Dissident Views of the Sociological Craft

Abstract

It is the different modes of research procedure rather than formal theoretical orientations which splits American sociology and social psychology into conflicting "schools". True, defenses of and attacks upon the theoretical underpinnings of "structural-functionalism", "symbolical interactionism", and several psychologistic approaches contribute a number of contentious papers each year. But these debates appear to have little effect on the research practices of the vast majority of working sociological researchers who can justifiably be described as eclectic in their systems of explanation and generalisation. On the other hand, when sociologists and social psychologists select their modes of data collection, processing, and analysis, they are much more likely to place themselves in one of the contending schools which sees its research practices as the more valid or more useful and points out the deficiences of its rivals.