Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

11-2021

Abstract

We propose a framework for citizen social science that brings together three reinforcing elements of a research project – scale, citizen-leadership, and publicness – to improve qualitative research. Our framework was born out of necessity; a desire to involve ordinary citizens, in researching public issues, with limited funding. We illustrate the application of our framework using insights from research we have led, involving first, a series of qualitative studies of state and civil society organizations working on community engagement by three separate years of public policy students; and second, a qualitative study on the system for processing salary and injury disputes for low-waged migrant workers in Singapore conducted by over 100 volunteers and activists. Drawing on a review of the literature and our own experiences, we speak to the advantages and trade-offs of adopting this approach and suggest practical methods for conducting citizen social science.

Keywords

Citizen social science, participatory research, problem-solving sociology, public sociology, qualitative methods

Discipline

Asian Studies | Community-Based Research | Demography, Population, and Ecology

Research Areas

Sociology

Publication

Current Sociology

First Page

1

Last Page

21

ISSN

0011-3921

Identifier

10.1177/00113921211056057

Publisher

SAGE Publications (UK and US)

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/00113921211056057

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