The dialectic of the general and particular in social science research and teaching

In: Historical social research: HSR-Retrospective (HSR-Retro) = Historische Sozialforschung, Band 28, Heft 4, S. 203-213

Abstract

"Cross-Cultural Research Methods" pretends to be a primer on the "how to" of conducting cross-cultural research, but focuses only on quantitative methods that use secondary data in the service of generating knowledge. The book is caught twice in the dialectic of the general and the specific, by putting all its eggs into the former basket and failing to recognize the role of the latter both in research itself and in the teaching of research methods to its readers. Because I know that the students in my graduate research methods course would fail to appreciate the book, I would neither select nor recommend it to others as a resource in teaching (quantitative) research methods or research designs courses.