Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

2014 ◽  
pp. 16-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann ◽  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽  
Søren Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological History

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-upon approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. In order to respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, we will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. We will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered as articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (1) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (2) the internal history of qualitative research, (3) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (4) the repressed history of qualitative research, (5) the social history of qualitative research, and (6) the technological history of qualitative research.

Historical Overview of Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-58
Author(s):  
Svend Brinkmann ◽  
Michael Hviid Jacobsen ◽  
Søren Kristiansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological History

Qualitative research does not represent a monolithic, agreed-on approach to research but is a vibrant and contested field with many contradictions and different perspectives. To respect the multivoicedness of qualitative research, this chapter will approach its history in the plural—as a variety of histories. The chapter will work polyvocally and focus on six histories of qualitative research, which are sometimes overlapping, sometimes in conflict, and sometimes even incommensurable. They can be considered articulations of different discourses about the history of the field, which compete for researchers’ attention. The six histories are: (a) the conceptual history of qualitative research, (b) the internal history of qualitative research, (c) the marginalizing history of qualitative research, (d) the repressed history of qualitative research, (e) the social history of qualitative research, and (f) the technological history of qualitative research.

scholarly journals Alex Grant and the Big Ditch

2017 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-183
Author(s):  
Roberta M. Styran ◽  
Robert R. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technological History

The technological history of the building of the Welland ship canal (1913-1932) is well recorded with photographs, documents, maps and plans in various archives. On the other hand, the social history of this saga is harder for the reader to discover because the engineers, contractors, and labourers have left little trace of their experiences “on the ground.” Fortunately, a diary kept by the engineer in charge, Alexander J. Grant, has come to life. Covering the longest period of construction, it chronicles the day-to-day problems of a hard-working, intelligent professional -- but also offers glimpses into the emotional and social life of the man. It will be a valuable source for a future biographer of this remarkable engineer.

Ethnography

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Kwame Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Ethnography (Understanding Qualitative Research) provides a comprehensive guide to understanding, conceptualizing, and critically assessing ethnographic research and its resultant texts. Through a series of discussions and illustrations, utilizing both classic and contemporary examples, the book highlights distinct features of ethnography as both a research methodology and a writing tradition. It emphasizes the importance of training—including familiarity with culture as an anthropologically derived concept and critical awareness of the history of ethnography. To this end, it introduces the notion of ethnographic comportment, which serves as a standard for engaging and gauging ethnography. Indeed, ethnographic comportment issues from a familiarity with ethnography’s problematic past and inspires a disposition of accountability for one’s role in advancing ethnographic practices. Following an introductory chapter outlining the emergence and character of ethnography as a professionalized field, subsequent chapters conceptualize ethnographic research design, consider the practices of representing research methodologies, discuss the crafting of accurate and evocative ethnographic texts, and explain the different ways in which research and writing gets evaluated. While foregrounding interpretive and literary qualities that have gained prominence since the late twentieth century, the book properly situates ethnography at the nexus of the social sciences and the humanities. Ethnography (Understanding Qualitative Research) presents novice ethnographers with clear examples and illustrations of how to go about conducting, analyzing, and representing their research; its primary purpose, however, is to introduce readers to effective practices for understanding and evaluating the quality of ethnography.

The Two Faces of Contingency

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Palonen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The work of Pierre Rosanvallon is discussed here from the perspective of the conceptual history of “politics” (La Politique) and of “the political” (La Politique). In Rosanvallon's early work in the second half of the 1970s, there is a marked defence of the autonomy of politics, as a manifestation of contingency, against the language of “society,” then dominant in the social sciences and philosophy. Since the 1980s, Le Politique become a fashionable concept in French political thought, a phenomenon brought about by the reception of both Schmitt and Heidegger, in opposition to mere la politique. Although Rosanvallon can partly be linked to this fashion, he differs from his more philosophical colleagues in two respects: his concept of the political is more historically informed and he refrains from showing contempt for the activity of politics.

Accounting for discovery

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Sampson ◽  
Paul Atkinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Genetic Basis ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Autobiographical Work ◽  
Genetic Medicine ◽  
Important Milestone

The paper presents an analysis of genetic scientists’ accounts of a 1992 scientific breakthrough. Members of the research team were interviewed in the course of a wider study of the history of the discovery and its implications for clinical practice. The isolation of the genetic basis for myotonic dystrophy was an important milestone in the development of contemporary genetic medicine and a significant event in the lives and careers of the scientists involved. Despite the significance of some key publications on scientists’ discovery accounts, the paper argues that there has been a neglect of scientists’ narratives and accounting practices, despite the increased visibility of narrative analysis in the social sciences, the increasing sophistication of qualitative research methods, and the expansion of qualitative research on scientific work and practice. The paper outlines a number of themes in the scientists’ autobiographical work and their methods in recounting the discovery.

scholarly journals Towards a reflexive intelligence of emerging sociology in France around 1900 (Tome 142, 7e Série, n°3-4, (2021))

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-64
Author(s):  
Martin Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Present Review ◽  
Bibliometric Study ◽  
History Of Sociology ◽  
Social Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract Recent years have seen a proliferation of publications reconsidering the emergence of sociology in France. The present review discusses and compares three of these works: S. Mosbah-Natanson’s bibliometric study on the fashion of sociology around 1900 (2017a); Th. Hirsch’s history of the idea of social time from the Durkheimians to Les Annales (2016a); and M. Joly’s enquiry into a purported sociological revolution in France and Germany at around the same time (2017a). Pushing respectively for a sociological, a historical and an epistemological history of sociology, they represent three distinct ways of renewing the historiography of the social sciences. The article argues that qualities and limitations of these works alike suggest two challenges for the history of sociology: (1) integrating sociological, historical and epistemological competences in a comprehensive intelligence of sociological texts; and (2) accounting for the reflexivity involved in a social history of the social sciences.

scholarly journals Erratum

1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-329 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interpretation Studies

ERRATUM. The brief notice which appears in vol. 10, no. 3 (p. 491) should be headed CHRISTOPHER HOOKWAY and PHILIP PETTIT (eds.), Action & interpretation: Studies in the philosophy of the social sciences. Cambridge University Press, 1980. Paperback.The notice for the Klar et al. book is as follows: Contains a number of good short studies, including, of special interest here, a valuable and cogent paper, “How languages die: A social history of unstable bilingualism among the Eastern Porno” by S. McLendon, 137–50. Language in Society regrets the error.

Politics and the urban process: the case of Philadelphia, 1800–54

Urban History ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
D.I. Greenstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Science Methods ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Science Methods ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

History is a discipline in a state of perpetual crisis. Thus, in 1970, Arthur Marwick explained much of the controversy over historians' use of social science methods and theories in the latest incarnation of a social history which emerged after the Second World War. History's flirtations with the social sciences are recurrent. So are its crises. In the 1980s, Marwick's view of cyclical crises in history has been borne out. The use in history of ‘illuminating’ social science methods and concepts is now widely accepted. A spirit of tolerance, respect and professional courtesy has replaced the outward hostility which until recently characterized exchanges between the so-called ‘traditional’ and new social historians respectively.

Mead, Dewey, and Their Influence in the Social Sciences

2017 ◽  
pp. 628-650
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Huebner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
George Herbert ◽  
George Herbert Mead ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter traces novel aspects of the relationship between George Herbert Mead and John Dewey. It identifies major aspects of Dewey’s reception in and engagement with the social sciences. Dewey’s influence in the social sciences is closely connected with Mead, both in the sense that Dewey’s ideas relevant to the social sciences have been developed in substantial collaboration with Mead and in the sense that Dewey has been interpreted by later social scientists primarily through Mead’s work and the work of Mead’s students and colleagues. Dewey and Mead worked to develop functional and later social psychology, social reform efforts, educational theory, the social history of thought, and other aspects of pragmatist philosophy. Dewey also had moderate influence on the sociologists and anthropologists at Columbia, institutional economists at Chicago and elsewhere, and later European social theorists, and his publications and correspondence about Mead after the latter’s death influenced Mead’s own legacy.

Qualitative Research and Speech-Language Pathology

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack S. Damico ◽  
Nina N. Simmons-Mackie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Operational Definition ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Speech Language Pathology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Pathology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
History Of Use

As an analytic paradigm, qualitative research offers much to clinical speech-language pathology. This paradigm has a long history of use in the social sciences, and it is well suited to address the complex issues of speech, language, and communication. As an introduction to this forum on qualitative research, this article provides an operational definition of qualitative research, discusses the primary distinguishing traits of this research paradigm, and describes six viable traditions of inquiry for our application. Additionally, numerous qualitative studies within our field are considered, and five potential reasons for the increased use of qualitative research studies in our discipline are discussed.

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