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examBoard: Cambridge
examType: IGCSE
lessonTitle: The interpretivist approach - validity and verstehen
While positivists believe society can be studied scientifically, interpretivists take a completely different view. They argue that humans are thinking, feeling beings who interpret the world around them - making society fundamentally different from the natural world. This means we need special approaches to understand human behaviour.
Key Definitions:
Positivism: Society operates according to laws that can be discovered through scientific methods. Focuses on patterns, trends and statistics.
Interpretivism: Society is created through shared meanings and interpretations. Focuses on understanding individual experiences and perspectives.
Max Weber: Introduced the concept of verstehen and argued sociology should focus on understanding social action.
Herbert Blumer: Developed symbolic interactionism, emphasising how people create meaning through interactions.
Max Weber introduced the concept of verstehen (pronounced "fair-SHTAY-en") as a way for sociologists to truly understand human behaviour. Rather than just observing what people do, verstehen involves trying to understand why they do it from their perspective.
Imagine you're studying teenagers who skip school. A positivist might count how many students skip and look for patterns. An interpretivist using verstehen would try to understand the meaning of skipping school from the teenagers' point of view - perhaps through in-depth interviews or spending time with them.
Put yourself in others' shoes to see the world as they see it.
Engage in meaningful conversations to understand people's interpretations.
Consider how people's backgrounds and experiences shape their views.
For interpretivists, getting valid (true and meaningful) data is much more important than gathering reliable (consistent and repeatable) data. They want to understand the real meanings behind human behaviour, not just measure it.
Interpretivists aim for high validity by:
Interpretivists accept lower reliability because:
Interpretivists prefer qualitative methods that allow them to gain in-depth understanding of people's perspectives and experiences. These methods help achieve verstehen and produce valid data.
Conversational interviews without fixed questions, allowing participants to express themselves freely and researchers to follow interesting leads.
Researchers join the group they're studying, participating in activities while observing to gain insider understanding.
In-depth study of a culture or group through immersion, often involving extended fieldwork and detailed note-taking.
Paul Willis conducted an interpretivist study of working-class 'lads' in a Birmingham school in the 1970s. Rather than just observing their behaviour, he spent time with them, interviewed them and tried to understand their anti-school attitudes from their perspective.
Using verstehen, Willis discovered that the 'lads' weren't simply failing at school - they were actively rejecting it because they saw little value in qualifications for the factory jobs they expected to get. Their behaviour had meaning and made sense within their cultural context.
This research demonstrated how interpretivist methods can reveal insights that statistical approaches might miss.
The interpretivist approach offers several important advantages for understanding society:
Despite its strengths, the interpretivist approach faces several important criticisms:
Let's look at how the interpretivist approach might be applied to understand different social phenomena:
Rather than just measuring exam results, interpretivists might explore how students experience school, what education means to them and how classroom interactions shape their identities.
Instead of categorising family types, interpretivists would investigate how family members understand their relationships and the meanings they attach to family practices.
Beyond crime statistics, interpretivists would seek to understand how criminals make sense of their actions and how communities interpret and respond to criminal behaviour.
Howard Becker used an interpretivist approach to study the culture of jazz musicians in Chicago. As a piano player himself, he had insider access and could understand their world from their perspective.
Through participant observation and interviews, Becker discovered that musicians had developed a distinct culture with their own language, values and norms. They distinguished between "hip" musicians who played for artistic satisfaction and "square" commercial musicians who played just for money.
This research demonstrated verstehen in action - Becker was able to understand the meanings musicians gave to their work and lifestyle choices, revealing a social world that would be invisible to outsiders or to statistical approaches.
The interpretivist approach reminds us that humans are meaning-making creatures who interpret the world around them. By using verstehen to understand these interpretations, sociologists can gain valid insights into why people behave as they do.
While interpretivists sacrifice some reliability and generalisability, they gain rich, detailed understanding of social life from the perspective of those living it. This approach complements more positivist methods, offering a fuller picture of society than either approach could provide alone.
Remember that good sociologists don't rigidly stick to one approach - they select methods appropriate to their research questions, often combining elements of both positivism and interpretivism to gain the most comprehensive understanding possible.
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