Critical Social Science

1. Critical Social Science Research in the Social Sciences week 20

2. Outline • What is Critical Social Science (CCS)? • What does CCS believe? • What are its aims? • How can CCS work?

3. What is CCS? • Anti – positivism: • Narrow • Antidemocratic • Non-humanist • Objective & law-like • Anti – interpretative: • Too subjective • Relativist • Ideas more important than conditions • Focused on micro level • Passive & amoral

4. What is CCS? “a critical process that goes beyond surface illusions to uncover the real structures in the material world in order to help people change conditions and build a better world for themselves” – Neuman, Social Research Methods, p.110

5. The Purpose of CCS • Not just to study the social world but to change it • Studies critique and thus transform • Empowers people by uncovering conditions • Exposes myths, uncovers hidden truths “to explain a social order in such a way that it becomes itself the catalyst which leads to the transformation of this social order”- Neuman

6. The Purpose “Critical research can be best understood in the context of the empowerment of individuals. Inquiry that aspires to the name critical must be connected to an attempt to confront the injustice of a particular society or sphere within the society. Research thus becomes a transformative endeavour unembarrassed by the label ‘political’ and unafraid to consummate a relationship with an emancipatory consciousness” – Kincheloe in Neuman P.111

7. CCS and Social Reality • Agrees with positivism: • There is empirical reality independent of perception • Agrees with interpretivism: • Reality is formed from subjective experience • Critical realist ontology • Structures can be observed at the ‘real level’ • Concerned with dialectics

8. CCS and Social Reality • CSS is concerned with: • Reification: • People become detached from their own creations • False Consciousness: • People often have false & misleading ideas (often created by reification) • Bounded Autonomy: • People have freedom within set boundaries (cultural or material)

9. CSS’s Aims • Activist orientation • Research is a moral-political activity • Adopts a transformative perspective • Reject detachment

10. How it can work • Burawoy’s extended case method: • Researcher interacts with subject participants. Disruptions or disturbances that develop out of their mutual interaction help to expose and better illuminate social life

11. How it can work 2. The researcher adopts the subject participant’s view of the world in specific situations, but does not stop there. The researcher adds together many views from individual subjects and specific situations, aggregating them into broader social processes.

12. How it can work 3. The researcher sees the social world simultaneously from inside outward (viewpoint of the people being studied) and from outside inward (viewpoint of external forces that act on people).

13. How it can work 4. The researcher constantly builds and rebuilds theory. This takes place in dialogue with the people studied and in dialogue with other researchers in the scientific community.

14. Summary of CSS • Purpose of social science is to reveal what is hidden to liberate and empower people • Social reality has multiple layers • People have unrealised potential and are mislead by reification • A bounded autonomy stance is taken toward human agency • Scientific knowledge is imperfect but can fight false consciousness • All evidence is theory dependent • Dialectical approach is adopted toward knowledge • Social reality contains a moral-political dimension