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Methodology of Social Research

notes (i) Social Anthropology: Comparative method is used for the study of various institutions
of aboriginal and naïve societies such as family, marriage, relationship, religion,
entertainment, finance and political institutions in social anthropology. This technique
has been used to study the process of social evolution.
(ii) sociology: Comparative method has been used to find out the reasons for the occurrence
of a social incident, the relationship between those reasons, social status and find the
position of social groups.
(iii) In the Field of Social-financial Area: Comparative method is used for the study of
relationship between the financial differences, comparative study of urban groups and
for the study of behaviour in industrialized societies.rowtree studied the poverty in
york City and compared the outcomes of the study of smaller regions with the bigger
regions. Dr. Bowle after 10 years again studied the same regions and presented the
comparison between them.
in the modern world, comparative method has been used for study of various areas of social sciences
such as family, marriage, crime, urban life, progress, social classes and educational achievements and
their inter-relationships. from the analysis and comparison of the results of these studies, the practical
use of this method has been proven. in india, Prof. Ghuriye and Kapadia have presented comparative
analysis in the areas of family and marriage. in area of indian education the study of Dr. L.K. oad
and the report of education Commission are also major achievements of this method. social sciences
must use this technique as much as possible because this is an alternative of experimental method of
natural sciences and it would prove much useful in the development of social sciences.

9.7 Limitations of Comparative Method

in spite of being a very important method, the use of comparative method has some problems. Without
resolving these problems it would not prove to be beneficial.

Notes Anthropologist radcliff Brown has rightly said, “Alone comparative method
cannot deliver you anything. Without sowing seeds, nothing can be produced.”

from the above statement it is clear that comparative method cannot be used unless and until the
difficulties underlying its use have been removed. The main difficulties in its use are as follows:
1. Lack of Hypothesis: For any scientific research, hypothesis is necessary because hypothesis determine
the direction of study, direct the study and also decide the limit of the study. in comparative method
we see a lack of hypothesis. in this reference, Botomore has written.” in comparative method either
we see a lack of hypothesis or else the formulation of hypothesis is not considered necessary.”
2.Difficulties in Deciding Units: for using comparative method it is necessary to carefully chose the
units between which we want to do comparison. We need to decide upon various aspects such as what
will be units, what will be their size and nature, what will be the apt measurement for deciding them
and what will be its limits. Because social facts are qualitative facts therefore it is difficult to dertermine
their units. for example, when we want to compare an indian village with an American village but the
definition of village varies greatly between the two nations. In America what is considered a village
is a city in india. in this way determining the units is a difficult task in comparative method.

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