Tepoztlan en Staphorst. Een vergelijking van herstudies

Samenvatting

Reliability in the sense of reproducibility is often considered one of the most important criteria for judging research. Tepoztlan, studied by R. Redfield (Tepoztlan, a Mexican Village: A Study of Folk Life, University of Chicago Press, 1949) & by O. Lewis (Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlan Restudied, University of Illinois Press, 1951) illustrates the low reliability of social scientific, especially anthropological, research. Three partial restudies of the Dutch village Staphorst are analyzed. It is shown that the results of these studies harmonize reasonably. This unexpected fact cannot be seen as a sign of high quality of the methods used. According to other criteria, eg, credibility, it must be concluded that the Staphorst studies are invalidated by the same weaknesses found in Redfield's Tepoztlan study. Analysis not only of the differences, but also of the resemblances of restudies has a heuristic value for assessing their validity. Modified HA.