Research paradigms and model structuring of educational sociology

Whether educational sociology has an independent research methodology is, in itself, a moot point. The writer maintains that this is not of the greatest importance. What is important is whether educational sociology as a discipline has its own research paradigm. The development of a disciplinary paradigm is an important mark of the maturity of a discipline, whereas the formation of that paradigm is, in turn, dependent on the structure of the research model. Thus, this article clarifies the three categories of paradigms of educational sociology, to wit: the positivist paradigm and humanist paradigm; the educational reality paradigm, the educational definitions paradigm, and the educational action paradigm; and functionalism conflict theory, and the interaction paradigm. This article also discusses ways to structure the two models of educational sociology: the analogy method (lei bi fa) and the hypothesis method (jia she fa) and their effects on paradigms.