Restoring Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry: The Reach of Qualitative Methods

Chapter
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Part of the Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development book series (ARAD)

Abstract

This chapter considers the openness of the post-Positivism climate to engagement with ethnographic or qualitative method in social inquiry. It explores the main reasons for the historic move away from a strict positivist approach, a consequence largely of a pervasive sense of disappointment in its failure to yield a rich account of individual personality and of social life. It argues for the fundamental epistemological commonality of quantitative and qualitative method, both involving hermeneutic interpretation. Issues in the philosophy of science are discussed, especially the necessity to assume an empirical world, generally denied by the post-modernists, in order to establish validity, and the importance of acknowledging subjectivity in social science.

Keywords

Ethnography Epistemology Positivism Quantitative vs qualitative methodology Post-modernism Hermeneutics Case study Empirical reality Validity-seeking hermeneutics 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Institute of Behavioral ScienceUniversity of Colorado BoulderBoulderUSA

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