led by Professor Les Back, University of Glasgow
The most basic task of a researchers is to ask questions. However, this challenge is far from simple, easy or basic. In this session we will explore how to ask questions in a way that enable the people we are listening to. We will focus on the dangers of asking questions in a way that is laden with values or where the researcher runs the risk of presuming that they already know the answers. We will also think about the risk of being fascinated with the dramatic or the spectacular aspects of society and how this might limit what we are listening for. In this session we want to use films called Fieldwork Fables which dramatize social research in action. These scenarios are developed from things that actually happened in the course doing sociological work. We want you to use the films to imagine yourself in the role of a researcher and think about what is done well or poorly. Ellie has been asked to conduct an interview for her social research method class. Her flatmate Sara is a dancer and Ellie is fascinated by Sara’s experience of one particular job she had working in a nightclub in central London.
In the session we will watch together the ‘It’s Not What You Think’ Fieldwork fable film. The questions we will ask are as follows:
- How well does Ellie explain the research?
- How does she create a setting for the interview?
- Are the questions she asks laden with values?
- Do you think Sara feels judged?
- How do you think Sara’s responses are influenced by the way Ellie asks the questions?
- What do you think we learn from the interview?
This session is most useful for social scientists from sociology, anthropology or media and cultural studies.
Key Reading:
Back, L. (2010) Broken devices and new opportunities: Re-imagining the tools of qualitative research ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Working Paper Series 08/10. [Available electronically at http://bit.ly/15uShQE]
Media Links on formulating questions:
Janis Prince-Inniss Asking Sociological Questions, Everyday Sociology https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2011/06/asking-sociological-questions.html
Strategies for Qualitative, Harvard University Dept of Sociology Interviews https://sociology.fas.harvard.edu/files/sociology/files/interview_strategies.pdf
Robin Rogers-Dillon Writing in Sociology – Formulating a Question, Queen College online resources
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/sociology/question.html
Further Reading:
Gunaratnam, Y. (2003) Researching ‘Race’ and Ethnicity: Methods, Knowledge and Power London: SAGE. Chapter 4. Messy Work: Qualitative Interviewing Across Difference
Oakley, A. (1981) Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms, in Roberts, H. (ed.) Doing Feminist Research. London: Routledge. pp. 30-61.
Edwards, R. and Holland, J. (2013) What is qualitative interviewing? London: Bloomsbury.
Fielding, N and Thomas, H (2016) ‘Qualitative Interviewing’, Chapter 15 in N Gilbert and P Stoneman (eds) Researching Social Life, pp.281-300. London: Sage.
Finch, J. (1984) ‘”It’s great to have someone to talk to”: ethics and politics of interviewing women’, in Bell, C. and Roberts, H. (eds) Social Researching: Politics, Problems, Practice. London: Routledge. Reprinted in Hammersley, M. (ed) (1993) Social Research: Philosophy, Politics and Practice. London: Sage.
Gray, D (2018) ‘Interviewing’, Chapter 15, in Doing Research in the Real World, pp.377-404. London: Sage.
Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. (2011) The active interview, in Silverman, D. (ed.) Qualitative research: issues of theory, method and practice. London: SAGE, pp. 140-161.
Holt, A. (2010) ‘Using the telephone for narrative interviewing: a research note’, Qualitative Research, 10(1), pp. 113-121.
King, N and Horrocks, C (2010) Interviews in Qualitative Research. London: SAGE.
Kvale, S., and Brinkmann, S., (2008) InterViews: Learning The Craft Of Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: SAGE.
Marvasti, A., Holstein, J. and Gubrium, J. (2012) The handbook of interview research. London: SAGE