Social theory

Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena. the tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over a validity and reliability of different methodologies e.g. positivism and antipositivism, the primacy of either structure or agency, as alive as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based external of academic social and political science, may be noted to as "social criticism" or "social commentary", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal cultural and literary scholarship, as living as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing.

Definitions

Social opinion by definition is used to draw distinctions and generalizations among different set of societies, and to analyze ]

Social thought ensures general theories to explain actions and behavior of society as a whole, encompassing ]

Theory construction, according to The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, is instrumental: "Their goal is to promote accurate communication, rigorous testing, high accuracy, and broad applicability. They increase the following: absence of contradictions, absence of ambivalence, abstractness, generality, precision, parsimony, and conditionality." Therefore, a social theory consists of well-defined terms, statements, arguments and scope conditions.