Like rational choice theory, conflict theory, or functionalism, pure sociology is a sociological paradigm — a strategy for explaining human behavior. Developed by Donald Black as an alternative to individualistic and social-psychological theories, pure sociology was initially used to explain variation in legal behavior. Since then, Black and other pure sociologists have used the strategy to explain terrorism, genocide, lynching, and other forms of conflict management as well as science, art, and religion.
Read more about Pure Sociology: Epistemology, Differences, Explanations, Practitioners, Criticism, Response To Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words pure and/or sociology:
“White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light.... They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters are they! We never learned meanness of them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Parenting, as an unpaid occupation outside the world of public power, entails lower status, less power, and less control of resources than paid work.”
—Nancy Chodorow, U.S. professor, and sociologist. The Reproduction of Mothering Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, ch. 2 (1978)