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 RESEARCH METHODS

This book provides an overview of ninety key concepts which often

trouble those who are new to researching within the social sciences.
It covers theories of knowledge, methodologies and methods. Each
entry offers a definition of a concept, shows how researchers have
used that concept in their research and discusses difficulties that the
concept presents. The book supports those undertaking their own
social research projects by providing detailed critical commentary on
key concepts in a particularly accessible way.
In exploring these concepts, a wide range of research reports
across many different fields are described. These include not only
classic accounts, but also a broad selection of recent studies, some
written by new researchers. The book will be useful for higher-
education students carrying out projects within social science
faculties at the end of their first degree or during a master’s
programme, though it will also be particularly helpful for those
undertaking doctoral research, and some entries have been written
with the production of a thesis in mind.
This second edition of Research Methods: The Key Concepts
provides a more comprehensive and up-to-date coverage, as old
entries have been updated and 19 new entries added. It helps new
researchers to navigate the changing landscape of social research by
recognising (a) the changes in the ways researchers are thinking
about knowledge and acquiring knowledge, (b) the increasing use of
digital tools to collect data, and (c) the desire many contemporary
researchers feel to promote social justice through their research.
Michael Hammond leads an MA in social science research and is
Reader in Education at the University of Warwick, UK.

Jerry Wellington was a Professor and Head of Research Degrees

in the School of Education, University of Sheffield, UK, and is now an
educational consultant.
RESEARCH METHODS
The Key Concepts
Second Edition

Michael Hammond
With Jerry Wellington
Second edition published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2021 Michael Hammond and Jerry Wellington

The right of Michael Hammond and Jerry Wellington to be identified as authors of

this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered

trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.

First published by Routledge in 2013

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-17873-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-17874-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-05816-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
 CONTENTS

List of key concepts vi

Preface ix

THE KEY CONCEPTS 1

Short bites 202

Index 217
 LIST OF KEY CONCEPTS

access 3
action research 4
agency 8
analysis 9
axiology 12
behaviourism 12
bias 14
big data 16
bricolage 19
case study 20
causality 23
chaos theory 25
codes and coding 26
collaborative research 29
comparative research 31
concept 34
conceptual framework 36
constructionism/constructivism 38
content analysis 40
conversation analysis 42
critical realism 43
critical theory 45
criticality 48
crystallization 49
decolonising methodology 51
deduction 53
delphi method 55
description 57
diaries 59
discourse analysis 62
documentary research 64
ecological approaches 67
emic (and etic) 68
epistemology 69
ethics 71
ethnography 74
evaluation research 78
evidence-based practice 80
experimental method 82
explanation 87
feminist methodology 88
game theory 91
generalisability 93
globalisation 95
grounded theory 97
induction 101
interdisciplinarity 103
interpretivism 105
intersectionality 108
interviewing 109
knowledge 112
life history 115
literature review 117
longitudinal studies 120
meta-analysis 123
metaphor 125
method 127
methodology 128
mixed methods 129
modelling 131
narrative enquiry 134
neuroimaging 135
observation 137
ontology 140
paradigm 141
phenomenology 143
positionality 145
positivism 148
post-positivism 150
postmodernism 151
pragmatism 154
qualitative methods 155
quantitative methods 156
questions 159
reliability 163
research design 164
secondary data analysis 166
shadowing 168
survey 170
symbolic interactionism 174
systematic review 177
theoretical framework 179
theorising 181
theory 183
triangulation 186
trustworthiness 187
truth 190
validity 192
visual methods 195
writing for audiences 198
 PREFACE

This is the second edition of Research Methods: The Key Concepts,

one in a series of key guides. In preparing this edition we have
added 19 new entries, and we have revised and updated references
to literature in nearly all of the others. The book provides a more
comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of approaches taken in
social research and the methods used to address research questions.
The aim of this book, however, remains the same: to provide support
for those undertaking their own social research projects. Each entry
in the book provides an overview definition, or competing definitions
of a concept, followed by a discussion of the part played by that
concept in a research project. A wide range of research reporting is
cited. This includes not only classic accounts such as Oscar Lewis’s
The Sanchez Family, Durkheim’s Suicide, Weber’s The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, but also a broad selection of
recent studies, some written by new researchers, across many
different fields and contexts. The book will be useful for higher-
education students carrying out projects at the end of their first
degree or during a master’s programme, though many of the entries
will be particularly helpful for those undertaking doctoral research,
and some entries have been written with the production of a thesis
in mind.
The book is titled Research Methods, but its scope goes beyond
this. We do of course cover research design and particular methods
of collecting and analysing data, for example questionnaire surveys,
interviewing, observation and related activities such as coding, and
inductive (or bottom-up) and deductive (top-down) approaches to
analysis. We present a critical view of methods, setting out strengths
and weaknesses of different approaches, making clear that there is
not a simple formula to follow. However, we also raise wider issues
including epistemological orientations to research, such as the
nature of claims to reliability, trustworthiness and validity, and we
consider stances such as constructionism, interpretivism, positivism,
post-positivism, postmodernism and pragmatism. We are particularly
concerned in this edition to say more about the role that theory
plays in social research and have added further entries on
conceptual frameworks, modelling, theoretical frameworks and
extended the original entry on theory itself. The aim is to show that
those undertaking social research need to engage more widely with
how problems have been theorised if they are to make a distinctive
contribution to the field. In all the entries we aim to be even-
handed, but we do express firm views where we feel a difficulty or
limitation needs to be highlighted.
Entries are in alphabetical order and, where appropriate, cross-
referenced by the use of bold, though this is done sparingly so as
not to disrupt the reading of the text. An extended ‘Short Bites’
section is provided at the back of the book which contains brief
definitions for terms which have come up within the entries
themselves. These entries will help readers decode some of the
research output cited throughout the guide.
Guides to social research are rarely read cover to cover, but we
would encourage readers to visit at least some of the entries on
concepts with which they are unfamiliar or of which they may be
dismissive; the signposting will help. Of course many readers will
prefer to dip into the book as and when they need to, and the
alphabetical organisation makes this straightforward.

WHY THIS BOOK?

In writing the first edition we noted that the book was informed by
our experience in leading workshops with student researchers as
well as supervising and examining research degrees. At the time of
writing this second edition we continue to be much encouraged by
the high quality of research being undertaken and the passion with
which new researchers present their projects. We also admire the
flexibility shown by new researchers and their refusal to engage in
pointless debates as to whether quantitative or qualitative methods
are 'better’. However, the difficulties we noted at the time of the first
edition are still present and worth repeating here:

Incomplete understanding of a concept. The researcher has

got the gist of an idea but is unaware of its implications in
full. To take three examples. Grounded theory is often
understood as an inductive approach to coding data, but the
wider aim of generating theory is missed and the tensions
that existed between its founders ignored. The term ends
up being misapplied. Second, action research is often
characterised as an experiment or innovation undertaken by
a practitioner, but new researchers may miss its concern for
a systematic and cyclical process – action research becomes
misrepresented as everyday practitioner enquiry. Third, case
study is rightly understood as a study bounded within a
particular context, but researchers often fail to appreciate
the importance of in-depth engagement with the actors in
that context. What are essentially scenarios are
misrepresented as case studies.
Switching paradigm within the same research project. For
example, we often read research which claims to be an
exploratory journey but goes on later to use pseudo-
scientific language such as ‘administering data collection
instruments’, ‘presenting generalisable findings’ and
‘controlling for reliability and bias’. This is a shift of position:
the researcher has wanted to foreground the personal
nature of research in the first instance but ended up
borrowing from the language of natural science to stress the
objectivity of the process. The shift in language signals a
confusion that will weaken any impact the research report
might have.
Parodying approaches with which the researcher does not
agree. For example, positivism is often rejected out of hand
as making wholly unsupportable claims regarding the
objective nature of research and, for that matter, of the
material world in general. However, this dismissal fails to
understand the historical importance of positivism and the
degree to which positivist assumptions live on within all
types of interpretive enquiry.
‘Over-egging’ the innovative character of one’s research. For
example, some researchers celebrate the participatory and
collaborative approach taken in their projects, but on further
reading it appears that participation does not go much
beyond mainstream methods of ‘accessing the voice’ of
participants and that the inequalities between researchers’
and participants’ access to social and intellectual capital are
simply glossed over. In these cases, collaboration exists
more as an aspiration rather than a useful descriptive label.
Making binary distinctions rather than seeing differences of
degree. For example, claims to validity, reliability or
trustworthiness are given as if there was some easily
defined point at which interpretation and analysis pass from
invalid to valid, unreliable to reliable, untrustworthy to
trustworthy. There is not. In a similar fashion, quantitative
and qualitative methods are separated out as if those
carrying out surveys never ask open-ended questions and
those carrying out interviews do not count codes or look for
general patterns of agreement and disagreement across
respondents.
An overly formulaic approach to study. There is almost a tick
list inside the researcher’s mind that literature has been
reviewed; a methodology supplied and methods chosen to
address the research questions; descriptive and explanatory
analysis carried out; and some conclusions reported. This
may offer a very well-organised account, but the researcher
needs to go deeper and to critically explore the concepts,
for example class, culture, happiness, intelligence and so
 on, which are the building blocks for their enquiry and the
theoretical frameworks, for example activity theory, actor
network theory, Bourdieu’s idea of capital, Foucauldian
critical discourse, that illuminate the analysis. Being critical
means appreciating the tradition in which one is working,
but it also means offering a personal view of the field and
being prepared to point out the inconsistencies and
shortcomings in the past literature. Being critical also means
engaging in the larger questions of method. For example, it
is relatively straightforward and right to comment on
interviewing in terms of how a schedule is structured and
how the coding was conducted, but the larger question is
whether any of us, when asked, can describe our
experience of a particular event accurately and whether the
descriptions we give will vary according to time and place.
In the same vein, researchers often describe, and
sometimes agonise, about response rates to surveys but say
very little about whether their respondents are
representative and indeed what grounds they have for
believing that respondents paid much attention to filling in
the questionnaire in the first place.

Social research is changing all the time and a second edition has
given an opportunity not only to reflect on shortcomings but to say
something about the changing landscape of social research. Three
things stand out.
First, there has been a much-needed weakening of the hold
interpretivism and positivism has held over discussion of research
methodology. Over the years we have read countless theses and
dissertations with a few pages on the differences between
interpretivism and positivism culminating in a statement of alignment
with one or the other position (in small-scale case study,
interpretivism became the default). Debates over epistemology do
not need to be polarised in this way and there is now more than
ever an appetite for setting out a middle ground. Such a middle
ground recognises that it makes sense to claim there are patterns in
social activity even though we should accept that any conclusions
based on analysis of these patterns are fallible. Recent writing on
critical realism, mixed methodology, post-positivism and pragmatism,
as well as metaphors of crystallisation and bricolage help in clarifying
where this epistemological debate is going.
Second, not only is the digital world increasingly researched,
digital methods are being increasingly used. For example, it is
relatively common to interview over Skype, the idea of an email
interview no longer excites much comment, synchronous chat
sometimes finds a place as does daily text messaging to get short
but ecologically valid responses from participants. Nor is it unusual
to use tracking tools such as eye tracking glasses or GPS in certain
types of research. More significantly there has been a step change in
the use of big data – not just the very large data sets that many
researchers have long used but online archives of, say, Twitter feeds
and social network interaction. Digital methods may start out being a
novelty, but their value is being increasingly established, albeit their
use needs to be considered carefully, not least on ethical grounds.
Third, mainstream social research is no longer troubled to the
same degree by postmodernist critics, and extreme scepticism about
the trustworthiness of social research has run its day. Instead, the
key challenge facing mainstream social researchers has become
what to do about social justice. Of course a concern for social justice
is not new and has long been reflected in feminist methodology and
critical action research, but discussion has taken on a new urgency
with demands for decolonising methodology and intersectionality to
the forefront.
We wrote in the first edition that those conducting and
supporting research were living in particularly exciting times: there
was a spirit of innovation in social research, pluralism in research
approaches and a concern to reflect the increasingly global nature of
modern life. We welcome this and encourage new researchers to
continue the process.
In our first edition we also noted that we are not reaching a
saturation point in research; rather we are increasingly aware of just
how much more there is to find out. This is true, but it is also true
that we already know a lot. If there is one plea we would make to
researchers is to go public with their work, i.e. to contribute to public
debates, to engage responsibly with social media, to report findings
to practitioners. It is easy to end a research project feeling that the
questions have become stale and the findings obvious, but this
simply comes from long engagement in the field. Others will find
your research interesting and helpful as long as it is presented in
appropriate ways. In addition to the conventional research report
there is a place for blogs, drawings, even comic books to
communicate to wider audiences. There is so much good work that
has been ignored as it has not been communicated effectively.
It remains our hope that this guide will help researchers by
providing an orientation to key concepts and acting as a useful
signpost to further literature. We are aware that our take on these
concepts will be disputed by some readers and colleagues and see
that as both inevitable and welcome – we are offering a starting
point for what we hope is an extended discussion. We are also
aware that in a general book of this nature there will be particular
social research themes and fields of enquiry which we have not
included. We have tried to cover the major difficulties and areas of
tension and we have tried to present a wide selection of research,
but we had to stop somewhere. We are not claiming to be
encyclopaedic in coverage.
We remain grateful here for the advice and input from colleagues,
research students and external reviewers, and feedback from
readers of the first edition. We thank Penny Nunn for close
proofreading of this text and the work done by editors at Routledge.
All errors and omissions are our responsibility.
 THE KEY CONCEPTS

ACCESS
Access involves gaining entry to people, to places, to organisations
or to documents. Access is negotiated in advance but gaining access
is not a one-off process; access may be extended as trust is
developed, for example if the researcher’s presentation is seen as
appropriate and ethical guidelines are being followed. Access to
people in organisations is invariably facilitated by key informants
who can help explain the context in which the organisation works
and guide the researcher in developing a suitable observation or
interview strategy.
Clearly, access in some contexts is unlikely, for example few
researchers will be able to gain access to presidents and prime
ministers or leaders of industry, or be able to observe decision-
making in ministries or within global conglomerates. However, access
may also be a difficulty in more everyday contexts. In many
countries, for example, access to schools is only granted after checks
have been carried out and access to prisons (at least for research
purposes) is understandably time-consuming (Schlosser, 2008).
Underlying restrictions on access is an unwillingness to expose
organisational practices to public scrutiny alongside deep-rooted
ethical and practical concerns. At times there is a culture clash
between researchers and their good intentions, and ‘gatekeepers’
with particular concerns for their own organisations and justifiable
fears of seeing it misrepresented.
 Many new researchers often feel under considerable pressure in
carrying out research as the problems of access are often under-
reported (Peticca-Harris et al., 2016). In fact unrestricted access is
likely to be difficult if not impossible to achieve and this can seriously
affect the design, planning, sampling and carrying out of research.
Researchers will worry that they have failed to gain access to
enough informants or that they may have been denied observation
of key events. However, all the researcher can do is to make
reasonable efforts and consider the significance of any gaps in data
collection: research is the ‘art of the possible’ which is why
opportunistic or convenience sampling feature so commonly in real-
life contexts.
There are some who argue that access should be gained covertly
in some contexts so that the researcher pretends to play a role in
order to minimize ‘reactivity’ or the observer effect. This is easy to
do when researchers access open public spaces, though this still
leaves dilemmas as Li (2008) discusses when describing how she
withheld her researcher identity when visiting casinos in order to
study female gambling culture in Canada. Covert participant
observation raises more questions. Examples of covert research are
numerous; one notable case is Goffman (1963) who carried out
research into asylums in the USA by taking on the role of an
assistant athletic director. There have been examples of covertly
accessing neo-fascist organisations, and, in another example,
Maguire et al. (2019) discuss the challenges they face as three
researchers, who respectively identified as lesbian, gay and LGBT
ally, in covertly observing heteroactivist organisations. In recent
years much attention has also been given to studying Internet
spaces, for example signing up to dating sites in order research user
strategies and contacting ‘essay mill’ providers in order to study
academic cheating (see Medway et al., 2018).
In all of the preceding examples the case for covert access
seemed to be on the grounds of uncovering what should not be
hidden: cheating in universities, the allure of discriminatory politics,
what goes on inside institutions. However, each is unsettling, and
academic researchers seeking to carry out deep covert observation
are likely to encounter challenge or flat refusal from ethics
committees.

References
Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Li, J. (2008) ‘Ethical challenges in participant observation: A reflection on ethnographic fieldwork’, The
Qualitative Report, 13(1): 100–115.
Maguire, H., McCartan, A., Nash, C.J. and Browne, K. (2019) ‘The enduring field: Exploring researcher
emotions in covert research with antagonistic organisations’, Area, 51(2): 99–306.
Medway, D., Roper, S. and Gillooly, L. (2018) ‘Contract cheating in UK higher education: A covert
investigation of essay mills’, British Educational Research Journal, 44(3): 393–418.
Peticca-Harris, A., deGama, N. and Elias, S. (2016) ‘A dynamic process model for finding informants and
gaining access in qualitative research’, Organizational Research Methods, 19(3): 376–401.
Schlosser, J. (2008) ‘Issues in interviewing inmates: Navigating the methodological landmines of prison
research’, Qualitative Inquiry, 14(8): 1500–1525.

ACTION RESEARCH
Action research seeks to address social and professional problems
through an iterative cycle of action and reflection. The term ‘action
research’ itself is often seen as first used by Kurt Lewin (1890–1947)
in work on citizenship in the 1940s to describe a participative style of
research which would lead to social action. Action research was later
taken up as a form of practitioner enquiry focused on an attempt to
improve practice through a systematic cycle or cycles of planning,
doing and reflecting. For example, action research became important
in the field of education with the work of Carr and Kemmis (1986)
highly influential; in a much-quoted definition they envisaged action
research as a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by
participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality
and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these
practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out
(Carr and Kemmis 1986: 162).
Action research has widespread appeal and projects are carried
out by practitioners within many different fields including community
activism and development, citizenship, professional learning and
product design. A flavour of the breadth of this work can be found in
examples such as Frey and Cross (2011) who attempt to promote
educational rights among young people living in extreme poverty in
Argentina; Stylianou and Zembylas (2018) who implement changes
in the classroom to help their children be better supported when
suffering bereavement; Khanal et al. (2018) who conduct action
research to help mountain people in Nepal to adjust to social and
ecological changes; and Foth and Brynskov (2016) who discuss
participatory design and action research in creating new civic
technologies.
Action research is popular because it has the considerable
advantage that it seeks to directly improve practice for the better.
Repeatedly action research has been seen as making a difference in
ways that more conventional research does not. It avoids top-down
implementation of unsuitable policies and practices, and proposes a
more flexible, bottom-up, iterative approach: we do not know all
there is to know when first introducing an innovation, we need to
adapt in the light of experience. However, the researcher new to
action research faces several challenges. These include:

How to describe the process. At heart those carrying out

action research are asked to ‘plan, do, reflect’, but several
quite elaborate frameworks have been produced on the
back of this simple injunction. These frameworks try to
provide workable guidance for keeping the researcher on
track while recognising that the process of action research is
iterative, flexible and ‘messy’. There is no easy way to
balance guidance with flexibility and no agreed model of
action research for new researchers to take. Indeed any
framework will need to be adapted to particular
circumstances.
Addressing both problem and opportunity. Traditionally
action researchers have sought to address social and
practical ‘problems’, but this limits the application of the
process. Many projects are better described as taking
advantage of opportunities, such as those provided by new
technology, or, better, having elements of opportunity taking
and problem solving.
Assessing the quality of an action research project. Most
action researchers will reject or re-interpret traditional
notions of validity and reliability and perhaps talk of
theoretical and methodological robustness, value-for-use
and building capacity (Elliott, 2007). Others may evoke
trustworthiness and have a particular interest in ensuring
their research is ‘interconnected’ to the experiences of
research participants. In assessing the quality of their
projects action researchers will consider how they can feed
back the insights they have gained to practitioner and other
non-academic audiences, within and beyond the context in
which the research took place.
Balancing the trade-off between understanding and doing.
Bogdan and Biklen (1992), for example, saw the aim of
action research as the ‘collecting of information for social
change’, and at times action research may focus more on
exposing the limits on change rather than introducing
innovations which have very little chance of success.
Keeping action research critical. Some, both within and
beyond action research communities, see action research as
largely ‘technical’ in scope – offering quick-fix solutions to
problems without considering the moral context in which
the research is taking place or the imbalance of power and
influence within an organisation or practice. Critical action
research in contrast, considers both means and ends, and
interrogates all courses of action on both moral and
practical grounds. A tradition of participatory action research
takes an explicit ethical commitment to work with oppressed
groups in a society, sometimes drawing on the ideas of
participative pedagogy advanced by Freire (1972) (see on
this entries on critical theory and decolonising
methodology).
Making action research collaborative. Collaboration is often
considered necessary in action research in two respects:
 collaboration between peers, on the grounds that it is not
possible to understand, let alone change, a situation by
oneself, and collaboration with outside agents, often
academics, who have greater experience of the process and
can provide a stimulus and support for enquiry. Some argue
that action research needs to be collaborative if it is to go
beyond the normal course of everyday problem solving and
if change is to be sustainable. This raises challenges. The
action researcher needs to enlist collaborators, when such
collaboration may not be forthcoming, and to negotiate
equitable and productive relationships with outsiders.

Action research offers an opportunity for a bridging between theory

and practice, resulting in desirable, sustainable change. However,
critics of action research question the capacity of ‘lay’ researchers to
undertake and report research and their willingness to participate in
systematic enquiry given its time-consuming nature. Critics further
point out that most academic accounts of action research are written
by outsiders working in close cooperation with participants rather
than participants themselves. They also question whether findings
can be generalised adequately. Researchers using the term ‘action
research’ need to be aware of these criticisms and be able to identify
tensions in their own research. In practice some action research
reports assume there are agreed methods and procedures for action
research, when there are not. Some projects reported as action
research are better understood as case studies as they are reporting
practice and innovations from the outside; some are better described
as experiments, in which the researcher has been minded to follow a
course of action in advance of any reflection on practice. There is an
added confusion as other terms such as ‘reflective practice’ and
‘action learning’ are used to describe approaches which are very
similar to action research. Finally the action researcher needs to
know his or her audience or audiences when reporting. There is an
important distinction between the wider academic community,
interested in generalising from a project, and one’s collaborators
who may have a strong emotional engagement with the project and
a concern for its practical outcomes.

References
Bogdan, R. and Biklen, S. (eds) (1992) Qualitative Research for Education, Boston MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical. Education, Knowledge and Action Research, London:
Falmer Press.
Elliott, J. (2007) ‘Assessing the quality of action research’, Research Papers in Education, 22(2): 229–
246.
Foth, M. and Brynskov, M. (2016) ‘Participatory action research for civic engagement’. In: E. Gordon and
P. Mihailidis (eds) Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Frey, A. and Cross, C. (2011) ‘Overcoming poor youth stigmatization and invisibility through art: A
participatory action research experience in Greater Buenos Aires’, Action Research, 9(1): 65–82.
Khanal, R., Chettri, N., Aryal, K., Poudel, S., Kandel, P., Shah, G. and Ahmad, F. (2018) Action Research
on Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services Management in Udayapur, Nepal: A Documentation of
Process and Learning, Kathmandu: International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
(ICIMOD).
Stylianou, P. and Zembylas, M. (2018) ‘Peer support for bereaved children: Setting eyes on children’s
views through an educational action research project’, Death Studies, 42(7): 446–455.

AGENCY
Agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and
to make their own decisions unencumbered by material or cultural
constraint. Agency can be seen as a licence to do what one likes, but
for most researchers agency implies we have an awareness of our
situation, the range of responses open to us and the likely
consequences for others resulting from our actions. The idea of
responsible agency informs child development literature – see
ecology.
As a focus for analysis, agency can be contrasted with
determinism, which refers to the cultural, material, historical and
political contexts which influence an individual’s behaviour and life
chances. While social science generally looks for explanation of
behaviour at a social or group level, this does not preclude an
exploration of agency at an individual level; we construct meaning
and what we do as human beings is not simply the sum total of that
which has happened to us. Many researchers have a particular
interest in the interplay between individual agency and social
structure – this is explored, for example, in Berger’s (2008) striking
study of a gang member in the USA who was shot and paralysed
and subsequently became a world-class wheelchair athlete. Agency,
then, provides a focus of attention, not a single overarching
explanation for social phenomena; there is always an interplay
between agency and structure.
Some forms of social enquiry seek to examine the conditions in
which participants can establish agency through the stimulus and
support of researchers – as seen in collaborative action research
earlier. Ethnomethodology has a particular interest in how as social
actors we are keen on establishing routine and order in our
interactions. For example, Garfinkel (1963) suggested our view of
the world was a complacent one; we took meanings of interactions
for granted meanings and we followed predictable behaviour as long
as this led to broadly satisfactory outcomes. It was by breaching
assumptions of social behaviour we would become better able to
identify the limits on behaviour, and in one celebrated case of
behavioural disruption Garfinkel suggested his students behave as
lodgers in their family homes. This might strike us as self-indulgent
and plain unethical but there lies an important point that by
changing the rules of the game other possibilities for action open up.
Agency has been a mainstream concern of those working and
reporting in contexts in which the odds seem stacked against the
subjects in the research. For example, in a study in Japan,
Yoshihama (2002) sought to give voice to women’s experiences of
violent relationships and contributed to a support group for women
so that they could address some of the challenges they experienced.
The same author reflects later on this work (Yoshihama, 2017) and
she shows how agency is always exercised in the face of institutional
and cultural constraints.
Agency can be an object of study in its own right, as for example
in the study of the attribution of success and failure in different
cultures. It is suggested that within East Asian Confucian societies
success is often ascribed to individual effort rather than innate ability
(see Fwu et al., 2018). While this has been disputed as an over-
generalisation, it is almost certainly the case that our views on
agency, like agency itself, are socially constructed.
 References
Berger, R. (2008) ‘Agency, structure, and the transition to disability: A case study with implications for
life history research’, The Sociological Quarterly, 49(2): 309–333.
Fwu, B.J., Chen, S.W., Wei, C.F. and Wang, H.H. (2018) ‘I believe; therefore, I work harder: The
significance of reflective thinking on effort-making in academic failure in a Confucian-heritage cultural
context’, Thinking Skills and Creativity, 30: 19–30.
Garfinkel, H. (1963) ‘A conception of, and experiments with, ‘trust’ as a condition of stable concerted
actions’. In: O.J. Harvey (ed) Motivation and Social Interaction: Cognitive Approaches, New York:
Ronald Press.
Yoshihama, M. (2002) ‘Breaking the web of abuse and silence: Voices of battered women in Japan’,
Social Work, 47(4): 389–400.
Yoshihama, M. (2017) ‘Domestic violence in Japan’. In: E. Buzawa and C. Buzawa (eds) Global
Responses to Domestic Violence, Cham: Springer.

ANALYSIS
Analysis generally refers to the breaking down of a topic or object
into its component parts and understanding how those parts fit
together. To take a familiar context: if asked to analyse how a clock
works (and we are assuming here an old-fashioned wind-up clock
rather than a digital one) we can separate out the various wheels
and winding mechanism, move them around and work out their
meaning. We can, theoretically at least, put the clock back together
and offer an explanation as to how each part interacts with another
to enable the measuring of time. Of course the analogy is imperfect
for investigating social activity; typically we are working with
descriptions of behaviour, rather than material parts, and what we
are trying to analyse is messy and overwhelming in a way that a
clock is not, at least to the expert clockmaker. There is no one way
for the social research to put the parts together or an objective
measurement as to whether the arrangement of the parts works.
Analysis will therefore mean different things within different
approaches to research: the quantitative researcher may carry out
inferential analysis (exploring the relationship between variables);
the explorer of networks may carry out social network analysis
(mapping who communicates with whom); the grounded theorist
may carry out a deductive analysis based on axial coding (i.e.
exploring the relationship between codes) and so on.
 In spite of differences, most notions of analysis carry the
common idea of sifting through data, organising data and exploring
relationships within data. These three steps are more formally
discussed in Miles et al. (2013) and are paraphrased in the following:

data reduction – selecting, collating, summarising, coding,

sorting into themes, clustering and categorising
data display – using pictorial, diagrammatic or visual means
to organise, compress and represent information
conclusion drawing – interpreting and giving meaning to
data

Through analysis researchers will implicitly or explicitly be able to

address questions such as: What made X happen in the context of
the study? What else could have happened? What would have
happened if Y had taken place? Why did X happen in this case and
not in that case? Analytical accounts can be contrasted with
descriptive ones (saying what happened) and more theoretical ones
which typically offer an explanation based on, but going beyond, the
modelling of the data. However, the dividing line between analysis,
description and theory is a matter of degree, not kind.
While there is some agreement, in principle, as to what analysis
involves, there are key differences in how the process of analysis
occurs. Deductive analysis is likely to take place against a top-
down coding framework and in reference to an existing theory of
social activity. Deductive analysis may involve quite formal testing of
hypotheses and may well use traditional notions of validity and
reliability as benchmarks of quality. Deductive analysis is often
described as a step-by-step approach – data can be sorted,
organised and conclusions reached. Inductive analysis, in contrast,
seeks to develop and explore relationships between data during the
course of an investigation. Most accounts of inductive analysis
highlight its fluid nature: rather than carrying out a series of steps,
which can be easily differentiated, the researcher is continually
amending frameworks for coding and generating, and discarding,
hypotheses as they go along. Quantitative data analysis is often
assumed to be deductive, but this is not necessarily the case. The
researcher may be generating new and competing hypotheses
during the analysis of data.
There is no reason to take an either/or approach to analysis.
Exploratory inductive analysis may lead to the articulation of
propositions to be tested at a later stage in a deductive manner,
while deductive propositions can be re-examined in the light of
findings (Hardwick and Worsley, 2011). This is sometimes referred to
as an abductive analysis – an alternating focus between deductive
and inductive approaches. For example, in looking at decision-
making by volleyball players in France, Macquet (2009) explicitly
carries out both an inductive analysis (generating categories based
on how players use their knowledge of context to make decisions)
and a deductive analysis (based on a ‘primed decision-making’
model). In similar vein, Swain (2018) explains coding as a process
which involves the integration of a priori codes (ones based on the
original aims and research question in the project) and a posteriori
codes (ones inductively derived from a close reading of interview
transcripts). Coding is thus an iterative process, a kind of switching
back and forth between what you expected to find and what you did
find.

References
Hardwick, L. and Worsley, A. (eds) (2011) Doing Social Work Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Macquet, A. (2009) ‘Recognition within the decision-making process: A case study of expert volleyball
players’, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 21(1): 64–79.
Miles, M., Huberman, A. and Saldana, J. (2013) Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook,
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Swain, J. (2018) ‘A hybrid approach to thematic analysis in qualitative research: Using a practical
example’, Sage Research Methods Cases. doi:10.4135/9781526435477.

AXIOLOGY
This means, literally, the study of values and beliefs (from the Greek
word axia, meaning ‘worth or value’) and is closely related to the
idea of positionality and reflexivity.
 Axiology reminds us that as human beings researchers come with
their own set of values and these are expressed with respect to what
is studied, how it is studied and how it is communicated. However,
as explored later in respect to positionality, it is disputed whether
the researcher’s values are to be embraced (for example the
researcher is partisan in favour of human rights and against
injustice) or to be moderated (for example the researcher is seeking
to counteract his or her own values by following systematic methods
including peer review).

BEHAVIOURISM
Behaviourism seeks to explain our behaviour, including learning and
socialisation, as a consequence of stimulus and reinforcement. It is
concerned with observable behaviour; we cannot uncover the hidden
workings of the mind but we can directly observe episodes of
stimulus (or input) and response (the output). The philosophical
roots of behaviourism lie in empiricism and the idea that the mind is
a blank slate or tabula rasa on which our sensory experiences are
written – the contemporary metaphor might be a hard disk on which
all sensory data are recorded. As such, behaviourism is closely
related to, and underpins, ‘classical’ positivism in that it is
concerned with the observable and what operates on an individual or
group to produce a particular outcome. This is often contrasted with
constructivism (how we work out meaning together) and cognitivism
(how our minds make sense of our experiences).
Behaviourism has had a huge influence on research in, amongst
other areas, child psychology, teaching and learning, and
organisational and economic behaviour. Key writers within the
behaviourist tradition in psychology include Pavlov (1927), Watson
and Rayner (1920) and Skinner (1953). Pavlov (1927) famously
illustrated principles of behaviourism by conditioning dogs to salivate
(a response) when they heard a bell ring (stimulus). Watson and
Rayner (1920) conducted similar experiments with children,
‘moulding’ their behaviour by carefully controlling a stimulus to
produce a desired response. One of his celebrated cases was that of
‘little Albert’ who was conditioned to become fearful of a white rat by
associating its arrival with a loud noise. Watson’s approach became
known as ‘operant conditioning’: if the correct response was
rewarded in some way, the required behaviour could be reinforced.
Unwanted behaviour can be discouraged by punishment, though this
was not as effective in shaping behaviour as the use of positive
rewards.
Behaviourism informs practice in many fields. For example, it has
informed drill and practice in teaching, a classic example here is the
so-called direct method of teaching languages popularised by
Maximilian Berlitz (1852–1921), based on direct and continual
reinforcement of vocabulary and grammatical structures.
Behaviourism also informed scientific methods of production (e.g.
Taylor, 1911) in that organisation of work should be based on
systematic observation and rewarding of efficient performance.
Behaviourism has had a particular association with ‘modernism’,
and an obvious appeal in societies coming to grips with mass
production, mass consumption, mass education and political mass
movements for the first time. Behaviourism has endured, in part,
because its assumptions appear intuitive across cultures and, in part,
because it looks at observable behaviour rather than engaging in
unresolvable speculation as to how the mind works. Behaviourism
has considerable explanatory potential in social research even if only
at the level of reporting observed associations between events.
However, behaviourism has, understandably, been criticised as
offering a very limited view of social behaviour – what we do as
human beings concerns our sense of identity, our emotional
attachments, and our moral and ethical outlook, and cannot be
reduced to seeking rewards and avoiding punishment. Behaviourism
is seen as conservative and unable to account for change or
deviance: if we are socialised into acceptable behaviours, why is it
that societies change? For example, if learning languages was ‘learnt
behaviour’, then why, as Chomsky (1957) asked, was it that users of
language were able to comprehend or construct a sentence they had
never heard before (his much-quoted example was ‘colorless green
ideas sleep furiously’) and why do learners make errors even after
having been taught something and had a successful response
reinforced? In other words we cannot dismiss so easily the ‘black
box’ which behaviourists treat as the mind; true we largely depend
on metaphorical ways of understanding its working, but this should
not stop us trying to engage with the complexity of thought and
language in a way that behaviourism cannot. Behaviourist principles
are, further, fiercely resisted by liberal humanists who see
behaviourism as infringing on the idea of the human being as a
rational being invested with free will. This suggests that criticisms of
behaviourism are moral as well as analytical.
Those taking a behaviourist approach need to note its close
affinity with positivism and the strengths and weakness of positivist
approaches in social research. They should note the critiques made
of behaviourism and may want to engage with more flexible and
sophisticated versions such as associationism, which is based not so
much on unthinking conditioning but understanding the successful
modelling of behaviour. Bandura (1977) goes a step further and,
while accepting the idea of conditioning and reinforcement, added
the importance of social learning. For example, by watching others
in the classroom or at play, and by receiving feedback on their own
actions, children can develop good personal standards and a sense
of ‘self-efficacy’, though, on a negative note, given the wrong
learning environment or role models they could also develop poor
habits and standards and go on to lack self-esteem. The combination
of behaviourism and social learning theory has led to the idea of
behaviour modification, which has been used in several settings to
model and reinforce desirable behaviour and eliminate less desirable
responses. Variations here might include cognitive behavioural
therapy and neuro-linguistic programming which take seriously the
idea that we make strong associations with events, but while difficult
to shift there are ways to overcome conditioned behaviour.

References
Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Structures, The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
Pavlov, I. (1927) Conditioned Reflexes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Skinner, B. (1953) Science and Human Behavior, New York: Macmillan.
Taylor, F. (1911) The Principles of Scientific Management, New York: Harper & Brothers.
Watson, J.B. and Rayner, R. (1920) ‘Conditioned emotional reactions’, Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 3(1): 1–14.

BIAS
Bias might be understood by way of analogy to a game of bowls. In
bowls, variations of which are played in many countries of the world,
players roll a ball or ‘bowl’ across a lawn seeking to get as near as
possible to a target. The bowl is allowed a ‘bias’, i.e. it is weighted
on one side so that the trajectory of the bowl curves rather than
follows a straight line. Rather than making it unfair, bias makes the
game more skilful and strategically more sophisticated. In social
situations, of course, the exercise of bias may appear less benign.
For example, we might complain of bias if the interview procedures
in a recruitment process were, say, stacked against women or ethnic
minority candidates or if in a televised political debate only
candidates from one party were represented.
In social research, bias keeps to this idea of ‘leaning to one side’
by displaying unacknowledged prejudice. Hence samples are said to
be biased if they systematically favour one particular group in a
population. In one celebrated case going back to 1936 the journal
Literary Digest carried out a reader poll, supplemented by a sample
generated through telephone and car registration data, predicting
that the Republican candidate would win the USA presidential
election. Instead he lost by a landslide. With the benefit of hindsight
it can be easily seen that the sample was biased: the readers of the
magazine, car owners and telephone subscribers tended to be better
off and more likely to vote Republican. The sample leant towards
one side. The example also suggests that the nature and extent of
this bias will differ across time and place: telephone surveys are
inevitably biased but the extent of the bias is much reduced in most
countries today. Online surveys, which provide easy and effective
ways of gathering and automatically calculating data, remain biased
in favour of those with the means and confidence to access
technology, though here again this bias is being reduced daily. This
does not rule out the use of internet surveys but rather points to the
importance of acknowledging a bias and correcting for it in some
way, for example weighting the data or seeking additional data
generated in other ways.
Bias resurfaces as a concept in relation to the types of questions
posed to respondents. For example, a question such as ‘In view of
the importance of family stability, do you feel that divorce should be
made harder?’ invites a particular response. Bias can also occur
depending on who asks the questions (you may get different
responses if the interviewer is male or female); how the questions
are put (non-verbal communication can skew a response); and how
the data are handled (systematic protocols and inter-rater reliability
are needed to reduce bias).
While bias is not on the surface a difficult concept, there are
interesting assumptions lying behind its use. As seen in the
discussion of positionality, researchers necessarily have their own
values which undoubtedly affect the nature of their research, but
these values might be embraced. Research is always ‘biased’ but
beyond the limited discussion of procedures (for example question
types and sampling) the term ‘bias’ is not a helpful one if it implies
that there is a state of being unbiased. There is not.

BIG DATA
‘Big data’ is a term used to draw attention to the increasingly large
amounts of online data available to policy makers, natural scientists
and social researchers. Big data can refer to carefully and
purposively organised data files (for example the longitudinal
surveys kept by social researchers tracking health and education
trajectories over time), but it better captures the use of data which
is constantly updated, for example Twitter feeds, blog posts, sensor
readings and so on. Often these data are collected without a specific
purpose in mind – rather they are captured automatically and only
later turn out to have useful applications.
Definitions of big data centre on the three V’s: velocity, volume
and variety. For example, imagine a day in one’s life in a modern
city: you may use a credit card which contains your financial history,
a store or loyalty card which provides a history of your purchases, a
smart phone which provides data not only on who you have
contacted but where, how often and when. If you choose to Tweet
or social network, each message is stored and your online course
participation will be tracked. The volume of data on each of us is
greater than ever before, the variety (what we do as consumers,
citizens, family members) bewildering. And not only are these data
analysed quickly but done so ‘just in time’ so that we can see not
only what is trending in terms of consumer or political preferences
but what has become yesterday’s news.
An obvious challenge with all these data is how to make sense of
them. Here there have been different approaches, mirroring the
approaches taken in social research to inductive and deductive
approaches. What seems, at least commercially, effective is
generalising from very large sets of data in order to construct
profiles – usually to capture desirable or frequently occurring
scenarios. These profiles can be constantly adapted as more data
comes in. The power of profiling can be seen in everyday
applications. For example, once there were debates as to whether it
was ever going to be possible for a computer to play chess (Jackson,
2019) or to translate natural languages; the sheer number of moves
or sentence patterns seemed so huge that such a task was beyond
possibility. Today we have low-cost chess applications that can beat
nearly anyone and we have translation devices which are not only
reasonably accurate but also extremely fast.
The use of big data raises several challenges for social
researchers with ethical concerns at the forefront. Big data
applications can, of course, be helpful. For example, we can access
individualised online recommendations for what to read or listen to
based on past activity; cities can more efficiently organise traffic
using feedback sensors; sites of potential disasters, such as flooding
or drought, can be predicted through analysis of trends in Twitter
feeds. Big data can be a tool for citizen activism too through
crowdsourcing and citizen journalism – an example here was the use
of the Ushahidi platform, first deployed as a tool to assist those
seeking to quell post-election violence in Kenya (Gutierrez, 2018).
However, data can be harvested in ways that we as users never
intended; we all formally agree to share data when we download
applications, but few understand the implications or for that matter
even read what we have given consented to. Big data lies behind
racial and other profiling, the manipulation of consumers, the
enrolment of children in dubious online activity, the outright
distortion of political processes and the identification of dissidents.
Social researchers then need to ask critical questions about how
data are being collected and what they are being used for.
Big data can help in the research process. For example,
participants’ movements can be tracked and online activity
monitored. One area of research that is well advanced is the analysis
of online interactions within learning platforms and learning
programmes. This is fraught with tensions and difficulties if used
uncritically or unethically (see Williamson, 2017). However, it can
throw important light on the activity profiles of successful leaners,
and monitoring of activity allows teachers and pastoral teams to
make timely interventions in support of learners. Another advanced
area of research is the use of big data in exploring the modern city.
In one example, Lido et al. (2019) explored ‘lifewide learning’ in the
city of Glasgow, Scotland. Data were captured by a large-scale
household survey, GPS trails around the city (using a tracker that
volunteers wore), social media data capture (for example Twitter
feeds publicising events in Glasgow), and life-logging cameras (again
worn by volunteer participants) which automatically captured images
for up to a week. In these ways the researchers were able not just
to understand attitudes to lifewide learning but they could access
and to some extent observe what individuals were actually doing. In
this study, not surprisingly, researchers saw an association between
deprivation with reduced learning engagement but less expected, or
at least less often evidenced, the study showed the importance of
physical movement in one’s urban setting for learning engagement.
Big data is now a field of research in its own right and one that is
interdisciplinary in challenging ways. Big data research calls for
combinations of data analysts and social researchers who can work
together to unpick the computational processes that lie behind the
presentation of data. One particularly important contribution here is
an epistemological one. The key point is that association is not the
same as causality; associations between variables provide us with
general patterns but do not tell us about individual behaviour (see
ecological approaches). There is so much big data around that
this simple message can get lost.
While big data is new, the arguments surrounding the use of data
are not. Questions about privacy, access rights, security and misuse
of data have been raised in the past, and need reinforcing again in a
new context. Nor is this the first time that analysis of large sets of
data been seen as a panacea. For example, a forerunner of big data
was so-called freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner, 2006), which crossed
over from academia into the book-buying public. Freakonomics
explored associations within large sets of data, associations which
were too easily mistaken for causality. We need reminding not to
suspend our professional expertise, still less our common sense,
when faced with big data – just as in an everyday example a
motorist who unthinkingly follows a satellite navigation system will at
some point go horribly wrong. We should not put blind faith in
technology, we have to have a feel for the research journey we are
undertaking and cast a critical gaze on all forms of data (e.g. boyd
and Crawford, 2102).

References
boyd, d. and Crawford, K. (2012) ‘Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural,
technological, and scholarly phenomenon’, Information, Communication, & Society, 15(5): 662–679.
Gutierrez, M. (2018) Data Activism and Social Change, London: Palgrave.
Jackson, B. (2019) ‘Doomed to draw’, London Review of Books, 41(11): 34–36.
Levitt, S. and Dubner, S. (2006) Freakonomics, London: Penguin.
Lido, C., Reid, K. and Osborne, M. (2019) ‘Lifewide learning in the city: Novel big data approaches to
exploring learning with large-scale surveys, GPS, and social media’, Oxford Review of Education,
45(2): 279–295.
Williamson, B. (2017) Big Data in Education: The Digital Future of Learning, Policy and Practice,
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

BRICOLAGE
The idea of bricolage is borrowed from Levi Strauss’s studies of
traditional society in which he identified ways in which people would
refashion objects for new purposes. This works quite well as a
metaphor when trying to explain the flexible and inductive nature of
the research process. The bricoleur is seen as comfortable moving
between different disciplines and uses different tools, methods and
techniques, whatever is at hand, in order to construct meaning out
of data. The bricoleur produces a bricolage,

a pieced together, close-knit set of practices that provide solutions

to a problem in a concrete fashion. The solution which is a result
of the bricoleur method is an emergent construction that changes
and takes new forms as different tools, methods and techniques
are added to the puzzle.

(Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: 4)

This is an attractive proposition. We are carrying out research at a

time when there is no agreement on paradigms of research and
increasing understanding of the inductive and serendipitous routes
that real-world research takes. Surely we are all bricoleurs? Yes, but
bricolage is a disputed term and the implications for research
practice are not straightforward. Crotty (2009), for example,
suggests the original significance of the term ‘bricolage’ lies not in
the way tools are used for different purpose but the way materials
can be turned into something else, for example how a discarded
door could be refashioned into a table; the analogy with social
research does not work. Bricolage can also be used to avoid
committing to an epistemological stance. When asked to explain the
steps taken during a research process, it is easy, but not enough, to
say that ‘it was all a bricolage’.
On a final note, bricolage has become an object of study in its
own right and sometimes used to describe a trial-and-error or
experiential approach to learning in particular in the context of
computing and technology. For example, Papert (1987) borrows the
term in order to describe learning at the computer. Bricolage is also
used as a conceptual tool to explain institutional behaviour, as in
Cleaver (2017) in the field of water management. He suggests that
such management is rarely systematically planned but evolves out of
a bricolage in which new actions live alongside and are shaped by
past arrangements. This style of management brings benefits as well
as limitations for all parties.

References
Cleaver, F. (2017) Development through Bricolage: Rethinking Institutions for Natural Resource
Management, London: Routledge.
Crotty, M. (2009) The Foundations of Social Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. (2000) ‘Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research’. In: N.
Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Papert, S. (1987) The Children’s Machine: Re-Thinking School in the Age of the Computer, New York:
Basic Books.

CASE STUDY
There are many different kinds of case study and hence it is
important in using the term to say what is the case that is being
researched and what kind of case it is. We should also say
something about the purpose for carrying out the study and the
methods used as well as the depth of immersion in the case (see,
for example, Thomas, 2016). A case study generally goes deep and
is much more than a scenario or vignette.
We can begin by saying that a case is literally an example of
something – a unit of analysis – in which the something could be a
school, person, a political system, an event, a type of leadership and
so on depending on the particular interest of the researcher and the
field in which he or she works. For example, some case studies focus
on localities. Taylor (2018) presents a case study of place, charting
the overdevelopment of Phi Phi Island, Thailand – made famous as
the site for the filming of The Beach in 1998. This is a longitudinal
study involving visits to the islands from 2005 to 2012. Methods of
data collection included in-depth interviews with Thai and non-Thai
residents and stakeholders, and a questionnaire survey of local
people. These data were placed into context by personal observation
of the island, with attendant photographic records, and Taylor’s
awareness of the geography as well as the cultural and political
history of the island. Depressingly, Phi Phi Island turned out to be a
case of uncontrolled development, with accordant societal and
environmental problems, though the filming of The Beach was only
one element in popularising the island. Case studies could also be of
institutions (for example a case study of tourist development in Phi
Phi could treat a tourist information centre as a case) or could be of
particular people. For example, studies in therapeutic care and
psychology will often present cases of patients or clients. Freud
(1909) offers a well-known historical case: that of a young boy
(Hans) with a phobia about horses. The case is explored in the
context of the boy’s putative sexual attraction to his mother and
consequent fear of his father. Freud used cases like these to
generate theory (poor Hans provided the data for the much-cited
concept of oedipal complex), though there is much dispute about the
validity of Freud’s analyses and the generalisations he reached.
Case studies can have single or multiple (two or more) cases. Liu
and Bell (2019) chose to investigate similar cases, four Chinese
information and communications technology (ICT) enterprises which
had all been successful. This enables the authors to show
consistency between cases – though of course contrasting cases, for
example a comparison of failing and successful enterprises, could
also be illuminating. In Liu and Bell, data were collected through in-
depth interviews with the founders of enterprises and these data
were examined alongside an analysis of the companies’ histories. In
this particular study it was found that rapid product iteration,
flexibility in responding to changing conditions and networking were
among the key factors in the development of these companies.
Some case studies take in a very large number of cases in order
to generalise (so called large-n studies) and political science has
long made use of comparative cases, say, to explore stability and
change in different political systems (see Vennesson, 2008). The
idea of ‘casing’ (systematically selecting examples of a phenomenon)
implies a deductive approach, allowing theoretical explanations to be
tested. This has the advantage of presenting the broad picture,
albeit at the cost of losing the richness of small-n studies. In
contrast to casing, in education and other practice disciplines, the
term ‘case study’ has become increasingly associated with an in-
depth exploration of a particular context or contexts using largely
qualitative methods (Stake, 1995). Here case study leads to a more
inductive approaches so that the researcher is trying to get a holistic
picture of a particular case in order to explain the how and why of a
phenomenon. One example among many is represented by Pinkster
and Droogleever Fortuijn (2009). They discuss experiences of
children living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in the Netherlands
and the strategies parents develop to address perceived dangers and
risks.
Case study can be contrasted to survey research which does not
tend to engage so deeply with context. Case study can also be
contrasted to ethnography, though the distinction between the two
is sometimes blurred. An in-depth case study drawing on participant
observation is an ethnography of a kind, but a full-blown
ethnographic study generally calls for sustained immersion of the
researcher. Case study, however, shares with ethnography an
interest in understanding local conditions, and methods used in the
case study are, as with ethnography, adaptive and take advantage of
any opportunities which present themselves. Case study research
may as easily draw on conversations and unstructured observation
as structured survey. Indeed observation may highlight tensions
which are not clear in more detached survey research or not freely
talked about in formal interviews.
Case studies can serve different purposes. Yin (2009)
distinguishes between critical cases (for example a case which might
challenge prevailing orthodoxy); the unique case which illustrates
countervailing events or phenomena; and the revelatory case chosen
to gain fresh insight and ideas about a topic. A problem here is that
the researcher will not know for sure what kind of case they have
until they have started investigating it: the researcher who thought a
particular school would represent good leadership practice might find
the good leaders have moved on or the business chosen as it was
failing may have turned itself around.
 Defining the site of a case study depends entirely on the focus of
attention. Consider, for example, a study of a hospital. From one
perspective the hospital as a whole might present the case: how
work is organised, how labour is divided, how disputes are managed
and so on. From another perspective each department or ward in
the hospital may present itself as a separate case if considering, for
example, how maternity is managed, how accidents and
emergencies are addressed, or how terminal illness is managed.
Going deeper, each person in the hospital (volunteer, patient or
medical practitioner) may be a case, if the focus is on their
experiences (as an example, see Dodd et al., 2018, on perspectives
on end-of-life support).
Case studies are popular with many student researchers. The
approach is suited to small scale projects and many student
researchers already have detailed knowledge of, and access to, a
particular site, and are driven by a desire to find out more on what is
happening in that site. However, there has got to be more than
researcher interest to justify a case study and researchers must
explain their goals. Some case studies aim to be ‘descriptive’ and
these have a particular value when a topic is unfamiliar or subjects’
experiences have been marginalised. However, case studies often
have theoretical goals and in inductive research this involves the
careful delineation of conceptual categories (see grounded theory)
and the generation of theoretical frameworks. There is no reason
why case studies, in particular multiple cases, should not be used to
test a hypothesis or why data should not be subjected to statistical
analysis. However, the purpose of small-scale studies is to provide
reliability rather than generalisability and for this to happen
researchers need to provide contextual detail while drawing out what
is significant in the study.
Finally, it is not pedantic to note that all research is case study in
that it is concerned with particular units of study. and what makes
case study unique or indeed helpful as a term is open to question.

References
 Dodd, S., Hill, M., Ockenden, N., Perez Algorta, G., Payne, S., Preston, N. and Walsheet, C. (2018) ‘Being
with’ or ‘doing for’? How the role of an end-of-life volunteer befriender can impact patient wellbeing:
Interviews from a multiple qualitative case study (ELSA)’, Supportive Care in Cancer, 26(9): 3163–
3172.
Freud, L. (1909) Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy, New York: WW Norton.
Stake, R. (1995) The Art of Case Study Research, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Pinkster, F. M. and Fortuijn, J. D. (2009) ‘Watch out for the neighborhood trap! A case study on parental
perceptions of and strategies to counter risks for children in a disadvantaged neighborhood’,
Children’s Geographies, 7(3): 323–337.
Taylor, F. (2018) ‘The Beach goes full circle: The case of Koh Phi phi, Thailand’. In: S. Kim and S.
Reijnders (eds) Film Tourism in Asia: Evolution, Transformation, and Trajectory, Singapore: Springer
Singapore.
Thomas, G. (2016) How to do Your Case Study, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Liu, P. and Bell, R. (2019) ‘Exploration of the initiation and process of business model innovation of
successful Chinese ICT enterprises’, Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, 11(4): 515–
536.
Vennesson, P. (2008) ‘Case studies and process tracing: Theories and practices’. In: D. Della Porta and
M. Keating (eds) Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Yin, R. (2009) Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

CAUSALITY
The term ‘causality’ refers to a very precise connection between a
cause (X) and an effect (Y). For example, to say poverty (X) causes
low educational achievement (Y) generally means that poverty and
educational achievement are directly related; that poverty ‘precedes’
educational achievement and is not itself a consequence of low
attainment; that there is a plausible explanation as to why poverty
may cause low educational achievement (for example poverty
creates a lower sense of self-efficacy) and this explanation is more
plausible than others (for example the claim that ‘bad teaching’
causes low educational achievement).
We instinctively believe that there is causality, and repeated
attempts have been made to present the natural and social world as
one in which cause and effect can be observed and discovered with
some degree of certainty and generalisability. Causality has been a
central concern of positivism and it has often been assumed,
wrongly as it happens, that researchers working with quantitative
methods are necessarily making claims of the ‘X causes Y’ kind.
Instead a more defensible view of causality, pretty much
conventional wisdom amongst social researchers, is to frame claims
as tentative or arrived at on a balance of probability and subject to
countervailing examples. In other words, social research can provide
illumination of, and insight into, situations, events, issues, policies
and practices, and can show important connections and correlations
but it cannot establish direct causal relationships or identify causal
agents. To take our earlier example we can, based on the available
evidence, say that there is an association between poverty and
educational attainment but we cannot say that poverty causes low
educational achievement. Indeed, any claim to certainty is invariably
problematic as:

Most real-world situations are inescapably complex. Staying

with the idea of educational underachievement, it can easily
be seen that teachers, ethnicity, language, funding,
parenting as well as the homogeneity, or otherwise, of
schools will all play a part.
In many instances the direction of cause and effect is often
unknown. For example, in relation to education and well-
being, Desjardins (2008) sees educational outcomes as a
set of ‘dynamic interactions’ rather than a one-way cause
and effect. He further describes education as a problematic
area to research as the aims of education are contested or
conflicting.
What looks like causality may often be what the Scottish
philosopher Hume described as ‘constant conjunction’: X
and Y seem to be regularly associated but X is not the
cause of Y. From time immemorial, night has followed day
but day does not cause night. In education, symbolic factors
such as school uniforms, even homework, are sometimes
seen as causes of learning outcomes when in practice the
relationship between one and the other is unclear.
Connections often occur by chance or at least may be
products of exceptional agency or unpredictable factors, as
in the well-documented cases of schools, or particular
teachers, bucking a trend.
Deductive, and in particular positivist, approaches to social research
address causality much more explicitly than interpretive approaches
which are as much concerned with processes as cause and effect.
However, nearly all social research carries a sense of causality using
a variety of language functions to express this. For example, rather
than speak of ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’ conditions for low
educational attainment, researchers may point to a series of
interlocking factors which ‘influence’/‘have an impact on’/‘affect
attainment’ under certain contexts. One criticism of some
interpretive accounts is that they confidently reject positivism as
naïve but go on to introduce causal assumptions of their own
without methodological justification.
Causality remains at the heart of social research as researchers
are seeking more ‘scientific’ or at least more justified accounts of
activity than those given in everyday life. In the latter we experience
‘constant conjunctions’ which we generalise as justifiable belief.
Politicians and opinion leaders play on this instinct: they blame this
group or that group for our misfortunes and offer simple solutions
based on this or that policy. In the case of education, mentioned
earlier, we have hundreds of everyday explanations put forward to
explain how to change schooling for the better on the basis of very
little evidence whatsoever, and it is everyday explanation (or a naïve
version of causality) that tends to form the basis for policy and
mobilisation of opinion. Social research offers a more rational and
measured arena in which causality can be pursued, though as seen
in postmodernist writing, academic research may be much more
ideological than many are prepared to accept.

Reference
Desjardins, R. (2008) ‘Researching the links between education and well-being’, European Journal of
Education, 43(1): 23–35.

CHAOS THEORY
The idea behind chaos theory is that the world is not always
predictable. Essentially, it puts paid to the idea that in research we
can predict an effect from a cause. The roots of chaos theory can be
related, arguably, to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle which was
developed in the 1920s and first published in 1927. The full
description is too long to be given here (Heisenberg’s 1958
monograph provides a first-hand account of his own ‘conception of
nature’) but essentially it can be summed up as: ‘If we try to
measure the movement of a particle we affect its position; if we try
to measure its exact position, we affect its future movement’. This
effectively ended the justification for any belief (prevalent in
Newton’s era) in a universe which is entirely predictable, determined
and determinable.
Chaos theory became popularised when scientists were studying
complex physical systems, i.e. systems with numerous variables
involved, such as the world’s weather (e.g. Gleick, 1988). It was
noticed that small changes in initial conditions (the starting point)
could sometimes result in major changes or huge differences in the
final outcomes. This led to the classic statement often found on the
Internet that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon Basin could
eventually lead to a thunderstorm in the USA. A more realistic way
of putting this is to say that weather systems are extremely complex
and although forecasters may identify the main initial conditions on
which they make their predictions, any small changes in these
starting points can result in very different outcomes.
We do not live in a social world which is mechanistic and
deterministic. Real, complex systems are non-linear and never fully
predictable. Populist interpretations of history present many
examples where a chain of events is unleashed from unlikely
beginnings: a crowd march on the Bastille and a wave of revolution
and war is set off in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe; Rosa
Parkes, an African American in the segregated South of the USA,
refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and triggers the
civil rights movement in that country; Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian
street vendor, in a moment of desperation sets himself alight and the
Arab Spring of 2011 begins. Chaos theory offers an appealing
metaphor for these kind of events and reminds us of the
unpredictability of phenomena; the small picture is worth studying
Another random document with
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 At 11 o’clock the Chief had his third meeting with Favre, after
which followed a conference with the King, at which Moltke and
Roon were also present.
In the evening I was called to the Chief, who had not appeared at
table, and who, it was understood, did not feel quite well. A narrow
stone winding stairs, which was distinguished with the title, “Escalier
particulier de M. le Baron,” led to a very elegantly furnished room,
where I found the Chancellor sitting on the sofa in his dressing gown.
Wednesday, September 21st.—As the Chief had recovered from
his indisposition, we had plenty to do, and though most of it cannot
be made public, I am now at liberty to quote the following passage
from my diary:—
“The imperial emigrants in London have established an organ, La
Situation, to represent their interests. Its contents are to be
reproduced in the newspapers we have founded in the eastern
districts of France, but the sources are to be so indicated as not to
identify us with the views therein expressed: i.e., it must be
understood that we are not endeavouring to promote the restoration
of the Emperor. Our object is merely to maintain the sense of
insecurity and discord between the various French parties, which are
all equally hostile to us. The retention of the imperial symbols and
formulas in despatches will prove of service in this respect;
otherwise Napoleon or a Republic is a matter of indifference to us.
We merely desire to utilise the existing chaos in France. The future
of that country does not concern us. It is the business of the French
themselves to shape it as best they can. It is only of importance to us
in so far as it affects our own interests, the furtherance of which must
be the guiding principle in politics generally.” Under instructions from
the Chief I telegraphed in the above sense to the principal officials at
Nancy and Hagenau.
 At tea some further particulars were given of the last conference
between the Chancellor and Jules Favre. Favre was, it seems,
informed that we could not communicate to him the exact conditions
of peace until they had been settled at a conference of the German
Powers engaged in the war. No arrangement could be come to,
however, without a cession of territory, as it was absolutely essential
to us to have a better frontier as security against French attack. The
conference turned less upon peace and its conditions than on the
nature of French concessions, in consideration of which we might
agree to an armistice. On the mention of a cession of territory Favre
became terribly excited, drew a deep sigh, raised his eyes to
heaven, and even shed some patriotic tears. The Chief does not
expect that he will return. Doubtless an answer in this sense has
been forwarded to the Crown Prince, who telegraphed this morning
to ask whether he should attend the negotiations.
Thursday, September 22nd, evening.—The French are
indefatigable in denouncing us to the world as cruel and destructive
barbarians; and the English press—particularly the Standard, which
is notoriously hostile to us—willingly lends them its assistance. The
grossest calumnies respecting our conduct towards the French
population and the prisoners in our hands are circulated almost daily
by that newspaper, and always purport to come either from eye-
witnesses or other well-informed sources. Thus, for instance, the
Duc de FitzJames recently drew a horrible picture of the
abominations of which we had been guilty in Bazeilles, adding the
assurance that he exaggerated nothing; and a M. L., who represents
himself to be a French officer whom we had captured at Sedan and
subjected to ill-treatment, complains in a lamentable tone of Prussian
inhumanity. Bernstorff sent the article in question to the Chief, with
the suggestion that the charges should be refuted. The complaint of
M. L. might, perhaps, be left to answer itself, but that of the Duke is
calculated to affect even those across the Channel who are disposed
in our favour. Besides, impudent calumny is always apt to leave
some traces behind it. A refutal of these shameful slanders is
accordingly being despatched to-day to certain London newspapers
that are friendly to us. As the greater part of this communication was
dictated by the Chief, it is worthy of special attention.
“In this war, as in every other, a great number of villages have
been burned down, mostly by artillery fire, German as well as
French. In these cases women and children who had sought refuge
in the cellars and had not escaped in time, lost their lives in the
flames. That was also the case in Bazeilles, which was several times
stormed by our infantry. The Duc de FitzJames is only an eye-
witness so far as the ruins of the village are concerned, which he
saw after the battle, just as thousands more saw and regretted its
fate. All the rest of his report is based on the stories of the
unfortunate and exasperated villagers. In a country where even the
Government has developed an unexampled talent for systematic
lying, it is not to be expected that angry peasants, standing on the
ruins of their homes, would bear truthful witness against their
enemies. It is established by official reports that the inhabitants of
Bazeilles, not in uniform but in their blouses and shirt-sleeves, fired
out of their windows at our troops and wounded soldiers, and that
they killed whole batches of the latter in their houses. It has been
likewise proved that women armed with knives and guns were guilty
of the greatest cruelty towards the fatally wounded, and that other
women, certainly not in the uniform of the National Guards, took part
in the fight with the male inhabitants, loading their rifles and even
firing themselves, and that, like the other combatants, some of them
were in these circumstances wounded or killed. Naturally these
particulars were not communicated to the Duc de FitzJames by his
informant. They would have fully excused the burning of the village
even if it had been done intentionally with the object of forcing the
enemy out of that position. But there is no evidence of any such
intention. That women and children were driven back into the fire is
one of those infamous lies with which the French terrorise the
population, and incite their hatred against us. In this way they cause
the peasants to fly on our approach. The latter return, however, as a
rule, a few days after the entrance of the Germans, and are
astounded to find that they are better treated by them than by the
French troops. When this sort of terrorism is not sufficient to force
the inhabitants to flight, the Government sends a mob of armed
civilians, sometimes supported by African troops, to drive the
peasants from their homes at the point of the sword, and to burn
down their houses as a punishment for their want of patriotism. The
letter of ‘an imprisoned officer’ (Bouillon, September 9th) also
contains more falsehood than truth. With respect to the treatment of
the prisoners, Germany can call 150,000 better witnesses than this
anonymous and mendacious officer, whose whole communication is
merely an expression of the vindictive disposition which will for a
long time to come inspire the vain and arrogant elements of the
French people, by whom, unfortunately, that country allows itself to
be ruled and led. From this spirit of revenge arises the certainty of
further attacks on the part of France, for which Germany must be
prepared. We are thus unquestionably compelled to think solely of
the security of our frontier in concluding peace. It is true, as stated in
the letter of this imprisoned officer, M. L., that there was a scarcity of
provisions after the surrender of Sedan, not only for the prisoners,
but also for the victors, who shared with them what they had. When
their own stock was exhausted the prisoners also had to do without.
L.’s complaint that he had been obliged to bivouac in the rain and
mud furnishes the best evidence that he is no officer, and has not
even followed the campaign up to that point. He is some hireling
scribe who has never left his own room, and one must therefore
assume that the man’s whole story of his imprisonment is an
invention; as, had he been an officer in the field, he would have
known that most of his comrades (that is certainly the case with the
Germans) have spent at least thirty nights out of the forty or so that
have elapsed since the beginning of the war under similar
conditions. When it rained in the night they had to lie in the rain, and
when the ground was muddy they had to lie in the mud. Only one
who had not followed the campaign could have any doubt or
manifest any surprise on that score. That M. L. prides himself on
having retained his leather purse is the clearest proof that he was
not plundered. There can hardly be a single soldier, who, if he
happens to have money, does not carry it just as M. L. carried his,
and in just such a purse; so that if our men had wanted his money,
they must have known very well where to find it. The few Germans
who fell into French hands can tell how quickly their opponents could
open a prisoner’s tunic, and if his purse was a little too firmly
fastened on, hack it off with their sabres or a knife, without paying
too much regard to his skin. We declare the assertions respecting
the ill-treatment of prisoners at Sedan to be wilful and audacious lies.
A great number of the French prisoners, perhaps one-fourth, were in
a state of bestial drunkenness, having during the last few hours
before the capitulation plundered the wine and brandy stores in the
town. It is obvious that it is not so easy to manage men in a state of
drunkenness as when they are sober, but such ill-treatment as the
article describes occurred neither at Sedan nor elsewhere, owing to
the discipline which prevails amongst the Prussian troops. It is well
known that this discipline has won the admiration of the French
officers themselves. Unfortunately one cannot speak as highly of the
French soldiers in this respect as with regard to their gallantry in
action. The French officers have on several occasions been unable
to prevent their men from murdering severely wounded soldiers,
even when individual officers of high rank endeavoured at the risk of
their own lives to defend the wounded, and that was not merely the
case with African regiments. It is known that the German prisoners
who were taken into Metz were spat upon and struck with sticks and
stones on their way through the streets, and on their release had to
run the gauntlet of a double line of African soldiers, who beat them
with canes and whips. We can prove these facts by official records,
which have more claim to credence than the anonymous letter of M.
L. But are such things to be wondered at when the newspapers of a
city like Paris, which now implores considerate treatment on the
hypocritical plea of civilisation, can propose, without eliciting the
slightest protest, that when the French troops are unable to take our
wounded with them they should split their heads open; and further,
that the Germans should be used like dead wolves to manure their
fields? The utter barbarism of the French nation, covered with a thin
veneer of culture, has been fully disclosed in this war. French
insolence formerly said, ‘Grattez le Russe et vous trouverez le
barbare.’ Whoever is in a position to compare the conduct of the
Russians towards their enemies in the Crimean War with that of the
French in the present campaign, can have no doubt that this
statement recoils upon its authors.”
When he had finished, the Minister added: “Write to Bernstorff
that I decline in future to notice any suggestion for entering into a
controversy with English newspapers. The Ambassador must act on
his own responsibility.”
Just as we sat down to table, one of the Court officials
announced that the Crown Prince proposed to come to dinner and to
stay for the night. The Prince’s secretary at the time asked that the
bureau and the large salon next the Chancellor’s room, should be
prepared for the five gentlemen who accompanied his Royal
Highness. The Chief replied, “We cannot give up the bureau, as we
want it for our work.” He then placed his dressing room at their
disposal, and further proposed that either Blumenthal or Eulenburg
should sleep in his bedroom. He required the salon for the reception
of the French negotiators and any Princes who might call upon him.
The Court official went off, pulling a long face, and was impertinent
enough to make some remarks in the corridor about “discourtesy”
and so forth.
Count Lehndorff dined with us, and the conversation was very
lively. Some allusion having been made to Frederick the Great’s
statue in Unter den Linden, which had been decorated with black,
red and yellow flags, the Minister condemned Wurmb for allowing
this controversy to be stirred up. “This stupid quarrel about the
colours should not have been reopened, and it once more proves
Wurmb’s incapacity. For me the question is settled and done with
since the North German flag has been adopted. Otherwise this battle
of colours is a matter of indifference to me. As far as I am concerned
they may be green, yellow, and all the colours of a fancy dress ball,
or they can take the banner of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Only the
Prussian soldier will have nothing to do with the black, red, and
yellow.”
The Chief then spoke of the peace, which he still considered
remote, adding: “If they (the French Government) go to Orleans, we
shall follow them there, and further—right down to the sea shore.”
He read out some telegrams, including one giving a list of the troops
in Paris. “There are supposed to be 180,000 men in all, but there are
hardly 60,000 real soldiers amongst them. The mobile and national
guards with their snuffboxes (a reference to their obsolete weapons)
are not to be reckoned as soldiers.”
I asked if I should telegraph about the report of artillery and rifle-
fire in the streets of Paris, which people fancied they had heard. He
said I was to do so. “But not yet, I suppose, about the negotiations
with Favre?” “Yes,” he replied, and then went on as follows: “First at
Haute-Maison, near Montry, then the same evening at Ferrières, and
next day a third conversation, but without effect, as regards the
armistice and the peace. Other French parties have also entered into
negotiations with us,” he said, and gave some indications from which
I gathered that he referred to the Empress Eugénie.
 Something else led him to speak of his skill in shooting. He said
that as a young man he could hit a sheet of paper with a pistol at a
hundred yards, and had shot off the heads of ducks in the pond.
He then mentioned that he had again complained to Treskow of
the “short commons at the Royal table,” at which Treskow pulled a
long face. “But if I am to work well I must have sufficient food. I
cannot make a proper peace if I do not get enough to eat and drink.
That’s a necessity of my trade, and therefore I prefer to dine at
home.”
The conversation then turned on the dead languages—I cannot
now say how. “When I was in the first class at the high school,” he
said, “I was able to write and speak Latin very well. I should now find
it extremely difficult; and I have quite forgotten Greek. I cannot
understand why people take so much trouble with these languages.
It must be merely because learned men do not wish to lessen the
value of what they have themselves so laboriously acquired.” I
ventured to remind him of the mental discipline thus provided. The
Chief replied, “Yes; but if you think Greek is a disciplina mentis, the
Russian language is far better in that respect. It might be introduced
instead of Greek—and it has immediate practical value in addition.”
We then spoke of the way in which the Schleswig-Holstein
question was treated by the Bundestag in the fifties. Count
Bismarck-Bohlen, who had come in in the meantime, remarked that
those debates must have been dull enough to send every one to
sleep. “Yes,” said the Chief, “in Frankfurt they slept over the
negotiations with their eyes open. Altogether it was a sleepy and
insipid crowd, and things only became endurable after I had added
the pepper.” He then told us a delightful story about Count Rechberg,
who was at that time Austrian Minister to the Bundestag. “On one
occasion he said something to me which I was obliged to answer
very roughly. He replied that unless I withdrew my words it would be
a case of going out on to the Bockenheimer Haide (a place where it
was customary to settle affairs of honour). ‘I never withdraw my
words,’ said I, carelessly, ‘so we must settle it in that way, and it
occurs to me that the garden down stairs would be a very suitable
place. But in order that people may not think that I represent my King
pistol in hand, without further ceremony I shall write down here the
cause of our quarrel. After you have read it over you will sign it, and
thus testify to its correctness. In the meantime there is one of our
officers lodging here who will oblige me, and you can choose one of
your own officers.’ I rang the bell and sent word to the officer,
requesting him to call upon me; and then went on writing while
Rechberg strode up and down the room—and gluck, gluck, gluck
(here the Minister mimicked the act of drinking) he swallowed one
glass of water after another. Of course not because he was afraid,
but because he was considering whether he ought not first to ask
permission of his Government. I quietly continued to write. The
officer came and said he would gladly oblige me. I begged him to
wait a moment. On my return Rechberg said he would think over the
matter until morning, to which I agreed. As I did not hear from him
next day, however, I sent the Mecklenburg Minister, old Oertzen, to
deliver a formal challenge. Oertzen was told he was not at home. He
went again next day, but Rechberg was still not to be seen. He had
evidently written to Vienna and was waiting for an answer. At length
Oertzen came to me after having spoken to him. Rechberg was
prepared to withdraw what he had said and offer an apology, either
in writing or verbally, just as I liked. He would also come to me if I
wished. I went to his place, however, and the affair was settled.”
I asked him then about the celebrated story of the cigars. “Which
do you mean?” “Why, about the cigar which you lit, Excellency, when
Rechberg was smoking in your presence.” “Thun, you mean. Yes,
that was very simple. I went to him while he was at work, and he was
smoking. He begged me to excuse him for a moment. I waited a
while and finding it rather slow, as he did not offer me a cigar, I took
one of my own and asked him for a light—which he gave me with
rather a surprised look. But I have another story of the same kind. At
the sittings of the Military Commission, when Rochow represented
Prussia at the Bundestag, Austria was the only one who smoked.
Rochow, who was passionately addicted to smoking, would gladly
have done the same, but had not sufficient confidence. When I came
I also felt a longing for a cigar, and as I could not see why I should
deny myself I begged the presiding power to give me a light,
apparently much to his and the other gentlemen’s astonishment and
displeasure. It was evidently an event for them all. For the time being
only Austria and Prussia smoked. But the remaining gentlemen
obviously considered the matter of so much importance that they
wrote home for instructions as to how they were to act in the
circumstances. The authorities were in no hurry. The affair was one
that demanded careful consideration, and for nearly six months the
two great Powers smoked alone. Then Schrenkh, the Bavarian
Minister, began to assert the dignity of his office by lighting his weed.
Nostitz, the Saxon, had certainly a great desire to do the same, but
had probably not yet received the permission of his Minister. On
seeing Bothmer, of Hanover, however, allow himself that liberty,
Nostitz, who was strongly Austrian in his sympathies, having sons in
the Austrian army, must have come to an understanding with
Rechberg, with the result that he too at the next sitting pulled out his
cigar case and puffed away with the rest. Only the representatives of
Würtemberg and Darmstadt now remained, and they were non-
smokers. The honour and dignity of their States, however,
imperiously demanded that they should follow suit, and so as a
matter of fact the Würtemberger pulled out a cigar at the next sitting
—I can still see it in my mind’s eye, a long, thin, yellow thing of the
colour of rye straw—and smoked at least half of it as a burnt-offering
on the altar of patriotism. Hesse-Darmstadt was the only one who
finally refrained—probably conscious that he was not strong enough
to enter into rivalry with the others.”[9]
 Friday, September 23rd.—Beautiful weather this morning. I took a
walk in the park before the Chief got up. On my return I met Keudell,
who called out “War! A letter from Favre rejecting our demands. The
Chief has given instructions to communicate the letter to the press
with certain comments, hinting that the present occupant of
Wilhelmshöhe is after all not so bad and might be of use to us.”
The conversation afterwards turned on Pomeranian affairs, and
the Chief spoke amongst other things of the great estate of
Schmoldin. The former proprietor had become bankrupt through
treating the people on the estate—mostly Slav fishermen and sailors
—with too much consideration. The place, which consisted of about
8,000 acres of arable land, and 12,000 to 16,000 acres of forest and
downs, worth at least 200,000 thalers, was purchased by the Royal
Treasury for 80,000 thalers. The change of proprietors had not
benefited the tenants, as there was no question of forbearance or
abatements. Many of them have fallen into a state of pauperism, and
instead of being provided for by the Royal Treasury, they have
become a burden on the local authorities. That is not as it ought to
be. It was believed that Obstfelder was to blame for this hard and
unfair treatment.
Saturday, September 24th.—The Minister spoke at dinner about
the ostentatious decorations of the great hall of the château, which
he had now seen for the first time. Amongst other things it contains a
throne or table which some French marshal or general inadvertently
packed up with his baggage somewhere in China, or Cochin China,
and afterwards sold to our Baron. The Chief’s verdict was:—“All
extremely costly, but not particularly beautiful, and still less
comfortable.” He then continued:—“A ready-made property like this
would not give me any genuine satisfaction. It was made by others,
and not by myself. True, there are many things in it really beautiful,
but one misses the pleasure of creating and altering. It is also quite a
different thing when I have to ask myself if I can afford to spend five
or ten thousand thalers on this or that improvement, and when there
is no need to think about the cost. In the end it must become
tiresome to have always enough and more than enough.”
In an article written this evening we returned to our good friends
the French Ultramontanes, who are as active in war as they had
been in peace in opposing the German cause, inciting people
against us, circulating lies about us in the newspapers, and even
leading the peasants to take up arms against our troops, as at
Beaumont and Bazeilles.
Sunday, September 25th.—At table we somehow came to
discuss the Jews. “They have no real home,” said the Chief. “They
are international—Europeans, cosmopolitans, nomads. Their
fatherland is Zion, Jerusalem. Otherwise they are citizens of the
whole world, and hold together everywhere. There are amongst
them some good, honest people, as for instance one at our own
place in Pomerania, who traded in hides and such things. Business
cannot have prospered with him, as he became bankrupt. He
begged of me not to press my claim, and promised that he would
pay by instalments, when he could. Yielding to my old habit, I
agreed, and he actually paid off the debt. I received instalments from
him while I was still in Frankfurt as Minister to the Bundestag, and I
believe that if I lost anything at all, I must have lost less than his
other creditors. Certainly not many such Jews are to be met with in
our large towns. They have also their own special virtues. They are
credited with respect for their parents, faithfulness in marriage, and
benevolence.”
Monday, September 26th.—In the morning wrote various
paragraphs for the press on the following theme: It is urged that we
cannot be allowed to bombard Paris, with its numerous museums,
beautiful public buildings and monuments; that to do so would be a
crime against civilisation. But why not? Paris is a fortress, and if it
has been filled with treasures of art, if it possesses magnificent
palaces and other beautiful structures, that does not alter this
character. A fortress is an instrument for warlike operations which
must be rendered powerless without regard to whatever else may be
bound up with it. If the French wanted to preserve their monuments
and collections of books and pictures from the dangers of war they
should not have surrounded them with fortifications. Besides, the
French themselves did not hesitate for a moment to bombard Rome,
which contained monuments of far greater value, the destruction of
which would be an irretrievable loss. Also sent off an article on the
bellicose tendencies of the French Radicals previous to the
declaration of war, for use in our newspapers in Alsace.
At dinner, as we were discussing military matters, the Chief
declared, inter alia, that the uhlans were the best cavalry. The lance
gave the men great self-confidence. It was urged that it was a
hindrance in getting through underwood, but that was a mistake. On
the contrary, the lance was useful in moving aside the branches. He
knew that from experience, as, although he first served in the rifles,
he was afterwards in the Landwehr cavalry. The abolition of the
lance in the entire mounted Landwehr was a blunder. The curved
sabre was not much use, particularly as it was often blunt. The
straight thrusting sword was much more practical.
After dinner a letter was received from Favre, in which he
requested, first, that notice should be given of the commencement of
the bombardment of Paris, in order that the diplomatic corps might
remove; and, second, that the city should be permitted to remain in
communication with the outer world by letter. Abeken said, as he
brought the letter down from the Chief’s room, that the answer would
be sent by way of Brussels. “But then the letter will arrive late or not
at all, and be returned to us,” observed Keudell. “Well, that does not
matter,” answered Abeken. From the further conversation it appears
that the answer agrees to the French proposals under certain
conditions.
 In the evening I was again called to the Chief on several
occasions to take instructions. Amongst other things, I ascertained
that, “while Favre’s report respecting his interviews with the
Chancellor shows, it is true, a desire to give a faithful account of
what passed, it is not quite accurate, which is not surprising in the
circumstances, especially as there were three different meetings.” In
his statement the question of an armistice occupies a secondary
position, whereas, in fact, it was the chief point. Favre was prepared
to pay a considerable cash indemnity. In the matter of a truce two
alternatives were discussed. First, the surrender to us of a portion of
the fortifications of Paris, namely, at a point which would give us the
command of the city, we on our part to allow free communication
with the outer world. The second was that we should forego that
condition, but that Strassburg and Toul should be surrendered to us.
We put forward the latter demand because the retention of these
towns in the hands of the French increases our difficulties of
commissariat transport. The Chancellor stated that with respect to a
cession of territory, he could only disclose its extent and frontiers
when our demand had been accepted in principle. On Favre
requesting to have at least an indication of what we proposed in this
respect, he was informed that for our security in the future we
required Strassburg, “the key of our house,” the departments of the
Upper and Lower Rhine, Metz, and a portion of the Moselle
department. The object of the armistice was to submit the question
of peace to a National Assembly to be summoned for the purpose.
Again called to the Chief. “The King wishes to see some of the
newspapers, and he desires to have the most important passages
marked. I have proposed Brass to him, and when the papers come,
put that one (the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) always aside for
him.” He added, smiling, “Just mark some places for the sake of
appearances, it does not much matter what, and send me up the
paper.”
 At tea we hear a great piece of news:—the Italians have
occupied Rome, the Pope and the diplomatists remaining in the
Vatican.
Tuesday, September 27th.—Bölsing, on the Chief’s instructions,
shows me the answer to Favre’s letter, which the Minister has
rewritten in a shorter and more positive form. It says, 1. It is not
usual in war to announce the commencement of an attack; 2. A
besieged fortress does not appear to be a suitable residence for
diplomatists; open letters containing nothing objectionable will be
allowed to pass. It is hoped that the corps diplomatique will agree
with this view of the matter. They can go to Tours, whither it would
appear the French Government also intends to remove. The answer
is written in German, a course already begun by Bernstorff, but
which was carried out more consistently by Bismarck. “Formerly,”
said Bölsing, “most of the Secretaries in the Foreign Office belonged
to the French colony, of which Roland and Delacroix still remain.
Almost all the Councillors also wrote in that language. Even the
register of the despatches was kept in French, and the Ambassadors
usually reported in that language.” Now the speech of the “vile Gaul,”
as Count Bohlen calls the French, is only used in exceptional cases,
that is, in communicating with Governments and Ambassadors to
whom we cannot write or reply in their mother tongue. The registers
have for years past been kept in German.
The Chief has been at work since 8 o’clock in the morning—
unusually early for him. He has again been unable to sleep.
Prince Radziwill and Knobelsdorff, of the general staff, joined us
at dinner. In speaking of that part of Favre’s report in which he says
that he wept, the Minister thinks he can only have pretended to do
so. “It is true,” he said, “that he looked as if he had done so, and I
tried to some extent to console him. On my observing him more
closely, however, I felt quite certain that he had not succeeded in
squeezing out a single tear. It was all merely a piece of acting on his
part. He thought to work upon me in the same manner as a Parisian
lawyer tries to move a jury. I am perfectly convinced that he was
painted at Ferrières—particularly at the second interview. That
morning he looked much greyer and quite green under the eyes—I
am prepared to bet that it was paint—grey and green, to give himself
an appearance of deep suffering. It is, of course, possible that he
was deeply affected; but then he can be no politician or he would
know that pity has nothing to do with politics.” After a while the
Minister added: “When I hinted something about Strassburg and
Metz, he assumed a look as if he thought I was jesting. I could have
given him, the answer which the great fur dealer of Unter den Linden
in Berlin once gave me. I went there to choose a fur coat, and on his
naming a very high price for one to which I had taken a fancy, I said,
‘Surely you are joking.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I never make jokes in
business.’”
The conversation then turned upon the occupation of Rome and
the Pope’s position in the Vatican, on which point the Chief said,
amongst other things: “He must remain a Sovereign. The only
question is, how? It would be possible to do more for him if the
Ultramontanes were not so much opposed to us everywhere. I am
accustomed to pay people back in their own coin. I should like to
know how our Harry (von Arnim, the North German Ambassador to
the Holy See) now feels. Probably, like his reports, his feelings
change three times within the twenty-four hours. He is really too
distinguished an Ambassador for such a small Sovereign. The Pope,
however, is not merely the ruler of the Papal States, he is also the
head of the Catholic Church.”
After dinner, just as we had finished our coffee, the American
general, Burnside, who had called whilst we were at table, presented
himself again, accompanied by an elderly gentleman who wore a red
woollen shirt and a paper collar. The general, a rather tall, portly
gentleman, with thick, bushy eyebrows, and an exceptionally fine set
of beautifully white teeth and close-cut, mutton-chop whiskers, might
pass for an elderly Prussian major in plain clothes. The Chief sat
with him on the sofa, and had a lively conversation in English over a
couple of glasses of kirschwasser, which were afterwards
replenished. Prince Radziwill, in the meantime, had a talk with the
general’s companion.
After the Minister had observed to his visitor that he had come
rather late to see the fighting, he went on to say that in July we had
not the least desire for war, and that when we were surprised by the
declaration of hostilities, no one, neither the King nor the people, had
thought of any conquests. Our army was an excellent one for a war
of defence, but it would be difficult to use it for schemes of
aggrandisement, because with us the army was the people itself,
which did not lust after glory, as it required and wished for peace. But
for that very reason both popular sentiment and the press now
demanded a better frontier. For the sake of the maintenance of
peace we must secure ourselves in future against attack from a
vainglorious and covetous nation, and that security could only be
found in a better defensive position than we had hitherto had.
Burnside seemed inclined to agree, and he praised very highly our
excellent organisation and the gallantry of our troops.
Wednesday, September 28th.—The general conversation at
dinner gradually adopted a more serious tone. The Chancellor began
by complaining that Voigts-Rhetz in his report had not said a single
word about the gallant charge of the two regiments of dragoon
guards at Mars la Tour, which nevertheless he himself had ordered,
and which had saved the 10th Army Corps. “It was necessary—I
grant that; but then it ought not to have been passed over in silence.”
The Minister then began a lengthy speech, which ultimately
assumed the character of a dialogue between himself and Katt.
Pointing to a spot of grease on the table-cloth, the Chief remarked:
“Just in the same way as that spot spreads and spreads, so the
feeling that it is beautiful to die for one’s country and honour, even
without recognition, sinks deeper into the skin of the people now that
it has been bathed in blood—it spreads wider and wider.... Yes, yes,
the non-commissioned officer has the same views and the same
sense of duty as the lieutenant and the colonel—with us Germans.
That feeling in general goes very deep through all classes of the
nation.... The French are a mass that can easily be brought under
one influence, and then they produce a great effect. Amongst our
people everybody has his own opinion. But when once a large
number of Germans come to hold the same opinion, great things can
be done with them. If they were all agreed they would be all-
powerful.... The French have not that sense of duty which enables a
man to allow himself to be shot dead alone in the dark. And that
comes from the remnant of faith which still abides in our people; it
comes from the knowledge that there is Someone there Who sees
me even if my lieutenant does not see me.”
“Do you believe that the soldiers reflect on such things,
Excellency?” asked Fürstenstein.
“‘Reflect?’ no. It is a feeling—a frame of mind; an instinct, if you
like. When once they reflect they lose that feeling; they argue
themselves out of it.... I cannot conceive how men can live together
in an orderly manner, how one can do his duty and allow others to do
theirs without faith in a revealed religion, in God, Who wills what is
right, in a higher Judge and a future life.”
The Grand Duke of Weimar was announced. But the Minister
continued, it might well be for a quarter of an hour longer, at times
suddenly departing from his proper theme, and frequently repeating
the same idea in other words: “If I were no longer a Christian I would
not serve the King another hour.
“If I did not put my trust in God I should certainly place none in
any earthly masters. Why, I had quite enough to live on, and had a
sufficiently distinguished position. Why should I labour and toil
unceasingly in this world, and expose myself to worry and vexation if
I did not feel that I must do my duty towards God?[10] If I did not
believe in a Divine Providence which has ordained this German
nation to something good and great, I would at once give up my
trade as a Statesman or I should never have gone into the business.
Orders and titles have no attraction for me. A resolute faith in a life
after death—for that reason I am a Royalist, otherwise I am by
nature a Republican. Yes, I am a Republican in the highest degree;
and the firm determination which I have displayed for ten long years
in presence of all possible forms of absurdity at Court is solely due to
my resolute faith. Deprive me of this faith and you deprive me of my
fatherland. If I were not a firm believer in Christianity, if I had not the
wonderful basis of religion, you would never have had such a
Chancellor of the Confederation. If I had not the wonderful basis of
religion I should have turned my back to the whole Court—and if you
are able to find me a successor who has that basis I will retire at
once. But I am living amongst heathens. I do not want to make any
proselytes, but I feel a necessity to confess this faith.”
Katt said that the ancients had also shown much self-sacrifice
and devotion. They also had the love of country, which had spurred
them on to great deeds. He was convinced that many people
nowadays acted in the same way through devotion to the State, and
a sense of duty to society.
The Chief replied that this self-sacrifice and devotion to duty
towards the State and the King amongst us was merely a remnant of
the faith of our fathers and grandfathers in an altered form,—“more
confused, and yet active, no longer faith, but nevertheless faithful.”
“How willingly would I go away! I enjoy country life, the woods and
nature. Sever my connection with God and I am a man who would
pack up to-morrow and be off to Varzin, and say ‘Kiss my ——,’ and
cultivate his oats. You would then deprive me of my King, because
why?—if there is no Divine commandment, why should I subordinate
myself to these Hohenzollerns? They are a Suabian family, no better
than my own, and in that case no concern of mine. Why, I should be
worse than Jacoby, who might then be accepted as President or
even as King. He would be in many ways more sensible, and at all
events cheaper.”
Keudell told me this evening that the Chief had already, while
standing outside the château, several times expressed himself in a
similar manner.
After dinner the Chancellor received in his own salon the Grand
Duke of Weimar, as also Reynier, and subsequently Burnside and
his companion of the day before.
Thursday, September 29th.—In the morning wrote articles on the
folly of certain German newspapers that warned us against laying
claim to Metz and the surrounding district because the inhabitants
spoke French, and on Ducrot’s unpardonable escape during the
transport of prisoners to Germany. The second article was also sent
to England.
The newspapers contain a report on the prevailing public
sentiment in Bavaria, which evidently comes from a thoroughly
reliable and highly competent source.[11] We are accordingly to note
the principal points contained therein. The news given in the report is
for the most part satisfactory—in some particulars only is it possible
to wish it were better. The idea of German unity has evidently been
strengthened and extended by the war, but the specific Bavarian
amour propre has also increased. The part taken by the army in the
victories of the German forces at Wörth and Sedan, as well as the
severe losses which it has suffered, has not failed to excite
enthusiasm throughout all classes of the population, and to fill them
with pride at the achievements of their countrymen. They are
convinced that their King sincerely desires the victory of the German