Black women and feminist sociology: The emerging perspective

Since the 1960s, leftists, interpretive sociologists, black nationalists and feminists have challenged the subject matter, methods, and social control functions of sociology. The feminist critique continues today, but it is arguable that a “fourth critique” of the field is in the making. This fourth critique emanates from the writings of a black feminist intelligentsia. Its theoretical anchor is a developing perspective on the intersection of race, class, and gender. This intersection is an important revision of feminist sociology and feminist theory, which tend to emphasize gender. The perspective is also corrective of race relations perspectives, which are often omissive of gender. The perspective, therefore, is recreative and may be transformatory of all prior critiques of the field. Rose M. Brewer is in the Departments of Sociology and Afro-American and African studies at the University of Minnesota. Her current research interests are race, class, and gender theory, black family formation, and welfare state policy.     

The norm and the text: Denzin and Lincoln's handbooks of qualitative method

Qualitative methods have lately enjoyed enhanced legitimacy and are increasingly used in academic and applied social research. Yet the field is marked by controversy about virtually every key tenet of qualitative inquiry, from matters of epistemology to purely practical matters of relations with research subjects. Not only is the practice of qualitative research hotly contested, consensus is lacking about the purpose of qualitative research and whether it has a distinctive role to play relative to other approaches to the study of social phenomena. Against this context, the handbooks of qualitative method edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln represent a significant attempt to capture the breadth of contemporary approaches to qualitative method. The article examines key contributions from the handbooks, drawing on these to develop a view of qualitative method from a pragmatic, realist perspective. Among the issues considered are the significance of relativism, subjectivity, post-modernism and feminist method, the politicization of the purposes of qualitative research, the debate over criteria of validity, and the move to treat qualitative research as an entertainment rather than a scientific practice.     

混合研究方法的方法论、研究策略及应用——以消费模式研究为例

近年来,定量定性相结合的研究方法在社会科学中广泛应用,但鲜有研究注意到其方法论含义并科学地选取研究策略。事实上,学术界对于定量定性方法的结合仍有争议,而且不同的结合方法背后的本体论和认识论的含义也不同,对于研究结论的意义和作用也不同。本文以中产阶级消费模式的研究为例,详细阐述了该研究使用混合研究方法的原因、目的、方法论、具体研究策略及其应用。文章使用定量和定性的研究发现说明了混合研究方法如何丰富和深化了研究结论,如何以具有代表性的样本为背景挖掘了消费生活的复杂性和多面性。     

Die Integration qualitativer und quantitativer Forschung – theoretische Grundlagen von „Mixed Methods“

Mixed Methods have been used in social research for quite a long time, as can be seen by looking on influential empirical studies from the first half of the 20^th century, where the combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods was justified in most cases only pragmatically (if at all). Unfortunately, the discussions led from the 1970s onwards about theoretical justifications of mixed methods designs often suffered from a focus limited on formal and epistemological issues. This holds true for the debates about the notion of “triangulation” as well as for the controversies about the paradigms presumably underlying quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research. By contrasting “positivism”, “constructivism” and “pragmatism” outdated frontlines were often preserved and complex philosophical problems oversimplified. Furthermore, the focus on epistemology led to a neglect of substantial issues relating to the research field (which are always critical for the use of methods).The necessity for using (and combining) quantitative and qualitative methods follows from the nature of social structures relevant for the concrete field of investigation which may differ widely according to their stability and flexibility. Thereby structures with limited scope or “contingent structures” create specific problems for qualitative and quantitative methods which can be detected and dealt with by drawing on the strengths of the respective other methodological tradition in mixed methods designs.     

Making feminism count: integrating feminist research principles in large-scale quantitative research on violence against women and girls

ABSTRACT

Applying a feminist approach to research on ending violence against women and girls (VAWG) is critical because gender inequality is an underlying driver of VAWG, and feminist research aims to empower women and girls, as well as challenge prevailing inequalities through the research process itself. However, feminist research approaches have not historically been applied in the international development sector, although statistical evidence on what works to end VAWG is in high demand from governments and donors. In this article, we explore how researchers could practically reconcile an explicitly feminist undertaking, like ending VAWG, when accepted research practices within this field employ methods that are historically not informed by feminist praxis. We argue that quantitative research and feminist research approaches are not mutually exclusive, rather, they can (and do) overlap. Drawing on five decades of combined experience conducting quantitative studies on VAWG in low- and middle-income countries around the world, we highlight the challenges and opportunities for incorporating feminist research principles throughout the research process – from design, community engagement, data collection, analysis, dissemination, and policy influence. We draw on practical examples from research conducted in countries as diverse as Timor-Leste, Kiribati, and Sri Lanka, among others, illustrating that it is not only possible to apply feminist research principles to large-scale, quantitative survey research on VAWG, but that this should become a priority for good development practice.     

Goodbye to the golden cage: Transformations in gender norms and family morality for working‐class women in occupations considered masculine in Mexico

This article seeks to contribute to the debate, within the feminist sociological theory and gender studies, about the possibility of ‘undoing gender’ in different social fields, mainly family relations. It is based on the premise that as women's objective dependency in the social structure decreases, the unstable character of what Bourdieu called ‘submissive dispositions’ becomes visible, and that women act reflectively, both to adapt to the challenges posed by their participation in different social fields and to gain personal liberties. The results of qualitative research, based on discussion groups and narrative interviews in which 109 women in working‐class sectors in Mexico City participated, are presented. Conflicts around breadwinning, housework distribution and personal liberties demonstrate a displacement of gender norms, parallel to efforts to maintain certain assurances regarding the traditional family model within the context of economic precariousness.     

THE METHODOLOGICAL INCLINATIONS OF GENDER SCHOLARSHIP IN MAINSTREAM SOCIOLOGY JOURNALS

This article examines the types of research methods sociologists studying women and gender use in articles published in mainstream journals. The research is based on an analysis of 1,826 gender-content articles published between 1984 and 1993 in 15 major sociology journals. Specifically, we explore whether feminist-oriented articles use different types of data, data collection methods, and statistical techniques than other articles addressing women and gender. The relationship between the rank of an academic journal, author's sex, and type of research method is also examined. We find that a large majority of gender-content articles are based on secondary, quantitative data. When the first author is a man, articles are somewhat more likely to be based on secondary data and to use quantitative statistical techniques. In general, we find that feminist research in the discipline is based on a melange of methodological approaches, reflecting the contested nature of feminist epistemologies.     

Community Organizing with Women of Color:

The problems of women of color are related to gender, ethnic, and class inequality, yet little attention has been paid to methods for changing these structural conditions; most social work literature on gender and ethnicity has focused on individual models for change. Recent research on feminist organizing has identified ways in which community organization methods can be made more effective for use with groups of women. The implementation of these methods with women of color, however, will require addressing deficiencies of feminist theory in analyzing women's experience. This article presents one approach to organizing with women of color that suggests how race and gender issues can be worked on simultaneously. The issues and practice principles are relevant for both women of color and European American women organizing in communities of color.     

Feminist Methodology in Social Movements Research

Feminist social scientists have developed distinctive principles of inquiry that depart from the positivist ideal of the detached, value-free scientist and are consistent with the feminist goal of rendering women's experiences visible and challenging gender inequality. In this article, I show how my research on the postpartum depression self-help movement illustrates five features of feminist methodology: a gender perspective, accentuation of women's experiences, reflexivity, participatory methods, and social action. My intent is to demonstrate how attention to the epistemological and methodological questions posed by feminist researchers produces new standards of evidence that allow us to recognize the gendering of social movement processes and theory.     

Productivity of women scholars and gender researchers: Is funding a factor?

Articles by women scholars and proportions of articles focused on gender have increased steadily in major sociology journals since 1974. Women are more heavily represented as journal authors than as members of graduate-program departments, the institutional bases where most published work originates. We consider whether funding might account for these patterns by examining acknowledgement of support in published articles. We find no significant relationships among author gender, article topic, and notation of internal funding. Male-authored articles focused on nongender topics acknowledge external funding significantly more often than women-authored works and articles focused on gender written by women or men. Funding patterns therefore do not appear to account for increased productivity by women and gender researchers. She is currently studying the educational achievement of immigrant students. Linda Grant is an assistant professor of sociology and faculty associated of the Institute of Behavioral Research at the University of Georgia. Her current research focuses on gender and academic careers and gender relationships in schools. Her current research includes the feminist critique of sociology and publishing, and the U.S. women’s movement.     

Teaching Human Behavior and the Social Environment to Enhance Students' Personal Epistemology

Current trends in education practices focus on student's personal epistemologies and their development. Two social work educators took specific steps to attempt to enhance the personal epistemologies of the social work students in their courses in human behavior in the social environment. One instructor repeated the trajectory of the reflective judgment model in her lectures, and the other gave a series of assignments that presented students with ill-structured problems to solve. Preliminary qualitative and quantitative data provided support for their subjective judgments that the teaching methods assisted students in moving toward more sophisticated personal epistemology. This article outlines the teaching methods and the data used and the current literature on personal epistemology.     

Coming Out of the Family Closet: Stories of Adult Women with LGBTQ Parent(s)

Research about children of LGBTQ parent(s) tends to be politically interested and evaluative, assessing the degree to which children with LGBTQ parent(s) are being raised well. As a consequence, much of that research glosses over the distinct experiences of children with LGBTQ parent(s) and how they tell their own stories. This article attends to that shortcoming by detailing how some children with LGBTQ parent(s) construct their identities. We draw upon data from interviews with 26 adult-children, specifically young, white women who were born to, or adopted by, heterosexual parent(s) who later divorced and began living as LGBTQ. We analyze the children’s interviews as coming out narratives, detailing how many tell a story of coming out as a process of growing up and negotiating specific family closets. We then discuss how these are gendered and racialized narratives of coming out, reflecting the way racism and sexism intersect with homophobia and the stories told about experiencing it. We also suggest that these are stories of a particular generation of adult-children, reflecting specific families and the homophobia of the times. We end by suggesting how future generations of adult-children with LGBTQ parent(s) will likely narrate their identities differently.

Gender and Agricultural Science: Evidence From Two Surveys of Land‐Grant Scientists*

Abstract We test two sets of hypotheses concerning the association between gender and various structural and attitudinal variables, using data collected in two surveys (1979 and 1995–1996) from random samples of land‐grant agricultural scientists. The first set of hypotheses centers on the expectation that the resources and rewards of agricultural science are distributed unequally by gender. We find significant gender differences in scientists' postdoctoral work experience, academic rank, employment of graduate students, rate of book publication, and links with private industry. Our second set of hypotheses, drawing on the literatures of feminist epistemology and situated knowledge, focuses on the relationship between scientists' gender and perceptions of the goals of agricultural research. Our findings indicate that gender is unimportant in explaining differences in scientists' commitment to agricultural sustainability, environmental issues, and family farm preservation as important goals of land‐grant research. Yet we find significant gender differences in attitudes toward biotechnology and the growing links between land‐grant universities and private industry.     

The Potential Contributions of Quantitative Research to Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is often mischaracterized as a perspective that rejects quantitative research. We argue that the rich conceptual tradition of symbolic interactionism allows for the use of quantitative data and statistical analysis within a pragmatist epistemology and that this is desirable, especially in conjunction with qualitative data. We discuss types of quantitative data and their appropriate uses and then describe types of contemporary multivariate statistical methods and what they offer. To illustrate these data and analytic techniques, we draw from examples in our area of specialization, criminology, and from our own quantitative work. Researchers can use quantitative data and methods in the service of six core symbolic interactionist concerns—meaning, variation, comparisons, situations, contexts, and probability—and we contend that quantification and statistics pose no threat to the interactionist perspective. In fact, the principled, critical use of quantitative research can enhance it.     

Social policies related to parenthood and capabilities of Slovenian parents

We apply Sen's capability approach to evaluate the capabilities of Slovenian parents to reconcile paid work and family in the context of the transition to a market economy. We examine how different levels of capabilities together affect the work–life balance (WLB) of employed parents. We combine both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. The results of our quantitative and qualitative research show that increased precariousness of employment and intensification of work create gaps between the legal and normative possibilities for successful reconciliation strategies and actual use of such arrangements in Slovenia. The existing social policies and the acceptance of gender equality in the sphere of paid work enhance capabilities for reconciliation of paid work and parenthood, whereas the intensification of working lives, the dominance of paid work over other parts of life, and the acceptance of gender inequalities in parental and household responsibilities limit parents’ capabilities to achieve WLB.     

The Apparent Conflict between Commitment to the Development of the Profession and the Imperatives of the Academy

It has been argued in a number of publications in the social work field that the current preoccupation with evidence-based practice is problematic, in that it offers a restricted and sometimes inappropriate understanding of the fundamentals of research in the social sciences. As a result social work and social care are at risk of deprivation of appropriate knowledge to inform practice. This article takes up this critique, in particular pointing out that the tendency for the debate to be reduced to one of competing (qualitative and quantitative) research methods is unhelpful. The issue is an epistemological one about the nature of knowledge and the authority of 'knowers'. The article gives examples of participatory approaches to research that start from a valuing of a range of kinds of knowledge. This opens the way for both quantitative and qualitative methods to have a place in social work research and social work education.     

A feminist look at social psychology / Una mirada feminista a la psicología social

This theoretical revision starts from the consideration that the gender perspective constitutes a critical, explanatory and alternative vision that comes from feminism and generates an analysis framework that takes into consideration and pays attention to the differences and inequalities between women and men in any activity or area of social development, research or public policies. The objective of this revision is to provide clues to understanding what gender or feminist social psychology is. To this end, firstly, we briefly describe feminist theoretical assumptions and the gender or feminist perspective, which constitute its starting point, and secondly, we analyse what it means to integrate these principles into psychology.     

The problems and prospects in the teaching of mixed methods research

There are pedagogical challenges USA students and instructors face within mixed methods classrooms. Instructors of mixed methods are often self-taught, lacking adequate training in both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. Students are not often trained in both research approaches. These dual training gaps can result in deep pedagogical issues compromising students’ ability to fully understand mixed methods research praxis and leaving teachers feeling ill equipped to address students’ learning concerns. To tackle the myriad of challenges confronted in the mixed methods classroom requires structural changes to the current way graduate training programs in social research methods are organized and taught. Developing a team-based teaching approach to mixed methods research that provides students with instructors who have the requisite qualitative and quantitative knowledge can serve as a pedagogical model that can begin at least to address the current methods and methodological skills gap in the teaching of mixed methods research.     

Zine infrastructures as forms of organizing within feminist social movements

This paper explores how feminist social movements are organized and re-generated across and through different media, both online and offline, using the example of zines. We critically examine the emergence and growth of an intersectional feminist zine community through a 6-year in-depth qualitative netnographic and ethnographic study. Theoretically, we build on work concerning feminist digital information and archival infrastructures, bringing it together with work on feminist digital activism. We make three key contributions: first to theorize zines and their communities as infrastructures, which cut across the social, digital, and material. Second in understanding the political potential of engagements in zine infrastructures in which the individual and collective are entangled, and third in revealing how the current generation of young feminists move across and work at the interfaces of formats to benefit from their synergistic, but also their agonistic, relations to form new affective solidarities.     

Of exceptions and continuities: theory and methodology in research on conflict-related sexual violence

In response to an emerging debate around qualitative and quantitative methods in sexual violence research, in this paper I explore the apparent unease between the two methodological approaches, and ask how empirical data with regard to sexual violence in conflict informs policy and calls for justice. I argue that the quantitative turn in conflict-related sexual violence research feeds into its exceptionalization and tends to divorce such violence from more contextualized gender analyses, or perspectives that emphasize continuums of gender-based violence. While in some cases exceptionalization is essential, such as for the purpose of criminal accountability, for the purposes of understanding prevalence we need quantitative and qualitative analysis, and comparative as well as contextual data that will allow us to see the continuities as well. The analysis of gender, understood as a “constitutive element of social relations” (Scott, J. W. 1986. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” The American Historical Review 91 (5): 1053–1075), is central to such a quest of better understanding both sexual violence and war.