46. Qualitative Methods

Hillel David Soifer, Bates College, hsoifer@bates.edu
Craig W. Thomas, University of Washington, thomasc@u.washington.edu

The Qualitative Methods section is uniquely suited to address categories and global inequalities, the overall theme of the 2008 APSA conference. We therefore welcome proposals that address questions such as the following. What strategies of concept formation should we use to categorize and differentiate ideas, people, institutions, and nations? What are the most appropriate methods for understanding the causes and consequences of these categorical distinctions, both for the social world and for our study of it? How can we understand these phenomena from positive, interpretive, and critical perspectives? How do social hierarchies and inequalities impinge on the generalizability of concepts or causal phenomena?

As always, this section welcomes proposals for panels and papers that span the breadth of qualitative methods, regardless of their relationship to the conference theme. This includes, but is not limited to, concept formation, measurement, within-case analysis, comparative methods, historical methods, field research, interpretive methods, and the logic of inquiry. In addition, we encourage proposals that offer mixed methods (both qualitative and quantitative), apply or extend methods in novel ways, or bridge disciplines.