PerspectivesKatrine Miller

PerspectivesPost Positivist PerspectivesInterpretive PerspectivesCritical Perspectives

Post Positivist PerspectivesUse of the scientific method: develop theory

and accumulate knowledge about the world through the process of empirically testing theories

The evolution or Revolution of Research Programs

Barbara Wilson (1994)I believe that children‘s interpretations and

responses are as richly individualistic However, I also believe that there are

common patterns that characterize a majority of young viewers and that those patterns are as predictable and explainable as the basic process by which all those unique snowflakes are formed from water

Ontology position:Emphasized both the patterned nature of the social construction process and the regular and predictable effects that reified social constructions have on social actors

Epistemology position: knowledge can best be gained through a

search for regularities and causal relationships among components of the social world

Regularities and causal relationship can best be discovered if there is a complete separation between the investigator and the subject of the investigation

This separation can be guaranteed through the use of the scientific method

Axiology Position: Though no claims to absolute thruth and

value free inquiry are made, the belief exist that progress can be made if researchers exercise care in their theorizing and research and are critical of theoretical assertions and empirical justifications

Interpretives TheoriesReflect the complexity of both the social

world and the social construction processFoundational Theoretical Positions:Hermeneutics: Does not blindly interpret the

text which he or she presented, rather involves a process of tacking, going back and forth between theory, tacit knowledge the researcher takes into the project, and the textual data

Phenomenology: Knowledge is not found in external experience but in individual consciousness

Symbolic Interactionism

Ontological Issue: Realities exist in the form of multiple mental

constructions, socially and experientially based, local and specific, dependent for their form and content on the persons who hold them

Epistemology Issue - interpretive theorists advocate a

subjective epistemology - there are no universal laws or causal

relationship to be deduced about the social world

- Reality is socially constructed, interpretivist believe that this understanding can be reached only from the actor‘s point of view

Axiological Issue should try to minimize the influence of values

on the research process

Critical PerspectivesOntologi:Emphasizes the complex and dialectical

relationship between structure and action

Structuration Theory: Anthony Giddens “ structure… is not to be conceptualized as a

barrier to action, but as essentially involved in its production”

Ontological privileged: Agent over structure

Epistemological Theory: nature of knowledge and how knowledge is to be gathered and use in the social world

Jurgen Habermas:- Empirical – analitical cognitive

interest Knowledge should consist of

deterministic and general laws of nature - Hermeneutic- historical cognitive

interest: the uniqueness of human activities

Positivist approach as reductionist and believes that knowledge should be based on emergent on local text that are historically situated

- Critical- emancipatory cognitive interest : knowledge as a process of self reflection through which historical constraints

Axiological Commitments: Values should guide scholarship, and theorist

should work as change agents in supporting those valued

Cultural StudiesFeminist Studies