As we saw in A1, we are all researchers! Most people will be familiar with the idea of ‘researching’ a topic for an assignment or researching about something you want to buy or a holiday you want to go on. We are all everyday researchers – wanting to find out the facts or what someone else thinks of something or somebody, from a new girlfriend to the gov- ernment’s policy on nuclear power.
If you are researching a topic for an assignment you will probably be looking for a mix- ture of different types of information– perhaps in the form of statistics, the opinions and ideas of key academics and researchers in that area, the theories or sets of ideas that seem to underpin the way the topic is seen and understood and, depending on your discipline, you may be interested to find out more about, for example, the government’s policy on this topic, the economics related to that topic, the specific cultural aspects and so on.
When you gather information for an assignment you are selecting that which will help you to address a question and to demonstrate your understandingof both the question and the information you use to discuss the issues raised by the question. In answering your as- signment questions you are doing more than simply presenting the facts or a set of ideas – you will be expected to work with the information to enable you to discuss, explain, analyse critically and draw some conclusions.
So what is different about doing social research – and why do we need to think a bit more about it as students within our own disciplinary areas? As students in sociology, so- cial policy, political science, economics, social anthropology, criminal justice, social work and so on, we need, first of all, to apply our everyday student research skills and experience to the topic of social research itself. This may be a bit surprising and may not be something that you expected to be doing – but we will try to make it worthwhile and to show you how important this is as you begin to think about your own social research. As with all good as- signments, we begin with a title and an introduction – and will then include an example (introduced in Example A2.1) which will run through this section and serve to illustrate the points that are being made. We will also suggest some activities to help you to think about your own research topic. There will also be places where you are directed to other sections of the book which will help you to think through the points made in relation to your own social research.
So our assignment title might be something like:
What is social research and what are the ideas, theories and perspectives that influ- ence the way in which social research is carried out?
To address this question we will be discussing the following in this chapter:
The nature of the subject matter of social research – what is the social world?
As part of that social world, what do we or what can we ‘know’ about it? As a human being – and part of the social world – what is the relationship of a social researcher to the social world he is studying?
What is there to study, to find out about – ontology? And why do people see things differently?
Thinking about what there is to study – how can we do that? What ways are there of ‘looking’ at the social world – epistemology– that can help us to think about what we want to study and how we can do it?
information Knowledge gained through study, experience or instruc- tion: what we are told.
understanding Grasping the meaning of information.
social world The setting or cultural surroundings in which social research takes place.
What is . . .
Ontology
Ontology is the science of what is, of the kinds and structures of objects, properties, events, processes and relations in every area of reality (Smith, 2003: 155).
Example A2.1
‘Number of marriages falls to record low’ – Guardian, 22 February 2007 ‘Worlds apart – poll finds parents out of touch’ – Guardian, 24 February 2007 ‘Teenage gang shooting blamed on family breakdown’ – Guardian, 23 February 2007
‘Fathers told: do more for your children’ – Guardian, 27 February 2007
‘Mothers bear brunt of discrimination at work – women with children are seen as less reliable’ – Guardian, 1 March 2007
This chapter includes some quite abstract material so an example is included to help your understanding of the key points. Throughout this chapter there are exam- ple boxes which will take you through some of the points being made in relation to a particular area of the social world – the family.
As we write this, a topic that is rarely far from the news in the UK has hit the headlines again. Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the family, with its changing composition and the role it is thought by some to play in many aspects of daily and social life, has been a topic of interest, concern and research and it is one of the social units that most people experience themselves in some way.
The family, as a social unit, encompasses a number of different elements:
It can include people who are related to each other by blood, by law and by choice.
It can include the relationship between parent(s) and child.
It can include legal and choice relationships between adults.
Members of a family may or may not live in the same household.
And probably many others!
The family, as a social unit, is of concern to: policy-makers, economists, house builders, social and health care providers, the police, the retail industry, education providers, travel agents, car makers, lawyers and many others!
Some changes that have had an impact on the family as a social unit in the last 50 years include:
laws relating to divorce, cohabitation and civil partnerships;
effective means of contraception and abortion;
education and employment opportunities for women;
lengthening lifespan.
What is . . .
Epistemology (1)
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge and how we know things.
(We offer slightly different definitions below in the sections on ontology and epistemology.)
What are we trying to do when we do social research (see also A1)?
How can theories help us in our social research?