THEORY AND RESEARCHorganization had performed in traditional society has
been replaced by higher education in modern society.
Interpretive Explanation.The purpose of inter-
pretive explanationis to foster understanding. It
does so by placing what we wish to explain (e.g., a
social relationship, event, cultural practice) within
a specific social context and setting that have a
meaning system. The explanatory goal is for others
to mentally grasp how some area of the social world
operates and to place what we want to explain
within that would. This goal is reached by helping
others comprehend what we want to explain within
an entire worldview and system of meaning. Each
person’s subjective worldview shapes how he or she
acts, so the goal is to discern others’ reasoning and
view of things. The process is similar to decoding a
text or work of literature in which meaning comes
from the context of a cultural symbol system.
Futrell and Simi (2004) used an interpretative
explanation to study the U.S. White power move-
ment. The authors focused on movement, collective
identity, or a shared sense of “we.” They examined
members of racist movements that are fragmented
into many organizations (e.g., Ku Klux Klan, Chris-
tian identity groups, Aryan Nation, neo-Nazi groups)
and whose members are marginalized from larger
society. The authors investigated how members
communicate their beliefs and engage in activism
when their radical beliefs can result in losing their
jobs and destroying most personal relations. After
interviewing and collecting data on fifty-six activists
from 1996 and 2003, the authors discovered that the
members participated in small domestic gatherings
(e.g., study groups, ritual parties) at which they
reaffirmed their commitments to the group and
discouraged conformity to the mainstream of out-
siders. The gatherings were small, inclusive, and
rooted in ongoing personal relations. In them mem-
bers felt that they could safely and openly express
racial ideologies. Family members and close friends
supported these “cultural havens.” Thus, members
created and sought out “free spaces” in which they
could affirm their radical beliefs among like-minded
people. By embedding opportunities for political
expressions in what looked on the surface to be “nor-
mal” activities (homeschooling, study groups, camp-
ing trips, parties), they reduced the distance between
themselves and the outside world. They built a pro-
tective social environment so they could maintain
and celebrate a radical ideology and identity that was
camouflaged to appear mainstream.Range of Theorizing
Theoretical statements also vary by range. At
one extreme is the empirical generalization, a narrow
statement that relies on concrete concepts and fits
into a substantive theory; it is a low-level descriptive
statement about a relationship believed to operate
empirically. It generalizes beyond a specific case
or set of observations but not by very much. For
example, people who marry when they are very
young (under age 21) are more likely to divorce than
those who marry when they are older (over age 31).
We might wish to qualify the generalization by
specifying historical, cultural, or other conditions
that make a divorce more or less likely. If empirical
generalization includes an explanation, it is simple
and concrete, not a full social theory. For example,
people who marry when they are younger are
more likely to divorce because they are less mature.
Middle-range theorizing has a broader theo-
retical range and uses more abstract concepts in
a substantive or formal theory. A middle-range
theoryabout divorce would include a number of
empirical generalizations interlocked with more
abstract concepts. Divorce might become part of theMiddle-range theory Social theory that falls between
general frameworks and empirical generalization, that
has limited abstraction/range, and that is in the form
of empirically verifiable statements capable of being
connected to observable phenomena.Interpretative explanation A type of theoretical
explanation about why events occur and how things
work expressed in terms of the socially constructed
meanings and subjective worldviews.
Empirical generalization A narrow, quasi-theoreti-
cal statement that expresses empirical patterns or
describes empirical regularities using concepts that are
not very abstract.