the construct and the unique historical form. In Parsons’s view, the ideal type is useful when identifying general aspects of social phenomena for comparative studies, but much less so when investigating unique historical periods and cultures, which demand detailed empirical investigation.
Continuing Relevance
Ideal types are still used in sociology, as is evident when new social phenomena emerge which sociologists do not fully understand. However, some sociologists return to Weber’s own work in order to extend it, fill in the gaps or take it in new directions. For instance, Załęski (2010) notes that Weber’s typology of religious attitudes towards the world is often ignored or downplayed in accounts of his work. And, in exploring its contemporary utility, he attempts to logically extend it.
Weber’s typology covers inner-worldly asceticism, world-rejecting asceticism and world-flying mysticism. Inner-worldly asceticism (such as Puritanism and Calvinism) involves striving ‘to make the world fulfil religious demands’ (Załęski 2010: 320), world-rejecting asceticism (Christian ascetics and anchorites) holds that the world is religiously worthless, leading to the rejection of what this world has to offer, while world-flying mysticism (in Buddhism and Brahmanism) occurs where followers use, say, meditation as a route to higher states of consciousness. Załęski introduces a fourth religious ideal type of world-active mysticism, such as animistic mysticism, voodoo rituals or the manipulation of spirits. And, though Weber did not regard this type as significant, Załęski sees it as actually very common today in the form of ‘new age’ beliefs and practices and beliefs in angels or demons and even extraterrestrials, all of which are thought to influence or shape real events in this world. Becoming involved in these kinds of mystical encounter allows people to feel that they actively ‘co-shape reality’.
References and Further Reading
Lister, C. R. (2015) The Islamic State: A Brief Introduction (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press).
Parkin, F. (2009) Max Weber (rev. edn, London: Routledge), esp. chapter 1.
Weber, M. ([1904] 1949) ‘Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy’, in E. A. Shils and H. A. Finch (eds), The Methodology of the Social Sciences (New York: Free Press), pp. 50–112.
Załęski, P. (2010) ‘Ideal Types in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion: Some Theoretical Inspirations for a Study of the Religious Field’, Polish Sociological Review, 171(3): 319–26.
Qualitative/Quantitative Methods
Working Definition
A basic distinction between those approaches to research that look for indepth knowledge by tapping into the subject’s reasoning and decision-making processes (qualitative) and those that make extensive use of measurement to quantify social phenomena (quantitative).
Origins of the Concept
Quantitative research was central to sociology from the discipline’s inception. Durkheim’s use of official statistics to quantify suicide rates and make comparisons across societies is typical of the kind of technique sociologists adopted. Given the desire in the nineteenth century to establish sociology as the ‘science of society’, it is not surprising that sociologists turned to quantitative methods, which held out the promise of accurate and reliable measurement. Such methods also offered the potential for comparative and historical studies which could yield insights into the extent of social changes, both geographically and over time.
Qualitative research began as a more specialized form, acting as a kind of under-labourer to supposedly more significant, large-scale quantitative studies. Qualitative work was often seen as an important prerequisite which took the form of small pilot studies aimed at clarifying meanings. From the 1970s, though, this situation began to change, and qualitative research gradually came to be seen as a method of inquiry in its own right. For a growing number of sociologists today, qualitative research is actually superior to quantitative methods, being a more appropriate, object-adequate type for the study of human beings and social life.
Meaning and Interpretation
Quantitative studies typically produce numerical information in the form of, say, numbers or percentages, in order to assess the size of a social problem or the percentage of a given population sharing similar attitudes. Descriptive statistical information is extremely useful in helping us to create an accurate picture of society. What proportion of the population is working class? What is the proportion of married women in paid employment? How many people believe that global warming is real? All these questions demand quantitative research, which is typically carried out by selecting a representative population sample from which general conclusions can be drawn. Quantitative samples tend to be much larger than those used in qualitative research in order to enable statistical testing.
Quantitative methods can be taken a stage further using inferential statistical analysis, which tries to arrive at general conclusions about data – for example, on the probability that an identified difference between groups within a sample is reliable and has not occurred simply by chance. Inferential statistics are widely used in variable analysis, when sociologists try to pick their way through several variables that are found to be correlated in order to establish relationships of cause and effect. This has been made somewhat easier over recent years with the advent of computer-based software programs such as the ubiquitous SPSS, which simplify the manipulation of raw data and enable automated calculations. Ironically, perhaps, this development has coincided with a turn towards qualitative methods in sociology.
Qualitative research includes all of the following methods: focus groups, ethnography, semi-structured or unstructured questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, participant observation, biographical research, oral histories, narrative studies, grounded theory and life histories. In all of these, sociologists try to understand how social life is lived and how people interpret and make sense of their social position. In short, the aim is to tap into the quality of people’s social lives, not to measure the shape and size of society as a whole. One area in which qualitative inquiry has had success is in giving a voice to under-represented or disadvantaged social groups. Studies of homelessness, self-harm, domestic violence, children’s experiences and many more have benefited enormously from qualitative research methods designed to allow marginalized groups to speak freely.
One further benefit of qualitative methods is the possibility of enhancing the validity of research conclusions. Within interviews or ethnographies, researchers can tell participants how they are interpreting their responses and ask if that understanding is correct. After interview, a debriefing session can be held which allows any possible misunderstandings to be ironed out. In the approach known as grounded theory, the traditional deductive method involving the construction of hypotheses which are then empirically tested is turned on its head, as researchers collect data in the form of interview transcripts before exploring these in systematic ways, using sorting, coding and categorizing, before moving on to the creation of concepts and theories which are said to ‘emerge’ from the data. All of these interactions mean the involvement of research participants in the research process rather than maintaining a strict division between researcher and subject.
Critical Points
The increasing use of qualitative research methods
