Being
Sociological
Chapter 2
Researching
• Sociologists can research just about anything
that is imaginable, but this range of research
subjects is predicated on a narrower range of
research approaches that are considered
acceptable by sociologists. There are two types
of research methodology which are most
commonly used in sociological studies:
QUALITATIVE research and QUANTITATIVE
research.
Qualitative Research
• Most closely associated with participant
observation and other forms of fieldwork;
• Usually carried out through interviews, logs and
journals;
• Centres upon words, including stories,
narratives, descriptions.
Quantitative Research
• Dominated by the use of questionnaires and/or
surveys;
• These can be carried out over the telephone,
door-to-door, face-to-face, online or through the
mail;
• Generates numbers rather than words: i.e., the
emphasis here is on large amounts of data
gained from questionnaires which can be
condensed and subjected to statistical analysis.
What can each methodology
do?
• Qualitative research is often described as ‘richer,
more vital, as having greater depth and as more
likely to present a true picture of a way of life, of
people’s experiences attitudes and beliefs’
(Haralambos and Holborn, 1991: 707)
• Quantitative research is more useful when a
large amount or wide range of data needs to be
collected and numerically analysed.
A distinction between depth (using words,
exploring qualities) and breadth (using numbers,
quantifying variations) is another way of thinking
about differences between research with few or
singular cases and many variables, and
research with a large number of cases and
relatively few variables.
Case-Centric and VariableCentric
• Qualitative research is case-centric: meaning
that it focuses on a few or singular cases and
many variables.
• Quantitative research focuses on large numbers
of cases and relatively few variables.
Framing Research: Inductive and
Deductive strategies
• Inductive strategies: correspond to a popular
conception of the activities of scientists, i.e. of
persons who make careful observations, conduct
experiments, rigorously analyse the data obtained
and hence produce new discoveries or new theories
(Blaikie 1993: 131-61)
• Deductive strategies: begin with a question or a
problem that needs to be understood or explained.
Instead of starting with observation the first stage is
to produce a possible answer to the question, or
explanation for the problem (Blaikie, 1993: 144)
So:
• The inductive strategy starts with data and no
theory;
• The deductive strategy starts with theory and no
data.
• Framing represents an interaction on the part of
the researcher between the body of sociological
theory and the problem in which they are
interested; research is always a process
involving the interaction of data and theory and
vice versa.
An Example
The French sociologist Loic Wacquant enrolled in a boxing
gym in Chicago in order to move beyond the sociological
representations of black ghettos and of boxing. Wacquant
would train and fight in the gym for more than three years and
socialise with his fellow boxers. In doing so he generated
twenty-three hundred pages of notes on his observations on
the case. He describes his engagement in the process of
framing this research as an attempt to overcome various
stereotypes and, in particular:
‘[T]o avoid the excess knowledge of spontaneous sociology that
the evocation of fights never fails to conjure, one must not step
into the ring by proxy with the extra-ordinary figure of the ‘champ’
but ‘hit the bags’ alongside anonymous boxers in their habitual
setting of the gym.’ (Wacquant, 2004: 6).
Fixed and Fluid Framing
Quantitative research, according to Ragin, is
‘fixed’: the most important categorisation is of
the variable and its measurement. A quantitative
study is unlikely to be much affected by the
addition or removal of a few cases: therefore,
the most important task for the researcher in this
methodology is to determine the variables to
describe the cases. Decisions made around the
character of variables determine its success or
failure.
Qualitative research has a ‘fluid’ framing: Of most
importance in this methodology is the capacity for
the researcher to develop a rich appreciation of the
case or cases:
You develop and test your theory case by case. You formulate
an explanation for the first case as soon as you have gathered
data on it. You apply that theory to the second case when you
get data on it. If the theory explains that case adequately, thus
confirming the theory, no problem; you go to the third case.
When you hit a “negative case,” one your explanatory
hypothesis doesn’t explain, you change the explanation of
what you are trying to explain, by incorporating into it whatever
new elements the facts of this troublesome case suggest to
you, or you change the definition of what you’re going to
explain so as to exclude the recalcitrant case from the
universe of things to be explained. (Becker, 1998: 195).
Six Goals of Sociological Enquiry
(Ragin, 1994)
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identifying patterns;
Making predictions;
Testing theories;
Developing theories;
Interpreting events;
Giving voice.
• Identifying patterns: research where the aim is to
measure the significance of social relations or
phenomena.
• Making predictions: The extrapolation of identified
trends.
• Testing theories: This centres on versions of
hypothesis testing.
• These three goals cluster in the realm of
quantitative research: they are most readily
achieved through quantitative and variable-centric
approaches, and are amenable to a fixed framing.
• Developing theory: centres on challenging the
existing body of sociological theory and on
advancing alternative perspectives.
• Interpreting events: moves beyond identifying
patterns and focuses on behaviours or happenings
that are not assumed to be normal and may be
atypical.
• Giving voice: this includes the task of advocacy, of
representing the margins of society and taking the
part of outsiders or excluded groups (Mills, 1959).
These three goals cluster in the realm of
qualitative research, which has a far greater
potential to reveal the unexpected and to begin a
process of building new variables and new theory.
Table 2: Quantitative and Qualitative Research and
Goals of Inquiry (Ragin, 1994: 32-33)
Goal of Inquiry
Qualitative Research
Quantitative Research
1. Identifying patterns
rarely
Used mainly
2. Making predictions
rarely
Used mainly
3. Testing theories
Used occasionally
Used
Used
Used mainly
4. Developing theories Used occasionally
mainly
Used
Table 3: Differences between Quantitative
and Qualitative research
Quantitative
Many cases,
few variables
Variable-centric
2. Categorisation
Building variables
Fluid
3. Framing
Variables interrogated
4. Words and
Numbers, to condense
5. Scope of Research Breadth, shallow
Somewhat deductive
6. Startpoint of
Theory
Identifying patterns
7. Goals of Inquiry
Making predictions
Testing theories
8. Political Stance
Tending
1. Cases and
Qualitative Research
Few cases,
many variables
Case-centric
Building cases
Fixed
Variables determined
Words, to enhance
Depth, narrow
Somewhat inductive
Data
Interpreting events
Giving voice
Advancing theories
Tending radical
The Sociological Imagination (C.W.
Mills,1959)
‘It is the political task of the social scientist – as of any
liberal educator – continually to translate personal
troubles into public issues, and public issues into the
terms of their human meaning for a variety of
individuals. It is his task to display in his work – and, as
an educator, in his life as well –this kind of sociological
imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such
habits of mind among the men and women who are
publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to
secure reason and individuality, and to make these the
predominant values of a democratic society’ (Mills,
1959: 187).
Mills was writing at a time when sociological
research was dominated by forms of quantitative
research (he called this abstracted empiricism)
and writing that was largely disconnected from
genuine research or empirical work (he called this
grand theory). This was a politically and
academically conservative period, and the bulk of
sociological research was implicated in various
Cold War agendas.
Mills offered a call-to-arms which sought to
strengthen the liberal elements of American
society and in particular the discipline of
sociology…he argued that the sociological
imagination involved the capacity to bridge the
gulf between personal troubles and public issues.
In that context it required a re-balancing of
research agendas and a greater use of qualitative
approaches in giving voice, interpreting events
and advancing theories. Mills helped to inspire at
least a generation of sociologists, to revitalise
qualitative research and to enhance sociology.
Quantitative approaches are enjoying a
resurgence – which in itself is no bad thing – but
the challenge of Mills to sociologists and
researchers remains.
Discussion Point 1:The Recurring Crises
of Sociology and Truth Claims
• An under-explored aspect of the crises of sociology is the role of
research and methodology. Savage and Burrows (2007) suggest
that sociology has predicated its capacity to make truth claims
primarily on surveys and in-depth interviews.
• They argue that both these approaches are dated, old-fashioned,
and that large corporations like telecommunications companies
(and presumably social networking sites thanks to ‘data-mining’)
hold far more interesting information.
• They suggest sociology needs to find some way of accessing this
material.
• However, the prognosis is poor, and it is perhaps significant that
Burrows’ subsequent sociological investigation centred on the
content analysis of a TV programme (The Wire).
• Nevertheless the point remains that sociology is in the business of
making truth claims and these can only be as good as the research
and methodologies they are predicated on.
• Is sociology the ‘queen of the social sciences’?
• What is most important for researchers to be
able to make ‘truth claims’?
• To what extent is the role of sociology as an
empirical and critical voice in society challenged
as society becomes ever more digital, while
large corporations control more and more data
and limit access to ‘intellectual property’?
Discussion Point 2: Six-Word Stories
• The six word story has two attributes:
• First, it is a powerful tool for learning writing
skills. Condensing a story to six words and
producing a convincing narrative is fantastic
practice for all other writing.
• Second, six-word stories (or memoirs) can be
used as a way of collecting data. They have the
potential to act like a questionnaire in variablecentric research, when the analytical emphasis
would be on comparing patterns of word usage
across different types of authors. Alternatively,
the six-word stories could be case-centric.
Attention would then focus on interpreting
narratives of a few cases (stories).
Class Activity
• Write a six-word story about a topic of interest.
• Do these stories work as genuine narrative
accounts? Are some stories better than others?
• When you compare the stories with the
individuals who wrote them are there any
obvious patterns in word usage? For example,
do men and women use differing types of words
or associations?
• Could an argument be made for six- word
stories in terms of validity and reliability?