Emma Uprichard

SPSS as an inscription device : from causality to description.

This paper examines the development of SPSS from 1968 to 2008, and the manner in which it has been used in teaching and research in British Sociology. We do this in order to reveal some of the changes that have taken place in statistical reasoning as an inscription device in the discipline over this period. We conclude that to characterise these changes as a shift from ‘causal’ to more ‘descriptive’ modes of analysis is too simplistic. Such a shift is certainly apparent, but it meshes in complex ways with a range of other – just as important – changes, that together mark a phase-shift in the functioning of sociological quantification.

Sampling: bridging probability and non-probability designs

This article reconceptualizes sampling in social research. It is argued that three inter-related a priori assumptions limit on the possibility of sample design, namely: (a) the ontology of the case, (b) the epistemological assumptions underpinning what properties are necessary to know the case and (c) the logistics involved in the process of ‘casing’ the case. In considering sampling in this way, not only are key criteria commonly used to gauge the validity of sample problematized, but a genuine epistemological bridge between probability and non-probability sample designs is also forged.

Geodemographic Code and the Production of Space

There is a growing body of research relating to the ways in which digital code contributes to the production of space. In much of this work this issue is approached by first examining particular spaces and then considering the code and its effects on those spaces. In contrast, we explore the production of space from another angle, examining the ways in which an example of code—geodemographic classification—is constructed, and then questioning what it is about the emergent production of space that may feed back recursively into the production of that code.

Dirty Data: Longitudinal classification systems

Typically in longitudinal quantitative research, classifications are tracked over time. However, most classifications change in absolute terms in that some die whilst others are created, and in their meaning. There is a need, therefore, to re-think how longitudinal quantitative research might explore both the qualitative changes to classification systems as well as the quantitative changes within each classification. By drawing on the changing classifications of local food retail outlets in the city of York (UK) since the 1950s as an illustrative example, an alternative way of graphing longitudinal quantitative data is presented which ultimately provides a description of both types of change over time. In so doing, this article argues for the increased use of ‘dirty data’ in longitudinal quantitative analysis, a step which allows for the exploration of both qualitative and quantitative changes to, and within, classification systems. This ultimately challenges existing assumptions relating to the quality and type of data used in quantitative research and how change in the social world is measured in general.

Describing Description (and Keeping Causality): The Case of Academic Articles on Food and Eating

Recently, Savage and Burrows argued that there is an ‘empirical crisis’ in sociology. They concluded that sociologists should abandon a focus on causality for descriptions that ‘link narrative, numbers, and images’. This article takes up their challenge by using Wordle to depict the changing focus in academic articles on food and eating since 1950. Using this illustrative example, it is argued that their call to abandon causality is problematic for three reasons. First, interpreting description necessarily depends on a causal framework. Second, since description becomes part of a mode of production in which context and meaning are inscribed, the question is not whether to reject causality in favour of description, but rather what kinds of description help to explore causality. Third, going beyond description is ethically advantageous for a critical sociological programme. The article concludes that, contrary to Savage and Burrows, description and causality go hand in hand.

Data Diffraction Challenging Data Integration in Mixed Methods Research

This article extends the debates relating to integration in mixed methods research. We challenge the a priori assumptions on which integration is assumed to be possible in the first place. More specifically, following Haraway and Barad, we argue that methods produce “cuts” which may or may not cohere and that “diffraction,” as an expanded approach to integration, has much to offer mixed methods research. Diffraction pays attention to the ways in which data produced through different methods can both splinter and interrupt the object of study. As such, it provides an explicit way of empirically capturing the mess and complexity intrinsic to the ontology of the social entity being studied.

The materiality of method : the case of the Mass Observation Archive

The Mass Observation Archive presents numerous methodological issues for social researchers. The data are idiosyncratic, difficult to analyze, and the sample design is nonsystematic. Such issues seriously challenge conventional social research protocols. This article highlights a further characteristic of the archive: its unwieldy materiality. Focusing on the sensory experiences of the archive and its particular type of data, the article shows how the experience of getting ‘dirty with data’ plays a real and dynamic part of conducting Mass Observation research. Building on these observations, and drawing on two recent projects that have used the Archive, we reflect on the extent to which these issues are genuinely methodologically problematic, and how far the materiality of method and the sensuousness of data play a part in other research sites and methodological approaches too. In doing so, we emphasize the physical and logistical practicalities involved in engaging with all kinds of data, and highlight the opportunities as well as the constraints that these pose. We draw attention to the sensuous ‘cues’ and ‘hints’ offered by the Archives materiality, and explore different ways of responding to these and their likely implications for the type and status of outputs produced. Finally, we consider the implications of our discussion for possible future attempts to digitize the contents of the Archive.

Method, Methodology and Pedagogy in Social Research

There is a vast literature relating to the conduct of social research. Some authors focus on the philosophy of social research. Some focus on one (or two) particular research method(s). Others attempt to focus on the whole methodological shebang and cover qualitative and quantitative approaches with snapshots of particular social research methods most commonly associated with these approaches. More usually, like the three books reviewed here, authors focus not so much on a particular social research method but on a particular methodological approach; many do this to suit particular disciplinary audiences. More often than not, the focus is on either qualitative or quantitative approaches. This is why the three books reviewed here stand out from other social research books: they each extend existing discussions by concentrating on methodological approaches that are relatively new and innovative

Changing girlhoods – Changing Girl Guiding

This article discusses the changing nature of girlhood over the last century as it is depicted through an empirical study of all editions of Girl Guide handbooks since 1910. The article describes three strands of change, which we describe as ‘stringy’, insofar as they are co-occur together and are difficult to untangle from one another; yet they are also stories of change that are nevertheless visible as strands in and of themselves through the empirical material. We illustrate the importance of incorporating children and childhood into more general theories of social change, in order to better understand how they are intrinsic to the mechanisms of intergenerational change.

IJSRM’s 100th issue

We are delighted to mark the 100th issue of the International Journal of Social Research Methodology which happens to fall in the first issue of volume 18. The 100th issue is an opportune moment for us to pause and reflect on where we are at in terms of social research methods and methodology, and the kinds of debates that have filled the pages in this journal over the past 30 years. Since the Journal was first published in 1998, so much has changed in social research that it is difficult to know where to begin. However, like many successful journals, this journal has seen more continuity in the editorial team than change. So, for example, one of the founding editors, Julia Brannen, only stepped down from the editorial team after over a decade, in 2011. We are grateful that she remains an active board member of the Journal, so her presence continues to influence the scholarship of its contents. Likewise, we thank Christina Hughes for her strong editorial input between 2011 and 2016; we are grateful to Christina for staying on the editorial board as well. This is the first editorial with Emma Uprichard on the team, who joins Malcolm Williams who has been part of the editorial team since 2002 and Ros Edwards, who was the other member of the founding editorial team. Our current editorial board similarly reflects a mix of long-standing members who have been part of ensuring that IJSRM maintains its high quality standards for a decade or so (such as Linda Bell, Bob Burgess, Nigel Fielding, Martyn Hammersley, Richard Lampard, Nick Moon) and others who have recently brought new areas of methodological and methods expertise to the board. Some of these more recent board members have come up through our College of Reviewers initiative, where early career researchers are able to hone their article review skills. Since the journal was set up, the world itself has changed in important ways too. We note, for example, the first working draft of the human genome being announced in 2001. The first decade of the new millennium was the launch pad of Web 2.0 and along with it, new kinds of social media sites, such as Wikipedia (2001), Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), Sina Weibo (2009), each allowing for a particular kind of social interaction, and as a social research data collection. The consequences of the 2008 financial crisis still have an important impact on society; this was the same year that the Large Hadron Collider at Cern was switched on. There is an uncomfortable irony in the world’s biggest and most powerful machine being switched on to accelerate and control beams of particles and magnetic fields in the same year as it became all too obvious that, even with centuries of very detailed microand macro finance data collection across the world, it was still, supposedly, impossible to foresee one of the world’s biggest financial crashes in recent history. The fact that a small proportion of the world’s population benefited immensely from the crash at the expense of the vast majority of others is perhaps a warning of the kinds of outcomes that may been countered depending on the kinds of methods that are used to (not) know the social systems. Continuing our brief retrospective on world events, we note also the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Since the Journal’s inception, there has also been a multitude of devastating environmental disasters, such as the Mozambique floods in 2000, Thailand’s horrendous 2004 Tsunami and Iceland’s big-long-named-Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010, to name but a few recent ones, each making the threat of climate change all the more present and increasingly local. These events, and the many, many more not mentioned, all seep into the making and remaking the ‘social’ – what it is, how it emerges and is co-produced, and how it is known and researched. Throughout the same period of time, though, there are also many phenomena that have continued to permeate societies in spite of the many events and changes. The biological imperatives of air, food