Symposium on qualitative research methods held

THE SIX-DAY All-India conference-cum-workshop on ?Qualitative Research Methods? concluded at the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Institute (GBPSSI) here, recently. Around 19 scholars from different parts of the country participated in the workshop.

THE SIX-DAY All-India conference-cum-workshop on ‘Qualitative Research Methods’ concluded at the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Institute (GBPSSI) here, recently. Around 19 scholars from different parts of the country participated in the workshop.

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Prof Avijit Pathak from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, who spoke on ‘Positivism and Classical Phase in Social Sciences’, dwelt on qualitative research in the modern social sciences. Prof Yoganand Sinha from Allahabad University compared the qualitative and quantitative methods emphasizing the need to learn both before selecting any one and suggested that the best way is to combine the merit of both these trends for superior research.

Dr Sharad Kumar from Lucknow University introduced the Marxian frame and Prof Ramashray Roy of GBPSSI touched upon the ethical and philosophical aspects of research. Prof Uma Kalpagam, of GBPSSI taught the ethnographic skills to the participants and shared the difficulties encountered by researchers during their field studies.

Dr Devendra Chaube from JNU dealt with the Dalit perspective and Dr Badri Narayan of GBPSSI spoke on the need to deconstruct the oral text in order to understand the Dalit history. Prof Anand Prakash from Delhi University spent a day with the participants teaching skills of narrative analysis and Focus Group Discussion.

Dr Asha Sarangi from JNU deliverd a lecture on the methods of Archival studies and introduced Political Ethnography. Dr Satish Kumar from IIHMR, Jaipur, elaborated on the Grounded Theory approach and introduced the Qualitative Research Software ‘Nudist’. Scholars lauded the workshop as it was first of its kind in northern India and demanded that it should be regularised.

Responding to the overwhelming response from the participants, workshop co-ordinator Dr Ajay Kumar promised to carry forward this initiative in the coming years.

Institute director Prof RC Tripathi encouraged the young scholars to come out with standard work by adopting qualitative methods.