Re-examining a false dichotomy: on the contemporary methods in educational research

Abstract

In educational research, the ‘paradigm wars’—vehement debates between proponents of qualitative approaches and proponents of quantitative approaches—are far from over (Bryman 2006). The development of British educational research demonstrates this nicely. Influenced by policy makers’ demands for prediction and control, the current research climate is characterised by a mistrust of qualitative methods, particularly in regard to their potential value-ladenness and lack of rigour (Hodkinson 2008). British education sociologist and methodologist Martyn Hammersley, one of the authors of Challenging the Qualitative–Quantitative Divide: Explorations in CaseFocused Causal Analysis, objects to the dichotomy between qualitative and quantitative methods that the paradigm wars are based on. He argues that the division is artificial and may even be damaging: for instance, it could discourage researchers of one approach from taking into account arguments produced by researchers of a different style (Hammersley 2005). Challenging the Qualitative–Quantitative Divide should be read in this context. Its authors argue that it is unproductive to accept the qualitative–quantitative divide. They therefore lay bare the hidden assumptions, advantages and disadvantages of different methods in contemporary educational research. To illustrate, they apply each method to extensive examples drawn from their area of expertise: educational inequalities and social mobility in Britain. The authors argue that their arguments are generalisable to social science as a whole, and the methods they discuss are in fact commonly used in other social science areas, such as political science. As such, the book promises three things: to contribute to the topical debate between proponents of qualitative and quantitative methods; to give examples from an interesting area of social science, i.e. educational research; and to introduce the