ARHIV DRUŽBOSLOVNIH PODATKOV

The National Centre for Research Methods will be holding its fifth residential training event targeted at early career researchers between November 11th to 13th 2009. Our focus this year is on what might be described as 'hybrid' or 'crossover' methods in the social sciences: methods which take quantitative data and develop an analysis reliant on more qualitative approaches, or vice versa; methods which are more commonly associated with a quantitative or qualitative tradition, and where new hybrid approaches are (re)emerging; and methods which defy a quantitative/qualitative categorisation. A key aim of the Autumn School is to encourage participants to consider how methods and approaches to analysis may emerge which work across fixed notions of a quantitative/qualitative methodological divide. By the end of the event, you will have been introduced to a number of such examples and will have been encouraged to think about what these might potentially offer to your own research.

The Autumn School will kick off with a plenary session led by Jennifer Mason, Director of the NCRM ‘Realities’ Node at the University of Manchester, in which she will explore the idea of methodological hybridity. Other sessions include a half-day workshop on using longitudinal survey data to create narrative accounts of social change, led by Jane Elliot (Executive Director of the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education); a session on the interface between qualitative and quantitative approaches to social network analysis, led by Nick Crossley (Department of Sociology, University of Manchester); and a session on the use of field experiments in case study research, led by Gerry Stoker (Director of the Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, University of Southampton). There will also be a career development session as well as opportunities for participants to discuss some of the methodological challenges arising from their own work. And of course plenty of time for socialising and networking!

There are 30 fully-funded places available (to include accommodation, all meals, and travel expenses to and from Southampton). Up to two-thirds of the places will be allocated to researchers from across the National Centre for Research Methods and from other methodologically-orientated centres/projects, but there are also a number of places available by open competition.