Social Sciences in China Review

No.4, 2018

Reflection on the Dilemma of Qualitative Research: An Analysis Based on Research Method Education (Abstract)

Wu Suran, Yan Yuteng and Song Chunhui

Regarding the methodological and practical dilemma of qualitative research, an interpretation from the perspective of research method education may provide an alternative resolution. Since the reconstruction of the sociology discipline in the 1980s, the research method education in Chinese mainland, developing from scratch, has made important contributions to talent cultivation and the development of sociology in the past 40 years. However, the “research method education” in undergraduate courses in China has had a clear picture of American quantitative positivism since the discipline’s reconstruction. Its conceptual framework and methodological discourse have profoundly influenced contemporary Chinese sociology, and this anchors both the status and the dilemma of quantitative research, qualitative research and theoretical research in the subject knowledge system. Paying more attention on textbook compilation, adjusting curriculums, and promoting the common prosperity of both quantitative and qualitative studies should become the priority of the development for sociological research methodology in China.