Jim Farmelant wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Apr 2001 12:00:51 -0400 Kelley Walker
> <kelley at interpactinc.com> writes:
> > At 11:26 AM 4/16/01 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> > >Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:
> > >
> > >>The book came across to me as an expression of sanctimonious
> > >>schmuckery with a veneer of pseudo-objective social science.
> > >
> > >Emphasis on the pseudo. His sample isn't representative of anything
> > in the
> > >statistical sense, other than being a reflection of Wolfe's sense
> > of what
> > >suburban middle America is like. Quoting myself:
> >
> > DOUG! it isn't supposed to be and he doesn't claim it to be.
>
> Then what is Wolfe's sample supposed to be representative of then?
> Pray tell, by what right does Wolfe then have to draw any conclusions
> concerning American public opinion from his sample if as you say it is
> not only not statistically representative of sububrban middle America
> but does not even claim to be?
>
> > please
> > don't
> > criticize people on ethnographical methods if you don't understand
> > how it
> > works and only know statoid econodrone methods or something. see, m.
> >
> > burawoy's discussions about ethnography and different ways of using
> > them to
> > say something about society. we don't study individuals!
>
> OK, the study of individuals is the domain of psychology and social
> psychology.
> No problem there. What then is the domain of sociology? Some twenty
> years
> ago or so, the sociologist Bruce Mayhew in a polemic in the journal
> Social Forces
> argued that the proper subject matter for sociology was the study of
> social
> networks. Sociology was thus not reducible to psychology or even social
> psychology. However, as I also recall, he was not very keen on
> qualitative
> methods either as a form of social research, presumably because in many
> cases it is not clear how representative a particular sample and thus how
> generalizable the results from the study of the sample are.
>
> >
> > worse! he isn't supposed to have a representative sample. it's an
> > ethnography and his sample isn't supposed to random or
> > representative.
>
> In which case raises the issue of how generalizable are the findings of
> such research.
>
> >
> > but, i already complained to you about how shoddy YOUR review of him
> > was
> > when you wrote it.
> >
> > by reinforcing this crap about statistically rep samples you are
> > reinforcing positivist methodology crap that is aligned with some of
> > the
> > worst social engineering crud around and you give no room for people
> > like
> > me and ESPECIALLY feminists who've used ethography and gotten denied
> > jobs
> > because they weren't "number crunching" and other nonsense.
>
> In that case I would say two cheers at least for positivism if that means
> the taking
> of a minimally rigorous approach to social research. BTW I am not sure
> that
> all feminists would agree with your rejection of so-called positivism.
> Thats like
> saying that all feminists embrace pomo or reject Marxism IMO. Thus I
> am inclined to take Doug's word on the quality of Wolfe's research.
>
> Jim F.
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