Discussion Topic 9

Levels of Theory

Level Focus How They Are Used

Metatheory These are the theories that deal with the nature of knowledge or the nature of reality. They are really more “world views” that theories in most senses of the term.

They inform your stance about what it is possible to know and about how you go about doing research. For example, as a scientific realist, I would argue that human ideas are “real,” just as “real” as trees and such. However, I would also argue that not all human ideas are worthy of equal attention – that not “each and every reality” is equally valid or important. They become important, for a scientific realist, when they are translated into action or event. Hitler’s ideas were “weird” in my book, and would have been completely uninteresting to me had the social conditions in which he existed not caused them to be “turned into historical events.”

Grand These theories are concerned with the “broad sweep” of human society, with how human social structures and processes in general “work” or evolve. I think of them more as “theoretical stance” or “theoretical perspective” than “working theory.” Early social theorists developed most of these – Marx, Durkheim, DuBois – as they struggled to understand “society.” So did early biological theorists like Darwin.

These grand theories are not very useful for the kind of research that you will want to do. We may never be able to decide whether Marx or Weber was “right” about what they thought were the key driving forces in the development of society. However, most of us do draw on their ideas every day and their original key constructs (like race, class, social networks) remain the cornerstones of most social science, just as “selection” remains a key for biology. Between them, six or seven major theoretical perspectives have contributed enormously to much of social theory.

Mid-Range These theories deal with specific aspects of human behavior – like conflict or social networking. They do NOT deal with a specific topic (like drinking). There is no theory of drinking; there are several theories of risk-taking behavior or of personality disorders, all of which could be applied to understand why people binge drink.

These are the theories that we use in the vast majority of social (or biological or physical) research. Most of them in the social sciences grew out of the grand theories. For example, Simmel introduced the concept of social networks. Later theorists took this idea and developed a whole set of theories called “exchange theory” that explored the role of social exchange as a fundamental component of human interaction. These are still “pretty grand” theories, but individual researchers apply these ideas to specific problems, topics or situations. For example, many health workers use exchange theory to understand health behaviors and fashion interventions to change that behavior. They focus on the role of social networks and social support in health behaviors. You need a mid-range theory for your work this semester.

Micro These may not be “theories” in the usual sense of the term because they focus on understanding or explaining the processes or phenomena that occur under a specific set of conditions (in one place, with one group of people).

Micro-theories focus on explaining what happened at this place, with these people, at this time – not offering general explanations. Often, these theories arise because we see something that our existing theories simply cannot explain. We develop a micro-theory – sort of a disconnected piece of a theory in many cases – to describe what we have observed. Over time, research may show that our “piece of a theory” or micro-theory fits into other theories, or we “add pieces” and end up with a new model or theory.