Recent Tendencies in the Field of the Social Methodologies

Abstract

The author analyzes the elements which have given rise to the emergence of a research style known as qualitative, which is interested in the hidden aspects of daily life, as well as in the methods and techniques that analyze the way in which individuals see and think, their words and images and the forms in which they narrate their traditions and customs. The author begins with the first debates during the seventies, which define the qualitative methods in contrast to the quantitative ones. Along with many other authors, she concludes that the validity of the latter does not oppose the former, except in their specificity, and they are complementary. Finally, the author underlines the multidisciplinary aspects of these methods, which use as its main heuristic analysis tools: oral history, ethnography, profound hermeneutics, communication theories, testimonial literature, the biographical approach and speech analysis.

Keywords

• metodologías sociales, pluralismo teórico, amalgama conceptual, fusión instrumental