Thursday 18 October 2012
Operationalization and Language
Like Jessica, Luker's chapter on Sampling, Operationalization, and Generalization made me think a lot about language. What I found especially interesting was how, when Luker discussed how a "salsa-dancing social scientist" would operationalize rape, she would interview a sampling of people to understand what they defined as rape. Maybe this is because I'm still relatively new to the world of research, but it didn't really occur to me before this that operationalizing variables (especially slippery ones - in my case, I have had to think about how to operationalize "spirituality") had to do with more than just limiting how you, as the researcher, were interpreting these terms, and should also take into account how the term is understood by others. It makes sense: you want to be able to have a holistic (or as holistic as possible) sense of how these terms are understood, by "giving yourself a framework for examining what the taken-for-granted elements are in other people's categories, and [sensitizing yourself] to thinks you have taken for granted" (122). When language is as slippery as it is, you want to give yourself and the readers of your research as many footholds as possible, and that means deliberately getting to know how other people understand terms.
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Ah, I wish that I had read through your post before posting my own response to Jessica. The "giving yourself a framework" quote really spoke to me, too, and I ended up referring to it in my own response within Jessica's thread.
ReplyDeleteIn that same thread, Mike mentions the importance of transparency in research, which I think speaks pretty well to some of the points you make in your post. To agree with both you, Mike, Jessica and Luker, I feel that it is so important to be explicit and open about your theoretical background when designing, conducting and presenting research. I would argue that sometimes it is just as important to be explicit and open about your personal background, too (i.e. your occupational background, where you were born, how you were raised, etc.), because reflecting upon these things can often yield new insights into what informs and constitutes your theoretical framework (i.e. your general philosophy and worldview).
I'm really fascinated that your research project involves an attempt to operationalize spirituality. At first glance, "spirituality" strikes me as a much more explicitly controversial term than, say, "personality", "literacy", or even "rape". Some people find it difficult to separate what they consider to be spirituality from what they consider to be religious devotion, which potentially introduces a significant confounding variable. I hope that your research project is able to control for that variable in some way. If you come across a measure for spirituality that successfully controls for religious devotion, feel free to post about it on this blog. I'm a nerd and I enjoy reading about that sort of stuff :)