Methodology is Method, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline of study. Methodology is a particular kind of procedure or set of procedures. Methodology is the analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry in a particular field of study. The common idea here is the collection, the comparative study, and the critique of the individual methods that are used in a given discipline or field of inquiry. In terms of causal inference, new procedures exist for testing hypotheses about necessary and sufficient causes, and these procedures address the skepticism that mainstream methodologists may hold about necessary and sufficient causation. Methodological Individualism is also evident in positivistic instruments such as questionnaires. It is common to categorize social scientific theories under Methodological individualism or Methodological Holism, and to assume that they are opposites.
Objectives in Teaching and
Using Research Methodology - Robert G. Burgess.
This article examines the state and status of methodology teaching. The links between the
state of the discipline, patterns of teaching, styles of assessment and the uses of
methodology are explored. A series of questions are raised concerning the place of
methodology in the sociology curriculum. It is suggested that these questions have to be
answered by all sociologists and not just methodology teachers.
A Crazy Methodology? - On the Limits of Macro-Quantitative Social Science
Research
Bernhard Kittel, Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg.
Despite the great popularity of macro-quantitative comparative research in the social
sciences during the past two decades, it has only had a limited lasting impact on the
development of our understanding of social macro-phenomena. The lack of robustness appears
to be symptomatic of research findings.
The cause of this problem is the difficulty in
dealing with complex macro-phenomena by means of statistical analysis. However, this road is closed for macro-level
characteristics of social systems, since the model cannot be based on assumptions about
modal behaviour. In this instance, the sole solution seems to be to accept the limits of
small numbers and to improve the elaboration of a macro-narrative based on robust
micro-correlations.
The BMS (Bulletin of Sociological Methodology) is a quarterly scientific journal specialized in sociological methodology.
COMPARATIVE-HISTORICAL
METHODOLOGY
James Mahoney - Department of Sociology, Brown University, Providence.
The last decade featured the emergence of a significant and growing literature concerning
comparative-historical methods. This literature offers methodological tools for causal and
descriptive inference that go beyond the techniques currently available in mainstream
statistical analysis. In the area of descriptive
inference, the comparative-historical literature offers important tools for concept
analysis and for achieving measurement validity. Given these contributions,
comparative-historical methods merit a central place within the general field of social
science methodology.
On Feminist Methodology - Martyn Hammersley. There is now a considerable literature advocating a feminist methodology. This article summarises the features of such a methodology under four headings: the ubiquitous social significance of gender, the validity of experience as against method, the rejection of hierarchy in the research relationship, and the adoption of the emancipation of women as the goal of research and the criterion of validity. The arguments supporting each of these themes are assessed. The conclusion reached is that while some of these arguments are convincing the overall case for a feminist methodology is not.
"On the Question of the Structure of Methodology" The Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of the Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science. Moscow, 1987, vol. 3/13.
Paul Lazarsfeld - The Founder of Modern Empirical Sociology: A Research
Biography
Hynek Jebek, Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociological
Studies.
Paul Lazarsfeld contributed to unemployment research, public opinion and market research,
mass media and communications research, political sociology, the sociology of sociology,
the history of empirical social research, and applied sociology. His methodological
innovations, reason analysis, program analyzer, panel analysis, survey analysis,
elaboration formula, latent structure analysis, mathematical sociology, contextual analysis, are of special importance. This
study responds to the critiques of Lazarsfeld's ‘administrative research’ by
Theodor Adorno, of ‘abstract empiricism’ by Charles W. Mills, and of the
‘Columbia Sociology Machine’ by Terry N. Clark. The paper discusses the merits
of the team-oriented style of work presented in Lazarsfeld's ‘workshop,’ his
teaching by engaging in professional activities in social research and methodology.
Some Contributions to the History of Sociology. Section VII. Present Historical
Methodology - Albion W. Small. Abstract: Attention is called again to the fact that Sections II-VII are not to be
understood as appraisals of the persons of the methods discussed by standards which would
satisfy historians. They merely emphasize elements in historiographic methodology which
later exerted a formative influence upon sociology.
Foucauldian Gerontology: A Methodology for Understanding Aging - Jason L.
Powell, University of Salford, Great Britain, Simon Biggs, Keele University, Great
Britain. Abstract: There has been a rise in recent years of a theoretical current entitled
“Foucauldian gerontology”. Gerontology too as a discipline and praxis
provides the space for the construction and dissemination of knowledge formation. To
address this, the paper introduces some of the methodological tools from the scholarship
of Michel Foucault. In particular, the paper locates concepts of archaeology, genealogy
and technologies of self and highlights the importance and creative impact these have for
social gerontology in the USA, UK and Australasia. The paper draws from examples from
current gerontological research to illuminate the usefulness of such a Foucauldian
approach for researching social gerontology. - Electronic Journal of Sociology (2003) -
ISSN: 1198 3655.