CCC 520: Critical Inquiry

Course Description: This course will introduce you to social inquiry by completing and then critically reflecting on several small research projects. While you are learning research methods, we will also address some fundamental questions about the construction of knowledge as the foundation for action and about power as it relates to representation and communication in social change. We will focus on newer methods of qualitative social research that reflect a non-dualistic constructionist viewpoint that has begun to challenge research derived from the positivist paradigm. Much of what you will study is transitional, bridging elements of old and new models of inquiry. We are presently in the midst of a transition in our understanding of human knowledge. During the past one hundred years, the methods of inquiry and epistemologies developed from the Enlightenment project have been challenged by successive waves of crisis and critique in all intellectual fields. Inquiry based on the dualism of objectivity and subjectivity is being transformed in dialogue with non-dualistic epistemologies. At the same time, we are beginning to recognize that the idea of an ‘objective' social science is problematic and that there are all kinds of complicated issues related to how phenomena are articulated, who has the authority to speak, and what forms are inquiry are used to develop explanation. In other words, social research and social action is not a neutral act and comes embedded with different forms of relations that can perpetuate structures of power and inequality. This is a largely experiential course as we believe that one does not learn social inquiry by reading books! You will study four methods of inquiry and complete three inquiry exercises during the quarter, write three project reports and three reflections on what you are learning. We'll discuss readings, research methods, different theories, and your case study designs in our three class meeting days and on FirstClass. This course is designed to prepare you for your case study in spring RP1 as well as for your change project next year.