Martyn Hammersley

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Martyn Hammersley, London 2009 MH in cafe1.jpg
Martyn Hammersley, London 2009

Martyn Hammersley (born 1949) is a British sociologist whose main publications cover social research methodology and philosophical issues in the social sciences. [1] [2]

Contents

Biography

He studied sociology as an undergraduate at the London School of Economics (1967–70), and was subsequently a postgraduate student in the sociology department at the University of Manchester, obtaining an MPhil and PhD with a thesis reporting an ethnography of an inner-city secondary school. [3] At that time Manchester was a major centre for ethnomethodology, where it was in tension with symbolic interactionism and Marxism, and his work was influenced by all of these approaches. [4] [5]

After a research fellowship and temporary lectureship at Manchester, he obtained a permanent position at The Open University in 1975. He was recruited to work on E202Schooling and Society, a course that was subsequently embroiled in a public controversy about 'Marxist bias'. [6] He remained at the Open University until retirement in 2015, when he became Emeritus Professor of Education and Social Research. [7]

Sociological work

Hammersley's early research was in the sociology of education, with a particular focus on processes of classroom interaction in secondary schools. [8] He joined the Open University at a time when it was one of the leading centres for the 'new sociology of education', [9] and was involved in subsequent debates about the character and value of the various kinds of work coming under this heading. [10] [11]

Many of his publications have been concerned with methodological and philosophical issues arising in sociology, and across the social sciences generally. These issues have included: the nature and role of theory, the criteria by which qualitative research should be evaluated, and the issues of objectivity and value neutrality. [12] [13] He wrote a book on Herbert Blumer's methodological ideas, locating these in historical context. [14] He has written a number of articles on analytic induction (an approach developed by Florian Znaniecki), examining its history. In What's Wrong with Ethnography?, he advocates what he referred to as "subtle realism", [15] as opposed to various forms of relativism and scepticism. [16] [17] [18] [19] With Paul Atkinson, he wrote an introduction to ethnography, now in its fourth edition. [20]

He has also examined issues surrounding the qualitative-quantitative divide, and the nature of qualitative research. [21] [22] [23]

More recently he has co-authored a book on ethics and qualitative research. [24] He is a critic of ethical regulation, in other words of institutional review boards and research ethics committees, [25] and has sought to clarify the concept of academic freedom. [26] [27]

Hammersley has been involved in a series of controversies, for example over feminist methodology, [28] about racism and anti-racist research, [29] and concerning the character of qualitative research and the criteria of validity appropriate to it. [30] [31] He has also questioned the arguments of the evidence-based practice movement. [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] In The Limits of Social Science, he argued that social science is limited to the discovery of value-relevant explanations for social phenomena, a position that is at odds with the grandiose claims frequently made for its potential contribution to public policy making and to transformative political action. [37]

He has written about ethnomethodology, assessing its radical claims. [38] He has produced books about the concept of culture and about other key sociological concepts. [39] Most recently, he has written articles about the sociologist Karl Mannheim, [40] a book on Methodological Concepts, and a Dictionary of Social Research Methodology . [41]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of knowledge</span> Field of study

The sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought, the social context within which it arises, and the effects that prevailing ideas have on societies. It is not a specialized area of sociology. Instead, it deals with broad fundamental questions about the extent and limits of social influences on individuals' lives and the social-cultural basis of our knowledge about the world. The sociology of knowledge has a subclass and a complement. Its subclass is sociology of scientific knowledge. Its complement is the sociology of ignorance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnography</span> Systematic study of people and cultures

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior.

Life history is an interviewing method used to record autobiographical history from an ordinary person's perspective, often gathered from traditionally marginalized groups. It was begun by anthropologists studying Native American groups around the 1900s, and was taken up by sociologists and other scholars, though its popularity has waxed and waned since. One of the major strengths of the life history method is that it provides a kind of voice from a social milieu that is often overlooked or indeed invisible in intellectual discourse.

Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology, sociology, communication studies, human geography, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qualitative research</span> Form of research

Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This type of research typically involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, or field observations in order to collect data that is rich in detail and context. Qualitative research is often used to explore complex phenomena or to gain insight into people's experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. It is particularly useful when researchers want to understand the meaning that people attach to their experiences or when they want to uncover the underlying reasons for people's behavior. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, communication studies, social work, folklore, educational research, information science and software engineering research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnomethodology</span> Study of how social order is produced

Ethnomethodology is the study of how social order is produced in and through processes of social interaction. It generally seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream sociological approaches. In its most radical form, it poses a challenge to the social sciences as a whole. Its early investigations led to the founding of conversation analysis, which has found its own place as an accepted discipline within the academy. According to Psathas, it is possible to distinguish five major approaches within the ethnomethodological family of disciplines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Garfinkel</span> American sociologist (1917 – 2011)

Harold Garfinkel was an American sociologist and ethnomethodologist, who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles. Having developed and established ethnomethodology as a field of inquiry in sociology, he is probably best known for Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), a collection of articles. Selections from unpublished materials were later published in two volumes: Seeing Sociologically and Ethnomethodology's Program. Moreover, during his time at University of Newark, which became Rutgers University, he enrolled in Theory of Accounts, a course that covered accounting and bookkeeping procedures. Where from this class "even in setting up an accounting sheet, he was theorizing the various categories into which the numbers would be placed" which furthered his understanding of accountability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grounded theory</span> Qualitative research methodology

Grounded theory is a systematic methodology that has been largely 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsociology</span>

Microsociology is one of the main levels of analysis of sociology, concerning the nature of everyday human social interactions and agency on a small scale: face to face. Microsociology is based on subjective interpretative analysis rather than statistical or empirical observation, and shares close association with the philosophy of phenomenology. Methods include symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology; ethnomethodology in particular has led to many academic sub-divisions and studies such as micro-linguistical research and other related aspects of human social behaviour. Macrosociology, by contrast, concerns the social structure and broader systems.

Herbert George Blumer was an American sociologist whose main scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methods of social research. Believing that individuals create social reality through collective and individual action, he was an avid interpreter and proponent of George Herbert Mead's social psychology, which he labeled symbolic interactionism. Blumer elaborated and developed this line of thought in a series of articles, many of which were brought together in the book Symbolic Interactionism. An ongoing theme throughout his work, he argued that the creation of social reality is a continuous process. Blumer was also a vociferous critic of positivistic methodological ideas in sociology.

Analytic induction is a research strategy in sociology aimed at systematically developing causal explanations for types of phenomena. It was first outlined by Florian Znaniecki in 1934. He contrasted it with the kind of enumerative induction characteristic of statistical analysis. Where the latter was satisfied with probabilistic correlations, Znaniecki insisted that science is concerned with discovering causal universals, and that in social science analytic induction is the means of discovering these.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of law</span> Sub-discipline of sociology relating to legal studies

The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society, is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology. Still others regard it as neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own right within the broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be described without reference to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience". It has been seen as treating law and justice as fundamental institutions of the basic structure of society mediating "between political and economic interests, between culture and the normative order of society, establishing and maintaining interdependence, and constituting themselves as sources of consensus, coercion and social control".

<i>Qualitative Research</i> (journal) Academic journal

Qualitative Research is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering qualitative research methods in the fields of sociology and other social sciences. It was established in 2001 and is published by SAGE Publications. The founding editors were Sara Delamont and P. Atkinson. The current editors-in-chief are Bella Dicks, Karen Henwood, and William Housley.

Critical ethnography applies a critical theory based approach to ethnography. It focuses on the implicit values expressed within ethnographic studies and, therefore, on the unacknowledged biases that may result from such implicit values. It has been called critical theory in practice. In the spirit of critical theory, this approach seeks to determine symbolic mechanisms, to extract ideology from action, and to understand the cognition and behaviour of research subjects within historical, cultural, and social frameworks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology</span> Social science that studies human society and its development

Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George A. Lundberg</span> American sociologist

George Andrew Lundberg was an American sociologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Critical realism (philosophy of the social sciences)</span> Philosophical approach to understanding science

Critical realism is a philosophical approach to understanding science, and in particular social science, initially developed by Roy Bhaskar (1944–2014). It specifically opposes forms of empiricism and positivism by viewing science as concerned with identifying causal mechanisms. In the last decades of the twentieth century it also stood against various forms of postmodernism and poststructuralism by insisting on the reality of objective existence. In contrast to positivism's methodological foundation, and poststructuralism's epistemological foundation, critical realism insists that (social) science should be built from an explicit ontology. Critical realism is one of a range of types of philosophical realism, as well as forms of realism advocated within social science such as analytic realism and subtle realism.

Susan "Sue" Speer C.Psychol, FHEA is a senior lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman K. Denzin</span> American sociologist (1941–2023)

Norman Kent Denzin was an American professor of sociology. He was an emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was research professor of communications, College of Communications scholar, professor of sociology, professor of cinema studies, professor in the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. Denzin's academic interests included interpretive theory, performance studies, qualitative research methodology, and the study of media, culture and society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subtle realism</span> Philosophical position

Subtle realism is a philosophical position within social science that, along with other forms of realism, stands opposed to naïve realism and various forms of relativism and scepticism. The term was coined by Martyn Hammersley in 1992. Its central issue is the relationship between the investigator and the phenomena being studied: are those phenomena and their characteristics independent of the process of inquiry, or is the character of what is investigated determined, structured, or shaped by the research? Subtle realism insists that phenomena are independent, but that knowledge of them is always constructed by the investigator—rather than, for example, being logically derived from sense impressions. It also asserts that social inquiry cannot reproduce phenomena, or capture their essence, but can only produce answers to particular questions about them.

References

  1. "The British Sociological Association". Britsoc.co.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  2. "Google Scholar Citations". Google Scholar. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  3. Hammersley, M. (1980). A Peculiar World? Teaching and Learning in an Inner City School, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Manchester.
  4. Psathas, G. (2008) 'Reflections on the history of Ethnomethodology: the Boston and the Manchester "Schools"', The American Sociologist, 39, pp. 38–67.
  5. Worsley, Peter (2008). An Academic Skating on Thin Ice. New York: Berghahn. p. Chapter 8.
  6. Gould, J. (1977) "Scholarship or propaganda?", Times Educational Supplement (London), 4 February 1977, p. 20.
  7. "The Open University: The Senate: Minutes" (PDF). Open.ac.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  8. Hammersley, Martyn (1989). Classroom Ethnography. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.
  9. Brooks, C. St John. "Sociologists and education", New Society, 4 September 1980.
  10. Atkinson, P., et al (1988) 'Qualitative research traditions', Review of Educational Research, 58, 2, pp. 231–50.
  11. Hammersley, M. "An Ideological Dispute: Accusations of Marxist Bias in the Sociology of Education during the 1970s", Contemporary British History, December 2015.
  12. Hammersley, M. The Politics of Social Research, London, Sage, 1995.
  13. Hammersley, M. Taking Sides in Social Research: Essays on partisanship and bias, London, Routledge, 2000.
  14. Hammersley, Martyn (1989). The Dilemma of Qualitative Method: Herbert Blumer and the Chicago tradition. London, UK: Routledge.
  15. Hammersley, Martyn (1992). What's Wrong with Ethnography . London: Routledge. pp. ch3.
  16. Brewer, John (2000). Ethnography. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
  17. Hillyard, S. (2010) "What's (still) wrong with ethnography?", New Frontiers in Ethnography, Bingley, Emerald.
  18. Banfield, G. (2004). "What's really wrong with ethnography?" (PDF). International Education Journal. 4: 53–63.
  19. Hammersley, Martyn (2012). "A Response to Banfield's "What's really wrong with ethnography?"" (PDF).
  20. Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice, Fourth edition. London, UK: Routledge.
  21. Hammersley, M. 'The relationship between quantitative and qualitative research', in J Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Psychology and the Social Sciences, Leicester, British Psychological Society Books, 1996.
  22. Cooper, B., Glaesser, J., Gomm, R. and Hammersley, M. Challenging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide: Explorations in Case-Focused Causal Analysis, London, Continuum, 2012.
  23. What is Qualitative Research?, London, Bloomsbury, 2012.
  24. Hammersley, M. and Traianou, A. Ethics and Qualitative Research: Controversies and contexts, Sage, London: 2012.
  25. Hammersley, M. (2009) "Against the ethicists: on the evils of ethical regulation", International Journal of Social Research Methodology 12, 3, pp. 211–25
  26. "Let's be serious about academic freedom". Times Higher Education. 22 April 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  27. Hammersley, Martyn (April 2016). "Can academic freedom be justified? Reflections on the arguments of Robert Post and Stanley Fish". Higher Education Quarterly. 70 (2): 108–26. doi:10.1111/hequ.12086.
  28. Gelsthorpe, L. (1992) 'Response to Martyn Hammersley's paper "On Feminist Methodology"', Sociology, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 213–18
  29. Gillborn, D. and Drew, D. (1993) "The politics of research: Some observations on "methodological purity", New Community, 19, 2, pp. 354–60.
  30. Smith, J. K. and Hodkinson, P. (2009) 'Challenging neorealism: A response to Hammersley', Qualitative Inquiry, 15, 1, pp. 30–39.
  31. Hammersley, Martyn (2008). Questioning Qualitative Inquiry. London, UK: Sage.
  32. Hargreaves, D. H. (1997) "In Defence of Research for Evidence-based Teaching: a rejoinder to Martyn Hammersley", British Educational Research Journal, 23, 4, pp. 405–19.
  33. Hammersley, M. Educational Research, Policymaking and Practice, London, Paul Chapman, 2002.
  34. Chalmers, I. (2003) "Trying to do more good than harm in policy and practice: the role of rigorous, transparent, up-to-date evaluations", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol 589, pp. 22–40.
  35. Hammersley, M. (2005) "Is the evidence-based practice movement doing more good than harm? Reflections on Iain Chalmers' case for research-based policymaking and practice", Evidence and Policy, vol. 1, no. 1, pp 1–16.
  36. Hammersley, M. The Myth of Research-Based Policy and Practice, London, Sage, 2013.
  37. Hammersley, Martyn (2014). The Limits of Social Science. London, UK: Sage.
  38. For example:
    • The Radicalism of Ethnomethodology, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2018.
    • 'Understanding a Dispute About Ethnomethodology: Watson and Sharrock's Response to Atkinson's "Critical Review"', Forum Qualitative Research 20, 1, article no. 1, 2019.
    • 'Was Blumer a cognitivist? Assessing an ethnomethodological critique', Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 48 (3):273-287, 2018.
    • 'Ethnomethodological criticism of ethnography', Qualitative Research, 2019, 19(5) 578 –593. Published in Online First 2018.
    • 'Exploring the distinctive ontological attitude of ethnomethodology via suicide, death, and money', Journal of Classical Sociology, 19, 2, pp. 185-204, 2019.
    • 'Schutz and ethnomethodology: origins and departures', History of the Human Sciences, 32, 2, 59-75, 2019.
  39. The Concept of Culture: A history and reappraisal, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Troubling Sociological Concepts, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
  40. ‘Planning versus the market: The dispute between Hayek and Mannheim and its contemporary relevance’, British Journal of Sociology, 72, pp.1464– 1478, 2021. ‘Karl Mannheim on Fascism: Sociological Lessons About Populism and Democracy Today?, Sociological Research Online, online first 2021. ‘Encounters with Karl Mannheim’, British Sociological Association NETWORK Newsletter, Autumn 2021. ‘Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia and the public role of sociology’, Journal of Classical Sociology, Online first, 2021,  22(2), pp. 176–198, 2022. ‘Karl Mannheim and Jean Floud at the London Institute of Education: A false start for the sociology of education in Britain?’, London Review of Education, 20, 1, 2022. Available at: Karl Mannheim and Jean Floud: a false start for the sociology of education in Britain? – UCL Press (scienceopen.com)
  41. Hammersley, M. (2023) Methodological Concepts: a critical guide, London, Routledge; Hammersley, M. (2024) A Dictionary of Social Research Methodology, London, Routledge.