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Intermediate Qualitative Methods (SPS-MECHE-QM-26)

SPS-MECHE-QM-26

Purpose

This seminar is an intermediate/advanced class on qualitative methods; it builds upon but goes beyond the SPS introductory qualitative methods course. We begin – Part I - with two sessions on ethics, an issue foundational for the use of any method. We explore both its multiple meta-theoretical foundations (de-ontological / consequentialist / feminist / post-colonial / relational) and its varying practice across qualitative and quantitative-computational methods and experimental designs.

In Part II – the seminar’s core – we drill down and explore the contours and debates over a selection of key qualitative methods. These include sessions on field work and multi-sited approaches; interpretive interview methods (relational, life history, ethnographic); discourse textual methods (genealogical, critical, post-structural); and advanced process methods (Bayesian process tracing, practice tracing, following methods).

We conclude – Part III – by zooming back out from particular methods. One session thus explores the debate over research transparency and its implications for all qualitative methods. Our last meeting then zooms out to the level of practice, with researchers debating their operationalization of a qualitative method/topic in a half-day workshop.

Description

Part II – the seminar’s core – we drill down and explore the contours and debates over a selection of key qualitative methods. These include sessions on field work and multi-sited approaches; interpretive interview methods (relational, life history, ethnographic); discourse textual methods (genealogical, critical, post-structural); and advanced process methods (Bayesian process tracing, practice tracing, following methods).
We conclude – Part III – by zooming back out from particular methods. One session thus explores the debate over research transparency and its implications for all qualitative methods. Our last meeting then zooms out to the level of practice, with researchers debating their operationalization of a qualitative method/topic in a half-day workshop.