Critical social research
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Critical social research
（Contemporary social research series, 21）
Unwin Hyman, 1990
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book is an illustrative guide to doing critical social research. It is not concerned with simply describing techniques of data collection that may be pertinent to a critical approach. Rather, through the exploration of a large number of case studies of critical social research it sets out and then explores the nature of critical social research "methodology". Methodology is viewed in this book as the interface between methodic practice, substantive theory and epistemological underpinnings. Epistemology is used here to refer to the presuppositions about the nature of knowledge and of science that inform practical enquiry. Critical social research is underpinned by a critical-dialectical perspective which attemps to dig beneath the surface of historically specific, oppressive, social structures. This is contrasted with positivistic concerns to discover the factors that cause observed phenomena or to build grand theoretical edifices, and with phenomenological attempts to interpret the meanings of social factors or attempt close analysis of symbolic processes.
Method refers to the way empirical data is collected and ranges from asking questions, through reading documents, to observation of both controlled and uncontrolled situations. While some methods lend themselves more readily to certain epistemological perspectives, no method of data collection is inherently positivist, phenomenological or critical. Substantive theory refers to a set of propositions that offer a coherent account of aspects of the social world.
Table of Contents
- Part 1 Basics: criticism and knowledge
- empirical study
- critical and conventional ethnography
- the critical tradition
- elements of critical social research. Part 2 Class: c
- ass, production and culture, Karl Marx - "Capital"
- C. Wright Mills - "The Power Elite"
- Goldthorpe, Lockwood et al - "Affluent Worker"
- Paul Willis - "Learning to Labour"
- Grimshaw and Jefferson - "Interpreting Policework"
- Judith Williamson - "Decoding Advertisements"
- Will Wright - "Six Guns and Society". Part 3 Gender: perspectives
- Ann Oakley - "Sociology of Housework"
- Cynthia Cockburn - "Brothers"
- Sallie Westwood - "All Day Every Day"
- Khawar mumtaz and Farida Shaheed - "Women of Pakistan"
- Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi - "Daughters of Independence". Part 4 Race: race, racism and ethnicity
- Joyce Ladner - "Tomorrow's Tomorrow"
- Lois Weis - "Between Two Worlds"
- Gideon Ben-Tovim et al - "The Local Politics of Race"
- Mark Duffield - "Black racdialism and the Politics of De-industrialization". Part 5 Conclusion: empirical enquiry
- getting beneath the surface
- contradiction
- myth
- knowledge as process
- critical case study
- radical historicism
- critical ethnography
- structuralist techniques
- the critical social research process
- an ending.
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