The British Journal of Sociology
Volume 49 No. 1 March l998
Pages 1-19
Abstract
This article exposes the developments of qualitative methodology in French sociology with respect to methods proposed by Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine:'provoked and accompanied' self-analysis and the sociological intervention. In addition to the presentation of these two methods, the propose of this article is to describe and discuss the position of these two authors on certain problems such as representativeness, objectivity, status of data, epistemological rupture and lastly on the question of the writing by which sociological knowledge is formed from common sense knowledge contained in the data. This brings to a broader discussion on these questions. The strengths and weaknesses of these two methods are finally examined.
Keywords: Qualitative methodology, common sense, explanation, Bourdieu, Touraine
Jacques Hamel
Departement de sociologie
Universite de Montreal