Paradigmas and Theories

Order Description Week 2: Paradigms and Theories Online Class My Professor wrote: Recently, a group of medical researchers made an important discovery. They found that the human body has lymphatic vessels that connect the lymph system to the brain. Previously, if a patient had an immune condition, doctors could only guess at neuroimmune relationships; now they can begin the process of mapping the vessel system and reevaluating many health concerns, such as autism and Alzheimer’s, in more concrete, mechanical terms (Barney, 2015). Prior to this discovery, it was an accepted truth that the human body had been fully mapped. What the researchers found may lead to a paradigm shift in the field of medicine. Whereas this example concerns physical health, social life and the human condition are at the center of the human and social services profession. Because the human experience is so vast and varied, there are necessarily many approaches and philosophies, or paradigms, for making sense of it. This week, you explore social science paradigms. You also evaluate deductive and inductive research methods. Reference: https://news.virginia.edu/illimitable/discovery/theyll-have-rewrite-textbooks Discussion: Social Science Paradigms If you have used Instagram, Photobooth, or any number of photo editing or publishing products, you may be familiar with filters that may be applied to photos. These filters can alter the mood, texture, or color of an image, thus altering how it is interpreted by others. In simple terms, social science paradigms function in the same way for research. They are like lenses that influence the perspective of a researcher. Although not theories in themselves, paradigms are fundamental frameworks of reference that underlie and give birth to theories. How paradigms differ from simple lenses, however, is that they sometimes can lie below consciousness and are not a deliberate choice. For instance, it is possible to hold such strong beliefs about a set of issues that they are unrecognizable as a paradigm and instead seem like universal truths. By examining some well-known social science paradigms this week, you can begin to analyze your own thoughts and actions and those of others to detect where and how they fit into the current mosaic of paradigms. This also will help you recognize paradigms as a researcher and consumer of research. In this Discussion, you select social science paradigms of professional interest to you and consider how they could be applied to human and social services. Assignment: Choose two social science paradigms from the Learning Resources this week (e.g., feminist, symbolic interactionism, critical race theory, etc.) Consider differences between them and how they could be applied to human and social services. 1. I will need to post (on blackboard) a description of the paradigms I selected. 2. Explain the most important similarities and differences between the two. 3. Finally, explain how each could be applied to human and social services research. Discussion Rubric my instructor uses to grade paper: https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/bbgs-deep-links-BBLEARN/app/course/rubric?course_id=_16411697_1&rubric_id=_526782_1