Hi to you all!!!
I just found the place and really loved the discussions which I have followed till now.
I have a question, quite basic one, but although to some of you might seem easy I can't get throught to it.
First of all, I am a PhD student in Germany. I have already started writting and recently completed all the theoretical part meaning (Introduction,Key concepts analysis, data, methodology, geographic region of the analysis etc etc). I asked from my Prof. to read it and submit comments on it. What I faced was a complete disaster. Her comments were really insulting only to one part of my thesis.

She asks: Where is your Theoretical Background?

So my question is What is theoretical background?

When I was in London, doing my Master Thesis, I had a Prof saying that, don't write theories I know that you will probably copy-paste them from somewhere. What I am interesting in is Literature review. So during my PhD I have focus on Literature review. But now I have a theoretical background problem.

Can somebody help me? Isnt' the same when you say that e.g. this guy in his study did that (literature review) and found that - with- this has an effect on that (XXXX, 1989)

A friend suggested that the first is literature review while the second is theoretical background.

What I am analysis in housing prices and demographic variables.
So any help on what is the theoretical background to that?

Any help will be much appreciated.

George

Hi there

There are many discussions available on what a theoretical framework is but I think a simple way to think about it is - (a) a framework of theories and concepts which you apply to the empirical material generated in your research, to retain, revise or reject (!) it. i.e. the same empirical material might potentially be interpreted/approached from a range of theoretical frameworks.

A literature review is a mapping of what empirical research exists in a specifc field. (X has studies 2000 people using Y in Year Z to have findings A B and C. This contradicts findings of Y's study..so and so forth). However, a conceptual framework/theoretical background is not what research has been done, but a *framework* of theories with which as a toolkit if you will, you approach your own work.


I cannot offer instances from anything outside of what follows, but see if useful. Let us say, somebody is studying the content of 4 films. Now, let us also say that all 4 films have something/s in common.

Now, their literature review will map the field of research in this area and selectively report who has done what, said what, who dis/agrees with whom, spot the gap and say why their work is relevant.

But, their theoretical background will determine what their analysis and interpretaion will do. So, if they say, that they aproach their work from a feminist perspective, it is clear that they will use feminist theories within which to make sense of the 4 cases they are studying. If they work with class theory, then the same cases will be analysed differntly, if they are interested in nationalism and theories of the nation state, then that.

Am I explaining myself? A conceptual framework is different from a lit review in that it is not usually empirical work but rather theories and concepts which are combined or taken singularly and applied as a framework within which to interpret and position you own research - your task is to apply that framework creatively, make the framework clearly apparent in your work and then, revise or retain it.

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Hi George,

Does your sup mean theoretical framework, rather than background? Background implies some historical context, whereas framework implies what Bug describes below. It sounds to me as if you have drawn those theoretical lines in the sand already: you have identified key concepts, a methodology, data etc so perhaps, if it is a framework your sup is asking for, then what you need to do is become more self aware and refelctive by making your choices, and your reasons for them, explicit in a clearly defined section of your writing, and then place this framework you have thus defined into its broader context.

However! I think the best thing for you to do is ask your supervisor: only she knows what she really wants; we can only guess at the best of times, and and I suspect there is something of a language hurdle going on, in addition to the usual, inevitable Chinese whispers effect.

Good luck!

I think that I am getting the point.

Till now I have done the literature review part. That's ok.

Please be patient with me since I want to understand if I have a good understanding of what we are talking about.

First of all, the distinction between Theoretical Background and Conceptual framework helped me a lot in understanding.

In my case. As I said I am doing my research on housing prices and demographic variables.

So probably the conceptual framework would be a theory (supply and demand in my case) and how mathematically a relationship between housing prices and the other variables are connected. Of course based on one theory or another. Since I have already chosen my model based on a specific work then it should be easy to choose these theories right?

Thanks again and thanks for being patient