Dilemma Qualitative Method

ISBN-13: 9780415017725 / Angielski / Miękka / 1990 / 284 str.

Martyn Hammersley

Opis

The dispute over the value of qualitative versus quantitative approaches to social research originated in 19th and early 20th-century debates about the relationship between the methods of history and natural science. Within sociology, this dispute first arose in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, between adherents of case study and statistical methods. One of the main advocates of case study was the Chicago sociologist, Herbert Blumer. His influential writings on methodology provide a link between this earlier controversy and the debates of later decades. However, Blumer's arguments for qualitative or naturalistic methods, retain a central ambivalence - does that method share the same logic as natural science, or does it represent a different form of enquiry characteristic of history and the humanities?

Spis treści

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Philosophy and the Human Science in the Nineteenth Century 2. Pragmatism 3. Chicago Sociology 4. Case Study versus Statistics: The Rise of Sociological Positivism 5. Against the Trend: Blumer's Critique of Quantitative Method 6. Blumer's Concept of Science 7. Blumer's Alternative: Naturalistic Research 8. An Assessment of Naturalistic Research Notes References Name Index Subject Index

O autorze

Martyn Hammersley (The Open University, UK)