I found this on nexis:
Canadian Psychology
November, 2001
SECTION: v.42(4) N'01 Women in Psychology pg 254-267; ISSN: 0708-5591
CBCA-ACC-NO: 5254155
LENGTH: 11987 words
HEADLINE: After the facts: psychology and the study of gender
BYLINE: Marecek, Jeanne
Excerpt:
Feminist researchers who assume a qualitative stance have built bridges to other disciplines - women's studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and even literary theory. Not content to figure research participants as automata without agency, they grapple with ways to study them as active subjects struggling to make sense of their life experiences. The skeptics - though they are sometimes accused of 'destroying' psychology - seek to expand psychology's view of itself by placing the discipline in historical and cultural context.
The whole article is almost 12,000 words, so I'm not going to put it here, but if anyone wants to read the text and doesn't have access, PM me, and I can send it over to you. Apparently, that issue had a section devoted to "Women in Psychology."
There seems to be a general idea that feminist approaches to psychology rely more on observation than interrogation - allowing the subject to provide answers before being riddled with questions.
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This whole journal seems useful, but especially this article:
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy
July 31, 2001
SECTION: Vol. 16; No. 3; Pg. 138
SLI-ACC-NO: 1201HYDZ 573 000009
LENGTH: 5216 words
HEADLINE: Models and Reality: When Science Tackles Sex
BYLINE: Crasnow, Sharon L.
Excerpt: Intersexuality raises a variety of concerns that are relevant to feminist philosophy of science. Among these are questions about what it is to be a particular sex, what the differences between the sexes are, and what methods we should use for deciding the answers to these questions. Concerns about the objectivity of science and the social and cultural influences on science also become relevant as we explore this topic. Though all these issues ought to be addressed, my main focus will be on how the duplexes of fact/value, nature/culture, and sex/gender play into an understanding of intersexuality.
and
However, this idea grows out of a framework in which a variety of presuppositions are being made. The first is the claim that science objectively describes nature as it really is and so will be able to objectively describe the sexes as we find them in nature. The second is that a classification of humans into two sexes is natural, so we will find two sexes in nature. The third, is that these sexes have defining or essential characteristics that science will discover.
and (italics mine):
Though others advocate the semantic view, the account that I will give derives mostly from the work of Bas van Fraassen (1980), Ron Giere (1984; 1988; 1999) and Nancy Cartwright (1999), though what I say should not be taken as the position of any of these particular philosophers....
The idea here is that the model can be any of a variety of objects, from an actual physical model (like an astrolabe in the seventeenth century or Watson and Crick's model for DNA), to a mathematical model, or what Giere calls a theoretical model, to a conceptual model. It is the particular role that the model plays that is most important. The model serves as an intermediary between the theory and the world....
...whether we think of models as constituting a theory, as van Fraassen seems to, or as mediating between the theory and the world, what all versions of the semantic view share is the idea that the theory does not directly describe the world....
The presupposition that there are two sexes is a theoretical presupposition and the models must be constructed so as to fulfill that theoretical claim. We might think of models more clearly as tools with which to think about the world. We need such tools for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the world has too much going on in it and we need to make choices about which particular features we should be looking at. Just that recognition alone, though, gives a different slant to what it is that science does. So the theory is describing the model, not the world.
Her references also seem *really* useful (and are echoed in many of the other articles I breezed through):
Cartwright, Nancy. 1999. The dappled world: A study of the boundaries of
science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the body: Gender and politics and the
construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
Giere, Ron. 1984. Understanding scientific reasoning. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of
nature. New York: Routledge.
Harding, Sandra. 1986. The science question in feminism. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
-----. 1991. Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women's lives.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
As before, if you want full text, I've got access and can PM you. Whether someone feels like posting this stuff on another page and linking to it, well, that's your affair. Arrr.
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This article:
Journal of Social Work Education
September 22, 2001
SECTION: No. 3, Vol. 37; Pg. 585 ; ISSN: 1043-7797
HEADLINE: The Role of Theory in Social Work Research; response to articles by Bruce A. Thyer and Tomi Gomory, Journal of Social Work Education, Winter 2001; includes replies
BYLINE: Drisko, James W.; Gomory, Tomi; Thyer, Bruce A.
Drisko is responding to articles by Gomory and Thyer in the Winter 2001 Journal of Social Work Education.
He says:
[Thyer] also implicitly points out how little attention social work education pays to issues of philosophy of science and how little clarity we offer students (and each other) about both the terminology and underlying conceptual issues of the scientific method. While arguing for balance between theory and "empirical research," Thyer seems unaware of several decades of philosophical thinking which note that theory and observation are intrinsically joined (see Harding, 1986, Harre, 1985, 1986; Klee, 1996; Nelson, 1990, Ruben, 1990; Skorupski, 1990).
And then gets into Karl Popper:
As Gomory does note, Popper stressed that the logic of falsifiablity was distinct from the empirical testing of a theory because the test may be subject to many forms of error. This point warrants elaboration. We can state Popper's view on falsifiablity as follows: Even well-developed, logical, theoretical predictions are only testable in combination with several additional assumptions, theories, and technologies. Any of these additional elements may undermine the test of the underlying theoretical logic.
The reference page also includes these:
Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Nelson, L. H. (1990). Who knows: From Quine to a feminist empiricism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
My version of Drisko's basic gist: that predictions tend to answer themselves (the hypothesis predicts a conclusion), and tend to do so in certain prescribed ways that may be invisible to the experimenter (the hypothesis predicts a certain kind of conclusion, an either-or that may bear little relationship to the complications of reality).
The rest of the article is Thyer and Gomory responding to the critique. Much like the exchanges in the thread this thread is supplementing.
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This article:
Journal of Aging Studies
September 1, 2001
SECTION: No. 3, Vol. 15; Pg. 217 ; ISSN: 0890-4065
IAC-ACC-NO: 77701978
LENGTH: 10676 words
HEADLINE: Gender socialization and the cultural construction of elder caregivers.
BYLINE: Brewer, Loretta
contains this passage:
In a recent overview of feminist theories utilized in gerontology, three categories of feminist research were identified (Ray, 1996). The first category, feminist empiricism, is defined as "the use of traditional scientific methods to draw attention to and correct gender bias in research and theory" (Harding, 1986, cited by Ray, 1996). This type of research is pursued by the majority of feminist psychologists as well as by a significant number of sociologists. Next, feminist standpoint research is defined as "inquiry which seeks to redress imbalances by researching and writing from an overtly political point of view" (Ray, 1996, p. 675). This category includes the work of socialist-feminists who focus attention on inequities in the gender-based division of labor and advocate changes in the ways in which society defines, distributes, and rewards work. Finally, postmodern feminist research is defined as "a critique of language, discourse, and research practices that construct knowledge" (Ray, 1996, p. 675).
Ray (1996) also provides a summary of postmodern thought as it relates to gerontology. The postmodern perspective, according to Ray, could also be called a postpositivist or post-Enlightenment perspective in that it challenges existing assumptions regarding knowledge, power, reason, language, and the self, which derive from the Enlightenment period. Postmodernists challenge positivist claims that reason can provide an objective, reliable, and universal foundation for knowledge. In addition, they challenge the claim that science is value neutral in its methods and motives. Furthermore, they question the existence of a stable, coherent "observer" (or self) and the belief that the observer's language merely conveys, rather than actively constructs, the real world. In short, postmodern feminism provides a metatheory that calls into question all research, theory, and practice conducted by, for, and about women. It provides a counterbalance to scientific positivism. Hare-Mustin and Marecek (1994, cited by Ray, 1996, p. 676) stated it like this:
Whereas positivism asks what are the facts, constructivism asks what are
the assumptions; whereas positivism asks what are the answers,
constructivism asks what are the questions.
Bit of a glancing blow, but might be useful in framing the questions.
The "Ray" cited is:
Ray, R. (1996). A postmodern perspective on feminist gerontology. The Gerontologist, 36 (5), 674-680.
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This article seems grand:
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy
January 31, 2001
SECTION: Vol.16; No.1; Pg.27
SLI-ACC-NO: 0301HYDZ 573 000002
LENGTH: 8717 words
HEADLINE: Dismantling the Self/Other Dichotomy in Science: Towards a Feminist Model of the Immune System
BYLINE: Weasel, Lisa
from the intro:
In recent years, feminist forays into the natural sciences have yielded an expansive body of work, ranging from deep-seated critiques of fundamental concepts and practices in the sciences to epistemological reshapings of how scientific knowledge claims might be constructed and judged. Probing both the theories and the practice of science with a critical eye, feminists have been able to demonstrate on multiple levels that gender does matter when it comes to science, and that science needs to be viewed as far richer than merely a detached, objective reflection of a singular "natural" reality. Several scientists working within a feminist context have attempted to describe ways in which feminist insights can transform the theories and practice of science (see, for example, the work of Spanier 1995 and Barad 1996).
References:
Barad, Karen. 1996. Meeting the universe halfway: Ambiguities,
discontinuities, quantum subjects and multiple positionings in feminism and physics. In Feminism, science and the philosophy of science: A dialogue, ed. Lynn H. Nelson and Jack Nelson. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Fee, Elizabeth. 1982. A feminist critique of scientific objectivity.
Science for the People 14: 8-35.
Hartsock, Nancy. 1983. The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing.
Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1978. Gender and science. Psychoanalysis and
Contemporary Thought 1: 409-33.
------. 1982. Feminism and science. Signs 7: 28-40.
------. 1985. Reflections on gender and science. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Kerr, E. Anne. 1998. Toward a feminist natural science: Linking theory
and practice. Women's Studies International Forum 21: 95-109.
------. 1996. Cognitive and non-cognitive values in science: Rethinking the dichotomy. In Feminism, science and the philosophy of science, ed. L. H. Nelson and J. Nelson. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Longino, Helen, and Evelyn Hammonds. 1990. Conflicts and tension in the feminist study of gender and science. In Conflicts in feminism, ed. Marion Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller. London: Routledge.
Spanier, Bonnie. 1995. Im/partial biology: Gender ideology in molecular biology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
I'd excerpt more text, but I'm getting woobly.
Interesting to note that out of the fifty articles I glanced over (out of 299 articles nexis produces on a search for "feminism" and "scientific method", all publications, all dates), the overwhelming majority are from journals of social work & related fields (like gerontology). |
