Is Research Possible? A rejoinder to Tooley's ‘On School Choice and Social Class‘

This paper presents a response to some criticisms by James Tooley of our research on parental choice. The paper argues that many of Tooley's criticisms are based on systematic misinterpretations and misreadings of our work, ignorance of the procedures of qualitative research and the use of untenable speculations about sampling, data collection and the interpretation of data. It is suggested that Tooley's criticisms are ideologically driven and that if taken seriously would make qualitative social research impossible.