Advanced Methodology

Lectures
After an introduction on the role of qualitative methods in criminology (relation with theory, research design and cycle), the course will present the main methods used by (culturally oriented) criminologists as they study crime and crime control. Lectures 2 and 3 will be devoted to present and discuss the open, half-structured interview, probably the most used data-gathering method in qualitative designs. Lectures 4 and 5 will focus on ethnographic research in criminology, covering all practical aspects regarding participation and observation in natural settings. Lecture 6 will be devoted to virtual or online methods: the research of online contents and people using the Internet (virtual ethnography, interviews per email, analysis of websites, etc.). The so called visual methods, i.e. both the use of images as instruments for data gathering, as well as objects of study (photos, film, advertisement), will be handled in lecture 7. The final lecture (8) will focus on data analysis: how should we organize and analyse the texts produced by interviews and fieldnotes? It is expected that students read the obligatory literature in advance.

Seminars
The emphasis during the seminars will be on `doing research¿: students will have the opportunity to discuss about the lectures and the literature, to practice (through discussing, training, presenting or conducting role-playing short exercises) the different techniques taught during the lectures, and to discuss and work on their assignment. We will devote the first 10 minutes of each meeting for questions about the lectures and the literature, and always reserve sometime to talk/discuss about the assignment. It is expected that students actively participate during the meetings. Attendance to lectures and seminars is obligatory and will be assessed in the participation.

Assignment
The assignment is individual and consists of a written paper presenting data collected and analysed by the student. The final student presentations (of the assignment research) will take place in week 45.
- To know and understand some critical and innovative tools for conducting qualitative research in the field of criminology, particularly those coming from critical legal research and from cultural criminology.  The aim of the course is to familiarize Master students with some of the methods used in criminological research, particularly those used by critical legal scholars and cultural criminologists. Although students with Bachelor degrees in law and social science come with different backgrounds and ideas about empirical research methods, their knowledge is either 'theoretical' (never done research before), refer to 'juridical techniques' to be a good lawyer, or is often limited to quantitative and statistical methods. The methods and techniques discussed and applied in this course will be in most of the cases equally new for all of them. After concluding this course, students should have the following capacities:
To learn to apply some of these methods of data gathering in concrete research, with particular emphasis on learning the open interview technique.  To learn to structure and formulate in a clear way a research topic, research question and research design of a project.- To learn to report, both in paper and in oral format, research progress and (provisional) findings/results of a project.
 
Place of the course within the curriculum:
Compulsory course in the master Criminology