Measuring Ethnic Identity: Methods and Samples

Abstract

Defining identity in itself represents a challenge. Identities are changeable, social identities even more so, and observers can be easily misled into thinking they have understood them completely. Therefore, research on social identities confronts researchers with particular theoretical and methodological difficulties. The study before you is largely based on the results of an empirical study combining qualitative and quantitative research methods. The so-called triangulation method or the combined methods technique, a form of data cross-verification, was developed in social sciences primarily due to the need to increase the validity of the research in the rather diverse fields of social sciences and the humanities. Empiricism, realism and constructionism have competed for long as dominant epistemologi-cal presumptions have existed in studies on the individual and society. While data quantification paradigms dominated psychology and sociology for a long time, anthropology, ethnology, Journalism and linguistics have been dominated by qualitative approaches; however, all failed to provide a satisfying explanation for complex psychological, behavioral and social phenomena. Therefore, Cohen et al. (2000: 112) define triangulation as an ‘attempt to map out, or explain more fully, the richness and complexity of human behavior by studying it from more than one standpoint’. In addition to entailing different research methods, triangulation also includes various theories which facilitate the interpretation of the data collected in different pieces of research applying diverse techniques.