Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Debate
Sociology
Copyright 2004
BSA Publications Ltd
Volume 38(1): 175189
[DOI: 10.1177/0038038504039374]
SAGE Publications
London,Thousand Oaks,
New Delhi
Gayle Letherby
Coventry University
A B S T R AC T
Introduction
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Gendered Paradigms?
Valuing the Participatory Model
In the academic year 1989/90 as a third-year undergraduate student, I too felt
that feminist researchers celebrated qualitative methods as best suited to the
project of hearing womens accounts of their experiences (Oakley, 1998: 708);
that the critique of quantitative overlapped with the critique of mainstream/
malestream; and that quantitative and qualitative approaches represented
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the questionnaire, they have engaged in content analysis and worked with public and personal documents, as well as undertaking projects which have a multimethod approach and/or an action research focus (for some examples see
McCarl Nielsen, 1990; Reinharz, 1992; Roberts, 1990; Roberts, 1992; Stanley,
1990b). Furthermore, there is evidence of the use of techniques not normally
identified as research methods that have helped to uncover a more complete picture of what is going on in womens lives. Examples include group diaries,
drama, the use of autobiography, consciousness raising (e.g. Reinharz, 1992).
In presenting this, I am saying that I do not agree with Oakley (1998: 716)
when she argues that:
the claims of feminist social science preferentially to own the qualitative method
are part of its own professionalising agenda.
Clearly, as can be seen, not least through the examples I have presented
here, it is not necessary for a feminist researcher to engage in qualitative
research to prove her feminist credentials. The use of qualitative methods is not
the only legitimate feminist approach. This leads me to disagree with Oakleys
view that feminists have adopted a particular method in order to occupy a distinctive place in the academy and acquire social status and moral legitimacy
(1998: 716). As Harding (1987: 3) notes, it is not by looking at research methods that one will be able to identify the distinctive features of the best of feminist research. However, I do accept that outside the feminist community the
myth that feminists only do interviews often persists.
Further to this, and like Oakley (1998), others have also argued against
the construction of a gendered paradigm divide which poses an association
between qualitative work and feminism and can lead to an association between
quantitative work and work that is specifically masculine and/or positivistic
(e.g. Henwood and Pidgeon, 1995; Jayaratne and Stewart, 1991; Millen, 1997;
Randall, 1991; Stanley and Wise, 1990). A continued association of the interview as womens work compounds more established sexist views about
women as good listeners and ignores the hard emotion work which is now an
acknowledged aspect of much of the research undertaken by researchers
(women and men). Similarly, equating men with quantitative methods continues and confirms stereotypes about mens superior numerical abilities and their
lack of emotional skill (see e.g. Lee-Treweek and Linkogle, 2000; Ramsay,
1996; Warren, 1988). It is also inaccurate to classify all quantitative work as
positivistic, even though historically many textbooks do not make a distinction
between positivism and quantitative research (see Maynard, 1994 for further
discussion).1 A mutually exclusive divide between qualitative and quantitative is also epistemologically debilitating as it results in a knowledge cul-desac:
The more we speak the language of the paradigm argument, the more we use history to hide behind it; instead of looking forward to what an emancipatory (social)
science could offer peoples wellbeing, we lose ourselves in a socially constructed
drama of gender, where the social relations of femininity and masculinity prescribe
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Yet, despite all of this and despite the above reservations, qualitative methods remain popular amongst feminists. This is probably because, as Maynard
notes (1994), many of the issues that feminists have been concerned to put on
the agenda namely the private, the emotional, the subjective lend themselves
more readily to qualitative work and open-ended strategies. It is difficult to
imagine how to explore these issues empirically other than through use of qualitative methods. This creates a tension and, as Maynard (1994: 21) adds, feminists argue for the need to rehabilitate quantitative methods whilst
simultaneously often supporting the epistemological and ethical superiority of
qualitative approaches, i.e.: The best way to find out about peoples lives is to
let them tell you about it. This is a tension which we need to continue to
address. Thus, there is much still to be done in adapting malestream methods
and models to suit feminist values (Oakley, 1998).
What I have suggested so far then is that, since Oakleys 1981 work, feminists have been concerned to highlight the important relationship between process and product/doing and knowing within research. Many agree with her
1998 assertion of the danger of claiming one method as feminisms own.
Rather, methods should be chosen to suit projects and not the other way
around. Whatever methods are chosen, a critical consideration of how methods
are used is essential. This is important not just in terms of power relations
between researcher and researched but also because the way that methods are
used (the process) affects the knowledge produced (the product). In the next
section of this piece I consider these issues further with reference to some of my
own research experiences.
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and product/doing and knowing in terms of both power relations and substantive issues.
A more recent research experience demonstrated to me that the issues and
concerns researchers have during data collection, analysis and presentation are
or should be the same irrespective of whether qualitative or quantitative methods are used. I recently finished work with a colleague on a project concerned to
explore student experiences of and attitudes to Womens Studies. Following
two focus group discussions (a method that I had never used before), we developed a questionnaire with both agree/disagree type statements, and statements
requiring qualitative responses. We were keen for respondents concerns, rather
than our own, to be central, so all the quantitative and qualitative statements
were generated from the focus group discussions. For the first stage of our
research, the questionnaire was completed by four groups of students in our
own institution: Womens Studies degree students; students taking Womens
Studies modules; social science students not taking Womens Studies modules;
and non-social science students. For the second stage, we asked colleagues in
three other universities to distribute our questionnaires to Womens Studies
degree students and students taking Womens Studies modules. Together we
have reflected on some of the methodological and epistemological implications
of what we did and how we did it (Letherby and Marchbank, 1998, 2001).
Among other things we considered: differences and similarities between
researching women and researching men; involving colleagues as gatekeepers to
respondents; researching those less powerful than ourselves; emotion and the
research process; our own personal and political identities and the relevance of
these while doing fieldwork and analysing data; and our power in terms of the
representation of others, both with respondents we knew and those we did not.
My point here is that the issues we considered in relation to data collection and
analysis in this mostly quantitative study are the same as those I considered in
my previous mostly qualitative work. Our concern, as with my doctoral work,
was with how what we do affects what we get: the relationship between process
and product/doing and knowing.
So, whatever method we use, knowledge is always rooted in the particular
perspective of knowledge producers and therefore it is important that we make
transparent the analytical procedures involved (Stanley, 1997: 216). Thus, as
Oakley (1998, 1999) says, maintaining a false division between qualitative and
quantitative methods, and a feminist case against quantification, is unhelpful
practically, academically and politically. My own research experiences represent
a couple of examples (I am not claiming any unique activity or thinking here)
of feminist work that recognizes this.
Epistemology/ies
As Scott (1998: 1.2) suggests, there is currently much discussion among feminists concerning what she calls feminism-friendly epistemology, and this piece
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is part of that tradition. Feminists are concerned with who has the right to
know; the nature and value of knowledge in general and feminist knowledge in
particular; and the relationship between the method you use, how you use it
and the knowledge (findings/results) you get. Thus, as I have suggested here,
the main concern is with the relationship between the process and product of
feminist research and how epistemology becomes translated into practice. So,
although there is no one feminist method, I accept that with reference to
methodological considerations there is an accepted/expected feminist approach
(see Oakley, 1998, and above). Methodologically then, researchers need to be
morally responsible (Stanley and Wise, 1993: 200) and recognize that the
objects of research are subjects in their own right, and that what we do and
how we do it clearly affects what we get.
Epistemologically, feminists have disagreed over whether feminist knowledge, with its emphasis on emotion and subjectivity and grounded as it is in the
experience of people, provides a better type of knowledge, a successor science;
or whether, acknowledging that no research can be completely grounded as all
researchers go into the field with their own pre-established opinions, feelings
and theories, all is relative (see Harding, 1987; Morley, 1996; Scott, 1998;
Stanley and Wise, 1993). So, does feminist research represent the standpoint of
all women or is it part of the postmodern project? With respect to my own
work, these are issues that I grapple with. I find myself arguing for a variation
of what Stanley and Wise (1993) call a feminist fractured foundationalism: a
variation because, whilst I agree with Stanley and Wise (1993: 200) that I am
not intellectually superior to my respondents, I do think that I have an intellectual privilege with respect to both academic and research resources, with
access to a wider variety of experiences and reports than non-researchers can
have. I do hope that my work has made a difference and adds to knowledge,
but at the same time I appreciate that the work that I produce represents an
analysis from my perspective and is open to criticism. With respect to the academic labour process, I am concerned to detail my intellectual biography
(Holland and Ramazanoglu, 1994; Stanley, 1990a) by clearly outlining the processes involved in research procedures, analysis, and presentation of findings,
and by making the person explicit and reflecting on the relevance of my personal biography (Cotterill and Letherby, 1993) in the work that I do. I am also
conscious of the implications of representing the other as well as people like
me (Ribbens and Edwards, 1998; Wilkinson and Kitzinger, 1996) and of the
need and complexity of bringing men back in (Annandale and Clark, 1996;
Laws, 1990; Morgan, 1981; Reynolds, 1993). With all of this in mind, I agree
with Holland and Ramazanoglu who argue that:
The validity of our interpretations depends on the intensity of the interaction of our
personal experiences with the power of feminist theory and the power, or lack of
power, of the researched. Our conclusions should always be open to criticism.
(1994: 146)
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The important point here then is that the power of feminist theory implies
a constant, critical engagement with the issue and with responses.
Concluding Thoughts
For me, like many others referred to here, my central concern as a feminist is
not the qualitative/quantitative divide but the relationship between the process
and the product, between doing and knowing: how what we do affects what we
get. I am aware of and, I think, sensitive to the critique of both quantitative and
qualitative approaches. I have enjoyed all of my research experiences and
expect to enjoy future research projects. I hope and trust that my previous experiences (some of which are referred to here) will enable me to choose the most
appropriate method(s) in each instance. Yet, there are likely to be institutional
restrictions to the approach that I take. As Jayaratne and Stewart (1991) and
Kelly et al. (1994) note, it is useful to compare and combine methods, and to
discover the limitations and possibilities of each. However, when bound by
research contracts, this is a luxury that researchers do not often have (Kelly et
al., 1994: 356). Further to this, it is also noteworthy that some people work
within departments which (not contractually, but in practice) discriminate in
favour of some kinds of research and against others. This, in turn, should be
taken into account when considering the relationship between process and
product.
For me, then, doing and knowing are intertwined and, from my reading of
the plethora of writing concerned with both doing feminist research and theorizing about feminist understandings (only a small portion of which are represented here), many others feel likewise. I also feel that this process and
product/doing and knowing relationship with an emphasis on concern for the
use of appropriate methods and a recognition of power dynamics within
research and not the paradigm argument, as Oakley (1998) argues, is the
central debate amongst feminist researchers. Issues of process and
product/doing and knowing are equally relevant to quantitative and qualitative
work, and further debate and discussion in this area is likely to add to and not
detract from the development of an emancipatory social science in feminist
work and elsewhere. Clearly, we do not all agree, and as Harding (1987) suggests, this is a strength and not a weakness as it prompts further discussion and
avoids stagnation. When I first became interested in research I found Oakleys
work inspiring but I feel that in some ways I took it too seriously, too literally;
maybe I still do.
Notes
1
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who used numerical data or statistics, anyone who is concerned about representativeness or generalizability or the credibility or research findings is liable
to be deemed a positivist. She adds that positivism ceased long ago to have any
useful meaning.
My doctoral research highlighted complexity of experience and I write infertility and involuntary childlessness to demonstrate the problem of definition.
See Letherby, 1997, 1999 and 2000, for further discussion.
References
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Gayle Letherby
Is Reader in the Sociology of Gender, Associate Head of Social Work, Health and Social
Sciences and Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice at Coventry University.
Her research and writing interests include feminist methodology and epistemology;
motherhood, non-motherhood; kinship and the family; health; and working and learning
in Higher Education.
Address: School of Health and Social Sciences, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB,
England.
E-mail: g.letherby@coventry.ac.uk
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