Pure Sociology

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:

    A man’s social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.
    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)