Zhao / Ross / Li Making Sense of Social Research Methodology

A Student and Practitioner Centered Approach
1. 1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5063-7866-4
Verlag: SAGE Publications
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 496 Seiten, EPUB

Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student and Practitioner Centered
Approach introduces students to research methods by illuminating the underlying assumptions of social science inquiry. Authors Pengfei Zhao, Karen Ross, Peiwei Li, and Barbara Dennis show how research concepts are often an integral part of everyday life through illustrative common scenarios, like looking for a recipe or going on a job interview. The authors extrapolate from these personal but ubiquitous experiences to further explain concepts, like gathering data or social context, so students develop a deeper understanding of research and its applications outside of the classroom. Students from across the social sciences can take this new understanding into their own research, their professional lives, and their personal lives with a new sense of relevancy and urgency.
This text is organized into clusters that center on major topics in social science research. The first cluster introduces concepts that are fundamental to all aspects and steps of the research process. These concepts include relationality, identity, ethics, epistemology, validity, and the sociopolitical context within which research occurs. The second and third clusters focus on data and inference. These clusters engage concretely with steps of the research process, including decisions about designing research, generating data, making inferences. Throughout the chapters, Pause and Reflect open-ended questions provide readers with the space for further inquiry into research concepts and how they apply to life. Research Scenario features in each chapter offer new perspectives on major research topics from leading and emerging voices in methods. Moving from this dialogic perspective to more actionable advice, You and Research features offer students concrete steps for engaging with research. Take your research into the world with Making Sense of Social Research Methodology: A Student and Practitioner Centered Approach.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zhao, Pengfei

Ross, Karen

Li, Peiwei

Dennis, Barbara K.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

About the Authors

Chapter 1: Our Research Story: A Prelude

Paths Toward Research

Making Implicit Explicit: Our Intentions and Assumptions

About Reading This Book

CLUSTER 1 • UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH: MAKING SENSE OF UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS

Roots and Branches

Chapter 2: How Do We Know? That Is the Question

Musing Upon the Everyday: Enquiring Minds Want to Know

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: The Meaning of “Research”

Research Scenario: Researching Through Collective Values: The Feminist Research Collective

Synthesis: An Open Dialogue

Chapter 3: Research, Identity, and Relational Processes

Musing Upon the Everyday: The Presentation of Self

Research Scenario: A Collaborative Action Research Project

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 4: Ethical Considerations Across the Spectrum of  Research

Musing Upon the Everyday: What Would You Do?

Narratives and Conceptual Interludes: On Being Ethical in Research Practices

Research Scenario: Marginalia: Sara McClelland

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 5: Knowledge and Meaning in Research

Musing Upon the Everyday: Understanding Meaning

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: Different Ways of Knowing

Research Scenario: My “Fat Girl Complex”

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 6: Sociopolitical Conditions of Research

Musing Upon the Everyday

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes

Research Scenario: Making a Difference as a Researcher

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 7: Validity in the Context of Research

Musing Upon the Everyday: Validity in (Mis)understanding

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: Do We Really Know the Truth?

Research Scenario: Validity and Assessment: David Rutkowski

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

CLUSTER 2 • WHAT IS THE MEANING OF “DATA”?

Roadmap

Chapter 8: What Am I Looking For?

Revisiting Research and Identity in the Context of Data

Musing Upon the Everyday: Solving Problems That Matter to Us

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: A Researcher and Their Organizing

Research Scenario: Studying a Rare Condition: Jenny Downs

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 9: Defining Data

Musing Upon the Everyday: How Much Should I Pay for My First Home?

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes

Research Scenario: The Effects of Power on Ethnographic Research: Ke Li

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 10: Generating and Acquiring Data

Musing Upon the Everyday: How Should I Make That Lasagna?

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: A Day in the Life of a Researcher

Research Scenario: Making Choices About Data Generation

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 11: How Do I Know I Have “Enough” Data? How Do I Know I Have “Good” Data?

Musing Upon the Everyday: How Did the Lasagna Turn Out?

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: Creating the Perfect Recipe

Research Scenario: Evaluating the Data Generation and Acquisition Process

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

CLUSTER 3 • HOW DO WE CONCEPTUALIZE “INFERENCE”?

Connecting the Dots

Chapter 12: Understanding Inference as a Process

Musing Upon the Everyday: The World of Iris

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes I: Making Sensible Interpretations

Narrative and Conceptual Interlude II: Applying the Insights of Critical Pragmatism to Social Research

Research Scenario: Understanding and Serving Today’s College Students. The Problem of Basic Needs Insecurity: Katharine Broton

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 13: Description and Inference in the Research Sphere

Musing Upon the Everyday: The Process of Making Choices

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: What to Make of the GRE?

Research Scenario: Making Decisions

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 14: Making Inferences About Trends and Experiences

Musing Upon the Everyday: Obesity Is Contagious

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: Making Inferences That Matter

Research Scenario: Youth Encounter Programs in Israel: Karen Ross

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 15: Writing Up Research

Musing Upon the Everyday

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes

Research Scenario: Double Writing in Participatory Action Research: Meagan Call-Cummings

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 16: Coming Back Full Circle: Implications of the Inferential Process

Musing Upon the Everyday: What Is in My Food?

Narrative and Conceptual Interludes: Research Impact— for What, for Whom, and by Whom?

Research Scenario: Extrapolating Social Change From Research: Positionality, Iterativity, and Envisioning: Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Synthesis: Points for Reflection

Chapter 17: Postlude

Appendix A: Statistical Tests Used to Establish Causal Inferences

Appendix B: Statistical Tests Used to Establish Correlational Inferences

Appendix C: Getting Clarity About the Vision of Your Class Project

Appendix D: A Generic Rubric for Evaluating Empirical Research Articles

Glossary of Terms

About the Contributors

References

Über Autor(innen)

Ross, Karen

Karen Ross is an Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.  Previously, she was an adjunct instructor at the Global & International Education Program at Drexel University and the Inquiry Methodology Program at Indiana University. Karen's teaching and research focus on issues at the intersection of dialogue, peace-building, social activism, and education. She conducts basic and applied research to help understand the impact of grassroots peace-building interventions and the way these interventions fit into societal level peace-building efforts. Karen’s research also focuses on methodological issues related to how we conduct research about peace-building and social justice work, how we can do so in more inclusive ways, and how to broaden conceptions of expertise and legitimate knowledge in social inquiry.

Li, Peiwei

Peiwei Li is an Assistant Professor of Counseling & Psychology and the Research Coordinator for the PhD program of Counseling & Psychology in Transformative Leadership, Education, & Applied Research at Lesley University. Peiwei’s cross-cultural experiences as an immigrant and a Chinese woman growing up in the late socialist/emerging capitalist era in China have fueled her interest in understanding the intersection of culture, class, race, and gender, and complex power relations that fuel and reproduce social and systemic pathologies and psychological sufferings. Her scholarship locates in the borderland of critical psychology and critical qualitative methodologies, pertaining to identity development, emancipatory interest, consciousness raising, recognition, solidarity, and potentials for liberatory actions. Substantively, she has engaged in research on diversity and social justice education, immigration and detention, violence against women, and spiritual development. 

Zhao, Pengfei

Pengfei Zhao is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida in the Research and Evaluation Methodology Program. She has an interdisciplinary background in inquiry methodology, sociology, and cultural studies. In her research and teaching, Pengfei draws from a wide spectrum of theories—from critical theories to contemporary pragmatism and feminism—to formulate a praxis- and social justice-oriented research methodology. Primarily using ethnographic, narrative, and participatory methodologies, she is interested in the challenges of and innovative approaches to conducting research in culturally diverse and politically troubled contexts. Such efforts are manifested in her writing on doing research in authoritarian states, the institutionalization of research regulation in East Asian contexts, and translation in qualitative research. Currently, Pengfei is completing a book manuscript based on her critical ethnographic study of rural youth’s coming of age experience during China’s drastic transition from socialism to late-socialism.

Dennis, Barbara K.

Barbara Dennis is a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother and partner who is located professionally as a Professor at Indiana University in the Inquiry Methodology Program. She most consistently engages in critical participatory ethnographies to study core theoretical and practical methodological concepts such as participation, validity, and ethics. As an activist and a scholar, Barbara has been engaged with communities who fight against social injustice and work toward the futures of liberation now. For example, she has been involved with a LGBTQ+ youth community committed to providing educational programming for educators around the country. Their goal is to explore how schools can become sites through which marginalized queer kids can thrive. Barbara values the contributions research makes toward those efforts and welcomes the critique of research that sustain inequity.