The Point of Social Science Research

As you may have noted from the syllabus, this is not an exhaustive course of so-called qualitative methods and methodology. Over the coming months, we will be engaging with three major styles of research, namely small-n comparative case studies, interpretive ethnography, and relational analysis (even more specifically, discourse analysis). We will engage with major philosophical debates within the sciences through the readings and discussions in class, but I also want this class to give you an opportunity to gain some hands-on practice in both fieldwork and research design.

The point of teaching you research methods is to make you systematic and methodical investigators, as opposed to Op-Ed producers. The difference between a scientific study (and there are certainly those who disagree with me on this) and, say, a position paper, is the methodological framework, which is established before the study is undertaken. In other words, before embarking on your research, you have laid out for the world to see your ‘rules’ for your study. These rules tell your audience how you understand the reality you are investigating and what bars you set for making knowledge-claims – what kind of ‘evidence’ you will require of yourself to claim causality, for instance. I want to be very clear from the outset that there is and, indeed, should be diversity of methodologies in the social sciences, because different questions require different approaches. You cannot answer certain questions using a Comparative Case Study, and Interpretive Ethnography or Discourse Analysis are useless frameworks for other questions.

There is a tendency in the academic community to speak of ‘the scientific method,’ as if the same rules should apply to all studies, regardless of the research objectives and questions asked. This kind of dogmatism is thoroughly unhelpful in the quest for knowledge production in the social realm. Instead, whether or not something should be classified as ‘science’ must be judged on each study’s internal logic – whether it adheres to the rules of that particular methodology. If someone is employing a Comparative Case Study, then it’s validity must be evaluated based on the rules of CCS, not Interpretive Ethnography or Discourse Analysis. The same goes for the latter two as well, of course. Granted, even within each framework there are disagreements on the rules, but at least those debates can be fruitful, as opposed to a dogmatic approach that dismisses everything that isn’t founded on a logic born from the natural sciences as being ‘unscientific.’

Second, Graduate students (perhaps especially in policy-obsessed Washington, DC) are often of the view that the ‘usefulness’ of knowledge produced in the social sciences is determined by whether or not it results in policy. There are a number of things to consider here, not least the interjection that policy is not formulated based on ‘facts’ alone, which means that policymakers are very happy to ignore studies that don’t serve their interests. But another objection could be that knowledge production is an end in itself – learning about the social world may not always have immediate policy implications, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful. Perhaps as a result of this eagerness to be policy relevant, when thinking about an appropriate issue to study, students often hone in on very contemporary events that are currently discussed by the media. But events still unfolding on the ground are not suitable for solid in-depth academic research, because in fluid, rapidly developing situations we are left doing a lot of guesswork, instead of systematic interpretation of data. It is also important to remember that science needs to be based in empirics, and that means using things that have actually happened to explain why and how it happened. That’s different from trying to predict what may happen in the future. All we can do with science – not just ‘qualitative,’ but ‘quantitative’ as well – is try to explain what has happened. We cannot make claims to predicting the future. You may want to use your findings to speculate on the future once you’re done, but that cannot be your research objective. In short, your research needs to explore an existing phenomenon and your research question cannot be about predicting the future.