[PEN-L:12015] Ynt: Re: Swing (renamed: Surveys)

["Ogun Kaymak" <ogkaymak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

please get me out of your mailing list

----------
> Kimden: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Konu: [PEN-L:12014] Re: Swing (renamed: Surveys)
> Tarih: 28 A»ustos 1997 Perºembe 22:53
>
> At 11:52 AM 8/26/97 -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
>
> >Another problem with a result like 25% favouring socialism is that it
> >doesn't tell us anything else about what the survey respondents thought.
> >People also BS in ordinary conversation, but we often have enough other
> >information to discount their implausible claims of church attendance or
> >support for socialism. There's a funky little region of social science
> >methodology called "Q-methodology" that offers a trenchant critique of
> >survey research methodology and presents an alternative to the
traditional
> >approach.
> --- sinp ---
>
> Tom:
>
> Thanx for sharing information on Q-methodology.  However, my critique was
> aimed at any research methodology that ultimately depends on engaging the
> respondent in a simulated interaction to elicit responses that are
supposed
> to shed light on "real life" behaviour.  This is like drawing conclusions
on
> the behaviour of wild animals from observations made in a zoo.  It
matters
> little whether the zoo confines animals to small or large cages -- it is
an
> artifical environment that produces different behavioral cues than a
natural
> one.
>
> Aside my rather serious reservations about the validity of factor
analytic
> techniques (factor does not discover any patterns; at the very best, it
only
> tells us whether the data do not violate the researcher's preconceptions)
--
> my critique aims at the epistemological foundations underlying the survey
> methodology, rather  than technical accuracy of this or that method of
> asking questions.
>
> Suppose that we do find a way to elicit the exact content of the R's
> consciousness at a given moment in time.  But that finding is virtually
> worthless, unless we make an additional assumption that the knowledge we
> discovered is some kind of a benchmark, criterion that reveals to us the
> "nature of human behaviour/relations." In other words, the
survey-generated
> knowledge can be considered valid only when we assume the existence of
some
> reified "human nature" "psyche" or "cognitive essence" that does not
change
> under different circumstances.
>
> As soon as we assume that if there is anything like a "human nature," it
is
> something dynamic rather than static, interactive rather than
predetermined,
> and reflecting the social relations in which the individual finctions
rather
> than innate, essentialist psychic structures -- the survey becomes a
rather
> useless way of generating knowledge.  Why?  We do not have to measure the
> temperature of every grain of rice in a pot of boiling water to know what
> that temperature is -- suffice it to measure the temperature of their
> "environment" -- i.e. boiling water.  In the same vein, we can measure
the
> "ideological temperature" of the environment (specific communities) to
know
> what individual members on average think.  Given the rabid anti-communist
> propaganda that the US government and its corporate sponsored saturated
this
> society with, one does not need surveys to know that most people in this
> country will have anti-communist sympathies.  In the same vein, one does
not
> need surveys to know that most Iraquis hate the US.  As Bob Dylan aptly
> expressed it, "one does not need a weatherman to know which way the wind
blows."
>
> But even if surveys were to tell us something that we do not already
know,
> what does that knowledge mean?  Suppose that we discovered that the
majority
> of people support this and oppose that. So what?  If circumstances
change,
> their opinions will like to change as well.  If, on the other hand, we
treat
> the survey results as given, any action, let alone policy, based on that
> knowledge will necessarily have a conservative effect -- for treating the
> discovered state of affairs as a "benchmark" will invariably results in
> polices aiming at preserving that state against any changes.  That can be
> further illustrated by an analogy to attempts to determine the "true"
> position of a point on the circumference of a wheel.  Such attempts will
> likely result in efforts to keep that point in its "true" (according to
> whose standards?) position -- that is, to prevent the wheel from moving.
>
> Those two points are in addtion to the "standard" critique of surveys as
> asking opinions out of context, and imposing the researcher's formulation
of
> problems rather than eliciting the respondent's formulations (as I
undertand
> it, Q-methodology would fail on that account as well, for it depends on
> pre-determined formulations rather than interactively elicits formulatin
of Rs).
>
> To my knowledge, a way out of that methodological conundrum was proposed
by
> the French sociologist Alain Touraine who used (in his studies of social
> movements) a method he called 'sociological intervention' whose
bastardized
> version is now popular as "focus groups."  The idea here is to engage Rs
in
> a dialogue aimed at eliciting their views on an issue, but also  at
exposing
> the limitations of those views, as well as prompting the Rs to find a
> solution of those limitations (BTW, this is something very similar to the
> dialectical methods used by Socrates, as described in Plato's dialgues).
Of
> course, the 'focus groups" bastardize this approach by focusing on the
> eliciting of responses phase, while skipping the "dialectical" parts --
> exposing limitations and prompting to overcome them.
>
> But again, bourgeois social science is essentially conservative as it
> ultimately upholds the status quo, its "progressive", "left wing" veneer
> notwithstanding.
>
> PS. I'm cross-posting this to the progressive sociologists list.
>
> cheers,
> wojtek sokolowski
> institute for policy studies
> johns hopkins university
> baltimore, md 21218
> sokol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> voice: (410) 516-4056
> fax:   (410) 516-8233
>
> POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS
THIS
> IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE.
> - John Dewey
>