Sixth Week (the official post)

Synchronic/Diachronic: This article is synchronic. The time period covered is over a century, but is presented as a single time period. Little or no qualitative distinction is made between the beginning and end of the period. Certainly the purpose of the article is not to contrast the two.

Emic/Etic: I'm a little confused about how to categorize the article here, but I would say emic since the purpose of the article is to get at contemporary attitudes of and toward orphan children in contrast to the way most of us today conceptualize "orphanhood."

Particularist/Nomothetic: Nomothetic. The article briefly discusses many different examples, and also uses records from the orphanages that apply to all or most cases in a given institution.

Personal Influence/Social Forces: A little of both (there is some discussion of individual nobles using personal influence to achieve their ends) but mostly social forces. The article discusses the way that economic developments in the Spanish colonial system caused the rise (or at least increase) of orphanages in Seville and the way the orphanages fit into a broader social system.

Quantitative/Qualitative: Qualitative. The article doesn't make use of statistics or calculations but rather of qualitative discussions of a number of cases to prove a point. It's not mathematical but, rather, inferential.

Ideationalist/Materialist: Materialist. Again, the discussion gives more attention to the economic causes and social consequences of orphanages than to ideological forces.

Conflict/Consensus: I'm not sure how to apply this dichotomy. I need to give it more thought...maybe I'll come back and edit this post later.

Determinist/Stochastic: Maybe a little of both. It's determinist in that the social/class position of the individual orphan, as well as the status of their living relatives, is thought to play a major role in the outcome of their application, but also stochastic in that each individual case might be different based on more specific circumstances (family connections, persuasiveness of written letters, etc.) I'm not sure if this really means it's stochastic or if it just means it's determinist on different factors.