Now... why on earth do qualitative (and supposedly, fashionably more intelligent) sociologists do not have a section called "data and methods?"
why? why? why?
I need to rant. I need to beat. I need to ask.
And do I need to emulate the qual people since I belong (right now) to the God-forsaken multi-method camp?
If narratives are good and the uncompromising essence of qualitative writing, quant should also have the wholesome goodness. Why can't we have a narrative style of "My data consists of 25,000 respondents who were telephoned and then interviewed through random digit dialing and then I applied some weights to equate differing income levels........."
Why can't all nighter quant stories have the right to be published? Who listens to our narrative? Why can't there be a quality to un-quantifiable days of agony and frustration?
I understand this is not a blog entry per se and too sociological perhaps without caring a damn about this being so and seriously hoping my daughter/son do not have to choose a medium when s/he is writing up their proposal/thesis and tearing their hairs. IF, EVER they take Sociology, that is.
6 comments:
BS sells, and where better than the hallowed realms of Sociology?
But on the up side, you can always throw a probit-analysis and shut up any one of the qual people.
Give them an actual data set and you can even watch them shrivel and get reduced to a heap of dust. Most of them.
And then they rise from the ashes..or the dust :-(
I always thought Sociology wasn't worth much except a fair amount of fair girls who study it. You only strengthen my views. :-D
@the none aka Bichi
And you strengthen my view that men do not think from waist above ;)
Really Koyel, I'm wondering what you're saying here. Are you saying that A. quant folks should be allowed to write 'well' (without making an article so despicably boring that few folks would look beyond line 3...and surely send the most stubborn insomniac to sleep)?
Or are you saying that B. qual folks need to be more strict about the way they write their methodology section?
As for the first comment by Oxa-whoever all I can say in response is that MOST sociologists have no clue about how to use stats or what the stats mean or any idea of how to really interpret data. And what do you mean by an 'actual data set'? Quant folks work with the same data set that's been pottering around for a decade and more. How many quant folks actually go out and collect their own data?
Anyhow, this constant bickering between quants and qual researchers is enough to make me sick to the gills. Most of the time I wish I could clobber both the camps on their silly heads and move on with my own life. Both the camps display pompous arrogance, very little awareness, and a pedantic, moronic 'polly-wolly-golly', and of course they have complete faith in not just their brilliance but in their own 'unusual', 'rare' and 'exotic kind of brilliance...yech! the exceptions are few and far between (no matter how cliched that sounds) - and they go to prove the rule! Anyway - I do wish I could better figure out what your complaint is about...although I've ranted here about what I wanted to.
By the way...many thanks for the birthday wishes....
Shilpi di
P.S: I'll put my comments up for your happiness post later...the above was extremely pertinent to what I'm doing right now...
@Shilpidi
I liked your point A) !!! :D :D
Now about what I want. I want an understandable methodology section in qual studies...one that would go beyond "I though this would work...I deemed it wouldn't be pertinent.....I duh...I blah...I meh...."
Seriously, could there be a little self giving to self-esteem? or take ourselves less seriously and give an acknowledgment that "MY perception" could go wrong?
As well as a give a bit more specific detail about WHAT was ACTUALLY done to arrive at the results?
A lot...A LOT of Qual studies DO NOT have these specific and.... perhaps trivial details....but regardless, it does help hapless souls like me who are trying to do multi-method.
And I could go on and on in attributing some venomous criticism about Quant too. But I hear that's already has become, a butt of jokes. I, myself joke on the stats part.....you wouldn't know possibly because we don't talk as much and crib about life in general....as much as we used to do some 3-5 years back.
But, really, I thank God that we communicate through the "comments" section in a blog.
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