Table of Contents
Introduction to Epistemological and Methodological Traditions
The adoption of different epistemological and methodological traditions tends to have some effects, in other words implications, on social science research. This paper is about those implications of different traditions. This paper will firstly touch upon the general link between epistemology and methodological choices or strategies. After mentioning the general link, the paper is going to analyze poverty and wealth with positivism on the focus of the analysis. Besides positivism, the paper will be exploring poverty and wealth by the aid of using an interpretivist approach. Lastly, the results will be discussed in a critical way and the mixed methods will be embraced.
Epistemology and Methodology in Social Science
First of all, the general link between epistemology and the two approaches to methods of research in sociology, which are positivism and interpretevism should be analyzed. First of all, positivist epistemology will be analyzed. According to IGI Global, “Positivist epistemology, therefore, assumes that only “facts” derived from the scientific method can make legitimate knowledge claims. It also assumes the researcher is separate from and not affecting the outcomes of research” (IGI Global, 2016). Thus, positivist epistemology is based on the scientific results that are derived for the research topic. So, it is a quite objective way of approaching the research topic overall. On the other hand, interpretevism is explained as “Interpretivism, also known as interpretivist involves researchers to interpret elements of the study, thus interpretivism integrates human interest into a study. Accordingly, “interpretive researchers assume that access to reality (given or socially constructed) is only through social constructions such as language, consciousness, shared meanings, and instruments” (Research Methodology, 2015). Thus, it can be said that interpretative approach uses more of a qualitative humanistic way. Being opposed to positivist approach, interpretevist approach rejects using scientific methods while doing research in the aria of sociology.
The theme used in this paper is about poverty and wealth. It is today a known fact that poverty has been an issue in the history of world and today the world still hasn’t overcome the problems about poverty. While approaching this issue by using a positivist approach, there should be data about poverty and wealth as the positivist approach requires a scientific way of doing research. According to Our World in Data Organization, 3.1% of the total population of Turkey is living with a spending of less than 3.10 dollars (Our World in Data, 2013). This ratio can be considered as a good ratio for Turkey while making a comparison with some other countries. According to data from the same organization, the results for countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia and India are terrific. For these 3 countries, there is a decreasing trend in the number of people that lives with a daily budget of 3.10 dollars but still that number is quite high. In Rwanda, as the 2010 data shows, the 80.66% of the population had to live with a budget of 3.10 dollars a day. For the same year, this ratio was 71.27 for Ethiopia and 58.01 for India (Our World in Data, 2013). Thus, while making a comparison between those countries, it is true to say that poverty is a way lower in Turkey when compared especially to African countries. In addition to all these, it is seen by the same data that there is a decreasing trend for the same percentage in developed countries. For instance, for Russia, this percentage fell from 12.26 percent to 0.46 percent from 1988 to 2012 (Our World in Data, 2013). Thus as a result, when the positivist approach is used for the poverty and wealth research in all around the world, it is seen that there are great differences between the poverty percentages of developed and developing countries. When positivist approach is used, it is seen from the scientific numbers that undeveloped countries such as Ethiopia and Rwanda has very high poverty ratios and these ratios decrease while going to developing countries, such as Turkey, and developed countries, such as Russia.
Positivist and Interpretevist Approaches
In addition to the positivist approach to researching about poverty, we can approach this research by using interpretevism as well. This part of the data and research analysis will mostly be based on qualitative data as interpretevism uses qualitative data that is gathered by the aid of using observations etc. Enos Njeru divides poverty into three different definitions in his research. These divisions of poverty, according to Enos Njeru are ‘absolute poverty’, ‘relative poverty’ and lastly ‘subjective poverty’. For this part of the paper, since it deals with the interpretevist approach to researching about poverty, more qualitative data is needed and it is given by the ‘subjective poverty’ definition of Enos Njeru. According to this approach of researching poverty, it is said that “Closely related to relative poverty, subjective poverty has to do with whether or not individuals or groups actually feel poor. This is because those defined as poor by the standards of the day will probably have low self-esteem, and therefore see themselves as poor” (Njeru, 2004). In addition to that, Martin Ravallion favors qualitative research for poverty analysis and thus he supports the use of interpretevist approach by stating that “Standard measures of poverty are inherently quantitative. Nonetheless, as this article will argue, qualitative methods of social science research can still help in measuring poverty” (Ravallion, 2002). In addition to that, what Ravallion says is parallel to the earlier statements about the qualitative research of poverty and the writer mentions that “Qualitative work on poverty also makes inter-personal comparisons of welfare, but these tend to be based instead on how people perceive their own position in society, and the nature of their economic and social links with others” (Ravallion, 2002).
To conclude, both positivist and interpretevist approaches can be used for the analysis and research about poverty. While positivist approach uses a more scientific and objective way of studying poverty, interpretevist approach uses a more subjective way which depends on the observations of the researchers. Usually, positivist approach is used for the research about poverty but today, researchers believe that poverty can also be researcherd by the aid of interpretevist approach, which provides qualitative data for the research.
References
Njeru, E. (2004). BRIDGING THE QUALITATIVEQUANTITATIVE METHODS IN POVERTY ANALYSIS. QUANTITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE METHODS FOR POVERTY ANALYSIS, (s. 23-30).
IGI Global. (2016). What is Positivist Epistemology. igi-global.com: taken from http://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/positivist-epistemology/23062
Our World in Data. (2013). Share of population living with less than 3.10$ per day, 1981 to2013. ourworldindata.org: taken from https://ourworldindata.org/world-poverty/
Ravallion, M. (2002). How Can Qualitative Methods Help in Measuring Poverty? . India: Workshop on Poverty Measurement, Monitoring and Evaluation. Washington: World Bank.
Research Methodology. (2015). Interpretivism (interpretivist) Research Philosophy. research-methodology.net: taken from http://research-methodology.net/research-philosophy/interpretivism/
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