【大学】北京师范大学教育研究方法讲座系列教育研究中的比较 历史方法ppt课件

1、Max Webers Aporia for Researchers of the Social Sciences zSociology is a science concerning itself with interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and consequence. We shall speak of action insofar as the acting individual attaches a s

2、ubjective meaning to his behavior. Action is social insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course. (Weber, 1978, p. 4) Max Webers Aporia for Researchers of the Social Sciences zStatements of the problem:zProblem of interpretive sociol

3、ogy: Weber stipulates that sociology should endeavor to provide interpretive understanding of the subjective meaning underlying social action. zProblem of positive sociology: Weber at the same time stipulates that sociology should strive to render causal explanation of course and consequences of soc

4、ial action.zProblem of micro- and macro-sociology: How can reciprocity of subjective meanings of different individuals participating in social interaction be possible?1824-1920Juxtaposing Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Educational Research Three Interpretations of Webers Aporia z Alfred Sch

5、utz in begins his major scholarly work The Phenomenology of the Social World (1932/1967) the chapter entitled “The Statement of Our Problem: Max Webers Basic Methodological Concepts.(1899-1959)Three Interpretations of Webers Aporia z He defines “Max Webers initial statement of the goal of interpreti

6、ve sociology as “to study social behavior by interpreting its subjective meaning found in the intentions of individual individuals. The aim, then, is to interpret the actions of individuals in the social world and the ways in which individuals give meaning to social phenomena. But to attain this aim

7、, it does not suffice either to observe the behavior of a single individual or to collect statistics about the behavior of groups of individuals, as a crude empiricism would have us to believe. Rather, the special aim of sociology demands a special method in order to select the materials relevant to

8、 the particular questions it raise. (Schutz, 1967, Pp.6-7)Three Interpretations of Webers Aporia z Jurgen Habermas in his book On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1988/1967) also starts with Webers aporia. Three Interpretations of Webers Aporia z . Habermas underlines that “The definition of sociol

9、ogy that Weber gives in the first paragraphs of Economy and Society applies to method: Sociology is a science concerning itself with interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and consequence We may consider this sentence as an answer

10、 to the question, How are general theories of social action possible? General theories allow use to derive assumptions about empirical regularities in the form of hypotheses that serve the purpose of explanation. At the same time, and in contradistinction to natural processes, regularities of social

11、 action have the property of being understandable. Social action belongs to the class of intentional actions, which we grasp by reconstructing their meaning. (Habermas, 1988/1967, Pp. 10-11) Three Interpretations of Webers Aporia z Georg H. von Wright in his book Explanation and Understanding (1971)

12、 indicates that there are two prominent traditions of explanation prevailing in the methodology of the social sciences , namely causal/nointentional and intentional explanation. But he underlines, “It is misleading to say that understanding versus explanation marks the difference between two types o

13、f scientific intelligibility. But one could say that the intentional or nonintentional character of their objects marks the difference between two types of understanding and of explanation. (von Wright, 1971, p.) Instead he distinguishes two traditions of explanation prevailing in the methodology of

14、 history and social sciences, namely causal/nointentional and intentional explanation:(1916-2003)Three Interpretations of Webers Aporia z Georg H. von Wright causal/nointentional and intentional explanation:z Causal explanation: It refers to the mode of explanation, which attempt to seek the suffici

15、ent and/or necessary conditions (i.e. explanans) which antecede the phenomenon to be explained (i.e. explanandum). Causal explanations normally point to the past. This happened, because that had occurred is the typical form in language. (von Wright, 1971, p. 83) It seeks to verify the antecedental c

16、onditions for an observed natural phenomenon.z Teleological explanation: It refers to the mode of explanation, which attempt to reveal the goals and/or intentions, which generate or motivate the explanadum (usually an action to be explained) to take place. “Teleological explanations point to the fut

17、ure. This happened in order that that should occur. (von Wright, 1971, p. 83) Subjectivity/ConsciousnessNatural phenomenonMeaning contextIntentionalityPerceptionBehaviorActionProtentionAnticipationFulfilmentFace-to-face interactionExpressionExternalizationObjectivationReciprocity of perceptionsInter

18、action with contemporariesTypificationRolesInstitutionalizationLanguage& culturalcontextInstitutional contextSubsequent EffectAntecedent CauseObservabilityRepeatabilityObjectivityVerification of causalPropositionEmpiricismLogicalPositivismDeductive-nomological explanation&/orInductive-probab

19、itistic ExplanationRegularityPredictabilityUniversalityIntentional ExplanationCausal ExplanationRegular Patterns of Social ActionsNewInstitutionalismDebate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological Collectivismz The reductionism and methodological individualism z F.A. Hayek: There is

20、 no other way toward an understanding of social phenomena but through our understanding of individual actions direct toward other people and guided by their expected behavior. (quoted in Lukes, 1994, p. 452) z Karl R. Popper: All social phenomena especially the functioning of all social institutions

21、, should always be understood as resulting from the decisions, actions, attitudes, etc. of human individuals, and we should never be satisfied by an explanation in terms of so-called collectives. (quoted in Like, 1994, p. 452)Debate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological Collectiv

22、ismz The reductionism and methodological individualism z J.W.N. Watkins: I am an advocate of the principle of methodological individualism. According to this principle, the ultimate constituents of social world are individual people who act more or less appropriately in the light of their dispositio

23、ns and understanding of their situation. Every complex social situation or event is the result of a particular configuration of individuals, their dispositions, situations, beliefs and physical resources and environment. There may be unfinished or halfway explanations of large-scale social phenomena

24、 (say, inflation) in terms of other large-scale phenomena (say, full employment); but we shall have not arrived at rock-bottom explanations of such large-scale phenomena until we have deduced an account of them from statements about the dispositions, beliefs, resources, and interrelations of individ

25、uals. (Quoted in Luke, 1994, p. 452Debate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological Collectivismz The reductionism and methodological individualism z Jon Elster: By this (methodological individualism) I mean the doctrine that all social phenomena their structure and their change are

26、in principle explicable in ways that only involve individuals their properties, their goals, their beliefs and their actions. Methodological individualism thus conceived is a form of reductionism. To go from social institutions and aggregate patterns of behavior to individuals is the same kind of op

27、eration as going from cells to molecules, (Quoted in Wright, 1992, p. 111)Debate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological Collectivismz Classical sociologists conception of methodological collectivismz Emile Durkheims methodological collectivismz Sociology is the study of social fac

28、ts (Durkheim, 1982/, p. 50)z A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint; or which is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestation. (1982, p.59

29、)Debate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological Collectivismz Classical sociologists conception of methodological collectivismz Education as a social fact:z This definition of a social fact can be verified by examining an experience that is characteristic. It is sufficient to obser

30、ve how children are brought up. If one view the facts as they are and indeed as they have always been, it is patently obvious that all education consists of a continual effort to impose upon child ways of seeing, thinking and acting which he himself would not have arrived at spontaneously. (1982, p.

31、 53)Debate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological CollectivismyEducation as a social fact:yEach society sets up a certain idea of man, of what he should be, as much from the intellectual point of view as the physical and moral; that this ideal is, to a degree, the same from all ci

32、tizens, that beyond a certain point it becomes differentiated according to the particular milieux that every society contains in its structure. It is this ideal at the same time one and the various, that is the focus of education. Its function, then, is to arouse in the child : (1) a certain number

33、of physical and mental states that the society to which he belongs considers should not be lacking in any of its members; (2) certain physical and mental states that the particular social group (caste, class, family, profession) considers, equally, ought to be found among all those who make it up. T

34、hus it is society as a whole and each particular social milieu that determine the ideal that education realizes. Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the being

35、, the essential similarities that collective life demand. But on the other hand, without a certain diversity all co-operation would be impossible ; education assures the persistence of this necessary diversity by being itself diversified and specialized. (2006, p.79-80)Debate between Methodological Individualism & Methodological Collectivismz Classical sociologists conception of methodological collectivismz Sociology canbe defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning. (Durkheim,