Sociology as a Population Science

Argues that sociology should be understood as a population science, focusing on establishing and explaining probabilistic regularities in human populations.

John H. Goldthorpe (Author)

9781107127838, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 December 2015

180 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.1 cm, 0.4 kg

'Goldthorpe pushes the discussion further on in many fruitful directions … The book is a perfect textbook for Ph.D. students who wish to work in the scientific tradition of sociology and a stimulating reading for social scientists in general as well … A distinctive value of the book is its very rare capability to trace the historical roots of the topics illustrated and to show their consequences for the current debate.' Barbera Filippo, Sociologica

John Goldthorpe is one of Britain's most eminent sociologists and a strong advocate of quantitative sociology. In this concise and accessible book, he provides a new rationale for recent developments in sociology which focus on establishing and explaining probabilistic regularities in human populations. Through these developments, Goldthorpe shows how sociology has become more securely placed within the 'probabilistic revolution' that has occurred over the last century in the natural and social sciences alike. The central arguments of the book are illustrated with examples from different areas of sociology, ranging from social stratification and the sociology of the family to the sociology of revolutions. He concludes by considering the implications of these arguments for the proper boundaries of sociology, for its relations with other disciplines, and for its public role.

Introduction
1. Sociology as a population science: the central idea
2. Individual variability in human social life
3. The individualistic paradigm
4. Population regularities as basic explananda
5. Statistics, concepts and the objects of sociological study
6. Statistics and methods of data collection
7. Statistics and methods of data analysis
8. The limits of statistics: causal explanation
9. Causal explanation through social mechanisms
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Population & demography [JHBD], Social research & statistics [JHBC], Social theory [JHBA], Research methods: general [GPS]