Empirical Approaches to Social Representations

For years, social psychologists and anthropologists have argued about the best way to study social representations. This book shows how different empirical approaches to the study of social representations are viable and can even be complementary. The first part of the book presents key arguments concerning the relationship between theory and method. Topics addressed include ethnographic approaches to social representations, the study of children's representations, and the analysis of discourse. The second half deals with a variety of research topics, but a question central to all of them concerns the circumstances under which one can be certain of having described a social representation. The answer lies in the use of multivariate statistical analysis, which provides the necessary degree of accuracy. The use of this valuable technique is fully explained.