“I don’t understand theory!” Social Science Theory Explained Through Trees!

I use the tree analogy when I’m explaining theory to my students.

Theories are like trees – they have trunks, branches and fruit!

Why do I use the tree analogy? I think theories are like trees because they stand as distinct and separate from each other. They have deep roots, often within particular periods of history. They started growing at a particular point in time and that will have an impact upon what they look like and the kinds of things they focus upon. All theory is a response to something, every body of theory that emerges is an attempt to understand the social world that exists around it. So what that social world looks like, culturally, economically, politically, will have an impact upon the bodies of theory that develop within it. From those things, a tree of theory grows. And it begins with the trunk.

Trunks

Firstly, tree trunks. Always start with the tree trunks. These are broad bodies of theory. Feminism, Marxism, functionalism, queer theory, which all have some fundamental, central tenets or principles in common. They’re quite distinctive, you can always point to at least one core thing that the theory is build around – that is the trunk of the tree.

Take for example feminist theory, particularly that which came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. That tree grew out the second wave feminist movement of the 1960s, which argued that sex and gender were key principles around which society was organised and that women were fundamentally disadvantaged as a result. That is the central, core, fundamental trunk of feminism. What feminist theory then does is seek to explain why this was the case and what should be done about it.

Branches

This gives rise to the growth of different branches. The branches are offshoots from the trunk of the tree. They are more specific, more focused on particular things. As the theory develops, it becomes clear that there is a need for specialisms, for attention to particular groups.

For example, on the feminist tree there are Marxist feminism, black feminism, liberal feminism, radical feminism among other things. They might share the core principles but differ on some of the details.

These branches can be quite distinct from one another, even though they are all part of the same tree? They agree on the fundamentals, but they also have quite different views on the nature of the issues feminism seeks to address and the things it should do to address them?

Fruit

On the branches hang delicious little pieces of fruit, that are even more specialist in their focus. So, to go back to our example, there is a feminist theory tree trunk, from which grows individual branches, and on those branches, grow the fruit – which are individual concepts, ideas, models, typologies.

On the radical feminist branch hang individual concepts, ideas and models, like Kelly’s continuum of sexual violence, Monckton Smith’s domestic homicide timeline, and concepts like the patriarchal dividend.

These little pieces of fruit are the easiest things to apply to your assignments. You can draw upon particular cases or examples and consider the extent to which these pieces of fruit are helpful in explaining or responding to the issues you are writing about.

Writing about theory in assignments

It’s important that when you’re writing about the fruit in an assignment, you should always acknowledge the branch and the tree that it comes from. Write about it in context, and this way, the grader will know that you totally get it and you have a comprehensive understanding of theory – you don’t just see the minutiae, you understand where its come from.

You’re able to zoom out, to see it in context. You might say something like, “Given it’s focus on the centrality of sex and gender in social life, and it’s attention to structural change, the contribution of radical feminism is important to consider here. For example, Kellys continuum of sexual violence…”

Always remember to be critical in your application of theory – check out my other blogpost on the Describe, Interpret, Evaluate Method for critical analysis.

To recap, in this blogpost we’ve explored the different levels of theory using the analogy of a tree – trunk, branches and fruit.

The trunk is the fundamental core, from which all the different branches stem. And then on those branches are the individual pieces of fruit – the ideas, concepts, models, that are the tools you can apply in your assignments to make sense of why things are the way they are, and what we should do about them.

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