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70-411: Normalization process theory ( NPT ) is a sociological theory , generally used in the fields of science and technology studies (STS), implementation research , and healthcare system research. The theory deals with the adoption of technological and organizational innovations into systems, recent studies have utilized this theory in evaluating new practices in social care and education settings. It

140-418: A "grand theory". (Parsons vehemently rejected this categorization.) Middle-range theories are normally constructed by applying theory-building techniques to empirical research, which produce generic propositions about the social world, which in turn can also be empirically tested. Examples of middle-range theories are theories of reference groups , social mobility , normalization processes , role conflict and

210-408: A commitment to two ideas. The first is positive, and describes what such theories should do: sociological theories, like all scientific theories, should aim to consolidate otherwise segregated hypotheses and empirical regularities; "if a 'theory' is valid, it 'explains' and in other words 'consolidates' and federates empirical regularities which on their side would appear otherwise segregated." The other

280-426: A departure from the general social theorizing of Talcott Parsons . Merton agreed with Parsons that a narrow empiricism consisting entirely of simple statistical or observational regularities cannot arrive at successful theory. However, he found that Parsons' "formulations were remote from providing a problematics and a direction for theory-oriented empirical inquiry into the observable worlds of culture and society". He

350-451: A disjunction between "culturally prescribed aspirations" of a society and "socially structured avenues for realizing those aspirations." Developed by Erving Goffman , dramaturgy (aka dramaturgical perspective ) is a particularized paradigm of symbolic interactionism that interprets life to be a performance (i.e. a drama ). As "actors," we have a status, i.e. the part that we play, by which we are given various roles. These roles serve as

420-403: A middle range theory, it can be federated with other theories to explain empirical phenomena. It is compatible with theories of the transmission and organization of innovations, especially diffusion of innovations theory, labor process theory , and psychological theories including the theory of planned behavior and social learning theory . Sociological theory A sociological theory

490-419: A paper published under a creative commons license , May and colleagues describe how, since 2006, NPT has undergone three iterations. The first iteration of the theory focused attention on the relationship between the properties of a complex healthcare intervention and the collective action of its users. Here, agents' contributions are made in reciprocal relationship with the emergent capability that they find in

560-418: A radical approach to objective description in situ . Insofar as subjectivity & objectivity are concerned with (b) the specific problem of social scientific knowledge, such concern results from the fact that a sociologist is part of the very object they seek to explain, as expressed by Bourdieu: How can the sociologist effect in practice this radical doubting which is indispensable for bracketing all

630-424: A result of the person themselves instead of the nature of the person. The essential notion of labeling theory is that deviance and conformity result not so much from what people do as from how others respond to these actions. It also states that a society's reaction to specific behaviors are a major determinant of how a person may come to adopt a "deviant" label. This theory stresses the relativity of deviance,

700-423: A script, supplying dialogue and action for the characters (i.e. the people in reality). Roles also involve props and certain settings. For example, a doctor (the role), uses instruments like a heart monitor (the prop), all the while using medical terms (the script), while in their doctor's office (the setting). In addition, our performance is the "presentation of self," which is how people perceive us, based on

770-659: A single social process to broad, inconclusive paradigms for analysis and interpretation . Some sociological theories explain aspects of the social world and enable prediction about future events, while others function as broad perspectives which guide further sociological analyses. Prominent sociological theorists include Talcott Parsons , Robert K. Merton , Randall Collins , James Samuel Coleman , Peter Blau , Niklas Luhmann , Immanuel Wallerstein , George Homans , Theda Skocpol , Gerhard Lenski , Pierre van den Berghe and Jonathan H. Turner . Kenneth Allan (2006) distinguishes sociological theory from social theory , in that

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840-434: A sociological approach that places emphasis on subjective meanings and, usually through analysis, on the empirical unfolding of social processes. Such processes are believed to rely on individuals and their actions, which is ultimately necessary for society to exists. This phenomenon was first theorized by George Herbert Mead who described it as the outcome of collaborative joint action . The approach focuses on creating

910-524: A specific point of time, while diachrony would refer to unfolding processes in time. In Anthony Giddens ' introduction to Central Problems in Social Theory , he states that, "in order to show the interdependence of action and structure...we must grasp the time space relations inherent in the constitution of all social interaction." And like structure and agency, time is integral to discussion of social reproduction . In terms of sociology, historical sociology

980-579: A theoretical framework that observes society as the product of everyday interactions of individuals. In other words, society in its most basic form is nothing more than the shared reality constructed by individuals as they interact with one another. In this sense, individuals interact within countless situations through symbolic interpretations of their given reality, whereby society is a complex, ever-changing mosaic of subjective meanings . Some critics of this approach argue that it focuses only on ostensible characteristics of social situations while disregarding

1050-537: Is scientific knowledge , and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict a scientific method . Society operates according to laws just like the physical world, thus introspective or intuitional attempts to gain knowledge are rejected. The positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought , from antiquity to the present day. Postmodernism, adhering to anti-theory and anti-method, believes that, due to human subjectivity, discovering objective truth

1120-412: Is a supposition that intends to consider, analyze, and/or explain objects of social reality from a sociological perspective , drawing connections between individual concepts in order to organize and substantiate sociological knowledge . Hence, such knowledge is composed of complex theoretical frameworks and methodology . These theories range in scope, from concise, yet thorough, descriptions of

1190-419: Is a relatively new discipline and so, by extension, is the field of sociological theory. Both date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, periods of drastic social change , where societies would begin to see, for example, the emergence of industrialization , urbanization , democracy , and early capitalism , provoking (particularly Western) thinkers to start becoming considerably more aware of society . As such,

1260-510: Is a strong consensus regarding the central theoretical questions and the key problems that emerge from explicating such questions in sociology. In general, sociological theory attempts to answer the following three questions: (1) What is action?; (2) What is social order?; and (3) What determines social change? In the myriad of attempts to answer these questions, three predominantly theoretical (i.e. not empirical) issues emerge, largely inherited from classical theoretical traditions. The consensus on

1330-549: Is also in this tradition that the radical-empirical approach of ethnomethodology emerged from the work of Harold Garfinkel . Utilitarianism is often referred to as exchange theory or rational choice theory in the context of sociology. This tradition tends to privilege the agency of individual rational actors, assuming that, within interactions, individuals always seek to maximize their own self-interest. As argued by Josh Whitford (2002), rational actors can be characterized as possessing four basic elements: Exchange theory

1400-514: Is an approach to sociological theorizing aimed at integrating theory and empirical research. It is currently the de facto dominant approach to sociological theory construction, especially in the United States. Middle-range theory starts with an empirical phenomenon (as opposed to a broad abstract entity like the social system) and abstracts from it to create general statements that can be verified by data. This approach stands in contrast to

1470-636: Is believed to be the father of social conflict theory , in which social conflict refers to the struggle between segments of society over valued resources. By the 19th century, a small population in the West had become capitalists : individuals who own and operate factories and other businesses in pursuit of profits, owning virtually all large-scale means of production. However, theorists believe that capitalism turned most other people into industrial workers, or, in Marx's terms, proletarians : individuals who, because of

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1540-436: Is impossible or unachievable. In essence, the postmodernist perspective is one that exists as a counter to modernist thought, especially through its mistrust in grand theories and ideologies The objective truth that is touted by modernist theory is believed by postmodernists to be impossible due to the ever-changing nature of society, whereby truth is also constantly subject to change. A postmodernists purpose, therefore,

1610-448: Is less concerned with objectivity and derivation of testable propositions, thus more likely to propose normative judgments . Sociologist Robert K. Merton ( 1949 ) argued that sociological theory deals with social mechanisms , which are essential in exemplifying the 'middle ground' between social law and description. Merton believed these social mechanisms to be "social processes having designated consequences for designated parts of

1680-425: Is negative, and it relates to what theory cannot do: "it is hopeless and quixotic to try to determine the overarching independent variable that would operate in all social processes, or to determine the essential feature of social structure, or to find out the two, three, or four couples of concepts ... that would be sufficient to analyze all social phenomena". The midrange approach was developed by Robert Merton as

1750-464: Is often better positioned to analyze social life as diachronic, while survey research takes a snapshot of social life and is thus better equipped to understand social life as synchronic. Some argue that the synchrony of social structure is a methodological perspective rather than an ontological claim. Nonetheless, the problem for theory is how to integrate the two manners of recording and thinking about social data. The contemporary discipline of sociology

1820-435: Is specifically attributed to the work of George C. Homans , Peter Blau , and Richard Emerson. Organizational sociologists James G. March and Herbert A. Simon noted that an individual's rationality is bounded by the context or organizational setting. The utilitarian perspective in sociology was, most notably, revitalized in the late 20th century by the work of former ASA president James Samuel Coleman . Overall, there

1890-545: Is that of social Darwinism , which applies the logic of biological evolution to the social world. This tradition often aligns with classical functionalism and is associated with several founders of sociology, primarily Herbert Spencer , Lester F. Ward and William Graham Sumner . Contemporary sociological theory retains traces of each of these traditions, which are by no means mutually exclusive. A broad historical paradigm in sociology, structural functionalism addresses social structures in its entirety and in terms of

1960-425: Is the apparent subject Structure and agency (or determinism and voluntarism ) form an enduring ontological debate in social theory: "Do social structures determine an individual's behaviour or does human agency?" In this context, agency refers to the capacity of an individual to act independently and make free choices, whereas structure relates to factors that limit or affect the choices and actions of

2030-415: Is theoretically multi-paradigmatic, encompassing a greater range of subjects, including communities , organizations , and relationships , than when the discipline first began. Strain theory is a theoretical perspective that identifies anomie (i.e. normlessness) as the result of a society that provides little moral guidance to individuals. Emile Durkheim (1893) first described anomie as one of

2100-415: Is to achieve understanding through observation, rather than data collection, using both micro and macro level analyses. Questions that are asked by this approach include: "How do we understand societies or interpersonal relations, while rejecting the theories and methods of the social sciences, and our assumptions about human nature?" and "How does power permeate social relations or society, and change with

2170-471: Is to advance significantly, must proceed on these interconnected planes: (1) by developing special theories from which to derive hypotheses that can be empirically investigated and (2) by evolving a progressively more general conceptual scheme that is adequate to consolidate groups of special theories. The term "middle-range theory" does not refer to a specific theory, but is rather an approach to theory construction. Raymond Boudon defines middle-range theory as

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2240-402: The symbolic interactionist tradition, accounting for theories of pragmatism ( Mead , Cooley ) and micro-level structure ( Simmel ). Likewise, utilitarianism (aka "rational choice" or " social exchange "), although often associated with economics , is an established tradition within sociological theory. Lastly, as argued by Raewyn Connell (2007), a tradition that is often forgotten

2310-608: The "Jewish" community has been the most likely to be victim to hate crimes in Canada in 2001–2002. Overall, about 57% of hate crimes are motivated by ethnicity and race, targeting mainly Blacks and Asians, while 43% target religion, mainly Judaism and Islam. A relatively small 9% is motivated by sexual orientation, targets gays and lesbians. Physical traits do not distinguish criminals from non criminals, but genetic factors together with environmental factors are strong predictors of adult crime and violence. Most psychologists see deviance as

2380-416: The ability to derive theoretical implications that could not be arrived at intuitively. As such, models typically used in mathematical sociology allow sociologists to understand how predictable local interactions are often able to elicit global patterns of social structure. Positivism is a philosophy, developed in the middle of the 19th century by Auguste Comte , that states that the only authentic knowledge

2450-542: The agency of non-human actors, and seeks to be explanatory rather than descriptive. However, because normalization process theory specifies a set of generative mechanisms that empirical investigation has shown to be relevant to implementation and integration of new technologies, it can also be used in larger scale structured and comparative studies. Although it fits well with the interpretive approach of ethnography and other qualitative research methods , it also lends itself to systematic review and survey research methods. As

2520-461: The biological analogy and notions of social evolutionism . As Giddens states: "Functionalist thought, from Comte onwards, has looked particularly towards biology as the science providing the closest and most compatible model for social science. Biology has been taken to provide a guide to conceptualizing the structure and the function of social systems and to analyzing processes of evolution via mechanisms of adaptation…functionalism strongly emphasizes

2590-427: The central theoretical problems is how to link , transcend or cope with the following "big three" dichotomies: Lastly, sociological theory often grapples with a subset of all three central problems through the problem of integrating or transcending the divide between micro- , meso- and macro -level social phenomena. These problems are not altogether empirical. Rather, they are epistemological : they arise from

2660-483: The choices of individuals? Synchrony and diachrony (or statics and dynamics ) within social theory are terms that refer to a distinction emerging out of the work of Levi-Strauss who inherited it from the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure . The former slices moments of time for analysis, thus it is an analysis of static social reality. Diachrony, on the other hand, attempts to analyze dynamic sequences. Following Saussure, synchrony would describe social phenomena at

2730-699: The circumstances?" One of the most prominent postmodernists in the approach's history is the French philosopher Michel Foucault . The general theory of crime refers to the proposition by Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi (1990) that the main factor in criminal behaviour is the individual's lack of self-control . Theorists who do not distinguish the differences that exist between criminals and noncriminals are considered to be classical or control theorists . Such theorists believe that those who perform deviant acts do so out of enjoyment without care for consequences. Likewise, positivists view criminals actions as

2800-408: The conceptual imagery and analytical analogies that sociologists use to describe the complexity of social processes. The issue of subjectivity and objectivity can be divided into a concern over (a) the general possibilities of social actions ; and (b) the specific problem of social scientific knowledge . In regard to the former, the subjective is often equated (though not necessarily) with "

2870-777: The consequences of their contributions). These constructs are the core of the theory, and provide the foundation of its analytic purchase on practice. The third iteration of the theory developed the analysis of agentic contributions by offering an account of centrally important structural and cognitive resources on which agents draw as they take action. Here, dynamic elements of social contexts are experienced by agents as capacity (the social structural resources, that they possess, including informational and material resources, and social norms and roles) and potential (the social cognitive resources that they possess, including knowledge and beliefs, and individual intentions and shared commitments). These resources are mobilized by agents when they invest in

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2940-402: The earlier "grand" theorizing of social theory , such as functionalism and many conflict theories . Raymond Boudon has argued that "middle-range" theory is the same concept that most other sciences simply call "theory". The analytical sociology movement has as its aim the unification of such theories into a coherent paradigm at a greater level of abstraction. Sociological theory, if it

3010-404: The effects of culture, race, or gender (i.e. social-historical structures). Important sociologists traditionally associated with this approach include George Herbert Mead , Herbert Blumer , and Erving Goffman . New contributions to the perspective, meanwhile, include those of Howard Becker , Gary Alan Fine , David Altheide , Robert Prus, Peter M. Hall, David R. Maines, as well as others. It

3080-448: The ensembles of practices that are the objects of implementation. Normalization process theory is regarded as a middle range theory that is located within the 'turn to materiality' in STS. It therefore fits well with the case-study oriented approach to empirical investigation used in STS. It also appears to be a straightforward alternative to actor–network theory in that it does not insist on

3150-470: The entire social world. He saw both the middle-range theory approach and middle-range theories themselves as temporary: when they matured, as natural sciences already had, the body of middle-range theories would become a system of universal laws ; but, until that time, social sciences should avoid trying to create a universal theory. Merton's original foil in the construction was Talcott Parsons , whose action theory C. Wright Mills later classified as

3220-548: The field of sociology initially dealt with broad historical processes relating to these changes. Through a well-cited survey of sociological theory, Randall Collins (1994) retroactively labels various theorists as belonging to four theoretical traditions: functionalism , conflict , symbolic interactionism , and utilitarianism . While modern sociological theory descends predominately from functionalist ( Durkheim ) and conflict -oriented ( Marx and Weber ) perspectives of social structure , it also takes great influence from

3290-510: The formation of social norms . The middle-range approach has played a role in turning sociology into an increasingly empirically oriented discipline. This was also important in post-war thought. In the post-war period, middle-range theory became the dominant approach to theory construction in all variable-based social sciences. Middle-range theory has also been applied to the archaeological realm by Lewis R. Binford , and to financial theory by Robert C. Merton , Robert K. Merton's son. In

3360-413: The former consists of abstract and testable propositions about society, heavily relying on the scientific method which aims for objectivity and to avoid passing value judgments . In contrast, social theory , according to Allan, focuses less on explanation and more on commentary and critique of modern society . As such, social theory is generally closer to continental philosophy insofar as it

3430-476: The idea that people may define the same behavior in any number of ways. Thus the labelling theory is a micro-level analysis and is often classified in the social-interactionist approach. A hate crime can be defined as a criminal act against a person or a person's property by an offender motivated by racial, ethnic, religious or other bias. Hate crimes may refer to race, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation and physical disabilities. According to Statistics Canada ,

3500-626: The individual " and the individual's intentions and interpretations of the "objective". The objective , on the other hand, is usually considered to be any public/external action or outcome, on up to society writ large . A primary question for social theorists is how knowledge reproduces along the chain of subjective-objective-subjective. That is to say, how is intersubjectivity achieved? While, historically, qualitative methods have attempted to tease out subjective interpretations, quantitative survey methods also attempt to capture individual subjectivities. Moreover, some qualitative methods take

3570-459: The individual (e.g. social class , religion , gender , ethnicity , etc.). Discussions over the primacy of either structure and agency relate to the core of sociological ontology , i.e. "what is the social world made of?", "what is a cause in the social world", and "what is an effect?". A perennial question within this debate is that of " social reproduction ": how are structures (specifically structures that produce inequality) reproduced through

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3640-418: The mechanisms through which participants invest and contribute to them. It reveals "the work that actors do as they engage with some ensemble of activities (that may include new or changed ways of thinking, acting, and organizing) and by which means it becomes routinely embedded in the matrices of already existing, socially patterned, knowledge and practices". These have explored objects, agents, and contexts. In

3710-566: The mechanisms through which people make their activities meaningful and build commitments to them. Here, investments of social structural and social cognitive resources are expressed as emergent contributions to social action through a set of generative mechanisms: coherence (what people do to make sense of objects, agency, and contexts); cognitive participation (what people do to initiate and be enrolled into delivering an ensemble of practices); collective action (what people do to enact those practices); and reflexive monitoring (what people do to appraise

3780-409: The necessary functions possessed by its constituent elements. A common parallel used by functionalists, known as the organic or biological analogy (popularized by Herbert Spencer ), is to regard norms and institutions as 'organs' that work toward the proper-functioning of the entire 'body' of society. The perspective was implicit in the original sociological positivism of Auguste Comte , but

3850-406: The objects – the ensembles of behavioural and cognitive practices – that they enact. These socio-material capabilities are governed by the possibilities and constraints presented by objects, and the extent to which they can be made workable and integrated in practice as they are mobilized. The second iteration of the theory built on the analysis of collective action, and showed how this was linked to

3920-503: The origins of conflict in societies are founded in the unequal distribution of resources and power. Though there is no universal definition of what "resources" necessarily includes, most theorists follow Max Weber 's point of view. Weber viewed conflict as the result of class , status , and power being ways of defining individuals in any given society. In this sense, power defines standards, thus people abide by societal rules and expectation due to an inequality of power. Karl Marx

3990-418: The pre-eminence of the social world over its individual parts (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects)." Conflict theory is a method that attempts, in a scientific manner, to provide causal explanations to the existence of conflict in society. Thus, conflict theorists look at the ways in which conflict arises and is resolved in society, as well as how every conflict is unique. Such theories describe that

4060-414: The presuppositions inherent in the fact that she is a social being, that she is therefore socialized and led to feel "like a fish in water" within that social world whose structures she has internalized? How can she prevent the social world itself from carrying out the construction of the object, in a sense, through her, through these unself-conscious operations or operations unaware of themselves of which she

4130-408: The result of "unsuccessful" socialization and abnormality in an individual personality. A psychopath can be defined as a serious criminal who does not feel shame or guilt from their actions, as they have little (if any) sympathy for the people they harm, nor do they fear punishment. Individuals of such nature may also be known to have an antisocial personality disorder . Robert D. Hare , one of

4200-505: The results of an inequitable division of labour within a society, observing that social periods of disruption resulted in greater anomie and higher rates of suicide and crimes. In this sense, broadly speaking, during times of great upheaval, increasing numbers of individuals "cease to accept the moral legitimacy of society," as noted by sociologist Anthony R. Mawson (1970). Robert K. Merton would go on to theorize that anomie, as well as some forms of deviant behavior , derive largely from

4270-468: The social structure." Prominent social theorists include: Jürgen Habermas , Anthony Giddens , Michel Foucault , Dorothy Smith , Roberto Unger , Alfred Schütz , Jeffrey Alexander , and Jacques Derrida . There are also prominent scholars who could be seen as being in-between social and sociological theories, such as: Harold Garfinkel , Herbert Blumer , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Pierre Bourdieu , and Erving Goffman . The field of sociology itself

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4340-561: The structure of capitalist economies, must sell their labor for wages. It is through this notion that conflict theories challenge historically dominant ideologies, drawing attention to such power differentials as class, gender and race. Conflict theory is therefore a macrosociological approach, in which society is interpreted as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and social change. Other important sociologists associated with social conflict theory include Harriet Martineau , Jane Addams , and W. E. B. Du Bois . Rather than observing

4410-489: The things that individuals and groups do to operationalize new or modified modes of practice as they interact with dynamic elements of their environments. It defines the implementation, embedding, and integration as a process that occurs when participants deliberately initiate and seek to sustain a sequence of events that bring it into operation. The dynamics of implementation processes are complex, but normalization process theory facilitates understanding by focusing attention on

4480-517: The ways in which social structures help societies to operate, this sociological approach looks at how "social patterns" cause certain individuals to become dominant in society, while causing others to be oppressed. Accordingly, some criticisms to this theory are that it disregards how shared values and the way in which people rely on each other help to unify society. Symbolic interaction —often associated with interactionism , phenomenological sociology , dramaturgy (sociology) , and interpretivism —is

4550-462: The ways in which we portray ourselves. This process, known as impression management , begins with the idea of personal performance. Mathematical theory (aka formal theory ) refers to the use of mathematics in constructing social theories. Mathematical sociology aims to sociological theory in formal terms, which such theories can be understood to lack. The benefits of this approach not only include increased clarity, but also, through mathematics,

4620-463: The world's leading experts on psychopathy, developed an important assessment device for psychopathy, known as the Psychopathy Checklist (revised). For many, this measure is the single, most important advancement to date toward what will hopefully become our ultimate understanding of psychopathy. Middle range theory (sociology) Middle-range theory , developed by Robert K. Merton ,

4690-459: Was developed out of the normalization process model . Normalization process theory, dealing with the adoption, implementation, embedding, integration, and sustainment of new technologies and organizational innovations, was developed by Carl R. May , Tracy Finch, and colleagues between 2003 and 2009. It was developed through ESRC funded research on Telehealth and through an ESRC fellowship to May. Its application to randomised controlled trials

4760-438: Was led by Professor Elizabeth Murray of University College London, and chararacterised normalization process theory as a trial killer . Through three iterations, the theory has built upon the normalization process model previously developed by May et al. to explain the social processes that lead to the routine embedding of innovative health technologies. Normalization process theory focuses attention on agentic contributions –

4830-413: Was theorized in full by Durkheim, again with respect to observable, structural laws. Functionalism also has an anthropological basis in the work of theorists such as Marcel Mauss , Bronisław Malinowski , and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown , the latter of whom, through explicit usage, introduced the " structural " prefix to the concept. Classical functionalist theory is generally united by its tendency towards

4900-408: Was thus directly opposed to the abstract theorizing of scholars who are engaged in the attempt to construct a total theoretical system covering all aspects of social life. With the introduction of the middle-range theory programme, he advocated that sociologists should concentrate on measurable aspects of social reality that can be studied as separate social phenomena , rather than attempting to explain

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