Hiding in Plain Sight: Social Work-Specific Research Methods and the Chicago School of Sociology

Rationale and Overview

Social work as an academic discipline has struggled to develop research methods and methodologies that are specific to social work. Hiding in plain sight are research methods that originated within the Chicago School of Sociology of the first third of the twentieth century and that have undergone further development ever since in such disciplines as sociology and nursing. Social work has not been part of the methodological developments that early social workers helped originate. Members of the Hull House Settlement were early contributors to the Chicago School not only in terms of understanding social problems and crafting policies and programs, but also in terms of research methods and methodologies that later became known as grounded theory, deductive qualitative analysis, and fieldwork.

The purposes of this workshop are to provide background on the methods and methodologies of the Chicago School of Sociology and to give workshop participants opportunities to apply them to their own research.

Learning Objectives

Workshop participants will 1. Examine the contributions that social workers made to the Chicago School of Sociology; 2. Learn the methodological principles associated with the Chicago School of Sociology, such as such as person-environment interactions, understanding other persons in their own terms, multiple perspectives, research based on values, researcher reflexivity, and immersion in field settings; 3. Consider the similarities and differences between these principles and the characteristics of social work as a discipline; 4. Have opportunities to reflect upon, write about, and discuss how the methods and methodologies associated with the Chicago School might apply to their own research projects; and 5. Chart directions for further examination of the applications of Chicago School methods and methodologies to social work research.

Format

Didactic Presentation (35 minutes). The workshop leader, who has done research based on Chicago School traditions for more than 35 years, will present the methodological principles and methods associated with the Chicago School of Sociology and that are present today in grounded theory, deductive qualitative analysis, and field methods.

Reflection Panel (20 minutes). The reflection panel will be composed of three persons who will be volunteers from the audience. With the guidance of the workshop leader, the participants will talk about how the methodologies and methods presented in the first part of the workshop apply or do not apply to their own research. The workshop leader will guide the reflection panel to stay focused, but the discussion will be free flowing, so that a diversity of creative views can surface.

Reflection and Writing (10 minutes). Members of the audience will reflect upon and write their responses to the didactic presentation and the reflection panel with an emphasis on how the methods and methodologies apply to their own research.

Audience Response (20 minutes). In this phase, the workshop leader will invite reflections from the general audience.

Wrap-Up (5 minutes) The workshop leader will summarize the main learnings from the workshop and make suggestions about next steps participants can take in the applications of workshop learnings.