Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

42 Chapter 2
nic identity per se, or intelligence per se, or machismo per se, or support for
trade barriers per se. In each case, all I said was that we could tell if the scores
were bigger or smaller.
What’s So Good about Operationism?
Operational definitions are strictly limited to the content of the operations
specified. That’s why I also didn’t say anything about whether it was a good
idea or a bad one to make any of these measurements or comparisons. If the
content of an operational definition is bad, then so are all conclusions you
draw from using it to measure something.
This is not an argument against operationism in science. Just the opposite.
Operationism is the best way to expose bad measurement. By defining measurements
operationally, we can tell if one measurement is better than another.
If the operational measurement of, say, machismo, seems silly or offensive, it
may be because the concept is not very useful to begin with. No amount of
measurement or operationism bails out bad concepts. The act of trying,
though, usually exposes bad concepts and helps you jettison them.
Adhering to bad measurements is bad science and can have some bad consequences
for people. In the 1960s, I was a consultant on a project that was
supposed to help Chicano high schoolers develop good career aspirations.
Studies had been conducted in which Chicano and Anglo high schoolers were
asked what they wanted to be when they reached 30 years of age. Chicanos
expressed, on average, a lower occupational aspiration than did Anglos. This
led some social scientists to advise policymakers that Chicano youth needed
reinforcement of career aspirations at home. (There’s that educational model
again.)
Contrary to survey findings, ethnographic research showed that Chicano
parents had very high aspirations for their children. The parents were frustrated
by two things: (1) despair over the cost of sending their children to college;
and (2) high school counselors who systematically encouraged Chicana
girls to become housewives and Chicano boys to learn a trade or go into the
armed services.
The presumed relation between the dependent variable (level of career aspiration)
and the independent variable (level of aspiration by parents for the
careers of their children) was backward. The parents’ level of career aspiration
for their children didn’t cause the children to have low aspirations. The children
were driven to low aspirations by structural features of their environment.
The parents of those children reflected this reality in order—they said explicitly
to interviewers who bothered to ask—not to give their children false
hopes.