ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses two critical quantitative research approaches outlined earlier, namely, empowerment and feminist research. Empowerment research is concerned with helping subservient groups break the chain of exploitation and take action to help themselves. This model has its foundations in the research on the psychology of communities carried out by Lewin and other social psychologists. Feminist research was identified by Small (1995) as one of the four types of action-oriented research as first proposed by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s (Lewin 1948). Its underlying goal is to conduct research without a gender bias. Both of these approaches are associated with interpretive research methods, with some advocates stressing a complete break with positivist, quantitative methods (Sarantakos 2004; Westmarland 2001). This chapter begins with a brief review of the empowerment model and concludes with a more detailed examination of the feminist approach.
