The logic of small samples in interview-based qualitative research

2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Crouch ◽  
Heather McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Past History ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Small Samples ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Explanatory Status

In a qualitative framework, research based on interviews often seeks to penetrate social life beyond appearance and manifest meanings. This requires the researcher to be immersed in the research field, to establish continuing, fruitful relationships with respondents and through theoretical contemplation to address the research problem in depth. Therefore a small number of cases (less than 20, say) will facilitate the researcher’s close association with the respondents, and enhance the validity of fine-grained, in-depth inquiry in naturalistic settings. Epistemologically prior to these considerations, however, is the explanatory status of such research. From a realist standpoint, here concept formation through induction and analysis aims to clarify the nature of some specific situations in the social world, to discover what features there are in them and to account, however partially, for those features being as they are. Since such a research project scrutinizes the dynamic qualities of a situation (rather than elucidating the proportionate relationships among its constituents), the issue of sample size - as well as representativeness - has little bearing on the project’s basic logic. This article presents this argument in detail, with an example drawn from a study of persons with a past history of cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Psychology and Oppression

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wahbie Long
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Close Association ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
American Psychological ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

Psychology has always been a discipline immersed in the social and political currents of the day. At the level of psychological theory—whether one considers early pioneers such as Freud, Skinner, and Rogers, or, more recently, Seligman and the neuroscientific turn—its affinity with dominant socio-political concerns is easily demonstrated. Far from such individuals being calculating ideologues, however, they were interpellated—inevitably—by a field of power in which their personal and working lives were already embedded. On the other hand, it is equally true that Psychology’s phenomenal growth in the 20th century was built—most deliberately—on the alliances it formed with powerful bureaucratic elites. The discipline’s proximity to power, that is, meant not only that it could be co-opted ideologically but also that it would collude with oppressive regimes to enhance its own prestige. Project CAMELOT is one example where psychologists were willing to cooperate with the U.S. military in the service of a foreign policy that terrorized Latin America. The discipline also thrived under the Nazis with psychologists heavily involved in meeting the operational requirements of the Wehrmacht. Afrikaner psychologists in South Africa formed a close association with the apartheid state in both ideological and practical terms. More recently, the involvement of the American Psychological Association in a torture scandal has drawn attention once again to the discipline’s potential for collusion with institutional powers. In historiographic terms, some will take issue with the delivery of moral judgments when documenting the history of Psychology. However, the writing of history does not preclude such judgments, especially at a time when the exercise of power permeates disciplinary, institutional, and social life.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

The Social Life of Fighting Words

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-124
Author(s):  
Ronald S. Stade
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Contemporary Context

Political correctness has become a fighting word used to dismiss and discredit political opponents. The article traces the conceptual history of this fighting word. In anthropological terms, it describes the social life of the concept of political correctness and its negation, political incorrectness. It does so by adopting a concept-in-motion methodology, which involves tracking the concept through various cultural and political regimes. It represents an attempt to synthesize well-established historiographic and anthropological approaches. A Swedish case is introduced that reveals the kind of large-scale historical movements and deep-seated political conflicts that provide the contemporary context for political correctness and its negation. Thereupon follows an account of the conceptual history of political correctness from the eighteenth century up to the present. Instead of a conventional conclusion, the article ends with a political analysis of the current rise of fascism around the world and how the denunciation of political correctness is both indicative of and instrumental in this process.

scholarly journals HISTORY OF DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT OF «LARGE SOCIAL GROUPS». PART 1: PERIOD FROM THE MID-19th CENTURY TO THE MID-1930-Х YEARS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

2020 ◽  
pp. 390-418
Author(s):  
Ю.В. Ковалева
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Two Stages

Представлен историографический анализ развития понятия большие социальные группы и историко-психологический анализ социальных феноменов , связанных с массовыми общественными явлениями в России. Сформулированы актуальные проблемы психологии больших социальных групп, к которым относятся неоднородность оснований для их выделения, недостаточная дифференцированность со сходными понятиями, неравномерность исследований в различные временные периоды и идеологическая нагруженность их разработки. Данная работа была ответом на необходимость восполнения знаний о процессах в таких группах, происходивших в различные исторические периоды развития социальной психологии, с соответствующим им уровнем научного осмысления, а также обобщением этой целостной картины на уровне современного понимания и формулировка перспективных направлений исследований. Целью исследования является установление связи между определением и основными свойствами понятия «большие социальные группы» (его синонимов, аналогов) и особенностями социальной ситуации в определенный период времени, а также реконструкция социальных процессов данного исторического этапа. Проверялась гипотеза о том, что большие социальные группы как феномены социальной жизни формировались в соответствии с историческим временем, а соответствующее им понятие и его свойства с одной стороны отвечали уровню развития гуманитарного знания, а с другой - пытались удовлетворить общественный и политический запрос в объяснении и управлении социальной ситуацией. Использовались методы историографии социальной психологии и психолого-исторической реконструкции . Первая часть статьи посвящена анализу первых двух этапов развития социальной психологии - с середины XIX до начала XX вв. и в 1920-е гг. XX в. The historiographic analysis of the development of the concept of large social groups and historical and psychological study of social phenomena associated with mass social phenomena was presented. Topical problems of the psychology of large social groups are formulated, including heterogeneity of the grounds for their isolation, insufficient differentiation with similar concepts, uneven research in various periods, and ideological loading of the history of its development. The study's main problem was the need to replenish the processes in such groups that took place in various historical periods of social psychology development as well as a synthesis of this holistic picture at the level of modern understanding and the formulation of promising areas of research. The study's purpose was to establish a connection between the definition and the basic properties of the concept of "large social groups" (and its synonyms, analogs) and the peculiarities of the social situation in a certain period, as well as the reconstruction of social processes of this historical segment. The hypothesis was tested that large social groups as phenomena of social life were formed under the past time. The concept and its properties were corresponding to them, on the one hand, compared to the level of development of humanitarian knowledge. On the other, they tried to satisfy the social and political requests to understand and manage the social situation. Methods of the historiography of the history of social psychology and psychological and historical reconstruction were used. The article's first part was devoted to the analysis of the early two stages of the development of social psychology - from the middle of the XIX to the beginning of the XX centuries and 1920 of the XX century.

The Second Royal Society Nuffield Lecture Anthropological models and social reality

1966 ◽  
Vol 165 (998) ◽  
pp. 20-34 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Social Life

In trying to show you the character of social anthropology as an academic discipline, I might try to sketch some substantive and perhaps intriguing findings in the field, or the history of its development, or some of its major intellectual problems today. I have chosen the last of these alternatives, because by showing the general problems we are grappling with I hope to reveal to you, in part no doubt inadvertently, the ways that anthropologists think, and also how our difficulties in part arise from the character of the social reality itself, which we confront and try to understand. The fundamental questions which social anthropology asks are about the forms, the nature, and the extent of order in human social life, as it can be observed in the different parts of the world. There is no need to prejudge the extent of this order; as members of one society we know how unpredictable social life can be. But concretely, human life varies greatly around the world, and it seems possible to characterize its forms to some extent. We seek means systematically to discover, record and understand these forms.

scholarly journals Fish Canning Industry and The Rhythm of Social Life in the Northeastern Adriatic

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Petrović
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Tertiary Sector ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Impact ◽  
Late Socialism ◽  
Canning Industry ◽  
The Relationship

The article discusses the social world formed around canneries in small coastal and insular towns in the northeastern Adriatic. Although associated with hard, unpleasant labor and demanding work conditions, the fish canning industry, particularly in the period of late socialism, offered a framework in which a meaningful social life was organized and lived. In this way, the local impact of canneries reached much beyond providing financial means to its employees. To understand the social meaning of fish canning in the Yugoslav Adriatic, the article focuses on the relationship between the now largely vanished local fish canning industry and tourism that is increasingly becoming the dominant (and the only) source of income for local communities. Lefebvre’s concept of rhythmanalysis proves to be a productive lens to view the complex and often ambiguous relationship between the two industries, and to narrate the history of fish canning through the senses – what was seen, heard, smelled, felt. These intense, embodied, sensorial memories caution us that the dominant claims and narratives which interpret the replacement of industry with tourism (and other tertiary sector activities) as a necessary, inevitable and desirable developmental step should not be taken for granted.

History in Art

Antiquity ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 5 (19) ◽  
pp. 277-290
Author(s):  
Flinders Petrie
Keyword(s):  
Applied Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Knowledge ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
History Of

When we look at the great diversity of man’s activities and interests, it is evident how much space they afford for reviewing his history in many different ways. To most of our historians the view of the political power and course of legislation has seemed all that need be noticed; others have dealt with history in religion, or the growth of mind in changes of moral standards, as in Lecky’s fine work. In recent years the history of knowledge in medicine, in the applied sciences, and in abstract mathematics, has been profitably studied, as affording the basis of civilization. The purely mental view is shown in the social life and customs of each age, and expressed in the growth of Art. This last expression of man’s spirit has great advantages in its presentation; the material from different ages is of a comparable nature, and it is easily placed together to contrast its differences. Moreover it covers a wider range of time than we can et observe in man’s scope, but it is as essential to his nature as any of the other aspects that we have named.

Taking to the Waves: Vietnamese society around the radio in the 1930s

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERICH DeWALD
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Early History ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Relative Lack ◽  
Radio Broadcasting ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Waves

AbstractCompared with other public media, the colonial state showed a relative lack of interest in radio broadcasting, which developed in Vietnam in the 1930s under the aegis of two organizations based in Hanoi and Saigon, the Radio-Club de l'Indochine du Nord and Radio Saigon. These two groups were largely responsible for the new technology's expansion and for determining the content of broadcasting. The groups actively consulted the growing radio public, and that vocal audience played a role in determining not just what was heard but also in the social life of radio in late-colonial Vietnam. The content of radio was limited to a non-political domain and this fact, along with the particular position that many radios took in the social geography of towns and cities, lent itself to the easy entry of the radio into day-to-day life. Indeed, the early history of radio in Vietnam is remarkable for how rapidly it became commonplace, even banal.

Charitable Activities of German Settlers Representatives in the Social Life of the Crimea (Mid-19th - Early 20th Century)

2020 ◽  
pp. 72-77
Author(s):  
S.P. Shendrikova ◽  
N.E. Vishnyakova
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
German People ◽  
Charitable Activities ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article reveals the main issues of charitable activities of German landowners of the Tauride province of the 19th century, who not only created large model farms, but also devoted themselves to the social life of the Peninsula. The events of the Second World War (1939-1945) provoked the formation of negative public opinion about the German people, although the positive role of representatives of this nation is known in the history of Russia. However, today, the topic of charitable activities, patronage and philanthropy among the Ger-mans of the Crimea in the 19th - beginning of the 20th century is very inquisitive. The authors focus on the social activities of the German ethnic group in the territory of the Tauride province. Charitable activities in the Russian Empire initially did not have a sufficiently clear legal basis, however, with the adoption of the necessary legislative aspects, this direction became popular among a wealthy group of interested persons.

Inhabiting modern landscape

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Cosgrove
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Human Geography ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Landscape

Archaeology, anthropology, human geography: three disciplines born out of a nineteenth-century imperative among Europeans to apply a coherent model of understanding (Wissen-schaft) to varied forms of social life within a differentiated physical world; three disciplines stretched between the epistemology and methods of the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) which promised certainty, and the hermeneutic reflexivity and critical doubt of the Humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) which promised self-knowledge. Each of these disciplines is today in crisis, and for the same reason. Europe as the place of authoritative knowledge, of civilization, has been decentred upon a post-colonial globe; the white, bourgeois European male has been dethroned as the sovereign subject of a universal and progressive history. Thus, the enlightened intellectual project represented by archaeology, anthropology and human geography, whose findings were unconsciously designed to secure the essentially ideological claims of liberal Europeans, are obliged to renegotiate their most fundamental assumptions and concepts (Gregory, 1993). The linguistic turn in the social sciences and humanities which has so ruthlessly exposed the context-bound nature of their scientific claims — what Ton Lemaire refers to as a critical awareness of their inescapable cultural and historical mediation — forces a recognition that their central conceptual terms, such as ‘culture’, ‘nature’, ‘society’, and ‘landscape’, are far from being neutral scientific objects, open to disinterested examination through the objective and authoritative eye of scholarship. They are intellectual constructions which need to be understood in their emergence and evolution across quite specific histories. Ton Lemaire seeks to sketch something of the history of landscape as such a socially and historically mediated idea: as a mode of representing relations between land and human life, which has played a decisive role in the development of archaeology as a formal discipline. On the foundation of this history he develops a critique of the social and environmental characteristics and consequences of modernity, and seeks to relocate archaeological study within a reformed project of sensitive contemporary ‘dwelling’ on earth.

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