Comparative/historical methods

Question 1

Historical tmethods

Answer 1

change over time
social structures or processes

Question 1

Comparative methods

Answer 1

variation across space
no specific unit of analysis

Question 2

Choosing a topic: comparative/historical

Answer 2

Macro-social phenomena
Reveal blind spots

Question 3

Examples of Comparative/historical methods

Answer 3

organs and development of capitalism and nation states
spread of ideologies and religions
causes and consequences of revolutions
relationship of ongoing economic and geopolitical transformations to the fates of communities, groups and types of organizations

Question 4

Sampling: comparative/historical

Answer 4

sampling-purposive
identify key concepts/events to examine
select cases that vary in terms of the key concepts/events

Question 5

Research methods: creating the, developing concepts and hypothesis

Answer 5

gather and read resources
take notes

Question 6

Identify similarities and differences b/w allowing deviations from the proposed causal pattern

Answer 6

consider contradicts
propose casual explanation
counterfactuals

Question 7

Success

Answer 7

explain outcome for each case, w/o allowing deviations from the proposed casual pattern

Question 8

Content analysis

Answer 8

studying culture:
study of recorded/documented things

overlaps with qualitative and quantitative data analysis
what you analyze vs what you observe

Question 9

Content analysis: example

Answer 9

In crime-dramas on network TV, white criminals are portrayed as victims of their social circumstances, whereas black criminals are portrayed as “bad seeds”

Operational definitions
IV: race-race of main criminals in episode
DV: causes of crime-victim/social circumstances

Question 10

Sampling: content analysis

Answer 10

Identity units of analysis (and units of observation)

Sample
probability or purposive

Question 11

Crime and Race

Answer 11

operational definitions

units of analysis
main criminal characters

Units of observation
crime-drama episodes

Sample
population/universe
sample

Question 12

Coding

Answer 12

mainfest content: concrete
latent content: underlying meaning
Inductive and deductive approaches

Question 13

Deductive

Answer 13

starts with general principle/theory and then applies it to specific cases to arrive at a specific conclusion

Question 14

Inductive approach

Answer 14

starts with specific observations or cases and draws a theory based on the patterns identified in these observations

Question 15

Post data collection: content analysis

Answer 15

quantitative data analysis
critical content analysis

Question 16

Content analysis strengths

Answer 16

economy-time and money
safety
can’t redo interviews, can redo content analysis

can study processes over a long period of tie
doesn’t affect subjects under study

Question 17

Weaknesses

Answer 17

limited to recorded communication
problems of validity
concreteness= validity (also can re-code)