Chapter Six Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory
Abstract
In his classic The sociological imagination (1959), C. Wright Mills takes a fairly dim view of method as self-conscious procedure. “Serious attention should be paid to general discussions of methodology only when they are in direct reference to actual work”, he instructed (p 122). The sociological imagination is famous for its attack on the twin evils of grand theory and abstracted empiricism. Wright Mills’ passion for a creative, lateral-thinking, problem-oriented social science did not go down well among some of his methodological colleagues. In a dialogue with Paul Lazarfeld, Wright Mills reputedly opened the conversation by quoting the first sentence of his book (p 3):“Nowadays men often feel that their private lives are a series of traps”. Lazarfeld’s response was: “How many men, which men, how long have they felt this way, which aspects of their private lives bother them, when do they feel free rather than trapped, what kinds of traps do they experience, etc etc?” (cited in Elcock, 1976, p 13).
This exchange sums up different positions in the long-running argument between so-called ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ methods. It is hard to say quite when this battle got off the ground, but there is little sign of it in the general methodological and professional literature before the 1960s. After that time, and partly infused by radical critiques of science, dissatisfaction with ‘quantitative’ methods generated increasing appeal to other forms and methods of collecting social science data (Cicourel, 1964; Rose and Rose, 1976; Bryman, 1988).These built, of course, on earlier work, including that of Weber (1947; see Platt, 1985), Schutz (1932) and Blumer (see Hammersley, 1989).
Abstract
In his classic The sociological imagination (1959), C. Wright Mills takes a fairly dim view of method as self-conscious procedure. “Serious attention should be paid to general discussions of methodology only when they are in direct reference to actual work”, he instructed (p 122). The sociological imagination is famous for its attack on the twin evils of grand theory and abstracted empiricism. Wright Mills’ passion for a creative, lateral-thinking, problem-oriented social science did not go down well among some of his methodological colleagues. In a dialogue with Paul Lazarfeld, Wright Mills reputedly opened the conversation by quoting the first sentence of his book (p 3):“Nowadays men often feel that their private lives are a series of traps”. Lazarfeld’s response was: “How many men, which men, how long have they felt this way, which aspects of their private lives bother them, when do they feel free rather than trapped, what kinds of traps do they experience, etc etc?” (cited in Elcock, 1976, p 13).
This exchange sums up different positions in the long-running argument between so-called ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ methods. It is hard to say quite when this battle got off the ground, but there is little sign of it in the general methodological and professional literature before the 1960s. After that time, and partly infused by radical critiques of science, dissatisfaction with ‘quantitative’ methods generated increasing appeal to other forms and methods of collecting social science data (Cicourel, 1964; Rose and Rose, 1976; Bryman, 1988).These built, of course, on earlier work, including that of Weber (1947; see Platt, 1985), Schutz (1932) and Blumer (see Hammersley, 1989).
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Sources of extracts iv
- Foreword by Germaine Greer vi
- Preface ix
-
Sex and gender
- Introduction 2
- The difference between sex and gender 7
- Genes and gender 13
- A kind of person 21
- Childhood lessons 31
- Science, gender and women’s liberation 41
-
Housework and family life
- Introduction 54
- On studying housework 59
- Images of housework 63
- Work conditions 75
- Standards and routines 87
- Marriage and the division of labour 93
- Helping with baby 103
- Housework in history and culture 109
-
Childbirth, motherhood and medicine
- Introduction 118
- The agony and the ecstasy 123
- Lessons mothers learn 139
- Medical maternity cases 151
- Mistakes and mystiques of motherhood 179
-
Doing social science
- Introduction 184
- The invisible woman: sexism in sociology 189
- Reflections thirty years on 207
- On being interviewed 211
- Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms? 217
- Who’s afraid of the randomized controlled trial? Some dilemmas of the scientific method and ‘good’ research practice 233
- Paradigm wars: some thoughts on a personal and public trajectory 245
- General bibliography 251
- Bibliography of work by Ann Oakley 281
- Ann Oakley: further reading 285
- Index 295
