#nonscience

What they say:

“Social science is in crisis! We ought to take measures to improve the state of our field!”

What you think they mean:

What they actually mean:

[...] Lincoln and Cannella argued that championing a rigid set of “gold standard” methods reflects dangerous epistemologies shaping academic discourse. These rigid norms—what they called “methodological conservativism” at the time—have profound implications for research, including which methods are taught and supported, which research imaginaries are cultivated, which projects are valued, which are funded, and which understandings of the world are nourished. They note a key danger that is worthwhile to consider in a methods collection because of its salience to researchers’ very identities. [...] All researchers are vulnerable to shifting forms of normalization and prescription, to discourses that champion hegemonic standards, or even “new” and “better” methods, including those oriented toward social justice. Claims about any methods can become prescriptive, associated with a “right” and “good” identity to embrace as a researcher, whether through dominant or feminist and critical approaches.

This is from Research Methods for Social Justice and Equity in Education, which I acquired via media. The focal point is clear from the title, and so it might be low-hanging fruit, but let’s see what this book has to say about “truth”. It gets 52 matches, whereas something like “qualitative” nets you 241 results. What’s more interesting, though, is the context of the results, namely which words surround the word “truth”. In the first three results we find: the word “truth” literally in inverted commas (“scare quotes”, they’re sometimes called, to be used as a sign of irony); “multiple truths”; the sentence “[life] history challenges the idea of a universal truth—stemming from Eurocentric positionalities.”

There’s a whole chapter called ““Objectivity”, Truth and Multiple Realities”, and yes, there are again scare quotes around a word. Let’s see some interesting excerpts from this chapter. For fun, let’s emphasise the claims to objectivity within the text with italics.

As a critical scholar and a qualitative researcher, my approach to “objectivity” is often unlike approaches of other faculty many of my introductory qualitative students have encountered or have studied under. Because we begin with a history (and within a present) of marginalization, that is, a structure of inequality—where individuals and groups have been and continue to be denied access to and the opportunity to contribute to “official knowledge” as we think of it through “research”—attaining “objectivity” is not possible. Even striving for such a goal seems not only improbable but unjust in a variety of ways, in my opinion. This does not mean that we should not adhere to principles of sound research—that is, we should do whatever we like without regard to established practices for ethical research. It does mean though that participants’ realities are impacted by social, economic, political, and educational structures that have historically and presently limit access and opportunity. That is, the powerful exist, as do the disempowered. If we reflect on our history, the powerful have had access and opportunity to conduct research and create “knowledge.” Thus, truth is relative, and a single truth is not attainable. What is true for one participant or group may not be true for another participant or group. Regardless of the approach to research—critical or not—the realities of power, and relatedly, access and opportunity, remain.

That’s a lot of claims to truth in a single paragraph about how truth is relative. Let’s move on, but before we do, another great sentence:

“Objectivity,” as they have been taught, is something—perhaps if not wholly attainable—is always a thing to strive for.

The next part is where the author ostensively answers a question I, and perhaps you, have had in my head the whole time. Let’s see:

Another concept that introductory qualitative students struggle with is generalizability. They often come to class with ideas that suggest that the only research that is worth conducting is research that can be generalized to people outside of the sample. When I tell them that the intent of qualitative research is to better understand the particular, and that qualitative work is not meant to be generalizable—they often ask, “Well, then, why would anyone conduct a qualitative study?”

Great question! Why, indeed, especially as actually finding the truth (or even approximating it) appears not to even be a central aim in this type of “research”. So, let’s see what she has to say about that.

I ask them—“Have you read any quantitative studies that suggested that the findings are true for everyone?”

Okay... Not a great start, but let’s see if she improves.

Really, in my opinion, with any approach to research, one can only generalize to their own data—which is exactly what qualitative studies do.

I admire your commitment to saying “my opinion” to avoid the nasty situation where you might *gasp* lay claim to the truth, but this is patently false. Every single quantitative study will try to generalise to the “population”, and this is, in fact, the entire purpose of sample-based research. So, this remains purely an opinion, and this is fortunate, because opinions cannot be wrong. You could point out the irony in saying that no research is generalisable in a book about methodology, but let’s not.

This amounts to beating a dead horse, but since this chapter is such a trainwreck, I cannot help but include a few more excerpts. I will skip the author’s poor analogy and go straight fo the money shot, namely where the author talks about generalizability and objectivity, but just with different words!

Citing Lincoln and Guba, Merriam and Tisdell (2015) state:

the notion of “transferability,” in which “the burden of proof lies less with the original investigator than with the person seeking to make an application elsewhere. The original inquirer cannot know the sites to which transferability might be sought, but the appliers can and do.” The investigator needs to provide “sufficient descriptive data” to make transferability possible. (p. 254)

Gosh, transferability... Sure sounds a lot like generalisability. But she means of research methodology, so it’s totally fine, right?

Thus, “validity” has traditionally been understood by qualitative researchers as “credibility.” Because qualitative researchers will “never capture an objective ‘truth’ or ‘reality,’ the field has established a variety of strategies to increase the credibility or the “correspondence between research and the real world” (Wolcott as cited in Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p. 244).

Wait a second... “correspondence between research and the real world”? You mean... objectivity? What is this positivist bullshit? What “real world”? Which of the multiple realities might you refer to?