Learning goals

  • Students can quote different meanings theory have in social sciences
  • Students can identify different positions on theory from empirical papers
  • Students can describe how different meanings of theory impact the research and analysis work
  • Students can formulate research design based on different positions on theory
  • Students reflect what purpose theory serves for them

Assignments and grading

  • Learning diary in Moodle, due by Sunday of each lecture week: What is theory for me now? and 2 comments on other people's diaries. (30% of grade). Please avoid summarising the lectures and rather focus on the meaning of theory
  • Find three different ideas about what theory is following Abend's taxonomy from empirical papers (20% of grade)
  • Propose two alternative research design depending on different connotations of theory (50% of grade)

Structure

Lecture 4.9.: Introduction and meaning(s) of theory

Read after the lecture

  • Abend, G. (2008). The Meaning of ‘Theory.’ Sociological Theory, 26(2), 173–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2008.00324.x
  • Halford, S., & Savage, M. (2017). Speaking Sociologically with Big Data: Symphonic Social Science and the Future for Big Data Research. Sociology, 51(6), 1132–1148. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038517698639

Lecture 15.9.: Theory and concepts

  • Becker, H. S. (2008). Tricks of the trade: How to think about your research while you're doing it. University of Chicago press. Chapter: Concepts
  • Collier, D., Hidalgo, F. D., & Maciuceanu, A. O. (2006). Essentially contested concepts: Debates and applications. Journal of Political Ideologies, 11(3), 211–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310600923782

Choose one (or find a similar paper of your own interest):

  • Dowding, K. (2012). Why should we care about the definition of power? Journal of Political Power, 5(1), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2012.661917
  • Devinney, H., Björklund, J., & Björklund, H. (2022). Theories of “Gender” in NLP Bias Research. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 2083–2102. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3534627
  • Haslam, N. (2016). Concept Creep: Psychology’s Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology. Psychological Inquiry, 27(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2016.1082418
  • Bardzell, J., & Bardzell, S. (2013). What is “critical” about critical design? Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, 3297–3306. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2466451

Additional readings

  • Goertz, Gary. 2006. Social science concepts: A user’s guide. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
  • Gallie, W. B. (1956). IX.—Essentially Contested Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56(1), 167–198.

Lecture 29.9.: Inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning and theory

  • Lingren: Data Theory: Interpretive Sociology and Computational Methods (chapters 5 and 6)
  • Kitchin, R. (2014). Big Data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts. Big Data & Society, 1(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951714528481

Lecture 13.10.: Predicting with theories

  • Hofman, J. M., Sharma, A., & Watts, D. J. (2017). Prediction and explanation in social systems. Science, 355(6324), 486–488. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal3856
  • Breiman, L. (2001). Statistical modeling: The two cultures. Statistical Science, 16(3), 199–215. https://doi.org/10.1214/ss/1009213726

Lecture 27.10.: From normative to empirical

  • Mutz, D. C. (2008). Is Deliberative Democracy a Falsifiable Theory? Annual Review of Political Science, 11(1), 521–538. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.081306.070308
  • Text to be added

Lecture 10.11.: Identifying theory

Student presentations on theory in selected empirical works.

Lecture 24.11.: Who owns theory?

Mandatory

  • Bartlett, A., Lewis, J., Reyes-Galindo, L., & Stephens, N. (2018). The locus of legitimate interpretation in Big Data sciences: Lessons for computational social science from -omic biology and high-energy physics. Big Data & Society, 5(1), 205395171876883. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718768831
  • Mäki, U. (2009). Economics Imperialism. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 39(3), 351–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0048393108319023

Lecture 8.12.: Conclusions