Batch: 2015 Course Code: 50121110 Course Name: Sociology Roll # 954 Assignment # A 106

Justify why is Sociology a reflexive science? Sociology is the systematic study of the relationship between the individual and society and of the consequences of difference. In short, it is the study of human social life. A Sociologist observes the ways in which social structures and institutions such as class, family, community, and power and social problems like crime, abuse of power, etc. influence society. Sociologists use observations, hypotheses and deductions to propose explanations for social phenomena in the form of theories. Predictions from these theories are tested. If a prediction turns out to be correct, the theory survives. The method is commonly taken as the underlying logic of scientific practice. Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, put forth the idea of reflexivity in sociological theory. He insisted on the importance of reflexive sociology in which sociologists must, at all times, take into account, the effects of their position, their own set of internalized structures, and how these are likely to distort or prejudice their objectivity, while conducting research. A sociologist must always be conscious of and avoid importing their own biases into their work. In social theory, reflexivity occurs when theories in a discipline apply equally forcefully to the discipline itself, or when the subject matter of a discipline applies equally well to the individual practitioners of that discipline. More broadly, reflexivity is considered to occur when the observations or actions of observers in the social system affect the very situations they are observing, or theory being formulated is disseminated to and affects the behavior of the individuals or systems the theory is meant to be objectively modeling. Thus for example an anthropologist living in an isolated village may affect the village and the behavior of its citizens that he or she is studying. The observations are not independent of the participation of the observer. Reflexivity in sociology is, therefore, a methodological issue analogous to the observer principle. Within that part of recent sociology of science that has been called the strong programme, reflexivity is suggested as a methodological norm or principle, meaning that a full theoretical account of the social construction of, say, scientific, religious or ethical knowledge systems, should itself be explainable by the same principles and methods as used for accounting for these other knowledge systems.