Taking a stand

I once heard that "academia is in a state of polite warfare", and as a PhD student, I think I run the risk of becoming a 'casualty' of that war.My home field of Psychology is fractured - it has many sub disciplines, sub divisions each with their own idea of what counts as 'important scientific research'.  As an undergraduate I could study these debates from an impartial stand point, but now as a PhD student I no longer have the 'luxury' of being impartial. I must decide which methods, theories and ideas to use, and be able to defend my decisions. In other words - I need to take a stand and pick a side in the 'war'.  

One of the biggest debates in psychology is whether is a science.  The notion that psychology is not a science is a insecurity which rests at the heart of psychology, and has lead to the  belief that scientific psychology research is based on numbers, not words.  This idea has been shouted from the pulpits of psychology with great ferocity, so much so, it would not be unreasonable to see it as 'dogmatic'. Without naming names I have met PhD students who blindly accept quantitative as the method of psychology study, and rarely consider the viability of qualitative methods. Some  even mock those who use qualitative methods - seeing  this research as 'second rate' and 'unscientific'.  The idea of whether qualitative research is or is not scientific is a debate for another time, but suffice to say I believe qualitative research is not less objective or valid that quantitative research.    Having this belief sets me apart from mainstream psychology, which is quite risky considering I am trying to enter the field as a researcher. 

We as PhD students do seem to spend a large portion our time trying to be accepted by the academic community. Following the 'in crowd' and accepting dominant beliefs without question would seem to be an easy, direct route to acceptance - especially for those students who aspire to be well respected and win renown.  It could improve job opportunities and limit the risk of being marganisled and, in my case, branded as 'unscientific'.  But, is it the right? What if the minority actually has a better approach? 

This 'debate' seems to run through a lot of what I do at the moment; from deciding what writing style to use, which theoretical perspective to take,  who should be involved in my research and how I will eventually analyse my data. For me, I could not just blindly follow one approach - I need good reason and evidence to decide why I should. I usually go through a process of choosing which approach is best for what I want to achieve, by comparing and contrasting different approaches and whether they 'fit' with the aims of the research. I try to do this regardless of what 'mainstream' psychology accepts.  This could have consequences for my career, but if I decided to use a method which  is ill fitting but would be widely accepted, I would be sacrificing the validity of my research and my own personal integrity.

I realise that by now this might sound a lot like a personal manifesto (*), but these are decisions which all PhD students make and this is why I wanted to write a post about 'taking a stand' in academia.  If anyone else has struggled with deciding whether to take their own path or follow the majority I would like to hear from you, and how you resolved the issue. 

*this could be because I was listening the the Les misreables sound track whilst writing this - it's very good, go see it if you haven't!