How were young and willmott's 1957 research objectives translated into the design of their study of the east end?

[Name of the supervisor]How were young and willmott's 1957 research objectives translated into the design of their study of the east end?

Aims and objectives

Michael Young and Peter Willmott's (1957) classic study of family and kinship in a working class area of East London challenged established views of the urban poor by revealing the crucial significance of extended kinship networks in the day-to-day lives of families. They demonstrated the key role that mothers in particular played in mediating and maintaining three-generational family structures, which were characterised by a system of mutual aid and support.

Other research lent weight to this re-discovery of working class solidarity, such as Raymond Firth's study of a poor district of South London, Peter Townsend's focus on the family life of older people, and Colin Rosser and Christopher Harris' study of family and social change in Swansea. Arguments that the demise of kinship was more applicable to middle class families because of their greater geographical mobility and increased financial security were also refuted by research.

Methods

While secondary analysis of quantitative data and the previous practice, the data exchange between qualitative researchers are much less common. In the UK, efforts to archive and promote the reuse of qualitative data, but also methodological concerns about the extent to which detail is the research can be re-analyzed hindered the development of this approach. From the quantitative point of view, the data exist independently of the investigator and can be reused in the future to assess the reliability and validity of such conclusions.

This contrasts sharply with most qualitative approaches, in which the interaction between researchers and respondents are considered as crucial in shaping interpretations. Such methodological problems are compounded when the qualitative data reuse is proposed as part of a comparative historical analysis. Attempts to compare data sets in different time frames raise numerous questions about the content of commensurability. Nevertheless, initial data from the early qualitative research is a valuable historical record, documenting problems and experience of both the interviewees and researchers at a particular time. Thus, early in the data source has the potential to provide a crucial snapshot of social history, which allowed a sociological understanding of the changes and continuity.

Findings

Young and Willmott's (1975) subsequent study of a largely middle class London suburb indicated that while kin were more widely dispersed geographically, regular contacts were maintained. Raymond Firth and colleagues (1969) also focused on middle class families, emphasising the continued significance of selected or chosen kin relationships. These studies were extremely influential and spurred a new interest in social networks, communities and more specifically kinship systems. Although such topics eventually fell out of favour they have recently been revived by social capital theorists attempting to measure the value of social connectedness.

Egalitarianism is present in both these approaches seek to describe the consequences of change, constructing theories around the premise that social and economic transformations have profoundly influenced ...