Transcript Paradigms and Social Research Ghent 2013

Philosophical Paradigms in
Social Research
Martyn Hammersley
The Open University
UK
University of Ghent, October 2013
Outline
1. What are philosophical paradigms and
why should we give them attention?
2. Four paradigms and the philosophical
assumptions they involve.
3. Competing practical assumptions.
4. Conflicting ontological assumptions.
5. Discrepant epistemological assumptions.
6. The issue of assessing research.
7. Navigating the field.
Why do we need philosophy?
1. There are philosophical assumptions built
into:
a. the purposes of our research;
b. the questions we address, and
c. the methods we employ.
Some of these assumptions may lead us astray.
2. In writing up our research we need to locate it
in relation to the range of conflicting
approaches that is currently to be found in
the field of social research.
Beware!
• Philosophy can damage your health:
‘If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt,
they'd immediately go out’
William Blake ‘Auguries of Innocence’
• And there is a great deal of erroneous and
misleading philosophical discussion in the
methodological literature concerned with
the social sciences today.
[For some sources and guidance, see
Hammersley 2012.]
How much philosophy do we
need as social researchers?
No simple answer: some philosophical
reflection on assumptions is surely
desirable, but it is not possible to engage in
‘full philosophical reflection’. And trying to
do this would lead us into deep, intractable
problems.
Depends upon what is sufficient in doing your
work, and on what you need to do in
defending your work to relevant audiences.
Types of philosophical
assumption
• Practical: what is the purpose and
intended product of research?
• Ontological: what is the nature of social
phenomena, or of particular types of
social phenomena?
• Epistemological: how can social
phenomena, of various kinds, be
understood?
The concept of paradigm
The relevant sense of this term was
developed by Thomas Kuhn (1970).
However, it has come to be used by
social scientists in ways that diverge
from its role in Kuhn’s account of the
development of the natural sciences.
It has come to mean a particular set of
philosophical assumptions that provide
a framework for research.
Four philosophical paradigms
Positivism
Interpretivism
Constructionism
Critical research
These are by no means the only labels used to
identify approaches within social science, nor
are they employed consistently.
Moreover, they refer to particular lines of thinking,
to which the work of particular researchers will
only approximate.
And what they each refer to is internally diverse.
Key positivist assumptions
• It must be possible to observe or elicit the
phenomena to be investigated in a
standardised and replicable way.
• These phenomena should be counted or
measured to allow quantitative analysis.
• The task is to identify causal laws, of a
deterministic or probabilistic kind.
• Hypotheses about such laws can be
tested by applying experimental or
statistical control to relevant variables.
Key interpretivist assumptions
• It is not possible directly to observe human
social actions and the meanings that inform
them: psycho-cultural interpretation is required
which relies upon learning a culture.
• The social world involves processes that
evolve and change, so the task is to document
these processes e.g. through ‘thick description’
• The immediate focus must be upon the actions
of particular people in particular places at
particular times, but studying these may
enable us to draw more general conclusions.
Key constructionist assumptions
• The social world does not consist of real
phenomena that have stable characteristics
and relationships, which can be documented.
• Rather, social phenomena owe their existence
and character to constitutive processes (such
as discursive practices) that generate them.
• Some constructionists seek to observe and
document these processes in the world.
• Others focus on how research is itself a
constitutive process, effectively fabricating the
objects it studies.
‘Critical’ research
The aim is not just to understand the world but to
change it: ‘the aim […] is better understanding
of how societies work [to] produce both
beneficial and detrimental effects, and of how
[bad effects] can be mitigated if not eliminated’
(Fairclough 2003:202-3)
The task is to provide documentary evidence
about inequality and oppression, and to
evaluate and challenge current arrangements.
Ideally at least, research should directly serve
political movements that are aimed at
eliminating inequality or oppression.
Questions to ask about typologies
1. Do the types rely upon the same set of underlying
dimensions of variation?
2. Do they conceptualise these dimensions in the
same way?
3. Does each type give these dimensions the same
relative priority as the others do?
4. Are the types exhaustive of the field they claim to
cover?
a. Does the typology cover all of the relevant
dimensions of variation?
b. Does it include types representing all of the
positions on those dimensions?
Practical assumptions
Is the goal:
• To produce factual knowledge.
• To produce evaluations and/or practical
recommendations – for example by
documenting ‘what’s wrong’ or ‘what works’.
• To defend an institution or practice or to
bring about change of some kind, to ‘give
voice to some marginalised group, or
otherwise to serve a form of practice,
political, governmental, organisational or
occupational.
‘Value-neutral’ social science
The task of social science is solely to produce
value-relevant factual knowledge, not
evaluations and prescriptions.
It is necessary to minimise the risk of the
researcher’s value-commitments, along with
presuppositions associated with these,
leading to erroneous factual conclusions.
So, from this point of view, there should be no
claim that social science can provide a
practical perspective on the world, diagnosing
what is wrong or what should be done.
Normative social science
It is impossible to describe and explain the
social world in a factual way without engaging
in evaluation through the concepts employed.
For example the sociology of art necessarily
involves assumptions about what art is, the
sociology of education about what education
is. Describing in non-evaluative terms what
happened, say, in concentration camps or in
torture sessions would imply their legitimacy.
Social science must be explicitly geared to
normative ideals, producing evaluations and
perhaps also policy recommendations.
Activist social science
The purpose of research is not only to document
or understand the social world, or even just to
produce evaluations and recommendations. It
should play a direct role in serving, defending
or changing social arrangements, policies, and
practices. Indeed, research affects these
anyway, and should be directed towards the
correct political or practical goals.
This means that it must be specifically designed
to serve some form of practice, political,
occupational, organisational, or charitable.
Conflicting ontological
assumptions
• Objects are governed by causal laws
• Social actions are produced by people’s
perceptions, interpretations, intentions
and plans
• Phenomena are generated by
constitutive practices, for example by
discursive or rhetorical strategies of
various kinds
Epistemological assumptions
Must we rely upon:
• Observational data, keeping inferences from
these to a minimum (behaviourist psychology,
conversation analysis);
• Standardised procedures of elicitation and
statistical generalisation (survey research);
• Comparative analysis of cases (AI, QCA);
• Empathic understanding and/or cultural
interpretation (much qualitative research);
• Interventions in situations and observation of
the effects (experiments, action research)
An Example: NatCen on the
August 2011 Riots in England
1. Purpose and intended product?
2. What are the phenomena being
investigated and what character are they
assumed to have?
3. What methods were used and what sorts
of inferences were made from data to
conclusions?
4. On what ontological and epistemological
assumptions did this NatCen study rely?
Range of possible political opinions
1. There was no genuine problem that rioters
were reacting against: they were irrational
and irresponsible.
2. Their behaviour was a product of a moral
vacuum in society.
3. They were reacting against poverty and
inequality but in an expressive and
ineffective way
4. They were the first stirrings of a counterhegemonic, revolutionary movement.
Actual range of political positions
‘people allowed to feel the world owes them something,
that their rights outweigh their responsibilities…’
(Cameron 2011)
‘This was not a rebellion […] of famished and
impoverished people or an oppressed ethnic or
religious minority – but a mutiny of defective and
disqualified consumers…’ (Bauman 2011)
‘The UK is deeply economically divided and severe and
entrenched poverty exists…’ (Shildrick 2011)
‘In Marxist terms [this was not] the emergence of the
revolutionary subject; they fit much better the Hegelian
notion of the “rabble” who can express their discontent
only through “irrational” outbursts of destructive
violence’ (Žižek 2011)
Implications for research
Should researchers adopt one or other of
these political positions in carrying out
their research?
Should researchers be neutral towards
these positions in how they do their
work?
Is this possible?
The sociologist as spy
‘Sociologists stand guard in the garrison and
report to their masters on the movements of
the occupied populace. The more
adventurous […] don the disguise of the
people and go out to mix with the peasants
in the "field", returning with books and
articles that break the protective secrecy in
which a subjugated population wraps itself,
and make it more accessible to manipulation
and control./ The sociologist […] is precisely
a kind of spy’ (Nicolaus 1968).
Key aims
‘The core question we sought to answer
was […]: “Why did young people get
involved in the riots?” To address this,
the report describes:
- what occurred in five affected areas
and two areas unaffected by rioting?
- who was involved in the riots?
- why and how young people got
involved’? (Morrell et al 2011:??)
More detailed objectives
The research had five key objectives:
‘To understand the motives of young people who were involved in
the riots.
To gather the perspectives of young people from affected areas
who chose not to get involved.
To elicit the voices of other community members – residents,
parents, business owners and community stakeholders – to
capture their views about what led to the riots and why young
people became involved.
To engage young people in areas unaffected by the riots to get
their perspectives on why rioting did not break out in their areas
To bring these different perspectives together in a summary of the
key factors triggering and underpinning involvement in the riots,
supported by evidence from the research encounters.’
The case of interviews
Interviews are used as a source of:
• witness accounts about events and settings
in the social world.
• self-analyses by informants.
• indirect evidence about informants’
orientations.
• evidence about the constructional or
discursive work engaged in by informants
(and perhaps also by the interviewer)
through which interview data are produced.
The ‘radical critique’ of interviews
• Rejection of the idea that what people say
somehow represents, or simply derives from,
what goes on inside their heads.
• Scepticism about the idea that accounts can
ever represent reality at all, whether this is
‘external’ or ‘internal’ reality.
• Severe methodological caution.
• A person's responses in interviews are so
heavily shaped by the context that reliable
inferences about the validity of the information
they provide or about their attitudes and
behaviour in other situations are impossible.
The issue of assessing
research
Assessment depends upon practical,
ontological, and epistemological
assumptions.
There are conflicting sets of criteria for
assessing research design and
research practice.
Practical judgment as the bedrock.
Navigating the field
Dealing with philosophical assumptions is
not just about finding the best way to
carry out your research.
It is also about locating your work within
the field to which it is designed to
contribute, and being able to defend
what you have done to audiences who
may not share your assumptions.
Bibliography
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Europe Journal. Available at: http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/08/the-london-riots-onconsumerism-coming-home-to-roost/
Cameron, D. (10 Aug 2011) ‘UK riots: David Cameron's statement in full’, Daily Telegraph.
Available at (accessed 20.6.12):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8693134/UK-riots-David-Cameronsstatement-in-full.html.
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse, London, Routledge.
Hammersley, M. (1995) The Politics of Social Research, London, Sage.
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