Comparative Method of Marcosocial Phenomena:

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Comparative-Historical Method in Educational
Research

• Lecture 3
• Comparative Method of Marco-social Phenomena
• Functional Equivalence Perspective

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The Basic Logic of Comparative Method

• The Design of comparative research is conditioned
  largely by four rules

• Comparability Two or more instances of a
  phenomenon may be compared if and only if there
  exists some variable, say V, common to each
  instance.

• J.S. Millss 1st Cannon (Method of Agreement) No
  second variable, say U, is the cause or effect of
  V, if it is not when V is found.

• J.S. Mills 2nd Cannon (Method of Difference) No
  second variable U is the cause or effect of V if
  it is found when V is not.

• Rule of One Variable No second variable U is
  definitely the cause or effect of V if there
  exists a third variable, w, that is present or
  absent in the same circumstances as U.

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• Rule of One Variable No second variable U is
  definitely the cause or effect of V if there
  exists a third variable, w, that is present or
  absent in the same circumstances as U.

In order to verify that U and V are
correlated in the design where there are other 2
variables, say W and X, we need at least eight
cases (2x2x2) of the following nature
Case Causes Effect Results
V W X U (Method of Agreement)
1 1 1 1 1 VWX U 2
1 1 0 1 VWX
U 3 1 0 1 1 VWX U
4 1 0 0 1
VWX U (Method of
Difference) 5 0 0 0
0 VWX U 6 0 0 1 0 VWX
U 7 0 1 0
0 VWX U 8 0
1 1 0 VWX
U
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Charles Ragins Boolean Approach to Comparative
Analysis
A. The operation of the Boolean Algebra

• Binary data and truth table

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Charles Ragins Boolean Approach to Comparative
Analysis

• The operation of the Boolean Algebra

• Binary data and truth table

• Boolean addition and multiplication

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Charles Ragins Boolean Approach to Comparative
Analysis

• The operation of the Boolean Algebra

• Binary data and truth table

• Boolean addition and multiplication

• Boolean minimization

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Charles Ragins Boolean Approach to Comparative
Analysis

• The operation of the Boolean Algebra

• Binary data and truth table

• Boolean addition and multiplication

• Boolean minimization

• De Morgans Law

• Identifying prime implicants

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SACABBc
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Charles Ragins Boolean Approach to Comparative
Analysis

• The operation of the Boolean Algebra

• Binary data and truth table

• Boolean addition and multiplication

• Boolean minimization

• De Morgans Law

• Identifying prime implicants

• Identifying necessary and/or sufficient causes

• Limitations of the Boolean Approach

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Why Comparison in Education and Social Sciences?

• The intrinsic nature of contextuality and
  relativity in social phenomena "There is no such
  a thing as comparative chemistry or contextual
  physics. In the natural sciences, the chain of
  causality is everywhere identical. In
  experimental physics or chemistry discoveries
  have an universal validity. On the contrary, the
  social sciences, because of the diversity and
  idiosyncrasy of human societies, are contextual
  and relativistic The best way to comprehend such
  a biological and social diversity is the
  comparative method." (Dogan, 2006, p. 309)

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Why Comparison in Education and Social Sciences?

• Comparing to escape from ethnocentrism In order
  to disenchanted themselves from the processes of
  socialization and acculturation, into which all
  human being are born social scientists are
  obliged to transcend themselves from the social
  midieu that they have got so used to and have
  taken for granted. Therefore, "comparison helps
  to get ride us of inherited fossilized notions,
  obliged us to reconsider the validity of
  undiscussed interpretations, and enlarge our
  visual field." (Dogan and Pelassy, 1984, p. 9)
  "Comparative studies point out and denounced
  ethnocentrism, and in this way they certainly
  contribute to its lessening." (p. 13)

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Why Comparison in Education and Social Sciences?

• Comparing to obtain heuristic device for
  macro-social and educational analysis
• Charles Tilly's conception of Means and Ends of
  Comparison in Macrosociology
• Reiteration of John S. Mills' warning about the
  limitation of logic of comparative method
• "If so little can be done by the experimental
  method to determine the conditions of an effect
  of many combined causes, in the case of medical
  science still less is this method applicable to
  a class of phenomena more complicated than even
  those of physiology, the phenomena of politics
  and history. There Plurality of Causes exists in
  almost boundless excess, and effects are, for the
  most part, inextricably interwoven with one
  another." (Quoted in Tilly, 2006, 224)

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Why Comparison in Education and Social Sciences?

• Comparing to obtain heuristic device for
  macro-social and educational analysis
• Charles Tilly's conception of Means and Ends of
  Comparison in Macrosociology
• Big-Case-Comparison (BCC) as heuristic and
  literary trope
• "BCC provides a fine heuristic but a logically
  and ontological flawed basis for serious
  explanation of social process. The lining up of
  civilizations, societies, cultures, wars,
  revolutions, and other great chunks of social
  experience for arguments about causes and
  meanings will persist as the heuristic and
  literary trope it has been for hundred of years,
  but will shrivel as a method of systematic
  analysis." (Tilly, 2006, 225-226)

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Webers Conception of Causal Analysis

• Essential roles of social carriers in particular
  social fabric and epoch
• Status groups, political parties, classes
  universal organization, e.g. families, kinship
  groups or clans
• External structure, e.g. the state bureaucrats,
  military, churches or sects, enterprises,
  professions and other formal associations,
  education institutions
• The variable intensity of patterned or typical
  actions (Webers conception of four types of
  social action Means-end rational,
  value-rational, affectual, and traditional
  actions)
• Forces of historical events, technology and
  geography in shaping cultural phenomena and
  changes
• Power of social carriers in conflict and
  competition among them

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Historical Events
Technology
Geography
External structure
Typical actions
Social carriers
Intensity
Typical actions
Social carriers
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Webers Conception of Causal Analysis

• Adequate causation of concrete historical
  phenomenon rather than nomological causation of
  universal phenomena
• Degree of causality Distinction between
  facilitating and necessary orientations of
  actions
• Counterfactual comparison as means in weighting
  degree of causality of a given set of antecedent
  conditions favoring a given effect

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Webers Conception of Causal Analysis

• Synchronic and diachronic interaction among
  societal domains
• Kalbergs conception of societal domains
  designates social carriers such as status group,
  class, family, kinship groups, the state
  bureaucrats, military, profession etc. and also
  institutions such as law, economy, the state,
  rulership, religion, education, etc.
• Synchronic (within a same point in time)
  interaction among societal domains
• Diachronic (between different points in time)
  interactions in causal mode
• Distinction between legacy and antecedent
  conditions
• Distinction between inter-domain and intra-domain
  diachronic interaction
• Contextual effects on conjunctural interaction
• Theoretical framework as ideal type in causal mode

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Historical Events
Technology
Geography
External structure
Typical actions
Social carriers
Synchronic Interaction
Typical actions
Social carriers
Diachronic Interaction
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Webers Conception of Ideal Type as Heuristic
Instrument

• The nature of ideal type
• Ideal type is a one-sided accentuation of reality
  and not a schema which can completely exhaust
  the infinite richness of a cultural phenomenon
• Ideal type is value-relevant point of view to
  reality and not an objective and complete vantage
  point to cultural phenomenon
• Ideal type is dialectic mediator between the
  finite human mind and infinite reality

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Webers Conception of Ideal Type as Heuristic
Instrument

• The usage of ideal type
• Ideal type is used as yardstick to measure and
  compare the pattern-intensity of cultural
  phenomenon and degree of causality between
  phenomena
• Single Ideal type, e.g. means end rational
  action, bureaucracy, etc.
• Compound ideal type, e.g. patrimonial bureaucracy

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Webers Conception of Ideal Type as Heuristic
Instrument

• The usage of ideal type
• Ideal type as dynamic model, e.g. bureaucracy,
  patrimonialism, rationalized education system
• Ideal type as contextual model, e.g. the impact
  of calculable law within the context of the rise
  of capitalism, or the contextual effect of
  stratification principle on education
• Ideal type as affinity or antagonism model
• Intra-domain model of antagonistic relationship
  e.g. antagonistic relationship among legitimacy
  bases, e.g. between legal-rational and
  charismatic authority
• Inter-domain model of antagonistic relationship
  e.g. antagonistic relationship between
  charismatic rulership and rational economy
• Inter-domain model of affinity e.g. affinity
  between calculable law and rational capitalism,
  between Calvinist worldly ascetic doctrine and
  spirit of capitalism

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Webers Last Theory of Capitalism A
Methodological Illustration

• (Randell Collins response to idealistic
  misinterpretation of The Protestant Ethic and the
  Spirit of Capitalism)
• Essence of Capitalism
• Rational capital accounting and methodical
  enterprise and production
• Calculability
• Predictability and controllability

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Webers Last Theory of Capitalism A
Methodological Illustration

• Capitalism, say Weber (1961207-8, 260) is the
  provision of human needs by the method of
  enterprise, which is to say by private businesses
  seeking profit. It is exchange carried out for
  positive gain, rather than forced contributions
  or traditionally fixed gifts or trade. It became
  the indispensable form for the provision of
  everyday wants only in Western Europe around the
  middle of the the nineteenth century. For this
  large-scale and economically predominant
  capitalism, the key is the rational permanent
  enterprise characterized by rational capital
  accounting.
• 
  (Collins, 1980, p. 927)

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Webers Last Theory of Capitalism A
Methodological Illustration

• It is clear that Weber used the term
  rationalism in a number of different senses.
  But for his institutional theory of capitalist
  development, there is only one sense that need
  concern us. The rational capitalist
  establishment, says Weber (1961207) is one
  with capitalist accounting, that is, an
  establishment which determines its income
  yielding power by calculating according to the
  methods of modern bookkeeping and the striking of
  a balance. The key term is calculability it
  occurs over and over again in those pages. What
  is distinctive about modern, large scale,
  rational capitalismin contrast to earlier,
  partial formsis that it is methodical and
  predictable, reducing all areas of production and
  distribution as much as possible to a routine.
  This is also Webers criterion for calling
  bureaucracy the most rational form of
  organization.
• (Collins, 1980, p. 927)

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Webers Last Theory of Capitalism A
Methodological Illustration

• Components of rational capitalism
• Private appropriation of means of production and
  entrepreneurial organization of capital
• Rationalized technology
• Free labor
• Unrestricted market
• Calculable law and public administration
• Weber Causal Chain of the Rise of Capitalism

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Components of rationalized capitalism
Intermediate conditions
Background conditions
Ultimate conditions
Literate administrators
Entrepreneurial organization of capital
Favorable Transportation communication
Bureaucratic state
Writing record-keeping
Church law bureaucracy
Coinage
Rationalized technology
Calculable law
Centrally supplied weapons
Citizenship
Self-supplied, disciplined army
Free labor
Greek civic cults
Methodical Non-dualistic economic ethic
Judaic prophecy
Unrestricted market
Christian proselytization
Reformation sects
Webers Causal Chain of the Rise of Capitalism
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Webers General Theory of History

• Is there an overall pattern in Webers
  Argument? It is not a picture of a linear trend
  toward ever-increasing rationality. Nor is it an
  evolutionary model of natural selection, in the
  sense of random selection of the more advanced
  forms, accumulating through a series of stages.
  For Webers constant theme is that the pattern of
  relations among the various factors is crucial in
  determining their effect upon economic
  rationalization. Any one factor occurring by
  itself tend to have opposite effects, overall, to
  those which it has in combination with the other
  factors. ...
• (Collins, 1980, p. 934)

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Webers General Theory of History

• Weber saw the rise of large-scale capitalism,
  then, as the result of a series of combinations
  of condition which had to occur together. This
  makes world history looks like the result of
  configurations of events so rare as to appear
  accidental. Webers position might well be
  characterized as historicist, in the sense of
  seeing history as a concatenation of unique
  events and unrepeatable complexities. ...(T)he
  full-scale capitalist breakthrough itself was a
  once-only event, radiating outward to transform
  all other institutions and societies. Hence, the
  original conditions necessary for the emergence
  of capitalism were not necessary for its
  continuation. Hence, late-industrializing states
  need not follow the route of classical
  capitalism. Webers account of the rise of
  capitalism, then, is in a sense not a theory at
  all. In that it is not a set of universal
  generalizations about economic change.
• 
  (Collins, 1980, p. 934)

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Contemporary Codification Typology of
Comparative-Historical Studies

• Skocpols codification Typology
• Parallel demonstration of theory
• Contrast of context
• Macro-causal analysis
• The Triangle of Comparative History and a Cycle
  of Transition

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(3) Parallel Comparative History
Triangle of Comparative History
theory C C C
(a) Theory/theme applied to each case
(b) concern with explanation
bounded generalization C ? C ? C
theme C ? C
(2) Macro-Analytical Comparative History
(1) Contrast-Oriented Comparative History
(c) comparison across cases intrinsic
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3. Parallel Comparative History
Cycle of Transition



hypotheses developed into general theory
limits set to overly general theory
2. Macro-Analytical Comparative History
1. Contrast-Oriented Comparative History
contrasts suggest testable hypotheses
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Contemporary Codification Typology of
Comparative-Historical Studies

• Typology of BCC Tilly classifies BCC into four
  types by means of two dimensions of comparison,
  namely share of instances (cases or observations)
  and multiplicity of forms (theories or
  propositions)

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Ontological and Epistemological Limitations of
BCC
(Tilly, 1984, p. 144)
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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• The concept of function Jurgen Schriewer defines
  function as "the performance achieved for the
  maintenance of whole entities or systems by
  elements of such entities or component parts of
  such system." (Schreiwer, 2003, p. 37)

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• The concept of functional prerequisite According
  to traditional functionalists, such as A,R.
  Radcliff-Brown and Talcott Parsons, function are
  conceived as "necessary conditions of existence"
  of social systems (Kincaid, 2007, p.217). Parsons
  further specifies these functional prerequisites
  of social systems into four (Kincaid, 2007,
  p.217)
• adaptation ? obtaining resource from the
  environment
• integration ? maintain coherent relationship
  among their component elements
• goal attainment ? setting goals and allocating
  resources to achieve them
• latency ? reproducing organizational structure
  and managing tension between units.

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• The concept of functional equivalence
• Critique on functional prerequisites
  Functionalists' strong version of defining
  functions as "the prerequisites" and "necessary
  condition of the existence" of social system and
  Parsons' specification of them into four AGIL
  constituents have been criticized as too
  deterministic.

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• The concept of functional equivalence
• Critique on functional interconnection and
  equilibrium theses G.A. Cohen in his explication
  of the functional explanation thesis in Marxism
  criticizes the functionalists' assumption that
  all constituents in a social system are
  "functionally connected" and "support or
  reinforce one another" and suggests that this
  assumption is not necessary in the logical
  structure of a functional explanation. (Cohen,
  1978, p. 283-285) This implicates that some
  constituents of a social system may be
  dysfunctionally or even antagonistically
  connected with the essential core of a given
  social system. As a result, the thesis of
  totality of functional connection can be forsaken
  and so is the thesis of equilibrium and benign
  stability of the social system.

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• The concept of functional equivalence
• To relax functionalists' assumptions on the
  functional prerequisite and totality of
  functional interconnection, we may simply
  redefine functions as contributions or benefits a
  given constituent could offer to the maintaining
  of the essential core of the social system.
  Accordingly, the conception of functional
  prerequisite can be replaced by functional
  equivalence. As a result, what we are looking for
  are contributing and beneficial conditions
  instead of necessary conditions (or even
  sufficient condition) for the maintaining of the
  essential core of the social system. Furthermore,
  the strong version of functionalists'
  specification of functional prerequisites into
  AGIL can also be relaxed.

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• Functional equivalence perspective in comparative
  research
• In comparing societies or particular
  institutions, such as education, in different
  societies, concept of functional equivalence can
  be served as heuristic concept to the issue of
  comparability.
• From the concept of functional equivalence, we
  may initiate comparative research by posing
  "first that different structures may perform the
  same function, and second, that the same
  structure may perform several different
  functions." (Dogan and Pelassy, 1984, p. 37)

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• Functional equivalence perspective in comparative
  research
• Conception of dissociation of functions and
  structures
• "The search for functional equivalences
  passes through this analytical dissociation of
  roles and function. The same performance may be
  accomplished in various countries by different
  organs, and similar or comparable institutions
  may fulfill, in various countries, different
  tasks." (Dogan Pelassy, 1984, p. 37)

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Functional Equivalence Perspective in Comparative
Studies

• Functional equivalence perspective in comparative
  research
• Accordingly, comparative researches may be
  categorized as follows.

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functionalism
• According to the Parsonsian functionalism, it
  assumes that societies are social systems, which
  are able to maintain most of the time in (A)
  states of adaptive to environments, (G) efficient
  in attaining societal goal in orderly and
  legitimate manner, (I) socially integrated, and
  (L) able to maintain its cultural and
  institutional patterns, in short in equilibrium
  state.
• As explicated in Lecture 2, functional
  explanations require generalized "consequence
  law" as basis to fulfill it temporal-order
  validity, such as the natural selection theory
  within evolutionism, which serves as the
  "consequence law" of functional explanation in
  biology. Accordingly, in Parsonsian
  functionalism, the "consequence law" underlying
  functional explanation is the equilibrium theory
  of social system.

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functionalism
• In Parsons' global concept of social system, (A)
  the function of economic institution is to
  fulfill the functional prerequisite of adaptation
  to environment, (G) the function of political
  institution is to attain the functional
  prerequisite of goal-attainment in orderly and
  legitimate ways, (I) social institutions is to
  perform the functional prerequisite of
  integration, and (L) cultural institutions is to
  contribute to the function prerequisite of
  pattern maintenance. Taken together, they will
  achieve the overall equilibrium of the society.

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functionalism
• As for education institution, Parsons underlines
  that school class performs two essential
  functions to the equilibrium of the social system
  of modern society.
• Socialization function "School class functions
  to internalize in its pupils both the commitments
  and capacities for successful performance of
  their future adult roles." (Parson, 2004, p. 32)
• Selection function School class on the other
  hand "functions to allocate these human resources
  within role-structure of the adult society." (p.
  32)

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functional explanation in Marxian perspective
• The theory of equilibrium as "consequence law" in
  functionalism has been criticized for
  conservative and legitimatizing the status quo
  (Cohen, 1978, p.284 Turner and Maryanski, 1995,
  p.55-56)
• G.A. Cohen, one of the prominent members of
  Analytical Marxism, in reconstructing historical
  materialism offers a selection theory through
  class struggle as the "consequence law" for his
  functional explanations.

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functional explanation in Marxian perspective
• In the functional explanation of the relationship
  between force of production and relation of
  production (class relation) Cohen suggests
• "Classes are permanently poised against one
  another, and that class tends to prevail whose
  rule would best meet the demands of production.
  But how does the fact that production would
  prosper under a certain class ensure its
  dominance? Part of the answer is that there is a
  general stake in stable and striving production,
  so that the class best placed to deliver it
  attracts allies from other strata in society.
  Prospective ruling classes are often able to
  raise support among the classes subjected to the
  ruling class they would displace. Contrariwise,
  classes unsuited to the task of governing society
  tend to lack the confidence political hegemony
  requires, and if they do seize power, they tend
  not to hold it for long." (Cohen, 1978, 292)

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functional explanation in Marxian perspective
• In the functional explanation of the relationship
  between infrastructure and superstructure, Cohen
  once again suggests
• "All classes are receptive to whatever ideas are
  likely to benfit them, and ruling classes are
  well placed to propagate ideologies particular
  congenial to themselves. But before an ideology
  is received or broadcast it has to be formed. And
  on that point there are traces in Marx of a
  Darwinian mechanism, a notion that
  thought-systems are produced in comparative
  independence from social constraint, but persist
  and gain social life for ideological service.
  There is a kind of 'ideological pool' which
  yields elements in different configurations as
  social requirements change." (Cohen, 1978, p.291)

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functional explanation in Marxian perspective
• As for the functional explanation of education
  institution, Marxist conceptions can be
  summarized into two counts
• Reproduction function As Louis Althuser
  indicates education is part of the ideological
  apparatus of the state, which performs the
  function of reproduction of the prevailing class
  relation of a given society. (Althusser, 1971
  Carnoy, 1982 see also Bowles and Gintis, 1976
  Bourdieu Passeron, 1977 Apple, 1979)
• Legitimatizing function Bowles and Gintis
  indicate that the highly selective and
  competitive structure of education does not only
  corresponds but in fact legitimatizing the
  inequality found in the class structure of
  capitalist society. )Bowles Gintis, 1976)

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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• Functional explanation of education in Weberian
  perspective
• Max Weber has rendered a function explanation of
  the relationship between education contents and
  forms of domination in societies. (Weber, 2004)
• Margret Archer has also expounded that domination
  and assertion among status groups as the primary
  factor contributing to education expansion in
  recent decades.

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Webers Typology of Education System
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Perspectives of Functional Equivalence in
Comparative Methods in Education Research

• In light of these perspectives, the functional
  equivalence comparison framework can be
  elaborated as follow.

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Lecture 3 Comparative Method of Marco-social
Phenomena Functional Equivalence Perspective
End