Critical psychology is a perspective on psychology that draws extensively on critical theory. Critical psychology challenges mainstream psychology and attempts to apply psychological understandings in more progressive ways, often looking towards social change as a means of preventing and treating psychopathology.
Social science is the branch of science devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 19th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, political science, psychology, and history.
Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. Following pioneering work by Michel Foucault, these fields view discourse as a system of thought, knowledge, or communication that constructs our experience of the world. Since control of discourse amounts to control of how the world is perceived, social theory often studies discourse as a window into power. Within theoretical linguistics, discourse is understood more narrowly as linguistic information exchange and was one of the major motivations for the framework of dynamic semantics, in which expressions' denotations are equated with their ability to update a discourse context.
Qualitative research relies on data obtained by the researcher from first-hand observation, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, participant-observation, recordings made in natural settings, documents, and artifacts. The data are generally nonnumerical. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, social work, and educational research. Qualitative researchers study individuals' understanding of their social reality.
Ernesto Laclau was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher. He is often described as an 'inventor' of post-Marxist political theory. He is well known for his collaborations with his long-term partner, Chantal Mouffe.
Discursive psychology (DP) is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes in talk, text, and images.
Jonathan Potter is Dean of the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University and one of the originators of discursive psychology.
Grounded theory is a systematic methodology that has been largely, but not exclusively, applied to qualitative research conducted by social scientists. The methodology involves the construction of hypotheses and theories through the collecting and analysis of data. Grounded theory involves the application of inductive reasoning. The methodology contrasts with the hypothetico-deductive model used in traditional scientific research.
Ian Parker is a British psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Emeritus Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Leicester.
Erica Burman is a critical development psychologist based in the United Kingdom. While little known in the developmental psychology research community, her work has been a conceptual resource for critiques of the field, notably feminist perspectives on the connections between different forms of oppression, and methodological debates in psychology.
The notion of the 'discursive complex' was developed by Ian Parker to tackle the twofold nature of psychoanalysis in Western culture. In his 1997 book Psychoanalytic Culture, Parker defines the 'discursive complex' as a 'methodological device. The term 'complex' is used quite deliberately to evoke the peculiarly Freudian and post-Freudian nature of the subjectivity people in the West live so much of the time. On the one hand the concepts that psychoanalytic texts employ are relayed through culture as components of a discourse, as objects that are circumscribed by definitions in academic and professional writing and used in advertising. In this sense, the discourse constitutes places for subjects to come to be, whether as a child with problems separating from the mother, as a teenager filled with frustration and resentment at authority, or as an older adult reflecting on an unfulfilled life and needs. The discourse thus positions the subject who is addressed by or who is employing the discourse to understand themselves or their troubling relationships. On the other hand, the discourse touches an already existing shape of subjectivity for those who write and speak about themselves and others, whether that is in the form of autobiography or in an advice column, in a television interview or on the couch with a therapist. It chimes with a theory of self that the subject has been invited to elaborate for themselves in this culture, and so it reconfigures each time some of the emotions that are available to them.
The Annual Review of Critical Psychology is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of critical psychology. The editor-in-chief is Ian Parker, who established the journal with Erica Burman. The journal was established in 1999. Starting in 2006, the journal has been published as an open access online journal by the Centre for Qualitative and Theoretical Research on the Reproduction and Transformation of Language, Subjectivity and Practice.
In the social sciences, coding is an analytical process in which data, in both quantitative form or qualitative form are categorized to facilitate analysis.
Foucauldian discourse analysis is a form of discourse analysis, focusing on power relationships in society as expressed through language and practices, and based on the theories of Michel Foucault.
Thematic analysis is one of the most common forms of analysis within qualitative research. It emphasizes identifying, analysing and interpreting patterns of meaning within qualitative data. Thematic analysis is often understood as a method or technique in contrast to most other qualitative analytic approaches - such as grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis - which can be described as methodologies or theoretically informed frameworks for research. Thematic analysis is best thought of as an umbrella term for a variety of different approaches, rather than a singular method. Different versions of thematic analysis are underpinned by different philosophical and conceptual assumptions and are divergent in terms of procedure. Leading thematic analysis proponents, psychologists Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke distinguish between three main types of thematic analysis: coding reliability approaches, code book approaches and reflexive approaches. They describe their own widely used approach first outlined in 2006 in the journal Qualitative Research in Psychology as reflexive thematic analysis. Their 2006 paper has over 90,000 Google Scholar citations and according to Google Scholar is the most cited academic paper published in 2006. The popularity of this paper exemplifies the growing interest in thematic analysis as a distinct method.
The "argumentative turn" refers to a group of different approaches in policy analysis and planning that emphasize the increased relevance of argumentation, language and deliberation in policy making. Inspired by the "linguistic turn" in the field of humanities, it was developed as an alternative to the epistemological limitations of "neo-positivist" policy analysis and its underlying technocratic understanding of the decision-making process. The argumentative approach systematically integrates empirical and normative questions into a methodological framework oriented towards the analysis of policy deliberation. It is sensitive to the situative context and the multiple kinds of knowledge practices involved in each stage of the policy process, drawing attention to different forms of argumentation, persuasion and justification.
Rosalind Clair Gill, is a British sociologist and feminist cultural theorist. She is currently Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at City, University of London. Gill is author or editor of ten books, and numerous articles and chapters, and her work has been translated into Chinese, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.
Feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis (FPDA) is a method of discourse analysis based on Chris Weedon's theories of feminist post-structuralism, and developed as a method of analysis by Judith Baxter in 2003. FPDA is based on a combination of feminism and post-structuralism. While it is still evolving as a methodology, FPDA has been used by a range of international scholars of gender and language to analyse texts such as: classroom discourse, teenage girls' conversation, and media representations of gender. FPDA is an approach to analysing the discourse of spoken interaction principally.
Susan "Sue" Speer C.Psychol, FHEA is a senior lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester.
Psychology & Social Critique is among the few critical psychological academic journals from the 1970s that still exist. P&G is considered an unorthodox publication organ for critical psychology and as initiator of much discourse pertaining to ›lowercase c‹ critical psychology in the German speaking countries.
