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Q-Squared: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Shaffer, Paul

    (Associate Professor, Department of International Development Studies, Trent University, Canada)

Abstract

This book examines the underlying assumptions and implications of how we conceptualise and investigate poverty. The empirical entry point for such inquiry is a series of research initiatives that have used mixed method, combined qualitative and quantitative, or Q-Squared ( Q2) approaches, to poverty analysis. The Q2 literature highlights the vast range of analytical tools within the social sciences that may be used to understand and explain social phenomena, along with interesting research results. This literature serves as a lens to probe issues about knowledge claims made in poverty debates concerning who are the poor (identification analysis) and why they are poor (causal analysis). Implicitly or explicitly, questions are raised about the reasons for emphasising different dimensions of poverty and favouring different units of knowledge, the basis for distinguishing valid and invalid claims, the meaning of causation, and the nature of causal inference, and so forth. Q2 provides an entry point to address foundational issues about assumptions underlying approaches to poverty, and applied issues about the strengths and limitations of different research methods and the ways they may be fruitfully combined. Together, the strands of this inquiry make a case for methodological pluralism on the grounds that knowledge is partial, empirical adjudication imperfect, social phenomena complex, and mixed methods add value for understanding and explanation. Ultimately, the goals of understanding and explanation are best served if research questions dictate the choice of methodological approach rather than the other way around.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaffer, Paul, 2013. "Q-Squared: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199676910, Decembrie.
  • Handle: RePEc:oxp:obooks:9780199676910
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Paul Shaffer, 2023. "Typology Construction for Comparative Country Case Study Analysis of Patterns of Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 320-338.
    2. Tsuruga, Ippei, 2015. "Chronic Poverty in Rural Cambodia: Quality of Growth for Whom?," Working Papers 104, JICA Research Institute.
    3. Paul Shaffer, 2018. "Causal pluralism and mixed methods in the analysis of poverty dynamics," WIDER Working Paper Series 115, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Logan Cochrane, 2017. "Stages of food security: A co-produced mixed-methods methodology," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 17(4), pages 291-306, October.
    5. Paul Shaffer, 2018. "Causal pluralism and mixed methods in the analysis of poverty dynamics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-115, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Paul Shaffer, 2015. "Two Concepts of Causation: Implications for Poverty," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 46(1), pages 148-166, January.
    7. Diwakar, Vidya & Shepherd, Andrew, 2022. "Sustaining escapes from poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    8. Maru, Yiheyis Taddele & Sparrow, Ashley & Butler, James R.A. & Banerjee, Onil & Ison, Ray & Hall, Andy & Carberry, Peter, 2018. "Towards appropriate mainstreaming of “Theory of Change” approaches into agricultural research for development: Challenges and opportunities," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 344-353.
    9. Kelvin Chi-Kin Cheung & Wai-Sum Chan & Kee-Lee Chou, 2019. "Material Deprivation and Working Poor in Hong Kong," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 39-66, August.
    10. Kelvin Chi-Kin Cheung & Kee-Lee Chou, 2018. "Measuring Child Poverty in Hong Kong: Sensitivity to the Choice of Equivalence Scale," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 909-921, October.

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