ABSTRACT
This paper addresses what has become something of an orthodoxy, especially in sociology: that feminist methodology, and, therefore, feminist research, draw on the qualitative tradition and involve women. In the terms set out by many writers the research project we have recently completed would not count: apart from the fact that it involved young women and young men we used traditional survey research methods. Our questioning of the view which defmes this methodology as antithetical to the feminist project is not a defence of that research, but a reflection on the challenges and issues that our work has produced. Whilst other individual feminist researchers have also used survey methodology, and at least one recent text (Stanley, 1990) has argued for a more open defmition of feminist research/methodology, this is not yet reflected in the majority of discussions, either in writing or teaching, on feminist research. This paper both records our changing perspectives, and reflects similar shifts taking place elsewhere.
