Hi PhD fellow students,

My Supervisor wants me to declare my theoretical position( critical/Marxist, liberal or conservative) before I move ahead with my research question which is going to be related to labor market integration of immigrants. I find it little bit awkward to declare my stand with either group, primarily because none of these grousp have a comprehensive and holistic explanation so I prefer to be in the middle of critical and liberal. But it wouldn't be acceptable to me...any suggestions? Have you or anyone you know have had undergone such situations? Please share.

thanks,(robin)

Hi Robkarki,
I found myself in a similar position & received some sound words of wisdom, here under a thread entitled 'What am I? It's a question of philosophy'. It's worth checking out.
Cheers, Mog (up)

Hi eveyone

I am in a similar but different position and wondered if anyone could provide some words of wisdom (Mog, sorry, but I couldn't find your thread..). With my previous supervisor I adopted the constructivist approach. However, to cut a long story short, with my new supervisors, I have now changed to a realism/critical realism approach. Despite mountains of reading, I still cannot clarify something. Is this approach a theroretical framework or a philisophical framework - and is there a difference?!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Robkarki,

I too was in your position and to be honest didnt like the philosophy behind doing a PhD (even though I should!) I was told that I am a critical realist but I personally believe I am pragmatist.. I will do the work that needs to be done regardless of my philosophical stance. for example, if I need to be interpretive I will be.. alternatively, I could be a post positivist is the work i am focusing on can only be done that way!!:p

my supervisor has just questioned this in my write up. I now am totally confused about the difference between...

- epistemology
- ontology
- paradigm
- theoretical stance
- methodology
- methods

My brain will explode and I can't find anywhere that explains this!

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Olivia of this forum is great on this, see http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=17860. You contributed to this thread Sneaks! and here's Mog's 'What am I?' thread, again with Olivia's great advice http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=17426. I want to somehow find a way to teleport Olivia's words into my brain during my viva!


Edit: Incidentally Eburnett, I have changed from referring to my theoretical framework to my conceptual framework to the latest incarnation where I talk about my philophical orientation!

ah yes, you see I was clear on it when I wrote the chapter, now my sup has come back and said I'm not specific enough about things and I keep on saying "approach" rather than epistemology/paradigm/theoretical perspective. I'm so confused now!

And then I read a paper that said that pragmatism isn't an epistomology, but a paradigm. And now I'm really confused!