Chair: Prof. Dr. Ursula Offenberger
The research area Qualitative Methods and Interpretative Social Research develops an independent profile in research and teaching on the one hand and sees itself on the other hand as a place where the expertise for interpretative methods widely represented in the faculty is bundled, thereby promoting further exchange and networking.
The focus of our own methodological-methodological work is on pragmatism and social research. Assumping an "unprecedented timeliness" of American pragmatism (Hans Joas) as a genuine philosophy of the modern era, we will examine the philosophical, scientific, social-theoretical, and research-practical significance of pragmatic maxims for empirical and theoretical social research. Methodologically and with regard to research practices, we are particularly interested in the tradition of Grounded Theory and its current further development into Situational Analysis as proposed by Adele Clarke. Situational Analysis integrates pragmatist and poststructuralist perspectives and incorporates concepts from Science, Technology and Medicine Studies into the analytical 'toolkit'. This creates a framework that both demands and facilitates the reflexive attention to practices and effects of scientific knowledge production. Methods are considered as performative and hence as techniques of social-scientific knowledge production that always (co-)produce their objects, their problems and their solutions.
Research practice is regarded as a policy of re-presentation - a genuinely political undertaking that combines questions of scientific knowledge production with questions of democratic practice and the responsibility of research and researchers. Against this background, 'critical' projects such as feminist or postcolonial theories of science are also gaining importance: What does it mean to produce 'situated knowledge' (Donna Haraway)? Or what does it mean to conceive of objectivity as 'objectivity of perspectives' (George Herbert Mead)?
In line with these premises, teaching on the history of qualitative methods develops projects of performative social science.
Researchers at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences use a broad array of different methods for doing empirical research, many of them applying qualitative and interpretive approaches such as ethnography, discourse analyses, narrative and image/video analyses, biographical research, qualitative content analysis or grounded theory/situational analysis. Researchers are involved in various collaborations, such as the research training groups on "Doing Transitions", on "The Persistence of Gender Binaries", on rigth-wing populism ("Rechtspopulistische Sozialpolitik und exkludierende Solidarität") as well as in some subprojects of the Collaborative Research Centre "Threatened Orders".
Current and future collaborations with the Center for Methods aim at promoting further exchange within the faculty on theoretical, practical and methodological issues. Furthermore, since 2011, colleagues have been united in a network for qualitative methods and interpretative research (Quali-Net), which cooperates closely with the Center for Methods, for example by organizing network meetings and lecture series (e.g. on quality criteria of interpretative social research).
The interdisciplinary research infrastructure of the faculty is supported through the annual Schools for Qualitative Research which the Method Centre organises twice a year in cooperation with Qualinet and the Institutes of Sociology and Educational Science. The workshops gives PhD candidates the opportunity to work on their projects with renowned experts from Germany and abroad.
Closely linked to these "events" are the regular offers of the Method Centre for curricular and extra-curricular teaching, counselling and further training for qualitative-interpretative procedures - all course offers can be found on ALMA (List of Interdisciplinary Courses for Methods Center at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences).
Our website uses cookies. Some of them are mandatory, while others allow us to improve your user experience on our website. The settings you have made can be edited at any time.
or
Essential
in2cookiemodal-selection
Required to save the user selection of the cookie settings.
3 months
be_lastLoginProvider
Required for the TYPO3 backend login to determine the time of the last login.
3 months
be_typo_user
This cookie tells the website whether a visitor is logged into the TYPO3 backend and has the rights to manage it.
Browser session
ROUTEID
These cookies are set to always direct the user to the same server.
Browser session
fe_typo_user
Enables frontend login.
Browser session
Videos
iframeswitch
Used to show all third-party contents.
3 months
yt-player-bandaid-host
Is used to display YouTube videos.
Persistent
yt-player-bandwidth
Is used to determine the optimal video quality based on the visitor's device and network settings.
Persistent
yt-remote-connected-devices
Saves the settings of the user's video player using embedded YouTube video.
Persistent
yt-remote-device-id
Saves the settings of the user's video player using embedded YouTube video.
Persistent
yt-player-headers-readable
Collects data about visitors' interaction with the site's video content - This data is used to make the site's video content more relevant to the visitor.
Persistent
yt-player-volume
Is used to save volume preferences for YouTube videos.
Persistent
yt-player-quality
Is used to save the quality settings for YouTube videos.
Persistent
yt-remote-session-name
Saves the settings of the user's video player using embedded YouTube video.
Browser session
yt-remote-session-app
Saves the settings of the user's video player using embedded YouTube video.
Browser session
yt-remote-fast-check-period
Saves the settings of the user's video player using embedded YouTube video.
Browser session
yt-remote-cast-installed
Saves the user settings when retrieving a YouTube video integrated on other web pages
Browser session
yt-remote-cast-available
Saves user settings when retrieving integrated YouTube videos.
Browser session
ANID
Used for targeting purposes to profile the interests of website visitors in order to display relevant and personalized Google advertising.
2 years
SNID
Google Maps - Google uses these cookies to store user preferences and information when you view pages with Google Maps.
1 month
SSID
Used to store information about how you use the site and what advertisements you saw before visiting this site, and to customize advertising on Google resources by remembering your recent searches, your previous interactions with an advertiser's ads or search results, and your visits to an advertiser's site.
6 months
1P_JAR
This cookie is used to support Google's advertising services.
1 month
SAPISID
Used for targeting purposes to profile the interests of website visitors in order to display relevant and personalized Google advertising.
2 years
APISID
Used for targeting purposes to profile the interests of website visitors in order to display relevant and personalized Google advertising.
6 months
HSID
Includes encrypted entries of your Google account and last login time to protect against attacks and data theft from form entries.
2 years
SID
Used for security purposes to store digitally signed and encrypted records of a user's Google Account ID and last login time, enabling Google to authenticate users, prevent fraudulent use of login credentials, and protect user data from unauthorized parties. This may also be used for targeting purposes to display relevant and personalized advertising content.
6 months
SIDCC
This cookie stores information about user settings and information for Google Maps.
3 months
NID
The NID cookie contains a unique ID that Google uses to store your preferences and other information.
6 months
CONSENT
This cookie tracks how you use a website to show you advertisements that may be of interest to you.
18 years
__Secure-3PAPISID
This cookie is used to support Google's advertising services.
2 years
__Secure-3PSID
This cookie is used to support Google's advertising services.
6 months
__Secure-3PSIDCC
This cookie is used to support Google's advertising services.
6 months