Session 1: Monday 6th October 10:00-12:00 & Tuesday 7th October 17:30-19:30     

What is Methodology?

Dr Claudia Lapping

In this introductory session we will explore the meaning of methodology. We will do this by comparing accounts taken from a variety of methodology textbooks, and the ways in which they seem to suggest it might be possible to think about ‘methodology’, for example:

  1. A named approach to research
  2. The space, or links, between ‘epistemology’, ‘theory’ and ‘method’
  3. The underpinnings of or justification for a claim to knowledge
  4. The implicit and explicit connections between different aspects of research practice
  5. The implicit, explicit and unconscious connections between research practice and other elements of the social context
  6. The practice through which actions/decisions/statements are produced
  7. The embodiment of ideas in the practice of the researcher

We will also consider the difference between accounts provided by text books about how to do research; and accounts provided in the sociology of science/research, which investigates how researchers actually go about the process of doing research. We will talk about approaches to reading both of these kinds of texts, and how and whether they might be useful to you at different stages of your research.

Suggested Reading (not compulsory)

KUHN, T. (1970) ‘The Nature of Normal Science’, Chapter 3 in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago. University of Chicago Press. pp. 23-34
See also preface and earlier chapters, pp. vii - 22

Additional Texts

DOWLING, P.C. & BROWN, A.J. (2010). Doing Research/Reading Research: Re-interrogating education. Second Edition. London. Routledge.
BOURDIEU, P. (2006). Science of Science and Reflexivity. Cambridge.Polity Press.
KUHN, T. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago. Chicago University Press.
LAW, J. ( 2004). After Method: mess in social science research.  London. Routledge.
LATHER, P. (1991). Getting Smart: Feminist research and pedagogy within the postmodern. London: Routledge.
LATOUR, B. & WOOLGAR, S. (1986). Laboratory Life: the construction of scientific facts. Princeton. Princeton University Press.
USHER, R. (1996). ‘A critique of the neglected epistemological assumptions of educational research’ in D. SCOTT & R. USHER. (Eds). Understanding Educational Research.London. Routledge.