There is an additional registration fee of $100 which includes a box lunch. Advance registration is requiried and optional homework will be assigned.
This session provides an overview of qualitative research approaches. No social science background is required. The session has two goals: 1) To provide information for law professors interested in drawing on qualitative social science studies that are pertinent to their research on law; and 2) To support law professors who seek to augment their legal research by using interviews, observation, and/or language analysis.
This is a pilot program. If there is sufficient interest, we will explore ways of providing continuing support for interested law faculty.
The Workshop is divided into three sessions: first, a discussion of interview and observational methods, and of combining qualitative and quantitative ways of looking at law (4 hours); second, a discussion of linguistic methods for analyzing legal language (4 hours); and finally, an interactive session in which workshop participants can receive feedback on specific questions and project ideas (2 hours). Participants are not required to have any specific equipment or preparation; of course they may bring laptops for purposes of taking notes.
I. Interview and Field Studies; Combining Methods
This session review basic methodological issues in interview and ethnographic research.
Topics:
A. Within Case and Small-N Comparisons
B. The Interpretive Approach to Qualitative Research
C. Case Studies
D. Use of Software to Analyze Interview Material
E. Issues in Data Selection and Presentation from Qualitative Research
F. Multi-Methods – Qualitative Meets Quantitative
II. Social Science Methods for Language Analysis
This session provides an overview of a variety of social science approaches to language and discourse analysis, along with hands-on practice using linguistic techniques for analyzing legal language.
Topics:
A. Index and Symbol: Grounding Language Analysis in Culture and Society
B. Sociolinguistic Analysis
C. Linguistic Anthropological Analysis
D. Social Science Studies of Legal Language
E. Textual Analysis
III. Workshop Q and A
At the conclusion of the workshop, we plan an interactive session where participants can ask questions based in their own research agendas.