retrospective study based on medical g students learning the pharmacology of diabetes mellitus with complexity-based computerized models: a quasi-experimental tanding social and behavioral drivers and impacts of air quality sensor te partner violence against women, circumstances of aggressions and oral-maxillofacial traumas: a medical-legal and forensic influence of social norms on flu vaccination among african american and white s of an internet-based educational intervention to prevent high-risk sexual behavior in mexican agement of health warning labels on cigarette packages and cessation attempts: results from four s in social support over time in a faith-based physical activity product characteristics and relationships with perceptions and behaviors among rural adolescent males: a qualitative health education end to your ising and corporate ls career issn ght © 2017 oxford university our mailing rs & university press is a department of the university of oxford. It furthers the university's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing ght © 2017 oxford university feature is available to subscribers in or create an pdf is available to subscribers article abstract & purchase full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual sciences: between theory and do political leaders need to know about the world in order to be able to govern it properly? Nevertheless, we can’t deny the impact and the usefulness of the social wolfgang streeck; in: maxplanckresearch 4/ most ambitious goal of modern social sciences is to develop theories that explain observed facts as the effects of their causes. These, too, are based on theories and are, in principle, also explanations, but of future states rather than present or past states. Many scientists, including some social scientists, consider the ability to make predictions to be the real mark of a good theory.
Since politicians must continually bet on the future, they hold a similar , those who, as scientists, promise information about how much the economy will grow or shrink in the coming year, which occupations will see the highest growth rates in the next ten years, how many additional births extra parental benefits will encourage, or which new electoral candidate might propel his party forward, can expect not only an attentive ear, but also extensive financial contributions from governments and political heless, there are good reasons to suspect that the ability of the social sciences to predict the future is not only currently and coincidentally, but also fundamentally limited. But even they could not know what form the crash would take, where it would begin and how or whether it would they could not know this is not due to a lack of research, but rather lies in the essence of the matter: in the nature of the social world and the kind of knowledge we are able, in the best case, to obtain about it. The word is now spreading that the social sciences are incapable of making so-called point predictions – predictions about individual cases. All it can give us are statements of probability with no guarantees for individual cases, whether relating to democratization or election results, military coups, the outbreak and outcome of wars and – of course – financial are solid and logical reasons why the social sciences cannot say much about individual cases. Research on social processes will always involve fewer cases than the number of factors that could explain these cases, thus inevitably leading to more than one valid explanation for any given state of affairs. And every future state comes about as a unique result of a unique interplay of many factors – a one-of-a-kind situation for which there is no normal distribution, and whose distinctive features thus can’t be derived from general can also be expressed in a more pointed fashion: the essential historical actuality of the social world is proven in the impossibility of imagining a future adjusted for coincidences. Events such as the collapse of communism in 1989, the reunification of germany or the current financial crisis can subsequently be reconstructed as probable or even declared inevitable; but until they have occurred, other events can prevent, delay or modify them, without anyone ever being able to know that they were just about to politicians would like even better than predictions are technical instructions for controlling social developments. The task of science is to label the set screws want to be persuaded with reason rather than controlled by technologies of social does this mechanistic world view come from, and the social utopias that feed on it? Many believe that their development is the real task of a truly scientific social science. For example, their colleagues from the natural sciences sometimes ask social scientists for measures they can use to turn off the public’s “hostility to technology”; after all, that is the subject they are supposed to be familiar unlike in the natural or engineering sciences, the field of social sciences consists of subjects who are capable of making observations and taking action, and who are not at all indifferent about what science claims about them and for what ends governments use their findings. These include a fundamental need to be persuaded with reason rather than controlled by technologies of social democratic societies – societies whose members have a say – therefore strictly regulate the use of behavior control techniques. So for example, even if the research on neuromarketing were to deliver what its promoters promise, the application of its findings will inevitably be subject to strict legal as the social sciences are incapable of predicting the future, the reactions of acting subjects to scientific attempts at control are unpredictable. In the end, the theory no longer worked because it had become generally other facets of the relationship between forecasts relating to human actions and the actions themselves could be described, but all of them have one thing in common: the fact that social science theories can be recognized in the world they analyze influences their validity in one way or another.
Politics and science – and the latter in its most positivistic variation – can transform into magic: into an attempt to prevent the worst from happening by forbidding any mention of it and invoking the best. But its rational core is the particular responsiveness of the social world: the fact that it sometimes really is influenced by symbols and can be healed by faith healing. If it were to become known that they were doctored for the sake of this result, then the outcome would not be optimism but a deep loss of trust – and a crash that could be far worse than anything that could have been any case, the notion that a social scientist can truly have an advantage over experienced practitioners when it comes to the choice of suitable means for specific goals can be reasonably doubted. The gap between theory and intuition is smaller than many social scientists would like to believe. But that doesn’t mean that the social sciences have to be politically useless – only that it is not the theory-building research so highly prized by the scientists themselves that can contribute to improving politics. Although counting, measuring and observing social issues may seem trivial to some, it is anything but , the state is not allowed to collect key information modern state and democratic discourse are in many ways dependent on information about the state of society that is not easily available, and the collection of which is often extremely complicated and requires extensive expert knowledge. Only a small portion of the data needed by politics is immediately evident from the state’s own administrative records: for example, the number of births and divorces or of recipients of social benefits of any kind, the average grades of high school graduates or the age structure of retirees. The reason is that society is resistant to being counted – a further example of the active role that the subject of social science plays for it by responding to cally important issues, such as per capita economic growth, the birth and immigration rate or the unemployment rate are thus known with far less certainty than is normally assumed. In fact, there are examples of problems that governments have tried for years to solve, or problems for which voters called them to account, that, when the statistical data was later revised, turned out not really to have been problems after only possibility to make visible the decisions and interests that contribute to the official descriptions of social reality is an independent social science.