Sociology as a Population Science

by John Goldthorpe

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.

Genres: Sociology

178 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2015

Reviews

[Augusto Alves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked it! This book opened up my eyes to a different way to conceive sociology (probably because of my own ignorance of non-holistic research) and I’d totally recommend it for beginners in the discipline. Also, as an economist, I think his criticism towards economics is fairly well grounded.