The terms "paradigm" and "model" have enjoyed considerable popularity in sociology, in part because the terms have a range of meanings. In everyday language, model has two senses: (1) a replica of an object being modeled, for example, a "model of a building," and (2) an exemplar to be emulated, as in "role model." "Paradigm" is somewhat more esoteric in everyday usage, but has become quite important in academic disciplines including sociology, largely due to Thomas S. Kuhn's 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

The original meaning of paradigm overlaps that of "model" in the sense of exemplar. The term comes from the study of grammar where a paradigm provides a model of, for example, the way to conjugate all the regular verbs of a particular type (I love, you love, he or she loves, etc.). Its appearance in sociology predates Kuhn, but since Kuhn, it...