Review concerning methodology in Outsiders
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Becker, Howard. OUTSIDERS: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. Free Press, 1966, 215 pp.
Through discussion over the complex process and meaning of becoming an outsider, Becker creatively applied the interactionist approach to his study of deviance in this book. He brought up an alternative vision of sociological study by re-allocating deviance simply as a kind of behaviour for study, rather than something special. Following this intuition, his methodology in case study is also worth learning from. This book review will firstly give an overall observation of the content and ontology, followed by specific evaluation of his method of interview and participant observation. Ethical issues will be discussed finally.
The book is written in a rather clear and simple way. Chapters and sections are consistent in logic and well-structured, while clear interpretation under each set of conversational data and summary of each section are given. After introducing the double-barrelled term ‘Outsiders’, Becker starts with setting deviance as a consequence of the process of interaction between people, rather than certain traits of an act a person commits. The conception of ‘career’ to develop the sequential model of deviant study and to re-address the processing property of deviant act. Methodology is generally discussed in Chapter 9 and 10. By pointing out the lack of direct observation, of awareness of the variety of deviant behaviour, and some ethical discussion in study of deviance, Chapter 9 highlights the importance of close contact in deviant study. Finally, Becker reconsiders labelling theory, raises up the applicability of interactionist approach, and concludes deviance as a collective action. Two equation in the process of deviance are studied one after the other. Qualitative study of deviant groups is presented from Chapter 3 to 6 before reaching to journal-and-official-based discussion of deviance as the result of enterprise in Chapter 7 and 8, which contributes to provide alternative perspective to deviant study.
In the case of marihuana user, Becker identified three sub-categories of user and interviewed them by range. He also conducted analytic induction by continuously re-evaluating understanding of the phenomenon in interview and refining the questions. These methods enabled the research to approach to saturation (Small, 2009). For another, case selection was not random. The data with limited volume could not be overly decoded as providing general meaning in study of drug use, as Becker pointed out. However, through taking this deliberate method as a way to generate a set of cases with particular characteristics and to develop our understanding (Small, 2009), a new understanding would be highlighted that social relation and participation in group were the underlying understanding of the phenomenon, instead of psychological explanations. Becker’s biography enabled him to take close contact with his sample, and to get more accurate descriptions of the meanings (Becker, 1996, p. 58). He mainly sampled from the deviant group who had already built up certain familiarity with him through working in music business (Becker, 1966, p.45; p.84).
Becker went through fifty interviews, and concluded that becoming a certain level of marihuana user is a sequential process, in which social interaction significantly act both as booster and control. The method of interview in this case provided the interviewees with certain isolation from actual situation when referring to their ‘abnormal’ behaviours, which enabled them to ignore the forcefulness of actual situation, and to provide narrative with possibly higher trueness (Becker, 1996). The emotional dimension in the process and accuracy in interpretation were also reserved, as Becker tried to keep the language flow and especially, the original jargons used by the speakers, in presenting his data. However, narrative of interviewees contained certain instability and vagueness in meaning making (Becker, 1996). Becker used questions, e.g. ‘You were frightened?’ (p. 54) to clarify meanings in narrative. However, misinterpretation would always happen, as the interpreters did not live in the circumstances of the interpreted (Baker, 1996).
These features were also shared in the study of dance musician in Chapter 5 and 6, and could be evaluated in a similar way. However, Becker took a slightly different style of qualitative research, participant observation, to study the culture of dance musicians. Also focusing on listening to ordinary conversations, this method relatively overcame the ‘attitude-behaviour discrepency’ (Jerolmack and Khan, 2014) and ‘attitudinal fallacy’ (et al.), as the conversation took place in every-day life of musicians, in which accounts and actions were in an interactive context. This method presented higher intensity and continuous participation with deviants, and less often induced self-protection strategies compared to interview, which echoed with methodological requirements mentioned in Chapter 9. With this method, professional musicians were found in conflicts with those adding outside pressure to their free self-expression, and had to participate in appropriate ‘cliques’ to achieve their career success. Even if not directly discussing the advantages of qualitative method, Becker implicitly argued the advantages through qualitatively generating new understanding of deviant act in the book. However, Becker failed to conduct direct observation on musicians’ acts in everyday life, which still led to certain misinterpretation. The time-consuming and complex nature of qualitative method was also mentioned. In addition, the research might provide more interesting points if Becker could add newer data to his research, instead of relying on those acquired almost 10 years before publishing the book.
Becker generally discussed several ethical issues in Chapter 9. Importance of safety after coming into light was revealed in case study, as Becker hid the names of places, interviewees, people in conversation, and people mentioned when presenting data. Thus, bodily safety, especially for marihuana users, and conventional social image of the sampled, were protected. However, this also added uncertainty to the authenticity of data, as we had no access to the original data Becker studied (Inckle, 2015). Moreover, Becker had argued that the personal safety of researcher in the situation of deviance was also important, though he failed to give a deeper discuss about this.
References
Becker, H. (1966). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. 1st ed. London: Free Press.
Becker, H. (1996). The Epistemology of Qualitative Research. Ethnography and Human Development, pp.53-70.
Inckle, K. (2015). Promises, Promises... Lessons in Research Ethics from the Belfast Project and 'The Rape Tape' Case. Sociological Research Online 20(1). [online] Available at: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/20/1/6.html [Accessed 30 Oct. 2017].
Jerolmack, C. and Khan, S. (2014). Talk is Cheap: Ethnography and the Attitudinal Fallacy. Sociological Methods & Research 43(2), pp.178-209.
Lamont, M. and Swidler, A. (2014). Methodological Pluralism and the Possibilities and Limits of Interviewing. Qualitative Sociology 37(2), pp.153-171.
Small, M. (2009). How Many Cases Do I Need? On the Science and Logic of Case Selection in Field-Based Research. Ethnography 10, pp.5-38.
