北京师范大学
教育研究中的比较―历史方法
Lecture 1
The Essence of Comparative-Historical Studies:
Bridging Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Educational Research
A. Max Weber’s Aporia for researchers of the social sciences
1. "Sociology is a science concerning itself with interpretive understanding of social action in
order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and consequence. We shall
speak of 'action' insofar as the acting individual attaches a subjective meaning to his
behavior. …Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the
behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course." (Weber, 1978, p. 4)
2. Statements of the problem:
a. Problem of interpretive sociology: Weber stipulates that sociology should strive to
provide "interpretive understanding" of the "subjective meaning" underlying social
action.
b. Problem of positive sociology: Weber at the same time stipulates that sociology should
strive to render "causal explanation of course and consequences of social action.
c. Problem of micro- and macro-sociology: How can reciprocity of subjective meanings of
different individuals participating in social interaction be possible?
B. Juxtaposing the Natures and Features of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Educational
Research
Objects of Inquiry
Aims of Inquiry
Quantitative Method
Natural phenomena;
Pre-existing & given reality;
Natural facts
Regularities;
Universal and exhaustive laws of
causal explanation
Orientations of
Inquiry
Objectivity;
Value-neutrality
Methodological
Approach
Method of Inquiry
Logical-positivism;
Empiricism
Scientific experiments;
Empirical survey
Mode of
Explanation
Causal explanation in:
Nomological-induction model;
Probabilistic-deductive model
W.K. Tsang
Historical-Comparative Method in Ed Research
Qualitative Method
Cultural phenomena;
Man-made & constructed reality;
Artifacts
Meanings & significances;
Subjective meanings;
Social meanings;
Cultural meanings
Subjectivity;
Value-laden & culturally
significant
Empathetic understanding;
Interpretive approach
Ethnography;
Hermeneutics;
Psycho-analysis
Intentional explanation
Rational-choice model;
Interpretive-purposive mode
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C. Three Interpretations of Weber’s Aporia
1. Alfred Schutz in begins his major scholarly work The Phenomenology of the Social World
(1932/1967) the chapter entitled “The Statement of Our Problem: Max Weber’s Basic
Methodological Concepts.” He defines “Max Weber’s initial statement of the goal of
interpretive sociology ” as “to study social behavior by interpreting its subjective meaning
found in the intentions of individual individuals. The aim, then, is to interpret the actions
of individuals in the social world and the ways in which individuals give meaning to social
phenomena. But to attain this aim, it does not suffice either to observe the behavior of a
single individual or to collect statistics about the behavior of groups of individuals, as a
crude empiricism would have us to believ. Rather, the special aim of sociology demands a
special method in order to select the materials relevant to the particular questions it raise.”
(Scgutz, 1967, Pp.6-7)
2. Jurgen Habermas in his book On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1988/1967) also starts
with Weber’s aporia. Habermas underlines that “The definition of sociology that Weber
gives in the first paragraphs of Economy and Society applies to method: ‘Sociology is a
science concerning itself with interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby
to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and consequence’ We may consider this
sentence as an answer to the question, How are general theories of social action possible?
General theories allow use to derive assumptions about empirical regularities in the form
of hypotheses that serve the purpose of explanation. At the same time, and in
contradistinction to natural processes, regularities of social action have the property of
being understandable. Social action belongs to the class of intentional actions, which we
grasp by reconstructing their meaning.” (Habermas, 1988/1967, Pp. 10-11)
3. Georg H. von Wright in his book Explanation and Understanding (1971) underlines, “It
is … misleading to say that understanding versus explanation marks the difference
between two types of scientific intelligibility. But one could say that the intentional or
nonintentional character of their objects marks the difference between two types of
understanding and of explanation.” (von Wright, 1971, p.135) Instead he distinguishes two
traditions of explanation prevailing in the methodology of history and social sciences,
namely causal/nointentional and intentional explanation:
a. Causal explanation: It refers to the mode of explanation, which attempt to seek the
sufficient and/or necessary conditions (i.e. explanans) which antecede the phenomenon
to be explained (i.e. explanandum). Causal explanations normally point to the past.
‘This happened, because that had occurred’ is the typical form in language.” (von
Wright, 1971, p. 83) It seeks to verify the antecedental conditions for an observed
natural phenomenon.
b. Teleological explanation: It refers to the mode of explanation, which attempt to reveal
the goals and/or intentions, which generate or motivate the explanadum (usually an
action to be explained) to take place. “Teleological explanations point to the future.
‘This happened in order that that should occur.’” (von Wright, 1971, p. 83)
D. Debate between Methodological Individualism and Methodological Collectivism
1. The reductionism and methodological individualism
a. F.A. Hayek: "There is no other way toward an understanding of social phenomena
but through our understanding of individual actions direct toward other people and
guided by their expected behavior." (quoted in Lukes, 1994, p. 452)
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Historical-Comparative Method in Ed Research
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b. Karl R. Popper: "All social phenomena especially the functioning of all social
institutions, should always be understood as resulting from the decisions, actions,
attitudes, etc. of human individuals, and …we should never be satisfied by an
explanation in terms of so-called collectives." (quoted in Like, 1994, p. 452)
c. J.W.N. Watkins: "I am an advocate of …the principle of methodological
individualism. According to this principle, the ultimate constituents of social world
are individual people who act more or less appropriately in the light of their
dispositions and understanding of their situation. Every complex social situation or
event is the result of a particular configuration of individuals, their dispositions,
situations, beliefs and physical resources and environment. There may be unfinished
or halfway explanations of large-scale social phenomena (say, inflation) in terms of
other large-scale phenomena (say, full employment); but we shall not have not
arrived at rock-bottom explanations of such large-scale phenomena until we have
deduced an account of them from statements about the dispositions, beliefs,
resources, and interrelations of individuals." (Quoted in Luke, 1994, p. 452)
d. Jon Elster: "By this (methodological individualism) I mean the doctrine that all social
phenomena ― their structure and their change ― are in principle explicable in ways
that only involve individuals ― their properties, their goals, their beliefs and their
actions. Methodological individualism thus conceived is a form of reductionism. To
go from social institutions and aggregate patterns of behavior to individuals is the
same kind of operation as going from cells to molecules," (Quoted in Wright, 1992,
p. 111)
2. Classical sociologists’ conception of methodological collectivism
a. Emile Durkheim's methodological collectivism
i. Sociology is "the study of social facts" (Durkheim, 1982/, p. 50)
ii. "A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over
the individual an external constraint; or which is general over the whole of a
given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual
manifestation." (1982, p.59)
c. Education as a social fact:
i. "This definition of a social fact can be verified by examining an experience that
is characteristic. It is sufficient to observe how children are brought up. If one
view the facts as they are and indeed as they have always been, it is patently
obvious that all education consists of a continual effort to impose upon child ways
of seeing, thinking and acting which he himself would not have arrived at
spontaneously. " (1982, p. 53)
ii. "Each society sets up a certain idea of man, of what he should be, as much from
the intellectual point of view as the physical and moral; that this ideal is, to a
degree, the same from all citizens, that beyond a certain point it becomes
differentiated according to the particular milieux that every society contains in its
structure. It is this ideal at the same time one and the various, that is the focus of
education. Its function, then, is to arouse in the child : (1) a certain number of
physical and mental states that the society to which he belongs considers should
not be lacking in any of its members; (2) certain physical and mental states that
the particular social group (caste, class, family, profession) considers, equally,
ought to be found among all those who make it up. Thus it is society as a whole
and each particular social milieu that determine the ideal that education realizes.
Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of
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Historical-Comparative Method in Ed Research
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homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in
the child, from the being, the essential similarities that collective life demand. But
on the other hand, without a certain diversity all co-operation would be
impossible ; education assures the persistence of this necessary diversity by being
itself diversified and specialized." (2006, p.79-80)
e. "Sociology can…be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their
functioning." (Durkheim, 1982, p. 45)
D. The Hermeneutical Arc: Institutionalization of Social Interaction
1. Habermas’ solution to the General Theory of Social Action:
a. At the beginning of his book On the Logic of the Social Sciences, Habermas poses the
fundamental problem “How are general theories of social action possible?”
(Habermas, 1988/1967, P. 11)
b. Subsequently, Habermas provides the following solution to the problem:
“In the terminology of Max Weber,…we can say that in a certain way sociology
presupposes the value-interpretation of the hermeneutic sciences, but is itself
concerned with cultural tradition and value-system only insofar as they have attained
normative power in the orienting of action. Sociology is concerned only with
institutionalized values. We can now formulate our question in a more specific form:
How are general theories of action in accordance with institutionalized values (or
prevailing norms) possible?” (Habermas, 1988, p. 75)
2. The institutionalists’ solutions
E. Comparative-Historical Method on Institutions: Big Structures, Large Process and Hugh
Comparisons
W.K. Tsang
Historical-Comparative Method in Ed Research
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