Social Research Strategies

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Social Research Strategies

• Chapter 1

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• How does theory inform social research?
• How does social research inform theory?

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What is Social Theory?

• An explanation of observed regularities and
  patterns in social life
• What are some examples of social theories or
  theorists familiar to you?

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How Abstract Should Social Theory Be?

• Grand theories (Merton, 1967)
• Highly abstract
• E.g. structuration theory (Giddens 1984)
• Middle-range theories
• Useful for empirical research limited domain
• E.g. labelling theory (Becker 1963)
• The literature review as a proxy for theory

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Social Theory

• Direct Observation

• How should these be connected?

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The Position of Empiricism

• One approach to theorizing about social life
• Only knowledge gained through experience is
  acceptable
• Calls for rigorous scientific testing of theories
• A hallmark of positivist epistemology

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Critics of Empiricism

• Naive Empiricism
• a derisive term for research that is merely an
  accumulation of facts
• An alternate view
• It is only with the heart that one can see
  rightly What is essential is invisible to the
  eye (Antoine de Saint Exupery)

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Deductive and Inductive Approaches to Research

• Deductivism
• Theory ? Data
• Explicit hypothesis to be confirmed or rejected
• Quantitative research

• Inductivism
• Data ? Theory
• Generalizable inferences from observations
• Qualitative research/ grounded theory

Researchers can either test out an existing
theory on new data or create a new theory from
the data they have collected.
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Practice What explains differences in
students academic achievement?

• Can you formulate a deductive strategy to answer
  this question?

• Can you formulate an inductive strategy?

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Which research strategy you choose depends on
your position on important epistemological
questions. For example...
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Some Epistemological Questions

• What is (or should be) considered acceptable
  knowledge?
• Can the social world be studied scientifically?
• Is it appropriate to apply the methods of the
  natural sciences to social science research?

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Positivist Epistemology

• Application of natural science methods to social
  science research
• Empiricism knowledge via the senses
• Deductivism theory testing
• objective, value-free researcher
• distinction between scientific and normative
  statements

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Interpretivist Epistemology

• The subject matter of the social sciences
  (people) demands non-positivist methods
• Hermeneutic-phenomenological tradition
• Verstehen interpretative understanding of social
  action (Weber 1947)

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• Influenced by Symbolic Interactionism
• Attempts to see world from the actors
  perspective subjective reality

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Realist Epistemology

• Similarities to positivism
• natural science methods appropriate
• external reality exists independently of our
  perceptions
• Rejects naive empiricism
• questions the correspondence between reality and
  terms used to describe it
• questions the possibility of direct knowledge of
  the social world

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• Critical realism
• theoretical terms mediate our knowledge of
  reality
• underlying structures generate observable events

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Which research strategy you choose also depends
on your social ontology.
That is...
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Ontological Questions

• Social ontology the nature of social entities
• What kind of objects exist in the social world?
• Do social entities exist independently of our
  perceptions of them?
• Is social reality external to social actors or
  constructed by them?

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Example what is race?
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Objectivist Ontology

• Social phenomena confront us as external facts
• Individuals are born into a pre-existing social
  world
• Social forces and rules exert pressure on actors
  to conform (Durkheim)
• e.g. culture exists independently of social
  actors who are socialized into its values

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Constructionist Ontology

• Social phenomena and their meanings are
  constructed by social actors
• continually accomplished and revised
• researchers accounts of events are also
  constructions - many alternative interpretations
• Language and representation shape our perceptions
  of reality

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Story The Chinese Well The Te of Piglet,
Benjamin Hoff, 1992
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• A man dug a well by the side of the road. For
  years afterward, grateful travellers talked of
  the Wonderful Well. But one night, a man fell
  into it and drowned. After that, people avoided
  the Dreadful Well. Later it was discovered that
  the victim was a drunken thief who had left the
  road to avoid being captured by the night
  patrolonly to fall into the Justice-Dispensing
  Well.
• from OBrien and Kollock, The Production of
  Reality, Third Edition. Pine Forge Press, 2001,
  p. 3

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• This story raises ontological and epistemological
  questions
• What is the nature of the well? Does it change?
  How does it depend on the perspective of the
  different observers at different times?
• Are social objects products of how people view it
  through the filters of their particular language
  and culture?
• In social life, how can we know what is real?

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Research Strategies

• Useful way of classifying methods of social
  research
• Two distinctive clusters of research strategies
  quantitative and qualitative, which differ in
  terms of their
• general orientation to social research
• epistemological foundations
• ontological basis

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Quantitative Research

• Measurement of social variables
• Common research designs
• surveys and experiments
• Numerical and statistical data
• Deductive theory testing

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• Positivist epistemology
• Objectivist view of reality as external to social
  actors

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Qualitative Research

• Understanding the subjective meanings held by
  actors (interpretivist epistemology)
• Common methods
• interviews, ethnography
• Data are words, texts, and stories
• Inductive approach theory emerges from data
• Social constructionist ontology

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Influences on the Conduct of Social Research

• Values
• personal beliefs and feelings of researcher
• impossibility of value-free research?
• affect every stage of research process
• some advocate value-laden research
• Becker (1967) sympathy with underdog groups
• feminist research encourages reciprocity (Oakley
  1981) and conscious partiality (Mies 1993)

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• Practical considerations
• time
• cost / funding available
• how much prior literature exists (theory testing
  or theory building?)
• topic (marginalized groups / sensitive issues may
  be more suited to qualitative research)
• all social research is a compromise between the
  ideal and the feasible