Based on today’s lecture and assigned readings, I would like to make two quick remarks (This time more optimistic than some of my previous posts). First, it may sound simple enough, but I found the discussion on the case-study APPROACH extremely valuable, in part due to the clarification that it is not a “method” of social science. I feel that this clarification is very important, for me anyway, because now I think I understand correctly, simply put, that the case study approach is used to facilitate the use of certain methods (or something like that). Maybe the metaphor of the case study as the fry-pan, the methods as the ingredients, and the end-product as the findings is appropriate? Well I tried anyway.
The second point that I wanted to make was how the reading and discussion of Pinch & Bijker’s (1987) (wow that’s old by the way, which I guess speaks to the durability of their ideas) social construction of technology approach or “SCOT” just really opened my imagination to a plethora of research ideas (which I don’t have the space to talk about right now). I guess one way to summarize my day was that I was exposed to the wonders of “approaches” to social science, not to be confused with methods :)
By the way, I couldn't think of a title so I decided to use the opening of a “joke”, which the answer is: “knowing how to hide your sources” –Albert Einstein
No comments:
Post a Comment