Challenging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide: Explorations in Case-focused Causal Analysis

Description

This book challenges the divide between qualitative and quantitative approaches that is now institutionalized within social science. Rather than suggesting the 'mixing' of methods, Challenging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide provides a thorough interrogation of the arguments and practices characteristic of both sides of the divide, focusing on how well they address the common problems that all social research faces, particularly as regards causal analysis. The authors identify some fundamental weaknesses in both quantitative and qualitative approaches, and explore whether case-focused analysis - for instance, in the form of Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Analytic Induction, Grounded Theorising, or Cluster Analysis - can bridge the gap between the two sides.

Barry Cooper is Emeritus Professor of Education at Durham University, UK. From 2004-2007, he was co-editor of the British Educational Research Journal. Judith Glaesser is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Durham University, UK. Roger Gomm, now retired, was Lecturer in Health and Welfare at the Open University, UK. He has a long experience of ethnographic research in both the UK and internationally, and of bespoke evaluation research. Martyn Hammersley is Professor of Educational and Social Research at the Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning at The Open University. He has carried out research in the sociology of education and the sociology of the media. However, much of his work has been concerned with the methodological issues surrounding social enquiry. He has written several books, including: Reading Ethnographic Research (1991); What's Wrong with Ethnography? (1992); The Politics of Social Research (1995); Taking Sides in Social Research (1999); Educational Research, Policymaking and Practice (2002), Questioning Qualitative Inquiry (2008), and Methodology, Who Needs It? (2011).

Highly Commended - Society for Educational Studies Annual Book Prize 2013 * The Society for Educational Studies * This book does three important things. It provides a useful account of how the qualitative-quantitative divide in research methods arose and became entrenched, it sets out the various reasons why we need to move beyond this divide, and it offers a vision and a demonstration of how this can be done using an approach that combines a focus on cases with the search for the causes of the social phenomena under investigation. It combines philosophical discussion with empirical illustration in an accessible way that will make readers reconsider their ideas about how to deal with depth and breadth in social research. -- Graham Crow, Deputy Director, ESRC National Centre for Research Methods and Professor of Sociology, University of Southampton, UK