E-Book Overview
On May 19-20, 2005, a workshop on Interdisciplinary Standards for Systematic Qualitative Research was held at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Virginia. The workshop was co-funded by a grant from four NSF Programs—Cultural Anthropology, Law and Social Science, Political Science, and Sociology—to Dr. Michèle Lamont, Harvard University. Professor Lamont was assisted in organizing the workshop by representatives from each discipline who coordinated group reports. The Cultural Anthropology group was co-chaired by Drs. Ted Bestor (Harvard) and Gery Ryan (RAND); Law and Social Science by Dr. John Bowen, (Washington University, in St. Louis); Political Science by Andrew Bennett (George Washington University); and Sociology by Dr. Kathleen Blee (University of Pittsburg).It is well recognized that each of the four disciplines have different research design and evaluation cultures as well as considerable variability in the emphasis on interpretation and explanation, commitment to constructivist and positivist epistemologies, and the degree of perceived consensus about the value and prominence of qualitative research methods. Within this multidisciplinary and multimethods context, twenty-four scholars from the four disciplines were charged to (1) articulate the standards used in their particular field to ensure rigor across the range of qualitative methodological approaches;1* (2) identify common criteria shared across the four disciplines for designing and evaluating research proposals and fostering multidisciplinary collaborations; and (3) develop an agenda for strengthening the tools, training, data, research design, and infrastructure for research using qualitative approaches.
E-Book Content
Workshop on Interdisciplinary Standards for Systematic Qualitative Research Cultural Anthropology, Law and Social Science, Political Science, and Sociology Programs National Science Foundation Report prepared by: Michèle Lamont Harvard University Patricia White National Science Foundation Acknowledgements We wish to thank James Granato, former NSF Political Science Program Director, Joane Nagel, former NSF Sociology Program Director, Stuart Plattner, former NSF Cultural Anthropology Program Director, and Christopher Zorn, former NSF Law and Social Science Program Director, for their help in planning and participation in the workshop, Karen Duke and Michelle Jenkins, NSF Social and Political Sciences Cluster staff members, for their administrative and technical support, Lauren Rivera and Sabrina Pendergrass, graduate assistants for their work with Professor Lamont on workshop and report preparations at Harvard University, Joane Nagel and Kristin Luker, Professor of Sociology and Jurisprudence and Social Policy, University of California, Berkeley for their thoughtful comments on the draft report, and the 23 workshop participants who took on the enormous task of representing their respective disciplines at the workshop through the submission and presentations of short papers prior to the workshop and comment and recommendations during and after the meeting. We also thank the 2007 graduate student cohort of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and Camonia Long, Howard University graduate student, for their reactions to the report. Workshop Participants & Attendees Michèle Lamont, Harvard University, Workshop Organizer Jody Miller, University of Missouri, St. Louis Joane Nagel, University of Kansas Andrew Bennett, Georgetown University Ted Bestor, Harvard University Beth Rubin, University of North Carolina-Charlotte Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh Gery Ryan, Rand Corporation Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz Susan Silbey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology John Bowen, Washington University in St. Lo