[Air-L] qual/quant and all that

[Ellis Godard]

I'm less interested in the methods folks employ than in their epistemology
about their methods. Many ideas - that numbers are bad, that science is
evil, that "positivism" is dead, etc. - are pollutive nonsense that
perpetuate a qual/quant distinction that's partly spurious. Numbers are
great, as is exploratory work that can't quite yet be subjected to
quantification. Ethnographers can count things, and we can count things
about ethnographies. Kumbaya.
-eg


-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Barry Wellman
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 3:09 PM
To: aoir list
Subject: [Air-L] qual/quant and all that

I am disappointed in the implicit assumption that folks are either qual or
quant.

When I had influence in the Toronto Sociology dept, I helped lead the way to
ensure all grad students took a basic stats course and a basic ethnography
course. They don't have to use both, but they have to be literate readers of
both, and not shy away from use in fear or ignorance.

I continue to think it is the only way forward for serious IR scholarship

   Barry Wellman, who was doing "mixed methods" before it was called that.
  _______________________________________________________________________

   NetLab                        FRSC                      INSNA Founder
   Faculty of Information (iSchool)                 611 Bissell Building
   140 St. George St.    University of Toronto    Toronto Canada M5S 3G6
   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman          twitter: @barrywellman
                  NSA/CSEC: Canadian and American citizen
   NETWORKED:The New Social Operating System. Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman
   MIT Press            http://amzn.to/zXZg39      Print $14  Kindle $16
                  Old/NewCyberTimes http://bit.ly/c8N9V8
   ________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of
Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or
unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/