Paul S. Gray

The eclipse of morality : science, state, and market

Using the works of Bacon, Hobbes, and Adam Smith as well as historical examples drawn from the last two centuries, Busch shows how the ideas initially proposed by these thinkers became reified as scientism, statism, and marketism-- systems of belief that a single mode of ordering could solve the riddle of society, and thereby supplant moral responsibility. Busch contrasts this approach with concrete examples of successful attempts to extend democracy into these areas--to create multiple orderings-- so that moral responsibility is neither crushingly heavy on individuals nor unbearably light on society.

The Krobo People of Ghana to 1892: A Political and Social History

This book presents a broad analytical framework for the history of southeastern Ghana within the context of a representative study of one of the countrys most important political and economic forces. The 150,000 Krobo are the most numerous of the Adangme-speaking peoples. They are located in the mountains just inland from the coast and are the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. During the nineteenth century they were one of the small states of the Gold Coast in the formative stages of political and cultural development. After the middle of the nineteenth century they became economically and politically one of the most important groups in the country because of their dominant role in commercial production of export crops. Historical research on Ghana has produced mostly case studies of the large, centralized Akan states. Wilsons study is an account of one of the smaller societies without which a history of Ghana would be incomplete.

Exchange and Access in Field Work

EDITOR’S NOTE: The difficulties of obtaining access to field work settings are often problematic and situational. Paul Gray examines the problem of negotiating access from the perspective of social exchange theory, and identifies an &dquo;access ladder&dquo; corresponding to the level of difficulties encountered. He suggests that attempts to overcome these obstacles to access have initiated a wide variety of bargains between researcher and respondents, in which the goods exchanged mclude information and advice, material help, approval, entertainment and prestige.

Voluntary Organizations in Ghana

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief overview of the role of voluntary associations in a developing African nation, Ghana, and to make some comparisons with the role of similar organizations in a highly industrialized or post-industrial society like the United States. There are obviously great differences in the lifestyle of a people with a per capita, yearly income of less than

From doing to writing action research: A plea to ARJ authors:

250, compared to people in North America. Ghana and nearly all of her sister African nations do not have as many television sets, hospitals, and superhighways as does the United States. But, developing areas differ from developed areas not only with regard to economic or physical, observable phenomena. Less developed countries also go about organizing themselves, socially, in patterns which often diverge from those in industrialized nations. They certainly diverge in the role of voluntary associations. The discussion in this paper is based on the existing literature on Ghana and other, similar African countries, and on qualitative sociological field work, lasting for fourteen months, performed by the author in Ghana.1

The Research Imagination: COMPARATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

The purpose of this editorial is to invite our readers and authors to inquire into the quality of manuscripts submitted to the journal, together with the ARJ Editorial Board. We greatly appreciate the amazing range of difficult issues that action researchers address and the tremendous variety of AR approaches used to do so. Through the journal, we aim to contribute to development of Action Research, raise the status of AR in the world of academia, and cultivate a community of practitioner/academics who are trying to change the world. Writing about action research is not the same as doing action research. Our collective experience in reviewing hundreds of AR manuscripts has led us to identify five ideas we see as critical for writing that does justice to the important work being done in the field: (a) adding value; (b) showing, not just telling; (c) making clear what we have learned that is new; (d) making critical reflection on participation central; and (e) challenging the standard academic paper format. These five ideas on writing AR are meant to complement the journal’s existing quality criteria used for assessing manuscripts submitted to the journal: http://journals.sagepub. com/pb-assets/cmscontent/ARJ/ARJ_Quality_Criteria.pdf

The Research Imagination: THEORY AND METHOD

INTRODUCTION In contrast to the chapters on survey research, experimentation, or content analysis that described a distinct set of skills, in this chapter, a variety of comparative research techniques are discussed. What makes a study comparative is not the particular techniques employed but the theoretical orientation and the sources of data. All the tools of the social scientist, including historical analysis, fieldwork, surveys, and aggregate data analysis, can be used to achieve the goals of comparative research. So, there is plenty of room for the research imagination in the choice of data collection strategies. There is a wide divide between quantitative and qualitative approaches in comparative work. Most studies are either exclusively qualitative (e.g., individual case studies of a small number of countries) or exclusively quantitative, most often using many cases and a cross-national focus (Ragin, 1991:7). Ideally, increasing numbers of studies in the future will use both traditions, as the skills, tools, and quality of data in comparative research continue to improve. In almost all social research, we look at how social processes vary and are experienced in different settings to develop our knowledge of the causes and effects of human behavior. This holds true if we are trying to explain the behavior of nations or individuals. So, it may then seem redundant to include a chapter in this book specifically dedicated to comparative research methods when all the other methods discussed are ultimately comparative.

Voluntary Organizations and National Development in Jamaica

INTRODUCTION In Chapter 1, the scientific method was described as a process that contains theory and the testing of hypotheses or hunches suggested by the theory. Indeed, in all of the various social science disciplines, and no matter what method of data collection is employed, theory is used as a guide in the collection and analysis of data. Moreover, in many studies where the researcher does not begin with a thoroughly defined theory, we can create theory by searching through the data for recurring patterns of behavior. The application of social theory to research is one of the prime areas for the use of the research imagination. This chapter explains the relationship between theory and methods in detail. It describes the various forms that theory may take. It compares and contrasts research that is designed to verify existing theory with studies that are designed to create new theory. Then, the source of research ideas or how researchers decide what to study is discussed. Finally, the idea of research as a “craft,” or set of related skills that can be practiced and learned, is introduced. THEORY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH There are numerous options open to the investigator in choosing a theoretical perspective. Moreover, the many different kinds of social theory vary in terms of the specific concepts they contain, how complete or well articulated they are and in the way they are expressed on paper, with words or diagrams.

The Research Imagination: An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

at Yale University. My stay was devoted to discovering the role of voluntary organizations in the development of Jamaica. íolhatever conclusions I have reached must be viewed in light of the exploratory nature of the study, the fact that time to prepare for the trip was limited, and that my stay was brief (limited to 36 days). Jamaican social scientists and organization leaders have the right to be skeptical of such an undertaking. Several individuals with whom I spoke conveyed their dissatisfaction with American efforts to understand what is happening on the island, and I fear that my necessarily brief stay there does nothing to ease their fears of American exploitation and the gathering of misinformation. Many of these same leaders believe that the data collected by the foreign social scientist is to be used primarily for the benefit of his country, and not Jamaica. This compounds the problem for the respondent who is trying to decide whether he will supply the requested information. Several of the people I interviewed must have