Theory of construction
2021
Inhoudsopgave
1. INTRODUCTION: THEORISING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES .......................................................................... 2
1.1. THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION ........................................................................................................................ 2
1.2 . WHAT YOU NEED TO THEORISE ................................................................................................................... 5
1.3. THEORISING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES .................................................................................................................... 6
2. CREATIVE THEORISING ............................................................................................................................ 7
2.1. CONTEXT OF DISCOVERY AND CONTEXT OF JUSTIFICATION ......................................................................................... 7
2.2. SOCIAL OBSERVATION ........................................................................................................................................ 9
2.3. HEURISTICS ................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.3.1. In and out of your comfortzone (Gerring) .......................................................................................... 12
2.3.2. Use a metaphor/analogy (Gerring/Abott): becomes something else that can be described with
different terms ............................................................................................................................................. 12
2.3.3. Problematising the obvious (Abott) ................................................................................................... 13
2.3.4. Reversing theories of concepts .......................................................................................................... 14
2.3.5. Describe your phenomenon differently (Abott) ................................................................................. 14
2.3.6. Static and dynamic (Abott) ................................................................................................................ 15
2.3.7. Study the literature (Gerring) ............................................................................................................ 15
2.3.8. Reframe your phenomenon (Ragin & Amoroso) = kaderen ............................................................... 16
3. THE CASE OF DEPRESSION – WORKING SEMINAR ................................................................................. 18
4. RESEARCH PARADIGMS, PROCESSES AND DESIGNS .............................................................................. 24
4.1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 24
4.2. WHAT ARE PARADIGMS? .................................................................................................................................. 24
4.3. PARADIGMS AND SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION (BACKGROUND READING) ......................................................................... 25
4.4. PARADIGMATIC DEBATES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES ................................................................................................. 27
4.5. (POST-)POSITIVIST AND INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES .............................................................................................. 29
4.6. RESEARCH DESIGNS ......................................................................................................................................... 30
4.6.1. Research processes ............................................................................................................................ 30
4.6.2. (post-)positivist research designs ...................................................................................................... 31
4.6.3. Interpretive research designs............................................................................................................. 34
4.7. DEVELOPING A RESEARCH QUESTION .................................................................................................................. 36
5. RESEARCH GOALS .................................................................................................................................. 37
6. SEMINAR MIGRATION: MIGRATING TO EUROPE ................................................................................... 44
7. THE POST-POSITIVIST APPROACH ......................................................................................................... 49
7.1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 49
7.1. CONCEPTS ............................................................................................................................................. 50
7.2. TYPOLOGIES ........................................................................................................................................... 55
7.3. MEASURING........................................................................................................................................... 57
7.3.1. The merits and difficulties of measuring ....................................................................................... 57
7.3.2. Indicators, indexes and correlations .............................................................................................. 57
7.3.3. Criteria of measuring ..................................................................................................................... 58
7.3.4. Strategies ...................................................................................................................................... 58
7.3.5. Caveats of measuring .................................................................................................................... 60
7.4. INTRODUCTION (CAUSALITY IN EVERYDAY LIFE IS A COMPLEX TOPIC) .................................................................. 60
7.5. CAUSAL EXPLANATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (ELSTER; PETTIGREW) ............................................................... 62
7.6. THE PROCESS OF CAUSAL REASONING (ELSTER) ............................................................................................. 65
7.7. CAUSAL MODELS (JACCARD & JACOBY) ....................................................................................................... 66
1
, 7.7.1. Types of causal relationships: they are visualized in a different way in the model ....................... 67
7.7.2. Constructing a causal model ......................................................................................................... 69
8. THE INTERPRETIVE APPROACH .............................................................................................................. 73
8.1. THE INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH PROCESS: INDUCTIVE OR ABDUCTIVE? .......................................................................... 74
8.2. CONTEXTUALITY ...................................................................................................................................... 77
8.2.1. Context .......................................................................................................................................... 77
8.2.2. Concepts ........................................................................................................................................ 78
8.2.3 Constitutive causality: it’s difficult in the interpretive research .................................................... 79
8.3 TRUSTWORTHINESS ................................................................................................................................. 80
8.3.1. Criteria of good research (scientific way) .......................................................................................... 80
8.3.2. Where do data come from ............................................................................................................ 81
8.3.3. Checking for trustworthiness ......................................................................................................... 82
8.4. EVIDENCE (DATA) .................................................................................................................................... 83
8.4.1. What counts as evidence? ............................................................................................................. 83
8.4.2. Mapping for exposure ................................................................................................................... 84
8.4.3. Mapping for intertextuality ........................................................................................................... 84
8.4.4. Fieldnotes ...................................................................................................................................... 85
8.4.5. Embodied experiences ................................................................................................................... 85
8.4.6. Metaphors ..................................................................................................................................... 85
8.5. GETTING GOING WITH INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH............................................................................................. 85
9. GUESTLECTURE MILENA BELLONI (POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER) ....................................................... 86
10. LEVELS OF ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................... 93
10.1. INTRODUCTION: MULTIPLE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS .................................................................................................. 93
10.2. FALLACIES IN REASONING ............................................................................................................................... 97
10.3. SHIFTING BETWEEN LEVELS ............................................................................................................................. 99
11. COMPARING ........................................................................................................................................... 103
11.1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 103
11.2. WHY COMPARE (FORMULIZED QUALITATIVE METHOD)? ..................................................................................... 104
11.3. WHAT TO COMPARE? .................................................................................................................................. 106
11.4. HOW TO COMPARE? ................................................................................................................................... 106
11.5. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES ............................................................................................................... 109
11.6. QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS (QCA) (R&A) ........................................................................................ 111
11.7. SINGLE CASE STUDIES................................................................................................................................... 113
2
, 1. Introduction: Theorising in the social sciences
1.1. The sociological imagination
What would a sociologist say?
- We would say that she is overweight
- Obesity seems to be a purely individual feature, the outcome of an individual lifestyle, genetic and
medical dispositions, etc.
- Yet, there are quite a lot of sociologically meaningful features to this situation / sociologically
interesting questions to ask (these individuals represent sociological variables):
• ‘norms and values’: there is a fairly large consensus within our society, across different social
groups, as to what constitutes the ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ physique
• ‘social structure’: prevalence of obesity is not evenly distributed across different population
groups: the socio-economically vulnerable people have much higher risks to be obese
• Culture: Shared ideas about how an ideal body should look like, these ideals are culturally
specific: in Africa being slim is not an ideal body type because in these poor countries
showing off that you have enough income to eat well and even eat more then you actually
need confirms your social status = society specific
• Possible causes: poverty (less money/means to buy healthy food = income), lack of
knowledge, socialize into different eating behaviours, every day in which people find
themselves that make it easier, more attractive, less costly to eat unhealthy food =
sociological factors
• Effects? Consequences? What are the sociological consequences? Social exclusion: some
people maybe don’t want to go out with you, or maybe people who are obese feel ashamed
and only feel good with other people who are obese so it could lead to segregation
C.W. Mills, The sociological imagination, pp5-11.
o “the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate
features of the human self – and to see the relations between the two”: something very intimate for
instance that someone is overweight because it effect how people see themselves and it effects how
they think that people see themselves, it effects the expectations that they think that other people
have towards them: so you can discuss this as a personal intimate feature but what we do as
sociologists is that we discuss these personal individual features in connection with something else:
the most impersonal abstract sociological historical patterns and structures and transformations (the
way they change over time) and how this influences features of ourselves: it’s a way of understanding
ourselves (individual people) but not by pointing to individual psychological features, but by pointing
to broader social societal transformations and structures
o The ability to “grasp history (how society changes trough time) and biography (what happens to us)
and the relations between the two”
o So that “the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating
himself within his period”: understanding your own faith
o We are now for example the corona generation: being marked by the whole transformation that is
taking place right now
Theory?
o “abstract”, “technical” and “philosophical”
o Concepts and definitions
o A body of ideas on how the social world works
Theorising?
2
, o = A practical, intellectual skill
o Trying to understand social phenomena by thinking about possible descriptions/interpretations and
explanations
o Trying to understand particular social phenomena by thinking about possible
descriptions/explanations
o A set of practical, intellectual skills, rather than knowledge of existing ideas and concepts (yet, some
knowledge of sociological concepts will come in handy)
o You can use existing theories and concepts, but the key point is that you do it yourself!
o Is more like a puzzle, emerges from whatever fascinates you, startles your imagination, or draws you
in…
o We often often will refer to ideas of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, … but it’s really about doing it yourself
and starting with your own research interests: cultivate your sociological imagination (open it up to
different interpretations)
R. Swedberg, The art of social theory, pp16-28. It’s about how do you use social theory in research
o Theory: “a statement about the explanation of a phenomenon”
o Theorising: “the process through which a theory is produced.”: these theoretical statements and
concepts: it’s science in action
o “to see, to observe, and to contemplate” as accurately as possible what’s happening in social life
The sociological imagination
o All sciences try to describe/explain particular phenomena (as accurately as possible)
o What is specific about the social sciences is the sociological imagination…
o They put on different glasses to look at the world: they don’t look at it from a sociological perspective,
not like social world
o For example an economist looks at the world like a market: supply and demand, human beings are
rational actors who try to maximize their interest
E.g. your favourite lunch…
o May seem a matter of personal taste…
o Yet it is strongly related to your social identity: subcultures among peers, media consumption, where
you live, …
o The preference for having meat in your lunch was not so obvious because of the economic situation,
they only ate it on Sunday’s for example: if you could eat it more times a week it meant that you had a
higher economic status, in our society right now it’s the other way around: if you eat a lot of meat it
means you have a lower SES because we already know eating meat is bad for our health, the climate
change, … It’s not an individual choice, it’s related to transformations in society
o Culture: shared ideas about what a common meal is, it’s culturally specific for example bread for lunch
in Belgium
o And to your level of education, class, ethnic background, age, gender, the time you live in…
3
2021
Inhoudsopgave
1. INTRODUCTION: THEORISING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES .......................................................................... 2
1.1. THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION ........................................................................................................................ 2
1.2 . WHAT YOU NEED TO THEORISE ................................................................................................................... 5
1.3. THEORISING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES .................................................................................................................... 6
2. CREATIVE THEORISING ............................................................................................................................ 7
2.1. CONTEXT OF DISCOVERY AND CONTEXT OF JUSTIFICATION ......................................................................................... 7
2.2. SOCIAL OBSERVATION ........................................................................................................................................ 9
2.3. HEURISTICS ................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.3.1. In and out of your comfortzone (Gerring) .......................................................................................... 12
2.3.2. Use a metaphor/analogy (Gerring/Abott): becomes something else that can be described with
different terms ............................................................................................................................................. 12
2.3.3. Problematising the obvious (Abott) ................................................................................................... 13
2.3.4. Reversing theories of concepts .......................................................................................................... 14
2.3.5. Describe your phenomenon differently (Abott) ................................................................................. 14
2.3.6. Static and dynamic (Abott) ................................................................................................................ 15
2.3.7. Study the literature (Gerring) ............................................................................................................ 15
2.3.8. Reframe your phenomenon (Ragin & Amoroso) = kaderen ............................................................... 16
3. THE CASE OF DEPRESSION – WORKING SEMINAR ................................................................................. 18
4. RESEARCH PARADIGMS, PROCESSES AND DESIGNS .............................................................................. 24
4.1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 24
4.2. WHAT ARE PARADIGMS? .................................................................................................................................. 24
4.3. PARADIGMS AND SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION (BACKGROUND READING) ......................................................................... 25
4.4. PARADIGMATIC DEBATES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES ................................................................................................. 27
4.5. (POST-)POSITIVIST AND INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES .............................................................................................. 29
4.6. RESEARCH DESIGNS ......................................................................................................................................... 30
4.6.1. Research processes ............................................................................................................................ 30
4.6.2. (post-)positivist research designs ...................................................................................................... 31
4.6.3. Interpretive research designs............................................................................................................. 34
4.7. DEVELOPING A RESEARCH QUESTION .................................................................................................................. 36
5. RESEARCH GOALS .................................................................................................................................. 37
6. SEMINAR MIGRATION: MIGRATING TO EUROPE ................................................................................... 44
7. THE POST-POSITIVIST APPROACH ......................................................................................................... 49
7.1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 49
7.1. CONCEPTS ............................................................................................................................................. 50
7.2. TYPOLOGIES ........................................................................................................................................... 55
7.3. MEASURING........................................................................................................................................... 57
7.3.1. The merits and difficulties of measuring ....................................................................................... 57
7.3.2. Indicators, indexes and correlations .............................................................................................. 57
7.3.3. Criteria of measuring ..................................................................................................................... 58
7.3.4. Strategies ...................................................................................................................................... 58
7.3.5. Caveats of measuring .................................................................................................................... 60
7.4. INTRODUCTION (CAUSALITY IN EVERYDAY LIFE IS A COMPLEX TOPIC) .................................................................. 60
7.5. CAUSAL EXPLANATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (ELSTER; PETTIGREW) ............................................................... 62
7.6. THE PROCESS OF CAUSAL REASONING (ELSTER) ............................................................................................. 65
7.7. CAUSAL MODELS (JACCARD & JACOBY) ....................................................................................................... 66
1
, 7.7.1. Types of causal relationships: they are visualized in a different way in the model ....................... 67
7.7.2. Constructing a causal model ......................................................................................................... 69
8. THE INTERPRETIVE APPROACH .............................................................................................................. 73
8.1. THE INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH PROCESS: INDUCTIVE OR ABDUCTIVE? .......................................................................... 74
8.2. CONTEXTUALITY ...................................................................................................................................... 77
8.2.1. Context .......................................................................................................................................... 77
8.2.2. Concepts ........................................................................................................................................ 78
8.2.3 Constitutive causality: it’s difficult in the interpretive research .................................................... 79
8.3 TRUSTWORTHINESS ................................................................................................................................. 80
8.3.1. Criteria of good research (scientific way) .......................................................................................... 80
8.3.2. Where do data come from ............................................................................................................ 81
8.3.3. Checking for trustworthiness ......................................................................................................... 82
8.4. EVIDENCE (DATA) .................................................................................................................................... 83
8.4.1. What counts as evidence? ............................................................................................................. 83
8.4.2. Mapping for exposure ................................................................................................................... 84
8.4.3. Mapping for intertextuality ........................................................................................................... 84
8.4.4. Fieldnotes ...................................................................................................................................... 85
8.4.5. Embodied experiences ................................................................................................................... 85
8.4.6. Metaphors ..................................................................................................................................... 85
8.5. GETTING GOING WITH INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH............................................................................................. 85
9. GUESTLECTURE MILENA BELLONI (POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER) ....................................................... 86
10. LEVELS OF ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................................... 93
10.1. INTRODUCTION: MULTIPLE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS .................................................................................................. 93
10.2. FALLACIES IN REASONING ............................................................................................................................... 97
10.3. SHIFTING BETWEEN LEVELS ............................................................................................................................. 99
11. COMPARING ........................................................................................................................................... 103
11.1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 103
11.2. WHY COMPARE (FORMULIZED QUALITATIVE METHOD)? ..................................................................................... 104
11.3. WHAT TO COMPARE? .................................................................................................................................. 106
11.4. HOW TO COMPARE? ................................................................................................................................... 106
11.5. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES ............................................................................................................... 109
11.6. QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS (QCA) (R&A) ........................................................................................ 111
11.7. SINGLE CASE STUDIES................................................................................................................................... 113
2
, 1. Introduction: Theorising in the social sciences
1.1. The sociological imagination
What would a sociologist say?
- We would say that she is overweight
- Obesity seems to be a purely individual feature, the outcome of an individual lifestyle, genetic and
medical dispositions, etc.
- Yet, there are quite a lot of sociologically meaningful features to this situation / sociologically
interesting questions to ask (these individuals represent sociological variables):
• ‘norms and values’: there is a fairly large consensus within our society, across different social
groups, as to what constitutes the ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ physique
• ‘social structure’: prevalence of obesity is not evenly distributed across different population
groups: the socio-economically vulnerable people have much higher risks to be obese
• Culture: Shared ideas about how an ideal body should look like, these ideals are culturally
specific: in Africa being slim is not an ideal body type because in these poor countries
showing off that you have enough income to eat well and even eat more then you actually
need confirms your social status = society specific
• Possible causes: poverty (less money/means to buy healthy food = income), lack of
knowledge, socialize into different eating behaviours, every day in which people find
themselves that make it easier, more attractive, less costly to eat unhealthy food =
sociological factors
• Effects? Consequences? What are the sociological consequences? Social exclusion: some
people maybe don’t want to go out with you, or maybe people who are obese feel ashamed
and only feel good with other people who are obese so it could lead to segregation
C.W. Mills, The sociological imagination, pp5-11.
o “the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate
features of the human self – and to see the relations between the two”: something very intimate for
instance that someone is overweight because it effect how people see themselves and it effects how
they think that people see themselves, it effects the expectations that they think that other people
have towards them: so you can discuss this as a personal intimate feature but what we do as
sociologists is that we discuss these personal individual features in connection with something else:
the most impersonal abstract sociological historical patterns and structures and transformations (the
way they change over time) and how this influences features of ourselves: it’s a way of understanding
ourselves (individual people) but not by pointing to individual psychological features, but by pointing
to broader social societal transformations and structures
o The ability to “grasp history (how society changes trough time) and biography (what happens to us)
and the relations between the two”
o So that “the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating
himself within his period”: understanding your own faith
o We are now for example the corona generation: being marked by the whole transformation that is
taking place right now
Theory?
o “abstract”, “technical” and “philosophical”
o Concepts and definitions
o A body of ideas on how the social world works
Theorising?
2
, o = A practical, intellectual skill
o Trying to understand social phenomena by thinking about possible descriptions/interpretations and
explanations
o Trying to understand particular social phenomena by thinking about possible
descriptions/explanations
o A set of practical, intellectual skills, rather than knowledge of existing ideas and concepts (yet, some
knowledge of sociological concepts will come in handy)
o You can use existing theories and concepts, but the key point is that you do it yourself!
o Is more like a puzzle, emerges from whatever fascinates you, startles your imagination, or draws you
in…
o We often often will refer to ideas of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, … but it’s really about doing it yourself
and starting with your own research interests: cultivate your sociological imagination (open it up to
different interpretations)
R. Swedberg, The art of social theory, pp16-28. It’s about how do you use social theory in research
o Theory: “a statement about the explanation of a phenomenon”
o Theorising: “the process through which a theory is produced.”: these theoretical statements and
concepts: it’s science in action
o “to see, to observe, and to contemplate” as accurately as possible what’s happening in social life
The sociological imagination
o All sciences try to describe/explain particular phenomena (as accurately as possible)
o What is specific about the social sciences is the sociological imagination…
o They put on different glasses to look at the world: they don’t look at it from a sociological perspective,
not like social world
o For example an economist looks at the world like a market: supply and demand, human beings are
rational actors who try to maximize their interest
E.g. your favourite lunch…
o May seem a matter of personal taste…
o Yet it is strongly related to your social identity: subcultures among peers, media consumption, where
you live, …
o The preference for having meat in your lunch was not so obvious because of the economic situation,
they only ate it on Sunday’s for example: if you could eat it more times a week it meant that you had a
higher economic status, in our society right now it’s the other way around: if you eat a lot of meat it
means you have a lower SES because we already know eating meat is bad for our health, the climate
change, … It’s not an individual choice, it’s related to transformations in society
o Culture: shared ideas about what a common meal is, it’s culturally specific for example bread for lunch
in Belgium
o And to your level of education, class, ethnic background, age, gender, the time you live in…
3
