... They believe that sociology cannot be scientific because it is subjective (biased). Therefore, they believe that sociological research cannot be value free. Contemporary sociologists, who support the methods used by anti-positivists, say that values inevitably enter into every stage of the research process. They believe that research is influenced through four factors. The first factor is the choice of topic. Weber recognised that values would influence the choice of topics for study. He says that researchers would choose to research topics which they thought were important, and more significantly which they thought were of central importance to society. E.g. Weber-Capitalism, Townsend-Poverty, Marxists-inequality. The second factor is the researchers assumptions about society. According to Alvin Gouldner, an approach that a researcher is going to adopt involves making domain assumption. These are the basic assumptions that sociologists make about the nature of social life and human behaviour. Sociologists tend to commit themselves to ...

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