Even highly abstract ideas, such as Parsons’s notions of ‘pattern variables’ and ‘functional requisites’, must have some connection with an external reality, in that they are likely to have been generated out of Parsons’s reading of research or his reflections upon that reality or others’ writings on it, However, the level of abstractness of the theorizing is so great as to make it difficult for them to be deployed in research. For research purposes, then, Merton argued that
grand theories are of limited use in connection with social research, although, as the example in Box 1.1 suggests, an abstract theory like structuration theory (Giddens 1984) can have some pay-off in research terms. Instead, middle-range theories are ‘intermediate to general theories of social systems which are too remote from particular classes of social behavior, organization and change to account for what is observed and to those detailed orderly descriptions of particulars that are not generalized at all’ (Merton 1967 : 39).
Even highly abstract ideas, such as Parsons’s notions of ‘pattern variables’ and ‘functional requisites’, must have some connection with an external reality, in that they are likely to have been generated out of Parsons’s reading of research or his reflections upon that reality or others’ writings on it, However, the level of abstractness of the theorizing is so great as to make it difficult for them to be deployed in research. For research purposes, then, Merton argued thatgrand theories are of limited use in connection with social research, although, as the example in Box 1.1 suggests, an abstract theory like structuration theory (Giddens 1984) can have some pay-off in research terms. Instead, middle-range theories are ‘intermediate to general theories of social systems which are too remote from particular classes of social behavior, organization and change to account for what is observed and to those detailed orderly descriptions of particulars that are not generalized at all’ (Merton 1967 : 39).
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