Monday, February 16, 2004
Research methods and class divisions
A friend accused me of having unhealthy, umbilical-cord-like attachment to the internet as a source of information. To my critic I say Bite Me, and go read this: "In the beginning -- before Google -- a darkness was upon the land." (via The Perfect World). The discussion of agents is interesting.
These days, though, my research begins with JStor as often as it does with Google. I heart JStor, and a JStor agent would please me beyond belief if it worked. Except I'd need to find time to read the papers it returned along with everything else I'm reading.
Like this piece on class divisions in Britain. (via Casino Avenue) This bit jumped out at me :
Danny Dorling said New Labour's attempts to direct benefits to the poorest have had an effect at the margins, but 'if you were looking at the UK from Mars and all you had was the census data to go on, you wouldn't be able to spot that we had a change of government in 1997'.It tied in neatly with a professorial aside this morning in Planning Theory, on the problems with Incrementalism, two of which are that it favours the powerful and reinforces inertia. Someone asked if that meant it was convservative:"small-c conservative, yes, not necessarily the Conservative party. In my view Mr. Blair does quite a good job [of being conservative] without actually being in the Conservative party." Then we went on to discuss mistakes Thatcher made in use of planning methods, since it's politically safer to criticise her.
