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Those advocating mixed methods research have long believed that ethnographic methods can strengthen quantitative data. This paper explores some practical and philosophical issues through considering a study that seeks to explain differences in detention rates between children’s courts in three Australian states (Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales), primarily through observing sentencing hearings. It starts by considering whether the lower rate in Victoria indicates that magistrates are more lenient or, alternatively, that young people commit fewer offences in this state. The paper demonstrates, through comparing cases with similar features, that Victoria is more tolerant. Qualitative research can also suggest ways of developing a quantitative analysis by identifying significant potential differences within states and between decision makers. The paper also considers the strengths and limitations of court culture as an explanatory causal variable, and the alternative approach to comparison suggested by the interpretive tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comment considers the prospects for qualitative research in criminology by considering four recent texts: Bartels and Richards (2011), Westmarland (2011), Copes (2012), and Gadd, Karstedt and Messner (2012). Together they indicate a growing interest in qualitative methods, and even an emerging movement or sub-field. There is still, however, a tendency to present qualitative methods in one-dimensional terms as equivalent to the fieldwork tradition in anthropology and symbolic interactionism, without appreciating the value of discourse analysis as a means of collecting a different type of qualitative data, or the distinctive nature of different theoretical traditions. In addition, most texts see qualitative and quantitative research as complementary. It may be difficult to achieve a rapprochement or synthesis through combining or mixing methods, since qualitative and quantitative researchers, when pursuing scientific objectives, ask different questions and follow distinctive logics of explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts the assumptions and methods used by quantitative criminologists with the approach to comparison pursued by the interpretive tradition in sociology. Whereas quantitative studies tend to conceal distinctive legislative or institutional responses in particular countries, interpretive studies make it possible to address internal debates about policy issues, as well as how practitioners exercise professional judgement. The paper considers a variety of ways in which the interpretive traditions of symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology have approached comparison. It also considers the conceptual and practical issues that might arise in conducting a qualitative comparative study about juvenile justice within East Asia focusing on Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Whereas quantitative studies tend to ask questions that interest Western researchers, interpretivism makes possible a dialogue between countries that have different institutions, philosophies and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A driving force behind the establishment of a qualitative data archive in the United Kingdom has been the oral historian, Paul Thompson. He has complained that there is a `strange silence' among qualitative sociologists on re-analysis, and that many have been reluctant to deposit data. The first part of the paper suggests that the common ethical and practical objections can be overcome in establishing an archive in Australia. However, there is a more serious underlying ideological objection: that archiving promotes and institutionalises a narrow empiricist version of qualitative research. The rest of the paper makes this case by examining teaching materials on a British website, by reviewing Thompson's arguments, and by considering some examples of re-analysis by sociologists. It is argued that qualitative researchers should respond critically, but that it is possible to address and overcome these problems when developing an Australian archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative research has to market itself aggressively, both because academic publishers face more pressures to sell books, and because of the competitive funding climate where one often has to demonstrate methodological innovation as a condition for obtaining a grant. This article considers how social theorists have understood the issue of 'newness' and the pursuit of innovation as a cultural problem. It explores the issue in qualitative research through examining how we accomplish and recognize 'newness' in the texts we read and produce as academics, which include publisher's catalogues and grant applications, and through considering technological advances such as internet ethnography and video analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores some implications of interpretive philosophies of social science, developed by thinkers such as Max Weber and Peter Winch, for conducting comparative research in criminal justice. These address the meaningful character of human activities but, unlike constructionism and postmodernism, respect the objective and constraining character of institutional realities. Drawing on American empirical studies that employ qualitative methods to explain statistical variation, the article shows how interpretive traditions often find it difficult freeing themselves from positivist assumptions and fall short of investigating how social actors understand and engage in comparison in their everyday lives. A discussion of data collected in an ethnographic study of children's courts in Australia demonstrates how a more thorough-going and consistent approach to comparison is possible within this interpretive framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the health benefits of companion animals in a way that goes beyond finding statistical patterns involves appreciating the philosophical debates about the nature of animal consciousness that engage an inter-disciplinary field of scholarship cutting across the Great Divide of the hard sciences and humanities. It also requires developing a methodology to conduct empirical research which is often viewed as of secondary importance by researchers wishing to make a philosophical case about human beings and modernity. This paper considers the achievements of qualitative sociologists, particularly in the field of post-Meadian symbolic interactionism who have addressed these issues, and discusses ways of extending and deepening this agenda through cross-fertilization with similar work in ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and post-humanist sociology in investigating the health benefits of dogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]