This Sociological Life

Teacher key. Do not link to this page from student materials, and do not upload it to a public folder.

Teacher key

Section numbers map to obscured file names, so students cannot step through the story by editing the address. Start page: index.html. Recap page: p-cac033dd.html.

Page map

Route notes

• Ending 45, The Easiest Name: reached from section 41.
• Ending 46, The Road Not Taken: reached from sections 3, 23.
• Ending 47, A Heart Is a Heart: reached from section 4.
• Ending 49, Arrest, Quietly: reached from section 44.
• Ending 50, This Sociological Life: reached from section 44.
• Ending 51, Reasonable Doubt: reached from section 52.
• Clue locations: A (6), Project Candour; B (5), The Medication; C (5), The Draft Lecture; D (10), The Consultancy Contract; E (11), The Methodology Memo; F (15), Halvorsen's Fieldwork Notes; G (16), The Fenn Family Notes; H (19), Abara's Journal Draft; I (22), The Funding Figures; J (23), The Tenure Letter; K (26), The Pitch Deck; L (6), Merton's Four; M (30), Jonah's Private Log; N (34), The Access Logs; P (37), The Finished Manuscript.
• Flag JONAH_TRUST: set in section 30; checked at sections 8, 44.
• Flag JONAH_DISMISSED: set in section 31; recorded for the player's own notebook only (it does not change the route).
• Flag EVIDENCE_FIRST: set in section 39; recorded for the player's own notebook only (it does not change the route).
• Flag NEUTRALITY_FIRST: set in section 40; recorded for the player's own notebook only (it does not change the route).
• Decision at section 8, The Case Board: If you hold flag JONAH_TRUST: let Jonah check the archive's own access logs. (to 33)
• Decision at section 35, The Case Board, Again: If you hold eight or more clues: gather everyone at the Grand Lantern. (to 37); If you hold seven or fewer: it's too soon. (to 36)
• Decision at section 42, The Case Against Pryor: If you hold five or more of clues D, E, K, M, N, P: the case holds. (to 43); If you hold four or fewer: it wobbles. (to 52)
• Decision at section 44, The Choice: If you hold flag JONAH_TRUST: turn to 50 for the fuller ending. (to 50); Otherwise, or if you'd rather keep it simple: let the arrest be the end of it. (to 49)
• Decision at section 52, The Wobble: If you hold clue P and at least two of clues D, K, N: press on with the finished manuscript. (to 43); Otherwise: you don't have enough. (to 51)

Comprehension questions with indicative content

Credit any valid sociological point, developed with evidence from the story.

A. The origins and purpose of sociology

1. Explain why Ritzer and Sugarman both insist sociology produces "factual" rather than opinion-based knowledge. [6 marks]

   • Sugarman: sociology is 'the objective study of human behaviour' - systematically created and tested, not simply believed.
   • Ritzer: sociology studies the interrelationships between individuals, organisations, cultures and societies - patterns that can be evidenced, not just asserted.

2. Using Comte's three stages, explain why he believed a science of society was both possible and necessary. [6 marks]

   • Comte: societies pass from theological (religious authority) through metaphysical (upheaval) to positive (reason and science) stages.
   • Hume's own crisis in this case - a scientist who believed reason alone would guide Candour responsibly - dramatises the limits of Comte's optimism about where positive-stage science actually leads.

B. Comte, Marx, Weber and Durkheim

3. Explain Marx's view of social order as based on conflict rather than consensus, using evidence from this case. [6 marks]

   • Marx: order is maintained through domination and exploitation between classes with opposing economic interests.
   • Project Candour's risk-scoring of working-class Dockside streets for police and policy use is a direct, contemporary example of a 'bourgeois' institution using knowledge to manage a 'proletarian' population.

4. Using Durkheim's concept of social solidarity, explain the significance of Hume's own academic specialism. [6 marks]

   • Durkheim: organic solidarity in modern societies depends on integrating mechanisms that make people with different roles feel connected to a larger whole.
   • Hume spent thirty years studying how dockside communities maintained solidarity after their defining industry vanished - precisely the kind of community Candour was built to monitor rather than understand.

5. Suggest one way Weber's concept of charismatic authority might apply to a character in this case. [4 marks]

   • Weber: some individuals drive change through the force of personality rather than formal office.
   • Hume's own standing in the department - and the room's reaction to his posthumous manuscript - shows a kind of charismatic authority operating even after his death.

C. Science, positivism and interpretivism

6. Using Merton's scientific ethos, explain two ways Project Candour fails to meet the standards science is supposed to uphold. [6 marks]

   • Universalism: Pryor dismisses Halvorsen's findings based on who produced them, not their content.
   • Disinterestedness: Pryor has an undisclosed financial stake in the model being approved.

7. Evaluate the positivist claim that a researcher can 'stand apart' from the behaviour they study, using Pryor's storyline as your evidence. [8 marks]

   • Positivism: objectivity requires personal detachment and no stake in a study's findings.
   • Pryor presents himself as a detached, rigorous scientist, but his undisclosed consultancy (clue D) shows detachment can be a performance rather than a genuine state.
   • Interpretivist counter-argument: acknowledging one's position (value-neutrality) may be more honest than claiming a detachment that is not actually achievable.

8. Using Halvorsen's fieldwork, explain why interpretivists argue qualitative research requires a different kind of validity to positivist research. [6 marks]

   • Interpretivism: understanding meaning 'from within' requires empathy and closeness to those being studied, not detachment.
   • Halvorsen's eight months of trusted, consenting fieldwork produced valid insight into lived experience - insight Pryor's model could not generate, but could still extract and misuse.

D. Postmodernism and the role of values

9. Evaluate Abara's argument that research ethics are 'a metanarrative like any other'. [8 marks]

   • Postmodernist case: all claims to truth are shaped by power and perspective; 'ethical research' is one more story societies tell themselves.
   • Problem: Abara's own position conveniently excuses her from objecting to a project her promotion depends on - showing how a genuinely-held theory can also serve self-interest.
   • Her own admission (section 20) that she suspects Hume 'was right' suggests even postmodernist scepticism doesn't fully dissolve personal moral responsibility.

10. Explain the difference between value-freedom and value-neutrality, using Hume's own intellectual journey as your example. [6 marks]

    • Value-freedom: the (arguably unachievable) idea that research can be entirely uninfluenced by a researcher's values.
    • Value-neutrality (Coser): acknowledging one's values openly rather than pretending to have none, so they can be examined by others.
    • Hume's finished manuscript represents his shift from believing in the first to practising the second.

E. The uses of sociological knowledge and social policy

11. Using this case, evaluate the claim that sociological knowledge is never fully under its producers' control once it exists. [8 marks]

    • Project Candour began as community research and became a commercial predictive-policing product (clue K) - a direct illustration of knowledge escaping its original, academic purpose.
    • Link to Campbell's (1996) critique of science as 'the handmaiden of big business'.
    • Counter-view: the fullest ending shows that transparency (naming funders and uses publicly) can at least partially restore accountability after the fact.

12. "Facts don't speak for themselves; someone always decides which facts get collected, and why." Discuss, using at least two pieces of evidence from this case. [10 marks]

    • Jonah's private log (clue M) and Hume's own audit (clue L) both show that what counts as 'data' is a series of decisions, not a neutral given.
    • The Fenn family's interviews (clue G), gathered with care, became inputs in a system none of them agreed to - showing how collection and use can be ethically separated even when collection itself was sound.
    • Synthesis: the case argues that responsible sociology requires ongoing accountability for how knowledge is used, not just rigour in how it is first gathered.