Sociology and Science: The Making of a Social Scientific Method

Abstract

Criticism against quantitative methods has grown in the context of “big-data”, charging an empirical, quantitative agenda with expanding to displace qualitative and theoretical approaches indispensable to the future of sociological research. Underscoring the strong convergences between the historical development of empiricism in the scientific method and the apparent turn to quantitative empiricism in sociology, this article uses content and hierarchical clustering analyses on the textual representations of journal articles from 1950 to 2010 to open dialogue on the epistemological issues of contemporary sociological research. In doing so, I push towards the conceptualization of a social scientific method, inspired by the scientific method from the philosophy of science and borne out of growing constructions of a systematically empirical representation among sociology articles. I articulate how this social scientific method is defined by three dimensions – empiricism, and theoretical and discursive compartmentalization –, and how, contrary to popular expectations, knowledge production consequently becomes independent of choice of research method, bound up instead in social constructions that divide its epistemological occurrence into two levels: (i) the way in which social reality is broken down into data, collected and analyzed, and (ii) the way in which this data is framed and made to recursively influence future sociological knowledge production. In this way, empiricism both mediates and is mediated by knowledge production not through the direct manipulation of method or theory use, but by redefining the ways in which methods are being labeled and knowledge framed, remembered, and interpreted.

Full text

Sociology and Science: The Making of a Social
Scientific Method
Anson Au
1
Published online: 10 June 2017
#The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication
Abstract Criticism against quantitative methods has grown in the context of Bbig-
data^, charging an empirical, quantitative agenda with expanding to displace qualitative
and theoretical approaches indispensable to the future of sociological research.
Underscoring the strong convergences between the historical development of empiri-
cism in the scientific method and the apparent turn to quantitative empiricism in
sociology, this article uses content and hierarchical clustering analyses on the textual
representations of journal articles from 1950 to 2010 to open dialogue on the episte-
mological issues of contemporary sociological research. In doing so, I push towards the
conceptualization of a social scientific method, inspired by the scientific method from
the philosophy of science and borne out of growing constructions of a systematically
empirical representation among sociology articles. I articulate how this social scientific
method is defined by three dimensions –empiricism, and theoretical and discursive
compartmentalization –, and how, contrary to popular expectations, knowledge pro-
duction consequently becomes independent of choice of research method, bound up
instead in social constructions that divide its epistemological occurrence into two
levels: (i) the way in which social reality is broken down into data, collected and
analyzed, and (ii) the way in which this data is framed and made to recursively
influence future sociological knowledge production. In this way, empiricism both
mediates and is mediated by knowledge production not through the direct manipulation
of method or theory use, but by redefining the ways in which methods are being labeled
and knowledge framed, remembered, and interpreted.
Keywords Empiricism .Methodology.Quantification .Knowledge production .
Science .Theory
Am Soc (2018) 49:98–115
DOI 10.1007/s12108-017-9348-y
*Anson Au
anson.au@alumni.lse.ac.uk
1
London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Methodology, Columbia
House, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK
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Introduction
At the beginning of the twentieth century, American sociology began extracting itself
from its theoretical and philosophical European influences in the development of the
discipline as Ban empirical and quantitative study^(Simmel 1950:xxiv-xxv), which
then receded with the revived appeal of select European contributions during the mid-
twentieth century.
1
Extending toward the late twentieth century, the rediscovered
interest in theory was sustained and defined by the emergence of, and subsequent
engagement with, wide-reaching social theoretical traditions that included Parsons’
structural functionalism (Parsons 1937), social exchange theory by George Homans
(1962)andPeterBlau(1967), conflict theory and its proponents among Lewis Coser
(1956) and Ralf Dahrendorf (1959), phenomenology (Husserl 1965; Spiegelberg 1960–
69), symbolic interactionism (Goffman 1959;Blumer1962). The philosophical tradi-
tions and forms of thought represented in these paradigms have since, according to
Gross (2007), disappeared from the face of sociology, its presence in the education and
practice of sociology deemed dispensable for its treatment of the ideal (Bunge 1999;
see also Riesch 2014), providing little more than a sense of intellectual and political
purpose with its pragmatist progeny (Rucker 1969:162; Gross 2007).
But the battles over methodological and theoretical choices have returned (Babones
2016; Burrows and Savage 2014; Byrne 2012). In the March 2016 issue of the British
Journal of Sociology, Swedberg (2016a), joined by a host of scholars, admonished
against the marginalization of theory and its creation (theorizing) in sociological studies
by methodological practice and education, and by extension, the empiricist tradition (see
also Krause (2016), Bertilsson (2016)). Implicated is the failure of a theory construction
movement and its formalized aspirations, displaced by grounded theory as a lukewarm
attempt at reconstructing data; these efforts overburden induction, constituting a Bbag of
tricks^(Becker 1998,2014) that offers little more than Ba ritualistic nod towards the
mandatory data analysis statement in a methods section^(Tavory 2016). Theorizing
remains, within this camp, Bnot a methodology and…not a science…[but] a kind of
pedagogy, and as such a branch of social theory^(Swedberg 2016b).
The propositions put forth, however, stand challenged by assertions that theorizing is
actually commonplace (Abbott 2012), grounded on claims that the standards with which
to evaluate theoretical productions are localized (in what may be called Bgenerational
paradigms^)
2
; in other words, the isolated but concurrent development of disparate
research agendas across communities suggest a severely fragmented enterprise of social
scientific theory construction impossible to overcome (Abbott 2001). These debates on
1
Notable among which were Talcott Parsons’The Structure of Social Action (1937) and new English
translations of Max Weber. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action, a Study in Social Theory with
Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers [Durkheim, Pareto, M. Weber], New York and
London: McGraw-Hill, 1937 (reprinted, Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1949). Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism, tr. Talcott Parsons, London: Allen and Unwin; New York: Scribner, 1930; From
Max Weber: Essays in Sociology; The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, tr. A. M. Henderson and
Talcott Parsons, New York: Oxford University Press, 1947; On the Methodology of the Social Sciences, tr. and
ed. Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch, Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1949.
2
Abbott (2001) refers to these pockets of research communities as Bgenerational paradigms^,orBcumulating
little programs of social science in which this or that group is rediscovering some important truth in a
disciplined and corporate way^(as cited in Abbott (2012))
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quantification arise simultaneously with recent linguistic and psychological research
that identify greater attention to causal connections in education, technology, and
science in Western societies throughout the twentieth century (Iliev and Axelrod
2016); reflected is a changed form of culture that motivates causality in psychological
cognition (Penn and Povinelli 2007), as operationalized through causal attribution and
causal judgments (Norenzayan and Nisbett 2000).
That these conflicts on quantification are fundamentally aligned across multiple
dimensions of methodology, theory, and discourse gives credence to how the
implications of methodology extend beyond itself to affect issues of theory and,
ultimately, the Bscientific development^of sociology (Horowitz 1994:22). Against
this backdrop, this article aims to evaluate claims against empiricism by schemat-
ically measuring the convergences and divergences of the development of socio-
logical methods against those of the scientific method in the philosophy of
science. Doing so unearths the extent to which a Bsocial scientific method^–a
privileged mode of knowledge production –is emerging in the sociological
discipline, like that among the natural sciences. Moreover, by gleaning insights
from the history and philosophy of science, we can further uncover and assess the
future trajectories of sociological knowledge production. Content and hierarchical
clustering analyses were applied on abstracts and titles of journal articles from
1950 to 2010 to ascertain changes in the discursive constructions used to frame
and represent sociology. I will use these preliminary analyses to open dialogue on
a set of preoccupations concerned about the development of a social scientific
method, measured against the scientific method.
The Development of the Scientific Method
Historical Preliminaries
What is the nature of science? The answer has changed from time to time. Surveying
the development of scientific methods across history, four phases emerge in historical
investigations of the nature of science (Hoyningen-Huene 2008):
1. From Plato to the seventeenth century: the distinction between episteme and doxa
(belief), of which the former was irrevocable science.
2. From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century: the inclusion of inductive
practices in a set of procedures labelled Bscientific methods^, grounded on the still-
unshakable certainty of scientific knowledge;
3. From the mid-nineteenth century to late twentieth century: empirical data produced
by Bscientific methods^are recognized as fallible, though still afforded a Bspecial^
or privileged status;
4. From the late twentieth century to present: the dissolution of consensus concerning
the nature of science, and of belief in the scientific method as a Bspecial^mode of
knowledge production (Hoyningen-Huene 2008).
Presently, there is little consensus among philosophers, historians, or scientists about
the specific nature of science, but their debates converge on accepting the Bspecialness^
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of science that distinguish it from alternate forms of knowledge, and which are
organized around systematicity. Taking this as a point of departure, historical assess-
ments have consistently articulated eight dimensions of this systematicity, the combi-
nation of which were taken to consist the definition of science: descriptions, explana-
tions, predictions, defense of knowledge claims, epistemic connectedness, ideal of
completeness, knowledge generation, and representation of knowledge.
Progressing Through the Phases: Intellectual Movements
What drives progression through these phases? To find an answer, we should turn to
how intellectual paradigm shifts are generated. Drawing from general scientific/
intellectual movements (SIM) theory (Frickel and Gross 2005), the factors driving
scientific movement and changes in intellectual paradigms consist of: (i) a coherent
program for intellectual advancement, transforming thought and affecting knowledge
circulation; (ii) resistance against norms; (iii) contention arises within intellectual fields
in political contest with what appears to be an unequal distribution of power (Bourdieu
1988), from which emerges (iv) collective actions of resistance in the forms of scholarly
publications; (v) variation in the aims and scope of quantified empiricism across
disparate subdisciplines/topics; (v) and whether these trends are episodic.
Tab le 1illustrates how empiricism within sociological forms of knowledge aligns
with these criteria, giving credence to the symmetry between the two histories of
scientific methods. Whilst the dimensions of systematicity are present in the develop-
ment of sociological praxis, what qualities may be unique to sociology? Against these
backdrops, which phase has sociological knowledge progressed to? Have quantitative,
empirical methods truly become a Bspecial^or standard mode of production? How
have the representations adopted by American sociology changed, within its supposed
quantitative shift?
Tab l e 1 Empiricism in sociological knowledge compared against SIM characteristics
Empiricism SIM characteristics
(i) Empiricism prescribes specific methodological foci rooted
in scientificity for how to best study sociology and to
advance the discipline (Hanson 2008).
Coherent program for scientific
advancement.
(ii) Empirical and quantitative ideas and methods resisted
against the predominance of social theoretical
traditions, empowering positivism (Goode 1960).
Core of intellectual practices contend against
normative expectations.
(iii) Statistical analysis grew to fuel professionalization across
disciplines, and altered and proliferated in policy
groups and think-tanks (Howard 1981:98).
Alter distributions of power and resources.
(iv) General growth in the number of scholarly publications
with statistical methods (Burrows and Savage 2014)
and journals dedicated to quantitative approaches.
Collective actions that spread particular
ideas in intellectual networks.
(v) Variation in the scope of quantified empiricism across
disparate subdisciplines/topics, including
statistical methodology.
Vary in intellectual aim and scope, with new
methods and rule-making procedures.
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Data and Methods
Sample
The criteria for selecting journals were guided by the qualities of having a high impact
factor, to ensure the journals’representation of major interests among contemporary
American sociology given its importance in the American social sciences (Adkins and
Budd 2006;Jacobs2011,2016), and general thematic interests, in principle open to the
publication of all topics without overt bias. Keeping this in mind, the American Journal
of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, and Social Forces were selected to best
ensure that any trends identified actually reflect voluntarily decided interests among
American sociologists from 1950 –theheydayofAmericansociology–to 2010.
Sampling
Sampling occurred in two phases, using a systematic sampling procedure,contraryto
random sampling. Whereas the latter is most appropriate for detecting collective
patterns within a single, homogeneous corpus of texts, the ability to trace developments
of these patterns longitudinally across heterogeneous periods remains accessible only
by a systematic sampling over the period of interest, lost to random sampling. The first
phase incorporated the selection of articles from all issues of a single year for every ten
years from 1950 to 2010. Sampling and recording units converged in their definition of
journal articles as thematic or semantic units (Krippendorff 1980:61ff). The American
Journal of Sociology publishes six issues per year, with six to seven articles in each
issue, for a total of 283 articles; the American Sociological Review published six issues
per year, with eight articles in each issue, for a total of 223 articles; Social Forces
publishes four issues a year, with seventeen articles in each issue,
3
for a total of 288
articles. From the seven rounds of selection between 1950 and 2010, the total corpus of
recording units amounted to 794 journal articles. The second phase of selection
involved systematically selecting every fifth article from a randomly selected start
amongst the lists of articles for each journal. The American Journal of Sociology
produced a sample of 58 articles, the American Sociological Review produced a sample
of 66 articles, and Social Forces produced a sample of 58 articles. The final, total
sample thus amounted to 182 articles (n=182).
Methods
The articles were imported into QDA Miner and content analysis was performed using
Wordstat, enabling a thematic analysis tobe conducted using all titles and abstracts from
the corpus of texts. Titles and abstracts were chosen, as they best captured the matter of
representation; body texts would not have tapped into this dimension sufficiently.
Content analysis systematically and publicly manipulates large amounts of naturally
3
Social Forces only started publishing from 1974 onwards. However, the paucity of articles from 1950 to
1960 are partially accounted for by the journal’s more extensive publishing schedule (it publishes more articles
per year than the other two journals).
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occurring materials to construct historical data (Bauer 2001:147). By producing
collective-level data, it leaves enough room for interpretation to uncover social trends
among representations presented by the materials (ibid:133). Two functions of content
analysis best accommodate it to the research agenda: (1) constructing a text corpus as an
open system by continuously adding texts to capture the recent progression of method-
ological trends; and (2) the construction of indices, to describe an index of the social and
philosophical values behind the methods of choice (Krippendorff 1980). Given the
significance of journal articles in American sociology (Cronin et al. 1997) and their
status as texts produced for an alternate purpose (Bauer 2001:136), they were selected as
the recording units for my collection of textual data. They most accessibly allow for
diagnosis and assessment the interests of the discipline as texts available in digital
archives within institutional libraries and respective journal webpages, proffering op-
portunities to analyze historical perspectives and developments, otherwise unavailable
to participant data collection tools. Furthermore, this tests the hypothesis that the
representation of sociology is tending towards empiricist, systematic frames by illumi-
nating the discourse used to frame articles as knowledge productions.
Frequency analysis and hierarchical clustering techniques were then used to induc-
tively explore the themes embedded from the dataset. Subsequently, I created a
categorization dictionary that grouped the text according to five major themes: (1)
examination and measurement; (2) structure and function; (3) analyses, evidence,
hypotheses; (4) external reference; and (5) system (see Appendix for further
information on these dictionaries).
Structured Ways of Measurement and Analysis
A content analysis for word appearances was conducted using title and abstract data
from the sample. In Wordstat, the results of the initial analysis were filtered by removing
words that fell under at least one of two categories: (i) words pertinent to substantial or
topical issues in the articles (i.e. Bpower^,Bgender^, etc.); and (ii) Bleftover^words with
very small frequencies (fewer than ten appearances). Following this initial sweep, 60
words
4
remained that were directly pertinent to the dimensions of systematicity in the
philosophy of science, with frequencies that ranged from 72 appearances in 53 cases
(Bresearch^) to 10 appearances in 2 cases (Bmatching^). That is, all the remaining words
gravitated towards aspects of measurement, systems, evidence, examination, analysis,
prediction, and connectedness to external bodies of work.
Figure 1compares the frequencies of the top fifteen most used words by year (see
Appendix for descriptive frequencies and for full dictionary of the 60 words).
5
Six of
the words –Bresearch^,Bdata^,Bstudy^,Banalysis^,Bfindings^,Bdifferences^–were
used from 1950 or prior; another six –Btheory^,Beffects^,Bsupport^,Bstructure^,
4
The 60 keywords included in Fig. 1essentially consist of words that deal with aspects of Bmethodology^,
rather than the entire corpus of keywords (n> 200); the 60 keywords was consistent with the hierarchical
clustering in Fig. 3, which grouped them into thematic clusters within Bmethodology^.
5
Rather than conducting a coding frequency for all the words from top cluster in the hierarchical clustering
analysis (Banalyses, evidence, hypotheses^), which would’ve appeared difficult to interpret and analyze with
34 diagrams to follow.
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Bsystem^,Beffect^–were only used by 1960; and the remaining three –Bmodel^,
Bresults^,Brates^–by 1970. Almost all words have declined in frequency since 1950,
most notable among them Banalysis^, whose frequency dropped from 15.79% among
the 60 words in 1950 to 2.96% by 2010 (see Table 2in Appendix).
Throughout 1950 to 2010, use of the words Bresearch^,Bdata^,Bstudy^have
remained steady or returned to their former high frequencies, indicating the consistency
of empiricism as a mode of representing sociological articles. The organization of
abstracts demonstrated compartmentalization into the description of a research question
or inquiry, followed by research data and method used in its exploration, and the main
results summarized. In one study of Vatican voting politics, for instance, the authors
preface their abstract by noting they Bexplore the national factors that predict bishops’
votes on two of the most contentious issues at the Second Vatican Council^. They then
identify their data source as the BVatican Secret Archive,^after which Banalyses
[demonstrated] that rational choice oriented theory in the sociology of religion that
focuses on competition is limited^(Wilde et al. 2010).
Comparing this with two earlier articles, also investigating the sociology of religion in
the same journal,
6
helps illuminate the conditions of empiricism’s function as a discursive
framing mechanism, contingent on use of methodology rather than time period. All three
elements in the same compartmentalization was observed in an empirical study of
Catholicism written in 1960, where its abstract demonstrated its inquiry, data source
and methods, as well as results in a comparable order: Bin an urban community in
northern Florida patterns of social integration among Catholic migrants were analyzed.
Seven sets of attitudinal scales were constructed, and the area of value integration was
compared with patterns of social participation and degrees of identification with the
South. It was found that manifestation of attitudinal inconsistency seemed to have been
distinctive of the ‘high’Catholicity group rather than of the ‘low.’"(Liu1960).
Fig. 1 Coding frequency of the top fifteen words of use (pertaining to aspects of measurement, system,
evidence, etc.) among articles by year (compares their frequencies and their relative distribution over time)
6
The American Journal of Sociology.
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Continuing with this example, in the abstract of a non-empirical (theoretical)
study of Judaism in 1960, no references were made to methodology. Intriguingly,
the compartmentalization observed in the other abstracts, despite their common
subtopic, was absent, delving principally into the iteration of results (Wax 1960).
But that the majority of the most frequently used words selected have declined over
time also suggests the concurrent adoption of alternate discursive constructions. In
particular, discursive frames being used are constructed based on words not cap-
tured or related to aspects of measurement, systems, evidence, examination, anal-
ysis, prediction, or connectedness to external bodies of work through references.
Two possibilities arise in the attempt to understand these frames, drawing reference
from the themes initially filtered out: (i) Bleftover^words with very small frequen-
cies (fewer than ten appearances). As a result, content (frequency) analysis would
offer limited assistance beyond sensitizing scholars to the extent to which this is the
case, given the sheer volume of Bleftover words^; (ii) Word usage has shifted to
encompass substantial or topical issues. Figure 2, comprised of the most used
topical words from the unfiltered corpus of keywords,
7
provides some evidence
of this, indicated by the growth and frequencies of certain topical words superior to
those of words from Fig. 1,suchasBsocial^,Bpolitical^,andBorganizational^; (iii)
the diversification of interests, wherein topics and words to describe them are
generated by an expanding scope of sociological inquiry.
Empiricist Frames and the Use of Concepts
Hierarchical clustering was used to uncover clusters generated from co-occurrences
of the most common words or phrases, taken to construe topics or themes in the
data. Seven clusters were generated,
8
but two were removed as a result of low word
counts (full categorization dictionary in Table 3under the Appendix).
9
Comparing
these results with the fifteen words from Fig. 1, thirteen were from the Banalyses,
evidence, hypotheses^theme, while the remaining two were from the Bsystem^
theme(seeTable3).
Figure 3shows the relative weight of each of the five themes over time. It
also shows the consistency with which Banalyses, evidence, hypotheses^were
used and acquired prominence over the other four themes (Bexamination and
measurement^,Bstructure and function^,Bexternal reference^,andBsystem^).
Empiricism as a discursive frame gains credence from the growing frequency
of words along the lines of Banalyses^,Bevidence^,Bhypotheses^–closely
aligning with the systematic elements of compartmentalization (inquiry, data
and analysis, results) observed with the vocabulary frequency analysis. Thus,
7
Figure 2needed to draw from an unfiltered corpus of keywords in order to obtain topical keywords.
8
Any higher number of clusters did not stratify Banalyses, evidence, hypotheses^, the largest cluster. For
instance, this cluster consisted of 39 words at seven clusters; increasing the number of clusters (to eight) only
shrunk the other clusters; conversely, reducing the number of clusters (to six) added to the size of this cluster.
Seven clusters thus provided the smallest difference in size or the most even distribution of size among the
clusters.
9
Clusters with only one word in them were removed.
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Fig. 3also further illustrates the persistence of compartmentalization among
representations of sociology across time.
These results resonate with the historical turn away from theory, but also illuminates
where it stands today: in the wake of the disappearance of big-theory or theoretical
thinking (Swedberg 2016a,b), a new Bmicro-theory^emerged; a novel means of doing
theory, micro-theory refers to thinking in terms of concepts, and the intellectual means
by which these concepts are constructed. Systems of thought are parceled into con-
cepts, which are then extracted to be applied within increasingly localized problems
and studies (Ivinson et al. 2011).
Fig. 3 Framing of articles by thematic clusters(shows the relative weight of each of the five clusters over time
across all journals)
Fig. 2 Coding frequency of top sixteen words of use (pertaining to topics) among articles by year. 16, rather
than 15 to match Fig. 1, for the fact that Bblack^and Bchildren^share identical frequencies
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Constructing Social Representations: Empiricism and Systematicity
in Sociology
Communication scholars assert that there is no such thing as bias –only the construction
of representations. Whilst the content and hierarchical analyses’results help to better
contextualize contemporary debates on the development and trajectory of sociological
ways of knowing by illuminating the representations of a quantitative, empirical method
in journal articles, a theoretical approach is required to make sense of these representa-
tions in broader epistemological changes within the discipline. Keeping this in mind,
social representations theory helps unpack the ways in which this process works.
Representation, according to Bauer and Gaskell (1999), is embodied in both com-
munication and in individual minds, comprising of three elements: subjects conducting
the representation, the represented object, and the project from which the representation
draws its context. Subjects (S) are theorized to interact in ways that give shape to an
object (O), a process which, over time, accumulates into a project (P) with a direction.
Mediating between this triadic relationship and the dimension of temporality renders
visible a Btoblerone^model (Fig. 4).
The structure of representations negotiated between subjects and objects is rooted in
the processes of anchoring, the classification of novel ideas/things, and objectification,
the reification of ideas (Moscovici 1984); all occur through the distribution and
exchange of images, exemplars, and models, constituting the empirical data for study-
ing social representations (Bauer and Gaskell 1999). Specific to the question of how
sociology represents itself, mediums of representation include the words and terms with
which published research is described, while modes of representation deal principally
with habitual practices, operationalized as how research is framed.
Social representations theory offers a distinct approach to depict the discursive
constructions (or the representation) of sociology, and ultimately drawing connections
between elements in their structure and the dynamics of a broader project. For this
reason, the epistemological trends in sociological knowledge production can be
Fig. 4 The Btoblerone^model of social representations (Bauer and Gaskell 1999)
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conceptualized as the mobile project (P) within the toblerone model of social repre-
sentations. Unearthing the contexts of sociology’s representational project (P) would
shed light on the repertoire of assumptions that motivate and organize sociological
research practice (Bauer and Gaskell 2008), ultimately excavating the determinants and
directions of collective activity within the discipline (Israel and Tajfel 1972).
Where individual authors/articles would be conceptualized as subjects (S) in the
toblerone model of social representations (Bauer and Gaskell 1999), the ways in
which words are used constitutes the mediation process by which a more abstract
object (O) is established between the subjects. The rising eminence of words
redolent of Banalyses^,Bevidence^,Bhypotheses^–closely aligning with the
systematic elements of compartmentalization (inquiry, data and analysis, results)
observed with the vocabulary frequency analysis points to how systematic empir-
icism was the discursive frame constructed, an abstract object (O) emergent from
mediation between articles (S) using words.
Taking systematic empiricism to comprise the abstract object (O), its adherent
conditions and changes can be mapped onto a larger project concerning the represen-
tation of sociology as a discipline (P). That the popularity of empiricism as a discursive
frame in American sociology is consistent throughout time indicates that the ways in
which research is framed is, in part, independent of choice of method. This finding runs
counter to the claims admonishing against the displacement of non-empirical, quanti-
tative ways of knowing. It urges the separation of the resistance for theory and the
resistance for qualitative methods, whose lines of inquiry are often entangled: articles
applying qualitative methods play a part in recreating the empiricist frame with which
quantitative-based articles are constructed. We observe the cessation of more and more
ground to through the processes of compartmentalization in theoretical terms –the
growing use concepts as micro-theory –and in discursive terms –framing even
qualitative results according to the same empiricist traditions. Mapping these trends
into the future of the representation of sociology, they lend partial corroboration to
speculations of how the proclivity towards empiricism as a mode of construction (Iliev
and Axelrod 2016), and a substitute for dialogue (qualitative descriptions).
The Making of a Social Scientific Method
The Development of Sociological Methods in their Historical Context
Scholars have made note of how, from the mid-1960s, diversions from theory (Calhoun
2007;Platt1996) were compounded by the apparent disillusionment with Marx under
accusations of economic reductionism (Zeitlin 1973:110) in reproducing an empiricist
fervor with quantitatively methodological overtones that was nurtured by increasingly
bureaucratized and specialized institutions (Howard 1981:3; Zeitlin 2001:234), and
professionalized disciplines within American social science (Goode 1960). The begin-
nings of these changes are commonly attributed to influxes of federal and private
funding during and following World War II (Kleinman 1995; Price 2003; Turner and
Turner 1990). But more than the obligations imposed by material resources in shaping
sociologists’epistemological orientations, it was the BFordist forms of societal regula-
tion [that] resonated powerfully with social science positivism^that encouraged
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Bthe epistemic realignment in sociology by making positivism seem more plau-
sible…Fordism as a mode of social regulation insisted on the ontological reality
of ‘the social’as an object, and…as a result, sociologists were especially fixated
on the predictable, repeated regularities of social existence inside the U.S.
metropole.^(Steinmetz 2007)
Implicated is a demand for statistical analysis in servitude of administrative purposes
and to constitute the basis for rational, precise, real decision-making in American
sociology (Howard 1981:98). That the bureaucratic restructuring of institutions accord-
ing to hierarchical, rigid standards is irreversible (Zeitlin 2001:236) and that social
research activity organized around quantitative methodology, increasingly intersected
with computer science, has proliferated in social policy groups and think-tanks indicate
that this new form of rationality still persists.
Though sociology as an institutionalized, distinct discipline is far shorter lived than
its scientific counterpart, we can nevertheless measure these observations in historio-
graphic scholarship against the schematic evolution of the scientific method to give
shape to the following phases in sociological development:
1. Pre-WWII: methodological pluralism in which qualitative and theory played a
stronger role than quantitative methods.
2. From WWII to 1960s: the proliferation of statistics as they begin to become the
epicenter of sociological inquiry.
3. From the 1960s to present: the displacement of theory and non-quantitatively
empirical methods by quantitative methods as they become a Bspecial^mode of
knowledge production.
The content and hierarchical clustering analyses’results further refine this picture by
revealing important distinctions. The sense of infallibility that defined the early phases
of scientific development is absent in sociology. It is more common for empirical
results to be questioned on the grounds of context and positionality, for instance. But
are quantitative methods imbued with a Bspecial^or privileged status? Evidence
suggests that quantitative methods have grown to become the predominant mode of
knowledge production in American sociology (Au and Bauer 2017). The results here
supplement this conclusion by altering the foundation of the question: what we observe
is not just a common method being used, but a common method that is being
constructed. That is, the diversity of methods used over the past half century converge
upon a common approach, evinced by the identical ways in which sociological
knowledge is framed and representations of social reality constructed.
But in hindsight, on account of the persistence of these trends throughout the years, it
was not Fordism that drove them. So what did? Corroborating yet splitting from scholars
on quantitative, qualitative, and theoretical sides of the debates, the picture of sociolog-
ical knowledge production being painted here is more complex than suggested by any
side. We can observe how knowledge production is epistemologically occurring on two
levels: (i) the way in which social reality is broken down into data, collected and
analyzed, and (ii) the way inwhich this data is framed, and madeto recursively influence
future sociological knowledge production. Whilst there is no single technique or method
that takes precedence in (i), such as regressions, linear models, etc. (ibid), the evidence
Am Soc (2018) 49:98–115 109
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suggests that the production of knowledge and the application of these techniques,
diverse as they are, is being credited to the same approach. Thus, empiricism both
mediates and is mediated by knowledge production not through the direct manipulation
of method or even theory use, but by redefining the ways in which methods are being
labeled and knowledge framed and remembered. In this way, systematic empiricism is
the approach, not method, of knowledge production that becomes too embedded in
American social scientific conduct to be displaced (White 1998).
Tenets of Sociological Systematicity
Just as the concept of systematicity bound together all the disparate definitions of the
scientific method in a set of dimensions, what are the dimensions that constitute the
social scientific method or the approach of systematic empiricism? The results identify
dimensions of the scientific systematicity within this approach. Despite the fact that
frequencies of words pertaining to models and measurement (Fig. 1)haveindividually
decreased, there are collectively more of them in usage by 2010: a surge in new words
around 1960–1970 coincides with a drastic rise several indicators of scientificity,
lending some empirical corroboration to hitherto theoretical attributions of quantifica-
tion to a 1960s Fordist rationale, which shares many characteristics with quantified,
systematized scientificity (Steinmetz 2007). Indeed, imagined as a project (P) extended
over time, the representation of sociology continues its subjection to an empiricist
(object (O)) discursive frame, converging with its propulsion towards an increasingly
systematized and rigidized standard of knowledge production and communication
seeking to Bimitate the quantifying methods and opaque idiom of the hard sciences^
(Nisbet 2002[1976]:xi).
But whilst the dimensions of scientific systematicity are present in the development
of sociological praxis (Au and Bauer 2017), what additional qualities of a social
scientific method exist that are unique to social science? Or rather, what distinguishes
systematic empiricism from the scientific concept of systematicity? Perusing the
analyses’results, several articulations are possible:
1. Empiricism: using methods to explore social reality through measurement. Unlike
science, social science carries a tradition of using theory to interpret reality; the
point of contact between reality and ourselves is intrapersonal. By approaching the
quest to uncovering knowledge with measurement, the contact between researcher
and reality becomes pushed outside ourselves. It does not matter how we explore
social reality, so long as it can be broken down into data and demonstrated to be
measurable and outside ourselves.
2. Discursive compartmentalization: reorganizing the body of a scholarly production
to comply with a structured form. The order forced upon the presentation of
knowledge not only represents an attempt to make it relatable and legitimized,
but simultaneously reorganizes the way knowledge is understood –social reality
becomes structured and breakable in ways beyond the article, rigidizing our ways
of knowing, of remembering, and of interpreting.
3. Theoretical compartmentalization: breaking apart systems of thought into smaller
concepts, which are extracted from their original context to be applied to other
110 Am Soc (2018) 49:98–115
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contexts and research problems. The widely held imperative for generalizability
best evinces and motivates the latter two dimensions, representing a bid to connect
researchers to others, and localized knowledge to larger currents of research.
Discussion
In response to expansion of Big Data (Benoit 2015), moral panics have erupted
between embattled qualitative/theoretical and quantitative camps over the future of
sociological research and methods deemed external to an empirical, quantitative agen-
da. Strong convergences are drawn between this apparent recent turn to quantitative
empiricism in sociology and empiricism in the historical development of the scientific
method. Keeping this in mind, this article scopes the extent to which these claims made
against an encroaching quantitative empiricism are true by comparing the discursive
constructions employed by mainstream sociologists with the development of science,
ultimately pushing towards a more complex conceptualization of empiricism and
epistemology. A key result concerns the systematic framing of articles that even
qualitatively grounded studies endorse, urging scholars to grow more sensitized not
only to the distinction between the often enjoined qualitative and theoretical camps in
their battle against quantification, but also to the differentiation of two levels in
knowledge production: analysis, and construction.
Surveying this construction, content and hierarchical analyses show a surge in words
that resonate with several indicators of scientificity (dimensions of systematicity) and
which discursively construct an empiricist, systematic frame. Comparable with the
qualities of the scientific method, this frame constitutes a new social scientific method
that is not used, but constructed as an approach. Empiricism is both mediates and is
mediated by knowledge production not through the direct manipulation of method or
even theory use, but by redefining the ways in which methods are being labeled and
knowledge framed and remembered. Imagining sociology as a collection of representa-
tions extended over time, built upon an empiricist (object) discursive frame mediated by
articles (subjects), the social scientific method is becoming embedded in social scientific
culture and propelled towards empiricism, discursive compartmentalization, and theoret-
ical compartmentalization. Systematic empiricism, or the culmination of these dimen-
sions, in sociology attempts to organize research according to grand narratives spanning
multiple contexts. The effect of this ordering surpasses the article, going so far as to inflict
a predictable order upon the way research is conducted and social reality perceived.
The merits of this essentially deductive approach are questionable. On the one hand,
it implies the promise of a more connected, cohesive community of social researchers –
beginning the road to much needed concerted intellectual action in a wildly
fragmenting modernity. But on the other, it possesses the perils of every deductive
approach: foreclosing the possibilities of understanding phenomena beyond what is
predetermined, wherein the only promise of flexibility or induction that remains is the
slight re-purposing of the original categories to accommodate for Banomalies^(Kuhn
1962;Popper1963; Lakatos 1978); at its core, neglecting potentially promising
observations (Adorno 1998:28, 32–4). And as the social scientific method extents to
even qualitative methods, the recursivity central to verifying the quality of social
research –the shuttling between the use of predefined coding categories for analysis
Am Soc (2018) 49:98–115 111
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and developing newly identified codes for analysis (LeCompte and Schensul 2013)–
becomes bound to deductive forms, individuals and observations moving about a fluid
social reality are fitted into predetermined categories. The contributions made by this
article shed light on the layers of reality buried in old debates –quantification and non-
quantification –whilst stimulating thought on new ones: will a rigidized research
agenda successfully reorganize knowledge and its production in ways that better
connect scholars? Has generalizability run its course as a standard for knowledge
production under the social scientific method, when pitted against the merits of
localization –exploring, addressing, and maximizing on local, present contexts?
Having laid out the foreground for these lines of inquiry, this article opens dialogue
on their pressing challenges for the future of social research, whose solutions will come
by interdisciplinary discussion across and among sociology, methodology, philosophy,
and history.
Acknowledgements Thanks are due to Martin Bauer and Flora Cornish, whose comments have enriched
this paper as a result.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflicts of Interest The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest.
Appendix
Tab l e 2 The frequencies of fifteen most used words in titles and abstracts compared over time (as a
proportion of 60 total keywords)
Wor d Ye ar
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Research 7.89% 5.84% 4.69% 6.12% 2.02% 4.95% 5.56%
Data 5.26% 4.38% 5.08% 5.44% 2.42% 4.05% 7.04%
Study 10.53% 2.19% 5.08% 2.72% 1.61% 4.50% 7.04%
Theory 6.57% 4.69% 4.42% 6.45% 1.80% 2.59%
Analysis 15.79% 0.73% 3.13% 4.08% 4.84% 4.95% 2.96%
Effects 5.11% 1.95% 1.02% 3.63% 5.86% 5.56%
Model 3.52% 4.76% 2.42% 5.41% 1.85%
Findings 5.26% 2.92% 1.95% 4.76% 1.21% 2.70% 4.07%
Support 2.92% 1.17% 3.06% 4.84% 2.25% 2.96%
Structure 8.03% 1.17% 2.72% 3.23% 1.80% 1.85%
Results 1.56% 3.06% 3.63% 3.60% 2.96%
Differences 2.63% 1.46% 1.17% 2.72% 2.82% 5.41% 1.48%
System 7.30% 1.56% 1.36% 1.61% 2.70% 3.33%
Rates 3.52% 1.36% 2.82% 4.05% 2.22%
Effect 1.46% 1.17% 1.70% 4.44% 1.35% 3.70%
112 Am Soc (2018) 49:98–115
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Tab l e 3 Wordstat categorization dictionary for hierarchical cluster analysis
Analyses, evidence, hypotheses (39)
Analyses Outcomes
Analysis Patterns
Data Rates
Differences
1
Relationship
Effect Research
Effects Results
Empirical Sample
Evidence Significant
Explanations Structure
Factors Studies
Findings Study
Hypotheses Support
Hypothesis Terms
Impact Tested
Implications Test
Level Tests
Levels Theoretical
Measures Theories
Model Theory
Models
External reference (5) Examination & measurement (8)
Differential Control
Literature Distribution
Policy Examined
Relations Identification
Structures Measure
Rate
Relationships
Variables
System (3) Structure & function (3)
Pattern Function
System Interaction
Systems Structural
Leftover words (2)
Matching
Relations
Bolded are the fifteen most frequently used words (from Fig. 1)
Am Soc (2018) 49:98–115 113
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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and repro-
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