Historical Sociological Research
SOC 300
Nov 22, 2010
Kelly Kistner
Overview
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What is historical sociological research?
Why do it?
Data
Examples
Tools
Disadvantages
Advantages
My own research
What is it?
“differs substantially … though it overlaps”
(Babbie 2010:350)
• Overlaps with field research, content
analysis, existing statistics
• Exists in multiple social scientific
disciplines
• Often uses a single or small number of case
studies
• Affinity for “big questions,” attention to
macro phenomena
What is it?
• Often comparative (across cases or across time).
Seek “natural experiments”
• Can include relatively contemporary topics
• Can be inductive or deductive
• Subject to similar considerations of
methodological logic
– Is the data representative of the population in
question?
– Is the data appropriate to the research
question?
Why do historical research?
• Historical perspective. Hindsight.
• Document changes over time
• Consider contextual factors bearing on other
correlations
• Study larger units of analysis. “Institutions”
(nation states, power or governance structure,
classes, culture, religion, economic structure)
Why do historical research?
• Perceive and follow action, processes, and
causality
• To consider varied temporal structures of
causality
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Tornado (quick cause – quick effect)*
Meteorite (quick cause – long, slow effect)*
Earthquake (long , slow cause – quick effect)*
Global warming (long , slow cause – long, slow effect)*
Multi-causal conjuncture, causal chains, path-dependencies,
thresholds, tipping points, critical junctures, creative
destruction, dialectics, institutional lag
* Adapted from Pierson (2003)
Data
• Secondary Sources (existing publications)
• Existing Statistics
• Primary Sources
– Correspondence, diaries, oral histories,
charters, contracts, meeting minutes, birth and
death certificates, attendance rosters, registries,
manuscripts, newspapers, magazines, tax
records, property deeds, memoirs, etc.
– Held in archives and museums (national,
special collections, private), sometimes in
print, increasingly online
Examples
• Marx – Why did capitalism develop?
– Capital, property protection, and material means of
production accumulated in emergent bourgeoisie
• Weber – Why did capitalism first develop in
Western Europe?
– Impact of Protestant religious ideas in contrast to
Catholicism, Confucianism, and Buddhism
• Skocpol on causes of social revolutions
– Similarities across France, Russia, China
• Mahoney – Why did Latin American nations with
similar backgrounds and resources end up with
different modern state structures?
Tools
• Interpretive understanding. “Verstehen”
• Comparison. Similarities, differences.
• Ideal Types and Typologies
Disadvantages
• Researcher bias, subjective interpretations
• Hard to evaluate researcher’s rigor where nonsystematic methods are used
• Hard to untangle direct causation
• Data can be spotty, asymmetrical between
cases, non-representative
• Risk of reducing to non-generalizable “just so”
stories
Disadvantages
• Practical considerations
– Availability of original sources
– Access to sources
– Condition of sources (decayed, fragile, hard to
read)
– Language
– Can be tedious
Advantages
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Can get rich, detailed narratives
Can reconstruct action and processes
Basis for generating new data sets
Researcher can focus on most relevant events
Adaptable
Unobtrusive
Cheap
More intimate materials might be available
(diaries, personal correspondence)
• Generally requires no IRB approval
My Research
• Analysis of the making of three dictionaries in
mid-late nineteenth century Germany, France,
and Britain
1838-1961
1841-1873
1857-1928
Significance of the Dictionaries
• Emerged around the same time, citing same
inspiration, goals, and theoretical and
methodological guidance from comparative
philology/linguistic science
• Early examples of large-scale scientific
research and information projects. At a time
when the status and practice of science greatly
differed across Germany, France, and Britain
Significance of the Dictionaries
• Greatly distinguished in style and scale from
earlier forms of dictionary-making
• Each of the three would differ in how they
were produced and how they presented
information
– German dictionary (professionals, most analytic)
– French (individual, most prescriptive)
– English (open community, most descriptive)
Significance of the Dictionaries
• Peculiar production model of the OED
– Massive global volunteer operation
– High internal heterogeneity
– Conflict and misunderstanding with external
sponsors
– Defies typical “market or hierarchy” organizational
models
– Many similarities to “open source” software
production and other internet-facilitated modes of
production
Research Questions, Motivations
• Why were these dictionaries produced differently?
– Is there a relationship between social structural
differences and the viable means of organization?
• What is the relationship between their production
method and presentation style?
– Why and how would certain organizational structures
facilitate or hinder the production of certain types of
information?
• How was the organizational model of the OED
sustainable?
– What can we abstract from its model to understand the
proliferation of similar modes of production in the
internet age?
Methods
• Secondary Sources, Ideal Types and
typologies (comparison, correspondence,
correlation)
• Primary source narratives (micro-level action,
conflict, decision-making)
Autonomy
Scientific Knowledge Production in mid 19th
Century
High
Low
Professionalization
High
Low
Britain
Germany
(Marginalized/
(Internalized) Disorganized)
France
(Externalized)
Summary of Multi-Level Case Characteristics
Germany
France
Britain
Overall character
of scientific
knowledge
Marginalized/
production
Internalized Externalized Disorganized
Individual State
Basis for authority Expertise Support
Empirical
Production of
dictionary
Professional Individual Community
Presentation style Analytic
Prescriptive Descriptive
Primary Source Data
• Personal correspondence; meeting minutes,
presentations, and reports of the philological society;
original publications by the relevant actors; dictionary
word-slips; planning materials; manuscript drafts;
commentary on manuscript drafts; contracts;
newspaper reports and interviews; reviews;
memoranda and formal correspondence; appeals for
volunteers; instructions to contributors; record keeping
books; budgets; photographs; eulogies; etc.
• Where: Oxford University Press, Bodleian Library,
Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Printed “Briefwechsel,”
Online, Correspondence with archivists.