Research Philosophy

The most important aspect of sociological research is explanation.  “Thousands of phenomena occur daily in society which the people who observe them do not know how to explain” (Small, 1895).  There cannot be a winner in the argument over which method of explanation is better than another.  The sociologist can only provide his best effort at the most thorough explanation of phenomena.  Thoroughness is not defined by the duration of the research or the assemblage of multiple methods and triangulation.  Research quality can only be defined by the accuracy of the description, the clarity of the results, and the logic of the conclusion.

First, it is necessary to define the method.  In this article, I provide a hermeneutical phenomenology regarding the American athlete.  Hermeneutical phenomenology is “a philosophy of the personal, the individual, which we pursue against the background of an understanding of the evasive character of the logos of other, the whole, the communal, or the social” (Van Manen, 1990).  Second, the research question must be defined.  I will seek to answer the question of what it is really “like” to be an athlete.  Third, it is important to describe any prior theory that frames the research.  I have none therefore I will construct a grounded theory that meets “four central criteria for judging the applicability [of the] theory to [the] phenomena: (i) fit; (ii) understanding; (iii) generality; and (iv) control” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).  Not only are the criteria important, the interrelationship between them are more so.

Research Methodology

A relationship exists between any researcher and his subjects.  The Chicago School provided sociology with a firm grasp of a scientific approach based on the “perspective of those in society that were seldom listened to” (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998).  Merton (1937) defined the sociology of knowledge as dependent “upon social position and… with epistemological implications of such dependence.”  Social constructivism is a worldview whereby sociologists “seek understanding of the world in which they live and work” (Creswell, 2007).  Combined, these approaches offer a pragmatic philosophy that can shape the plight of the qualitative researcher.  The predominant impact of the Chicago School was its program of collective sociological research (Bulmer, 1986), not necessarily its subject(s) of study.

The pragmatic “rejection of the dualism between mind and matter, subject and object, knowledge and things known” (Bulmer, 1986) is the important philosophy left by Mead and the Chicago School collective.  This concept allows future sociologists to go beyond representations and descriptive analyses of groups and individuals; it is what separates the discipline from anthropology and history.  The quest for understanding, as Merton defined it, can continue through modern day qualitative sociological research.

What it Really Means to be an American Athlete

The goal of this article is to come to an understanding of the world in which we live and work.  The goal is not fixed because, like the Chicago School, my belief is that experience and consciousness are relative to the outcomes and processes of both society and individual.  Therefore, my goal is not to describe the following events as a narrator would.  Nor is it to provide an objective account of a situation like a realist ethnographer would (Creswell, 2007).  I will produce a hermeneutical phenomenology that is based upon lived experience.  I will seek to answer the question of what it is really “like” to be an athlete.  My research goal approaches an understanding of meaning, which has connection to the sociology of knowledge.  I will go beyond description to uncover what implications certain social positions have on experience and being.

Sports sociology is an ideal lens through which to examine phenomena and “real” meaning.  Similar to Hollywood movie stars, athletes in the United States are regularly viewed in a “fish bowl” especially on a stage (court or field) or through the media.  There are four main entities that witness the athlete: (i) media; (ii) fans; (iii) institution, such as a league; (iv) and the athlete himself.  Relying on the common experience of those four entities, American-based athletic phenomena, I will answer the question of what it really means to be an American athlete.

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