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Describe the relationship between positivists and structural functionalist sociology. American functionalist Talcott Parsons first introduced the term structural functionalist; it refers to sociologists who like to investigate the effects of structure on society. Positivist Sociology is based on scientific methodology. Positivists try to follow the hypothetico-deductive model, which is a series of steps regarded as the most scientific methods that can be used in sociological research. Positivists try and use this method to make their work as reliable as is possible in sociology, and to be able to generalise. The model consists of background research, formation of hypothesis, planning a form of study to control all variables, collecting and analysing resulting data, accepting or rejecting hypothesis and then forming a generalised theory. The alternative to the hypothetico-deductive model is inductive reasoning. This approach is mainly adopted by interpretivist researchers, and is frowned upon by positivists because it is not possible to...

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