Final answer:
Robert Merton's Middle Range Theory focuses on institutions rather than small groups or entire societies and aims to balance theory with empirical observation in sociological research.
Step-by-step explanation:
The style of sociology described by the student is known as Middle Range Theory. Robert Merton advocated for a sociological approach that avoids the extremes of micro-level theories, which focus on the smallest units of social interaction, and macro-level theories, which tackle wide-scale social processes. Middle Range Theory is aimed at integrating theory and empirical observation and is concerned with explaining social phenomena at the institutional level, thus, providing sociological research with a method that can produce manageable and testable hypotheses. It acknowledges the importance of institutions and is focused on creating a balance between grand, sweeping theories and the empirical observation of individual behaviors.
The approach echoes Durkheim's emphasis on using theory to guide sociological research and aim to avoid the biases and the narrow focus of perspectives like symbolic interactionism and the sometimes overly stable view of structural functionalism. In sociological theory today, researchers continue to integrate these theories and develop new ones based on the accumulation of empirical data and evolution of social patterns.