Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In sociology, the term theory is used in a variety of ways, not all of which are mutually compatible. For present purposes we adopt a definition that is consistent with how the term is used by many sociologists, and by most scientists outside of our field: a theory is a set of explicit, abstract, general, logically related statements formulated to explain phenomena in the natural world. Theory construction is then the process of formulating and assembling components of theories into coherent wholes, or the process of revising and expanding theories in light of logical, semantic, and empirical analyses. Sociology's interest in theory construction arose quite suddenly in the 1960s, and tapered off relatively quickly thereafter. As one indicator of this pattern, all of the books that could be found on the subject of building sociological theories were located. None was published before 1960; 13 appeared between 1960 and 1975, seven between 1976 and 1990, and only one since – ironically, a collection of papers from a 1990 conference on the failure of formal theory to thrive in sociology. It is clear that sociology's interest in theory construction is less prominent now, as shown by decreasing numbers of didactic books and journal articles on the topic. One possible reason for the decline in interest in the topic is that sociologists may be prone to embrace new approaches, only to ... log in or subscribe to read full text