North, Scott

To explore differences and similarities in how history and sociology have each taken a “cultural turn” this paper compares the methods employed by a historian and a sociologist to study the emergence of working class cultures in Britain and Germany. Although they share the same subject matter, Richard Biernacki’s The Fabrication of Labor : Gernamy and Britain １６４０‐１９１４ and E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class, exhibit important differences in their approaches to the topic. These are manifest in the choices each made in the formulation of their research problems, the cases and data they selected, their units of analysis, and the key variables and conceptual constructs deployed. I account for these differences by looking to the extent to which concern for theory mediated the relationship between each writer and his subject, paying particular attention to methodological differences that arise out of each author’s scholarly passions, perceived place in the relations of knowledge production, and attachment to particular schools of thought

Osaka University Knowledge Archive

Made or Fabricated? Methods of Social Science and Understandings of Working Class Culture

http://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11094/3543/1/hs30-04.pdf

Made or Fabricated? Methods of Social Science and Understandings of Working Class Culture

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Osaka University Knowledge Archive