Abstract

M. M. Bergman (1999).
Would the Real Social Representation Please Stand Up?
Three Levels of Analysis of Social Representations of
European American and Mexican American Identity.
Papers on Social Representations, 8, pages 4.1 – 4.18.
[http://www.psr.jku.at/]

 

Basing this research on questionnaire data collected from 203 European
Americans and 93 Mexican Americans residing in the south-west of the
US, I will develop three incommensurate conclusions about their social
representation of self- and ethnic identity.  Despite the use of identical
observations and variables, I will accomplish this by using different
statistical, theoretical, and conceptual approaches.  The divergence of
results, despite using identical data, must be understood in two ways:
first, identities and representations are far more complex than any one
theory or method of the competing strands in the social sciences allows
for at present.  Second, despite using statistical methods, I will arrive at
divergent results because of the way data was analysed.  More generally,
with this paper I intend to illustrate the complexity and some of the
pitfalls of comparative research.