Qualitative Research Primer (HMNS20190)

Qualitative Methods Primer Editor: Philip Wane

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Contents Articles Qualitative research

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Chicago school (sociology)

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Interview

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Focus group

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Ethnography

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Grounded theory

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References Article Sources and Contributors

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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

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Article Licenses License

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Qualitative research

Qualitative research Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts.[1] Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples.

In the conventional view, qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only propositions (informed assertions). Quantitative methods can then be used to seek empirical support for such research hypotheses. This view has been disputed by Oxford University professor Bent Flyvbjerg, who argues that qualitative methods and case study research may be used both for hypotheses-testing and for generalizing beyond the particular cases studied.[2]

History In the early 1900s, some researchers rejected positivism, the theoretical idea that there is an objective world about which we can gather data and "verify" this data through empiricism. These researchers embraced a qualitative research paradigm, attempting to make qualitative research as "rigorous" as quantitative research and creating myriad methods for qualitative research. In the 70s and 80s, the increasing ubiquity of computers aided in qualitative analyses, several journals with a qualitative focus emerged, and postpositivism gained recognition in the academy. In the late 1980s, questions of identity emerged, including issues of race, class, and gender, leading to research and writing becoming more reflexive. Throughout the 1990s, the concept of a passive observer/researcher was rejected, and qualitative research became more participatory and activist-oriented. Also, during this time, researchers began to use mixed-method approaches, indicating a shift in thinking of qualitative and quantitative methods as intrinsically incompatible. However, this history is not apolitical, as this has ushered in a politics of "evidence" and what can count as "scientific" research in scholarship, a current, ongoing debate in the academy.

Data collection Qualitative researchers may use different approaches in collecting data, such as the grounded theory practice, narratology, storytelling, classical ethnography, or shadowing. Qualitative methods are also loosely present in other methodological approaches, such as action research or actor-network theory. Forms of the data collected can include interviews and group discussions, observation and reflection field notes, various texts, pictures, and other materials.

Qualitative research often categorizes data into patterns as the primary basis for organizing and reporting results.

Qualitative researchers typically rely on the following methods for gathering information: Participant Observation, Non-participant Observation, Field Notes, Reflexive Journals, Structured Interview, Semi-structured Interview, Unstructured Interview, and Analysis of documents and materials.[3] The ways of participating and observing can vary widely from setting to setting. Participant observation is a strategy of reflexive learning, not a single method of observing.[4] In participant observation[5] researchers typically become members of a culture, group, or setting, and adopt roles to conform to that setting. In doing so, the aim is for the researcher to gain a closer insight into the culture's practices, motivations and emotions. It is argued that the researchers' ability to understand the experiences of the culture may be inhibited if they observe without participating.

Some distinctive qualitative methods are the use of focus groups and key informant interviews. The focus group technique involves a moderator facilitating a small group discussion between selected individuals on a particular topic. This is a particularly popular method in market research and testing new initiatives with users/workers.

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Qualitative research One traditional and specialized form of qualitative research is called cognitive testing or pilot testing which is used in the development of quantitative survey items. Survey items are piloted on study participants to test the reliability and validity of the items.

In the academic social sciences the most frequently used qualitative research approaches include the following: 1. Ethnographic Research, used for investigating cultures by collecting and describing data that is intended to help in the development of a theory. This method is also called "ethnomethodology" or "methodology of the people".

An example of applied ethnographic research is the study of a particular culture and their understanding of the role of a particular disease in their cultural framework.

2. Critical Social Research, used by a researcher to understand how people communicate and develop symbolic meanings.

3. Ethical Inquiry, an intellectual analysis of ethical problems. It includes the study of ethics as related to obligation, rights, duty, right and wrong, choice etc.

4. Foundational Research, examines the foundations for a science, analyzes the beliefs, and develops ways to specify how a knowledge base should change in light of new information.

5. Historical Research allows one to discuss past and present events in the context of the present condition, and allows one to reflect and provide possible answers to current issues and problems. Historical research helps us in answering questions such as: Where have we come from, where are we, who are we now and where are we going?

6. Grounded Theory is an inductive type of research, based or "grounded" in the observations or data from which it was developed; it uses a variety of data sources, including quantitative data, review of records, interviews, observation and surveys.

7. Phenomenology describes the "subjective reality" of an event, as perceived by the study population; it is the study of a phenomenon.

8. Philosophical Research is conducted by field experts within the boundaries of a specific field of study or profession, the best qualified individual in any field of study to use an intellectual analysis, in order to clarify definitions, identify ethics, or make a value judgment concerning an issue in their field of study their lives.

Data analysis Interpretive techniques The most common analysis of qualitative data is observer impression. That is, expert or bystander observers examine the data, interpret it via forming an impression and report their impression in a structured and sometimes quantitative form.

Coding Coding is an interpretive technique that both organizes the data and provides a means to introduce the interpretations of it into certain quantitative methods. Most coding requires the analyst to read the data and demarcate segments within it. Each segment is labeled with a "code" – usually a word or short phrase that suggests how the associated data segments inform the research objectives. When coding is complete, the analyst prepares reports via a mix of: summarizing the prevalence of codes, discussing similarities and differences in related codes across distinct original sources/contexts, or comparing the relationship between one or more codes.

Some qualitative data that is highly structured (e.g., open-end responses from surveys or tightly defined interview questions) is typically coded without additional segmenting of the content. In these cases, codes are often applied as a layer on top of the data. Quantitative analysis of these codes is typically the capstone analytical step for this type of qualitative data.

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Qualitative research Contemporary qualitative data analyses are sometimes supported by computer programs, termed Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software. These programs do not supplant the interpretive nature of coding but rather are aimed at enhancing the analyst’s efficiency at data storage/retrieval and at applying the codes to the data. Many programs offer efficiencies in editing and revising coding, which allow for work sharing, peer review, and recursive examination of data.

A frequent criticism of coding method is that it seeks to transform qualitative data into quantitative data, thereby draining the data of its variety, richness, and individual character. Analysts respond to this criticism by thoroughly expositing their definitions of codes and linking those codes soundly to the underlying data, therein bringing back some of the richness that might be absent from a mere list of codes.

Recursive abstraction Some qualitative datasets are analyzed without coding. A common method here is recursive abstraction, where datasets are summarized; those summaries are then further summarized and so on. The end result is a more compact summary that would have been difficult to accurately discern without the preceding steps of distillation.

A frequent criticism of recursive abstraction is that the final conclusions are several times removed from the underlying data. While it is true that poor initial summaries will certainly yield an inaccurate final report, qualitative analysts can respond to this criticism. They do so, like those using coding method, by documenting the reasoning behind each summary step, citing examples from the data where statements were included and where statements were excluded from the intermediate summary.

Mechanical techniques Some techniques rely on leveraging computers to scan and sort large sets of qualitative data. At their most basic level, mechanical techniques rely on counting words, phrases, or coincidences of tokens within the data. Often referred to as content analysis, the output from these techniques is amenable to many advanced statistical analyses.

Mechanical techniques are particularly well-suited for a few scenarios. One such scenario is for datasets that are simply too large for a human to effectively analyze, or where analysis of them would be cost prohibitive relative to the value of information they contain. Another scenario is when the chief value of a dataset is the extent to which it contains "red flags" (e.g., searching for reports of certain adverse events within a lengthy journal dataset from patients in a clinical trial) or "green flags" (e.g., searching for mentions of your brand in positive reviews of marketplace products).

A frequent criticism of mechanical techniques is the absence of a human interpreter. And while masters of these methods are able to write sophisticated software to mimic some human decisions, the bulk of the "analysis" is nonhuman. Analysts respond by proving the value of their methods relative to either a) hiring and training a human team to analyze the data or b) letting the data go untouched, leaving any actionable nuggets undiscovered.

Paradigmatic differences Contemporary qualitative research has been conducted from a large number of various paradigms that influence conceptual and metatheoretical concerns of legitimacy, control, data analysis, ontology, and epistemology, among others. Research conducted in the last 10 years has been characterized by a distinct turn toward more interpretive, postmodern, and critical practices.[6] Guba and Lincoln (2005) identify five main paradigms of contemporary qualitative research: positivism, postpositivism, critical theories, constructivism, and participatory/cooperative paradigms.[6] Each of the paradigms listed by Guba and Lincoln are characterized by axiomatic differences in axiology, intended action of research, control of research process/outcomes, relationship to foundations of truth and knowledge, validity (see below), textual representation and voice of the researcher/participants, and commensurability with other paradigms. In particular, commensurability involves the extent to which paradigmatic

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Qualitative research concerns "can be retrofitted to each other in ways that make the simultaneous practice of both possible".[7] Positivist and post positivist paradigms share commensurable assumptions but are largely incommensurable with critical, constructivist, and participatory paradigms. Likewise, critical, constructivist, and participatory paradigms are commensurable on certain issues (e.g., intended action and textual representation).

Validation A central issue in qualitative research is validity (also known as credibility and/or dependability). There are many different ways of establishing validity, including: member check, interviewer corroboration, peer debriefing, prolonged engagement, negative case analysis, auditability, confirmability, bracketing, and balance. Most of these methods were coined, or at least extensively described by Lincoln and Guba (1985)[8]

Academic research By the end of the 1970s many leading journals began to publish qualitative research articles[9] and several new journals emerged which published only qualitative research studies and articles about qualitative research methods.[10] In the 1980s and 1990s, the new qualitative research journals became more multidisciplinary in focus moving beyond qualitative research’s traditional disciplinary roots of anthropology, sociology, and philosophy.[10] The new millennium saw a dramatic increase in the number of journals specializing in qualitative research with at least one new qualitative research journal being launched each year.

Notes [1] Denzin, Norman K. & Lincoln, Yvonna S. (Eds.). (2005). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

ISBN 0-7619-2757-3 [2] Bent Flyvbjerg, 2006, "Five Misunderstandings About Case Study Research." (http:/ / flyvbjerg. plan. aau. dk/ Publications2006/ 0604FIVEMISPUBL2006. pdf) Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, April, pp. 219-245.; Bent Flyvbjerg, 2011, "Case Study," (http:/ / www. sbs. ox. ac. uk/ centres/ bt/ directory/ Documents/ CaseStudy4 2HBQR11PRINT. pdf) in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds., The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 4th Edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), pp. 301-316.

[3] Marshall, Catherine & Rossman, Gretchen B. (1998). Designing Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-1340-8 [4] Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2002) Qualitative communication research methods: Second edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-7619-2493-0 [5] "Qualitative Research Methods: A Data Collector’s Field Guide" (http:/ / www. techsociety. com/ cal/ soc190/ fssba2009/ ParticipantObservation. pdf). techsociety.com. . Retrieved 7 October 2010.

[6] Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). "Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging influences" In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.), pp. 191-215. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2757-3 [7] Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). "Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging influences" (p. 200). In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.), pp. 191-215. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2757-3 [8] Lincoln Y and Guba EG (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. [9] Loseke, Donileen R. & Cahil, Spencer E. (2007). "Publishing qualitative manuscripts: Lessons learned". In C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium, & D. Silverman (Eds.), Qualitative Research Practice: Concise Paperback Edition, pp. 491-506. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-76194-776-9 [10] Denzin, Norman K. & Lincoln, Yvonna S. (2005). "Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research". In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.), pp. 1-33. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2757-3

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References • Adler, P. A. & Adler, P. (1987). : context and meaning in social inquiry / edited by Richard Jessor, Anne Colby, and Richard A. Shweder] OCLC 46597302 • Boas, Franz (1943). Recent anthropology. Science, 98, 311-314, 334-337.

• Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2000). Handbook of qualitative research ( 2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2011). The SAGE Handbook of qualitative research ( 4th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

• DeWalt, K. M. & DeWalt, B. R. (2002). Participant observation. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

• Fischer, C.T. (Ed.) (2005). Qualitative research methods for psychologists: Introduction through empirical studies. Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-088470-4.

• Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). "Five Misunderstandings About Case Study Research." (http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/ Publications2006/0604FIVEMISPUBL2006.pdf) Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, April 2006, pp. 219–245.

• Flyvbjerg, B. (2011). "Case Study," (http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/bt/directory/Documents/CaseStudy4 2HBQR11PRINT.pdf) in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds., The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 4th Edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), pp. 301–316.

• Franklin, M. I. (2012), " Understanding Research: Coping with the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide (http://www. routledge.com/books/details/9780415490801/)". London/New York. Routledge • Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

• Holliday, A. R. (2007). Doing and Writing Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition. London: Sage Publications • Kaminski, Marek M. (2004). Games Prisoners Play. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11721-7.

• Mahoney, J & Goertz, G. (2006) A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Political Analysis, 14, 227–249. doi:10.1093/pan/mpj017 • Malinowski, B. (1922/1961). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. New York: E. P. Dutton.

• Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

• Pamela Maykut, Richard Morehouse. 1994 Beginning Qualitative Research. Falmer Press.

• Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods ( 3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Pawluch D. & Shaffir W. & Miall C. (2005). Doing Ethnography: Studying Everyday Life. Toronto, ON Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press.

• Ragin, C. C. (1994). Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method, Pine Forge Press, ISBN 0-8039-9021-9 • Silverman, David, (ed), (2011), "Qualitative Research: Issues of Theory, Method and Practice". Third Edition.

London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Sage Publications • Stebbins, Robert A. (2001) Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

• Taylor, Steven J., Bogdan, Robert, Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods, Wiley, 1998, ISBN 0-471-16868-8 • Van Maanen, J. (1988) Tales of the field: on writing ethnography, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Wolcott, H. F. (1995). The art of fieldwork. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

• Wolcott, H. F. (1999). Ethnography: A way of seeing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

• Ziman, John (2000). Real Science: what it is, and what it means. Cambridge, Uk: Cambridge University Press.

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External links • C.Wright Mills, On intellectual Craftsmanship, The Sociological Imagination,1959 (http://ddl.uwinnipeg.ca/ res_des/files/readings/cwmills-intel_craft.pdf) • Participant Observation, Qualitative research methods: a Data collector's field guide (http://www.fhi.org/en/ RH/Pubs/booksReports/QRM_datacoll.htm)

Videos • "Living Theory Approach to Qualitative Action Research" (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=AFl3PUrwG_8)

Chicago school (sociology) In sociology and later criminology, the Chicago School (sometimes described as the Ecological School) was the first major body of works emerging during the 1920s and 1930s specialising in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere.

While involving scholars at several Chicago area universities, the term is often used interchangeably to refer to the University of Chicago's sociology department—one of the oldest and one of the most prestigious. Following World War II, a "Second Chicago School" arose whose members used symbolic interactionism combined with methods of field research, to create a new body of work.[1] This was one of the first institutions to use quantitative methods in criminology.

The major researchers in the first Chicago School included Nels Anderson, Ernest Burgess, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Edward Franklin Frazier, Everett Hughes, Roderick D. McKenzie, George Herbert Mead, Robert E. Park, Walter C. Reckless, Edwin Sutherland, W. I. Thomas [2], Frederic Thrasher, Louis Wirth, Florian Znaniecki. Activist, social scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams also forged and maintained close ties with some of the members of the Chicago School of Sociology.

Discussion The Chicago School is best known for its urban sociology and for the development of the symbolic interactionist approach. It has focused on human behavior as determined by social structures and physical environmental factors, rather than genetic and personal characteristics. Biologists and anthropologists have accepted the theory of evolution as demonstrating that animals adapt to their environments. As applied to humans who are considered responsible for their own destinies, the School believed that the natural environment which the community inhabits is a major factor in shaping human behavior, and that the city functions as a microcosm: "In these great cities, where all the passions, all the energies of mankind are released, we are in a position to investigate the process of civilization, as it were, under a microscope."[3] The work of Frederic E. Clements (1916) was particularly influential. He proposed that a community of vegetation is a superorganism and that communities develop in a fixed pattern of successional stages from inception through to some single climax state or to a self-regulating state of equilibrium. By analogy, an individual is born, grows, matures, and dies, but the community which the individual inhabited continues to grow and exhibit properties which are greater than the sum of the properties of the parts.

Members of the School have concentrated on the city of Chicago as the object of their study, seeking evidence whether urbanization (Wirth: 1938) and increasing social mobility have been the causes of the contemporary social problems. Originally, Chicago was a clean slate, an empty physical environment. By 1860, Chicago was a small town with a population of 10,000. There was great growth after the fire of 1871. By 1910, the population exceeded

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Chicago school (sociology) two million. The rapidity of the increase was due to an influx of immigrants and it produced homelessness (Anderson: 1923), poor housing conditions, and bad working conditions based on low wages and long hours. But equally, Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) stress that the sudden freedom of immigrants released from the controls of Europe to the unrestrained competition of the new city was a dynamic for growth. See also the broken windows thesis.

"Ecological studies consisted of making spot maps of Chicago for the place of occurrence of specific behaviors, including alcoholism, homicides, suicides, psychoses, and poverty, and then computing rates based on census data. A visual comparison of the maps could identify the concentration of certain types of behavior in some areas. Correlations of rates by areas were not made until later."[4] For Thomas, the groups themselves had to reinscribe and reconstruct themselves to prosper. Burgess studied the history of development and concluded that the city had not grown at the edges. Although the presence of Lake Michigan prevented the complete encirclement, he postulated that all major cities would be formed by radial expansion from the center in concentric rings which he described as zones, i.e. the business area in the center, the slum area (called the zone in transition and studied by Wirth: 1928, Zorbaugh: 1929, and Suttles: 1968) around the central area, the zone of workingmen's homes farther out, the residential area beyond this zone, and then the bungalow section and the commuter's zone on the periphery. Under the influence of Albion Small, the research at the School mined the mass of official data including census reports, housing/welfare records and crime figures, and related the data spatially to different geographical areas of the city. Shaw and McKay created maps: • spot maps to demonstrate the location of a range of social problems with a primary focus on juvenile delinquency; • rate maps which divided the city into block of one square mile and showed the population by age, gender, ethnicity, etc.; • zone maps which demonstrated that the major problems were clustered in the city center.

Thomas also developed techniques of self-reporting life histories to provide subjective balance to the analysis. Park, Burgess, and McKenzie are credited with institutionalizing, if not establishing, sociology as a science. They are also criticized for their overly empiricist and idealised approach to the study of society but, in the inter-war years, their attitudes and prejudices were normative. Three broad themes characterized this dynamic period of Chicago studies: 1. culture contact and conflict. This arises from Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) and studies how ethnic groups interact and compete in a process of community succession and institutional transformation (Hughes and Hughes: 1952). An important part of this work concerned African Americans; works including E. Franklin Frazier (1932) and Drake and Cayton (1945) shaped white America's perception of black communities for decades.

2. succession in community institutions as stakeholders and actors in the ebb and flow of ethnic groups. Cressey (1932) studied the dance hall and commercialized entertainment services, Kincheloe (1938) studied church succession, Janowitz (1952) studied the community press, and Hughes (1979) studied the real-estate board.

3. city politics. Merriam's commitment to practical reform politics was matched by Gosnell who researched voting and other forms of participation. Gosnell (1935), Wilson (1960), Grimshaw (1992) considered African American politics, and Banfield and Wilson (1963) placed Chicago city politics in a broader context.

The School is perhaps best known for the Subculture Theories of Thrasher, Frazier, and Sutherland, and for applying the principles of ecology to develop the Social Disorganization Theory which refers to consequences of the failure of: • social institutions or social organizations including the family, schools, church, political institutions, policing, business, etc. in identified communities and/or neighborhoods, or in society at large; and • social relationships that traditionally encourage co-operation between people.

Thomas defined social disorganization as "the inability of a neighborhood to solve its problems together" which suggested a level of social pathology and personal disorganization, so the term, "differential social organization" was preferred by many, and may have been the source of Sutherland's (1947) Differential Association Theory. The researchers have provided a clear analysis that the city is a place where life is superficial, where people are

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Chicago school (sociology) anonymous, where relationships are transitory and friendship and family bonds are weak. They have observed the weakening of primary social relationships and relate this to a process of social disorganization (comparison with the concept of anomie and the Strain Theories is instructive).

For a complete discussion, see Social Disorganization Theory and Subcultural Theory.

Ecology and social theories Vasishth and Sloane (2000) argue that while it is tempting to draw analogies between organisms in nature and the human condition, the problem lies in reductionism, i.e. that the science of biology is oversimplified into rules that are then applied mechanically to explain the growth and dynamics of human communities. The most fundamental difficulties are definitional. If a community is a group of individuals who inhabit the same place, is the community merely the sum of individuals and their activities, or is it something more than an aggregation of individuals? This is critical in planning research into group interactions. Will research be effective if it focuses on the individuals comprising a group, or is the community itself a proper subject of research independently of the individuals who comprise it? If the former, then data on individuals will explain the community, but if the community either directly or indirectly affects the behavior of its members, then research must consider the patterns and processes of community as distinct from patterns and processes in populations of individuals. But this requires a definition and distinction between "pattern" and "process". The structures, forms, and patterns are relatively easy to observe and measure, but they are nothing more than evidence of underlying processes and functions which are the real constitutive forces in nature and society. The Chicago School wanted to develop tools by which to research and then change society by directing urban planning and social intervention agencies. It recognized that urban expansion was not haphazard but quite strongly controlled by community-level forces such as land values, zoning ordinances, landscape features, circulation corridors, and historical contingency. This was characterized as ecological because the external factors were neither chance nor intended, but rather arose from the natural forces in the environment which limit the adaptive spatial and temporal relationships between individuals. The School sought to derive patterns from a study of processes, rather than to ascribe processes to observed patterns and the patterns they saw emerge, are strongly reminiscent of Clements' ideas of community development.

Conclusions The Chicago Area Project (CAP) was a practical attempt by sociologists to apply their theories in a city laboratory.

Subsequent research showed that the youth athletic leagues, recreation programs, and summer camp worked best along with urban planning and alternatives to incarceration as crime control policy. Such programs are non-entrepreneurial and non-self-sustaining, and they fail when local or central government does not make a sustained financial commitment to them. Although with hindsight, the School's attempts to map crime may have produced some distortions, the work was valuable in that it moved away from a study of pattern and place toward a study of function and scale. To that extent, this was work of high quality that represented the best science available to the researchers at the time.

The Social Disorganization Theory itself was a landmark and, since it focuses on the absence or breakdown of social control mechanisms, there are obvious links with social control theory. In Causes of Delinquency (1969) Travis Hirschi argued that variations in delinquent behavior among youth could be explained by variations in the dimensions of the social bond, namely attachment to others, commitments to conventional goals, acceptance of conventional moral standards or beliefs, and involvement in conventional activities. The greater the social bonds between a youth and society, the lower the odds of involvement in delinquency. When social bonds to conventional role models, values and institutions are aggregated for youth in a particular setting, they measure much the same phenomena as captured by concepts such as network ties or social integration. But the fact that these theories focus on the absence of control or the barriers to progress, means that they are ignoring the societal pressures and cultural values that drive the system Merton identified in the Strain Theory or the motivational forces Cohen proposed were

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Chicago school (sociology) generating crime and delinquency. More modern theorists like Empey (1967) argue that the system of values, norms and beliefs can be disorganized in the sense that there are conflicts among values, norms and beliefs within a widely shared, dominant culture. While condemning crime in general, law-abiding citizens may nevertheless respect and admire the criminal who takes risks and successfully engages in exciting, dangerous activities. The depiction of a society as a collection of socially differentiated groups with distinct subcultural perspectives that lead some of these groups into conflict with the law is another form of cultural disorganization, is typically called cultural conflict.

Modern versions of the theory sometimes use different terminology to refer to the same ecological causal processes.

For example, Crutchfield, Geerken and Gove (1982: 467-482) hypothesize that the social integration of communities is inhibited by population turnover and report supporting evidence in the explanation of variation in crime rates among cities. The greater the mobility of the population in a city, the higher the crime rates. These arguments are identical to those proposed by social disorganization theorists and the evidence in support of it is as indirect as the evidence cited by social disorganization theorists. But, by referring to social integration rather than disintegration, this research has not generated the same degree of criticism as social disorganization theory.

References [1] Gary Alan Fine. A Second Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar American Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) [2] http:/ / www. bolender. com/ Sociological%20Theory/ Thomas,%20William%20I. %20and%20Florian%20Znaniecki/ thomas,_william_i_and_florian_znaniecki. htm [3] Robert E. Park, “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” AJS 33:6 (May 1928), p.890 [4] Ruth Shonle Cavan, “The Chicago School of Sociology,” 1983, p.415

External links • For an overview of the history of the Chicago School, see the web version of an article by Howard S. Becker, himself a member of the "Second Chicago School". (http://web.archive.org/web/20080203122901/http:// home.earthlink.net/~hsbecker/chicago.html) • University of Chicago Department of Sociology (http://sociology.uchicago.edu/)

References For a comprehensive history of the Chicago School, see Martin Bulmer (1984) and Lester Kurtz (1984).

Other references • Abbott, Andrew. (1999). Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-00099-0 • Anderson, Nels, and Council of Social Agencies of Chicago. (1923). The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man. • Banfield, Edward C. & Wilson, James Q. (1963). City Politics.

• Bulmer, Martin. (1984). The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Burgess, Ernest & Bogue, Donald J. (eds.).(1964). Contributions to Urban Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-08055-2 • Burgess, Ernest & Bogue, Donald J. (eds.) (1967). Urban Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-08056-0 • Bursik, Robert J. (1984). "Urban Dynamics and Ecological Studies of Delinquency". Social Forces 63: 393-413.

• Clements, Frederic E. (1916). Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation. Carnegie Institute of Washington Publication, No. 242. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution.

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Chicago school (sociology) • Crutchfield, R.D., M. Geerken and W.R. Gove, (1982). "Crime Rates and Social Integration: The Impact of Metropolitan Mobility" Criminology, Vol. 20, Nos. 3 and 4, November, 1982, 467-478 • Cressey, Paul Goalby. (1932). The Taxi-Dance Hall: A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life.

• Drake, St. Clair & Cayton, Horace. (1945). Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City.

• Empey L. T. (1967) "Delinquency Theory and Recent Research". Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 4.

• Frazier, Edward Franklin. (1932). The Free Negro Family: A Study of Family Origins before the Civil War. • Frazier, Edward Franklin. (1932). The Negro Family in Chicago.

• Gosnell, Harold Foote. (1927). Getting Out the Vote: An Experiment in the Stimulation of Voting.

• Gosnell, Harold Foote. (1935). Negro Politicians: The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago.

• Gosnell, Harold Foote. (1937). Machine Politics: Chicago Model.

• Grimshaw, William J. (1992). Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931–1991.

• Hawley, Amos H. (1943). "Ecology and Human Ecology". Social Forces 22: 398-405.

• Hawley, Amos H. (1950). Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure. New York: Ronald Press.

• Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press. (2001) Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-7658-0900-1 • Hughes, Everett Cherrington. (1979). The Chicago Real Estate Board: The Growth of an Institution.

• Hughes, Everett Cherrington & Hughes, Helen MacGill. (1952). Where Peoples Meet: Racial and Ethnic Frontiers.

• Janowitz, Morris. (1952). The Community Press in an Urban Setting.

• Kincheloe, Samuel C. (1938). The American City and Its Church.

• Kurtz, Lester R. (1984). Evaluating Chicago Sociology: A Guide to the Literature, with an Annotated Bibliography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-46477-6 • McKenzie, R. D. "The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Community". American Journal of Sociology 30 (1924): 287-301.

• Merriam, Charles Edward. (1903). A History of American Political Theories.

• Merriam, Charles Edward. (1908). Primary Elections: A Study of the History and Tendencies of Primary Election Legislation.

• Merriam, Charles Edward. (1929). Chicago: A More Intimate View of Urban Politics.

• Park, Robert E. (1915). "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Behavior in the City Environment", American Journal of Sociology 20:579-83.

• Park, Robert E., Ernest Burgess, Roderick McKenzie (1925). The City, University of Chicago Press.

• Stark et al., "Beyond Durkheim" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 22(1983):120-131 • Sutherland, Edwin. (1924, 34. 39). "Principles of Criminology.

• Suttles, Gerald D. (1968) The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and Territory in the Inner City.

• Thomas, William Isaac & Znaniecki, Florian. (1918). The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: Monograph of an Immigrant Group.

• Thrasher, Frederick (1927) The Gang. University of Chicago Press.

• Vasishth, Ashwani & Sloane, David. (2000) Returning to Ecology: An Ecosystem Approach. (http://www-rcf. usc.edu/~vasishth/Vasishth+Returning_To_Ecology.pdf) • Wilson, James Q. (1960). Negro Politics: The Search for Leadership.

• Wirth, Louis (1928) The Ghetto. University of Chicago Press.

• Wirth, Louis. (1938). “Urbanism as a Way of Life: The City and Contemporary Civilization”. American Journal of Sociology 44:1–24.

• Zorbaugh, Harvey Warren. (1929). Gold Coast and Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago's Near North Side.

10

Interview

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Interview An interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to elicit facts or statements from the interviewee.

Interview as a method for qualitative research "Definition" - The qualitative research interview seeks to describe and the meanings of central themes in the life world of the subjects. The main task in interviewing is to understand the meaning of what the interviewees say.(Kvale,1996)

An interview with Thed Björk, a Swedish racing driver.

Aspects of qualitative research interviews • • • • • • •

Interviews are completed by the interviewer based on what the interviewee says.

Interviews are a far more personal form of research than questionnaires.

In the personal interview, the interviewer works directly with the interviewee.

Unlike with mail surveys, the interviewer has the opportunity to probe or ask follow up questions.

Interviews are generally easier for the interviewee, especially if what is sought are opinions and/or impressions.

Interviews are time consuming and they are resource intensive.

The interviewer is considered a part of the measurement instrument and interviewer has to be well trained in how to respond to any contingency.

Types of interviews • Informal, conversational interview - no predetermined questions are asked, in order to remain as open and adaptable as possible to the interviewee’s nature and priorities; during the interview the interviewer “goes with the flow”.

• General interview guide approach - intended to ensure that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee; this provides more focus than the conversational approach, but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in getting the information from the interviewee • Standardized, open-ended interview - the same open-ended questions are asked to all interviewees; this approach facilitates faster interviews that can be more easily analyzed and compared.

• Closed, fixed-response interview - all interviewees are asked the same questions and asked to choose answers from among the same set of alternatives. This format is useful for those not practiced in interviewing.

Interview

Employment-related • Exit interview • Informational interview • Job interview • Case interview • Programming interview • Microsoft interview • Telephone interview

Others • • • • • • •

Cognitive interview Computer-assisted personal vs. telephone interviewing Investigative interview Ladder interview Mall-intercept personal interview Mock Interview Multiple mini interview

• • • • • • •

Online interview Parent-teacher interview Psychiatric interview Reference interview, between a librarian and a library user Repertory grid interview Structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interview Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV

Stages of interview investigation • • • • • • •

Thematizing, the why and what of the investigation Designing, plan the design of the study Interviewing, conduct the interview based on a guide Transcribing, prepare the interview material for analysis Analyzing, decide on the purpose, the topic, the nature and methods of analysis that are appropriate Verifying, ascertain the validity of the interview findings Reporting, communicate findings of the study based on academic criteria

Publications Several publications give prominence to interviews, including: • Interviews with novelists conducted since 1950 by The Paris Review • Interviews with celebrities conducted by Interview magazine, co-founded by Andy Warhol in 1969 • The Rolling Stone Interview, featured in Rolling Stone magazine

Famous interviews • 1957-1960: The Mike Wallace Interview - 30-minute television program interviews conducted by Mike Wallace • 1968: Interviews with Phil Ochs - an interview of folk singer Phil Ochs conducted by Broadside Magazine • 1974: Michael Parkinson/Muhammad Ali - television interview of Ali in his prime

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Interview • 1977: Frost/Nixon interviews - 1977 television interviews by British journalist David Frost of former United States President Richard Nixon • early 1980s: Soviet Interview Project - conducted with Soviet emigrants to the United States • 1992: Fellini: I'm a Born Liar - Federico Fellini's last filmed interviews conducted in 1992 for a 2002 feature documentary • 1992: Nevermind It's an Interview - interviews with the band Nirvana recorded in 1992 on the night they appeared on Saturday Night Live • 1993: Michael Jackson talks to Oprah Winfrey. This became the fourth most watched event in American television history as well as the most watched interview ever, with an audience of one hundred million.

• 1993: Birthday Cake Interview - an interview of Dr. John Hewson that contributed to the defeat of his party in the 1993 Australian federal election • 2002-3: Living with Michael Jackson - a 2002-3 interview with Michael Jackson, later turned into a documentary • 2003: February 2003 Saddam Hussein interview - Dan Rather interviewing Saddam Hussein days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq • 2008: Sarah Palin interviews with Katie Couric - Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin

References • Campion, M.A., Campion, J.E., & Hudson, J.P., Jr. “Structured Interviewing: A Note on Incremental Validity and Alternative Question Types”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 998-1002, 1994 • Dick, Bob. Convergent Interviewing. Session 8 of "Areol-Action Research and Evaluation", Southern Cross University, 2002 • Foddy, William. Constructing Questions for Interviews, Cambridge University Press, 1993 • General Accounting Office. Using Structured Interviewing Techniques (http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/ pe1015.pdf). Program Evaluation and Methodology Division, Washington D.C., 1991 • Groat, Linda & Wang, David. Architectural Research Methods, John Wiley & Sons, Inc • Hollowitz, J. & Wilson, C.E. “Structured Interviewing in Volunteer Selection”. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 21, 41-52, 1993 • Kvale, Steinar. Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing, Sage Publications, 1996 • McNamara, Carter, PhD. General Guidelines for Conducting Interviews (http://managementhelp.org/ businessresearch/interviews.htm) (http://communities.usaidallnet.gov/fa/system/files/General+Guidelines+ for+Conducting+Interviews.pdf), Minnesota, 1999 • Pawlas, G.E. “The Structured Interview: Three Dozen Questions to Ask Prospective Teachers”, NASSP Bulletin, 79, 62-65, 1995 • Trochim, William, M.K. " Types of Surveys (http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/survtype.php)", Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2002 • Watts, G.E. “Effective Strategies in Selecting Quality Faculty”, International Conference for Community College Chairs, Deans, & Other Instructional Leaders, Phoenix, Arizona, 1993

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Focus group

Focus group A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging.[1] Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members. The first focus groups were created at the Bureau of Applied Social Research in the USA, by associate director, sociologist Robert K. Merton.[2] The term itself was coined by psychologist and marketing expert Ernest Dichter.[3]

Marketing In the world of marketing, focus groups are seen as an important tool for acquiring feedback regarding new products, as well as various topics. In particular, focus groups allow companies wishing to develop, package, name, or test market a new product, to discuss, view, and/or test the new product before it is made available to the public. This can provide invaluable information about the potential market acceptance of the product.

Focus Group is an interview, conducted by a trained moderator among a small group of respondents. The interview is conducted in an unstructured and natural way where respondents are free to give views from any aspect.

Social sciences In the social sciences and urban planning, focus groups allow interviewers to study people in a more natural setting than a one-to-one interview. In combination with participant observation, they can be used for gaining access to various cultural and social groups, selecting sites to study, sampling of such sites, and raising unexpected issues for exploration. Their main advantage is their fairly low cost compared to surveys, as one can get results relatively quickly and increase the sample size of a report by talking with several people at once.[4]

Usability engineering In usability engineering, a focus group is a survey method to collect the views of users on a software or website. This marketing method can be applied to computer products to better understand the motivations of users and their perception of the product. Unlike other methods of ergonomics, focus group implies several participants: users or future users of the application. The focus group can only collect subjective data, not objective data on the use of the application as the usability test for example.[5] Alan Cooper, in his book "The inmates are running the asylum", suggests that although focus groups might be effective in many industries, they should not be relied upon in the software industry.

Types Variants of focus groups include: • Two-way focus group - one focus group watches another focus group and discusses the observed interactions and conclusion • Dual moderator focus group - one moderator ensures the session progresses smoothly, while another ensures that all the topics are covered • Dueling moderator focus group - two moderators deliberately take opposite sides on the issue under discussion • Respondent moderator focus group - one and only one of the respondents are asked to act as the moderator temporarily • Client participant focus groups - one or more client representatives participate in the discussion, either covertly or overtly • Mini focus groups - groups are composed of four or five members rather than 6 to 12

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Focus group • Teleconference focus groups - telephone network is used • Online focus groups - computers connected via the internet are used Traditional focus groups can provide accurate information, and are less expensive than other forms of traditional marketing research. There can be significant costs however : if a product is to be marketed on a nationwide basis, it would be critical to gather respondents from various locales throughout the country since attitudes about a new product may vary due to geographical considerations. This would require a considerable expenditure in travel and lodging expenses. Additionally, the site of a traditional focus group may or may not be in a locale convenient to a specific client, so client representatives may have to incur travel and lodging expenses as well.

Discussions • Group discussion produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting—listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants.

This is also known as the group effect where group members engage in “a kind of ‘chaining’ or ‘cascading’ effect; talk links to, or tumbles out of, the topics and expressions preceding it” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2002, p. 182) [6] • Group members discover a common language to describe similar experiences. This enables the capture of a form of “native language” or “vernacular speech” to understand the situation • Focus groups also provide an opportunity for disclosure among similar others in a setting where participants are validated. For example, in the context of workplace bullying, targeted employees often find themselves in situations where they experience lack of voice and feelings of isolation. Use of focus groups to study workplace bullying therefore serve as both an efficacious and ethical venue for collecting data (see, e.g., Tracy, Lutgen-Sandvik, & Alberts, 2006) [7]

Problems and criticism Focus groups are "One shot case studies" especially if they are measuring a property-disposition relationship within the social sciences, unless they are repeated.[8] Focus groups can create severe issues of external validity, especially the reactive effects of the testing arrangement.[9] A fundamental difficulty with focus groups (and other forms of qualitative research) is the issue of observer dependency: the results obtained are influenced by the researcher or his own reading of the group's discussion, raising questions of validity (see Experimenter's bias). Other common (and related) criticism involve groupthink and social desirability bias.

Another issue is with the setting itself. If the focus groups are held in a laboratory setting with a moderator who is a professor and the recording instrument is obtrusive, the participants may either hold back on their responses and/or try to answer the moderator's questions with answers the participants feel that the moderator wants to hear. Another issue with the focus group setting is the lack of anonymity. With all of the other participants, there can not be any guarantee of confidentiality. Again we have to deal with the issues of the reactive effects of the testing arrangement (See above).

Douglas Rushkoff[10] argues that focus groups are often useless, and frequently cause more trouble than they are intended to solve, with focus groups often aiming to please rather than offering their own opinions or evaluations, and with data often cherry picked to support a foregone conclusion. Rushkoff cites the disastrous introduction of New Coke in the 1980s as a vivid example of focus group analysis gone bad. In addition there is anecdotal evidence of focus groups rebelling, for instance the name for the Ford Focus, was created by a focus group which had grown bored and impatient and the irony of this was not picked up by the marketing team.

Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design, also said that Apple had found a good reason not to do focus groups : "They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products."

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Focus group

United States government The United States federal government makes extensive use of focus groups to assess public education materials and messages for their many programs. While many of these are appropriate for the purpose, many others are reluctant compromises which federal officials have had to make as a result of studies independent of whether a focus group is the best or even appropriate methodology.

Art Swedish artist Måns Wrange has used the concept of the focus group in his work The Good Rumor Project[11]. In this instance the focus group situation is used not only as a means to investigate the opinions of the group members, but also to spread an idea (the rumor) across society with the help of the group members.

References [1] Henderson, Naomi R. (2009). Managing Moderator Stress: Take a Deep Breath. You Can Do This!. Marketing Research, Vol. 21 Issue 1, p28-29.

[2] Michael T. Kaufman (February 24, 2003). "Robert K. Merton, Versatile Sociologist and Father of the Focus Group, Dies at 92" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2003/ 02/ 24/ nyregion/ robert-k-merton-versatile-sociologist-and-father-of-the-focus-group-dies-at-92. html). The New York Times. .

[3] Lynne Ames (August 2, 1998). "The View From/Peekskill; Tending the Flame of a Motivator" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 1998/ 08/ 02/ nyregion/ the-view-from-peekskill-tending-the-flame-of-a-motivator. html?n=Top/ News/ Science/ Topics/ Research). The New York Times. .

[4] Marshall, Catherine and Gretchen B. Rossman. 1999. Designing Qualitative Research. 3rd Ed. London: Sage Publications, p. 115 [5] Jakob Nielsen (1993) Usability Engineering. Academic Press, Boston.

[6] Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2002). Qualitative Communication Research Methods, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[7] Tracy, S. J., Lutgen-Sandvik, P., & Alberts, J. K. (2006). Nightmares, demons and slaves: Exploring the painful metaphors of workplace bullying. Management Communication Quarterly, 20, 148-185.

[8] Nachmais, Chava Frankfort; Nachmais, David. 2008. Research methods in the Social Sciences: Seventh Edition New York, NY: Worth Publishers [9] Campbell, Donald T., Stanley, Juilian C. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally [10] Rushkoff, Douglas, Get back in the box : innovation from the inside out, New York : Collins, 2005 [11] http:/ / www. manswrange. com

External links • Focus Groups at Usability.gov (http://www.usability.gov/methods/analyze_current/learn/focus.html) • The British Market Research Association (http://www.mrs.org.uk/) The Industry body governing focus groups in the UK • Focus Group Principles (archived) (http://web.archive.org/web/20041026140011/http://www. marketingpower.com/content1293.php) American Marketing Association • Dos and don'ts for using marketing focus groups (http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/ marketing/market_research/dos_and_donts_for_using_marketing_focus_groups.mspx) Microsoft

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Ethnography

Ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos = folk/people and γράφω grapho = to write) is a qualitative research design aimed at exploring cultural phenomena. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group.[1][2][3] An ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing, the nature of a people.

An ethnographer is a participant observer who, following an eight page code of ethics, and using a set of classical virtues and a set of technical skills, forms questionnaires, interviews, and the participant's own observations into what is called "an ethnography" or "field study" or "case report".[4][5] The typical ethnography is an holistic study[6][7] and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate, and the habitat. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a substantial contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader, and express a credible reality. It observes the world (the study) from the point of view of the subject (not the participant ethnographer) and records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations using concepts that avoid casual explanations.

The ethnography, as the empirical data on human societies and cultures, was pioneered in the biological, social, and cultural branches of anthropology but has also become a popular in the social sciences in general—sociology,[8] communication studies, history—wherever people study ethnic groups, formations, compositions, resettlements, social welfare characteristics, materiality, spirituality, and a peoples ethnogenesis.[9]

Data collection methods Data collection methods are meant to capture the "social meanings and ordinary activities" [10] of people (informants) in "naturally occurring settings" [10] that are commonly referred to as "the field." The goal is to collect data in such a way that the researcher imposes a minimal amount of their own bias on the data.[10] Multiple methods of data collection may be employed to facilitate a relationship that allows for a more personal and in-depth portrait of the informants and their community. These can include participant observation, field A picture of the Izmir Ethnography Museum (İzmir notes, interviews, and surveys. Interviews are often taped and Etnografya Müzesi) from the courtyard. later transcribed, allowing the interview to proceed unimpaired of note-taking, but with all information available later for full analysis. Secondary research and document analysis are also employed to provide insight into the research topic. In the past kinship charts were commonly used to "discover logical patterns and social structure in non-Western societies".[11] However anthropology today focuses more on the study of urban settings and the use of kinship charts is seldom employed.

In order to make the data collection and interpretation transparent, researchers creating ethnographies often attempt to be "reflexive." Reflexivity refers to the researcher's aim "to explore the ways in which [the] researcher's involvement with

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Ethnography

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a particular study influences, acts upon and informs such research".[12] Despite these attempts of reflexivity, no researcher can be totally unbiased, which has provided a basis to criticize ethnography.

Traditionally, the ethnographer focuses attention on a community, selecting knowledgeable informants who know the activities of the community well.[13] These informants are typically asked to identify other informants who represent the community, often using chain sampling.[13] This process is often effective in revealing common cultural denominators connected to the topic being studied.[13] Ethnography relies greatly on up-close, personal experience. Participation, rather than just observation, is one of the keys to this process.[14] Ethnography is very useful in social research.

Ethnography museum

Differences across disciplines The ethnographic method is used across a range of different disciplines, primarily by anthropologists but also frequently by sociologists. Cultural studies, economics, social work, education, ethnomusicology, folklore, religious studies, geography, history, linguistics, communication studies, performance studies, advertising, psychology, usability and criminology are other fields which have made use of ethnography.

Cultural and Social Anthropology Cultural anthropology and social anthropology were developed around ethnographic research and their canonical texts which are mostly ethnographies: e.g. Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) by Bronisław Malinowski, Ethnologische Excursion in Johore (1875) by Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) by Margaret Mead, The Nuer (1940) by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Naven (1936, 1958) by Gregory Bateson or "The Lele of the Kasai" (1963) by Mary Douglas. Cultural and social anthropologists today place such a high value on actually doing ethnographic research that ethnology—the comparative synthesis of ethnographic information—is rarely the foundation for a career. The typical ethnography is a document written about a particular people, almost always based at least in part on emic views of where the culture begins and ends. Using language or community boundaries to bound the ethnography is common.[15] Ethnographies are also sometimes called "case studies."[16] Ethnographers study and interpret culture, its universalities and its variations through ethnographic study based on fieldwork. An ethnography is a specific kind of written observational science which provides an account of a particular culture, society, or community. The fieldwork usually involves spending a year or more in another society, living with the local people and learning about their ways of life. Ethnographers are participant observers. They take part in events they study because it helps with understanding local behavior and thought. Classic examples are Carol Stack's All Our Kin, Jean Briggs' "Never in Anger", Richard Lee's "Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers", Victor Turner's "Forest of Symbols", David Maybry-Lewis' "Akew-Shavante Society", E.E. Evans-Pritchard's "The Nuer" and Claude Lévi-Strauss' "Tristes Tropiques". Iterations of ethnographic representations in the classic, modernist camp include Bartholomew Dean's recent (2009) contribution, Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian

Ethnography Amazonia.[17] A typical ethnography attempts to be holistic[18][19] and typically follows an outline to include a brief history of the culture in question, an analysis of the physical geography or terrain inhabited by the people under study, including climate, and often including what biological anthropologists call habitat. Folk notions of botany and zoology are presented as ethnobotany and ethnozoology alongside references from the formal sciences. Material culture, technology and means of subsistence are usually treated next, as they are typically bound up in Bronisław Malinowski among Trobriand tribe physical geography and include descriptions of infrastructure. Kinship and social structure (including age grading, peer groups, gender, voluntary associations, clans, moieties, and so forth, if they exist) are typically included. Languages spoken, dialects and the history of language change are another group of standard topics.[20] Practices of childrearing, acculturation and emic views on personality and values usually follow after sections on social structure.[21] Rites, rituals, and other evidence of religion have long been an interest and are sometimes central to ethnographies, especially when conducted in public where visiting anthropologists can see them.[22] As ethnography developed, anthropologists grew more interested in less tangible aspects of culture, such as values, worldview and what Clifford Geertz termed the "ethos" of the culture. Clifford Geertz's own fieldwork used elements of a phenomenological approach to fieldwork, tracing not just the doings of people, but the cultural elements themselves. For example, if within a group of people, winking was a communicative gesture, he sought to first determine what kinds of things a wink might mean (it might mean several things). Then, he sought to determine in what contexts winks were used, and whether, as one moved about a region, winks remained meaningful in the same way. In this way, cultural boundaries of communication could be explored, as opposed to using linguistic boundaries or notions about residence. Geertz, while still following something of a traditional ethnographic outline, moved outside that outline to talk about "webs" instead of "outlines"[23] of culture.

Within cultural anthropology, there are several sub-genres of ethnography. Beginning in the 1950s and early 1960s, anthropologists began writing "bio-confessional" ethnographies that intentionally exposed the nature of ethnographic research. Famous examples include Tristes Tropiques (1955) by Claude LĂŠvi-Strauss, The High Valley by Kenneth Read, and The Savage and the Innocent by David Maybury-Lewis, as well as the mildly fictionalized Return to Laughter by Elenore Smith Bowen (Laura Bohannan). Later "reflexive" ethnographies refined the technique to translate cultural differences by representing their effects on the ethnographer. Famous examples include "Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight" by Clifford Geertz, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco by Paul Rabinow, The Headman and I by Jean-Paul Dumont, and Tuhami by Vincent Crapanzano. In the 1980s, the rhetoric of ethnography was subjected to intense scrutiny within the discipline, under the general influence of literary theory and post-colonial/post-structuralist thought. "Experimental" ethnographies that reveal the ferment of the discipline include Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man by Michael Taussig, Debating Muslims by Michael F. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, A Space on the Side of the Road by Kathleen Stewart, and Advocacy after Bhopal by Kim Fortun.

This critical turn in sociocultural anthropology during the mid-1980s can, in large part, can be traced to the influence of the now classic (and often contested) text, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, (1986) edited by James Clifford and George Marcus. Writing Culture helped bring changes to both anthropology and ethnography often described in terms of being 'postmodern,' 'reflexive,' 'literary,' 'deconstructive,' or 'poststructural' in nature in that the text helped to highlight the various epistemic and political predicaments that many practitioners saw as plaguing ethnographic representations and practices.[24] Where Geertz's and Turner's interpretive anthropology recognized subjects as creative actors who constructed their sociocultural worlds out of symbols, postmodernists attempted to draw attention to the privileged status of the ethnographers themselves. That is, the ethnographer cannot escape their own particular viewpoint in creating an ethnographic account thus making any

19

Ethnography claims of objective neutrality on the part of their representation highly problematic, if not altogether impossible.[25] In regards to this last point, Writing Culture became a focal point for looking at how ethnographers could describe different cultures and societies without denying the subjectivity of those individuals and groups being studied while simultaneously doing so without laying claiming to absolute knowledge and objective authority.[26] Along with the development of experimental forms such as 'dialogic anthropology' and 'narrative ethnography,' Writing Culture helped to encourage the development of 'collaborative ethnography.'[27] This exploration of the relationship between writer, audience, and subject has become a central tenet of contemporary anthropological and ethnographic practice wherein active collaboration between the researcher(s) and subject(s) has helped blend, in certain instances, the practice of collaboration in ethnographic fieldwork with the process of creating the actual ethnographic product that emerges from the research itself.[27][28][29]

Sociology Sociology is another field which prominently features ethnographies. Urban sociology and the Chicago School in particular are associated with ethnographic research, with some well-known early examples being Street Corner Society by William Foote Whyte and Black Metropolis by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Jr.. Some of the influence for this can be traced to the anthropologist Lloyd Warner who was on the Chicago sociology faculty, and to Robert Park's experience as a journalist. Symbolic interactionism developed from the same tradition and yielded several excellent sociological ethnographies, including Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine, which documents the early history of fantasy role-playing games. Other important ethnographies in the discipline of sociology include Pierre Bourdieu's work on Algeria and France, Paul Willis's Learning To Labour on working class youth, and the work of Elijah Anderson, Mitchell Duneier, Loic Wacquant on black America and Glimpses of Madrasa From Africa, 2010 Lai Olurode. But even though many sub-fields and theoretical perspectives within sociology use ethnographic methods, ethnography is not the sine qua non of the discipline, as it is in cultural anthropology.

Communication studies Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, ethnographic research methods began to be widely employed by communication scholars. Studies such as Gerry Philipsen's [30] analysis of cultural communication strategies in a blue-collar, working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Speaking 'Like a Man' in Teamsterville, paved the way for the expansion of ethnographic research in the study of communication.

Scholars of communication studies use ethnographic research methods to analyze communication behaviors, seeking to answer the "why" and "how come" questions of human communication.[31] Often this type of research results in a case study or field study such as an analysis of speech patterns at a protest rally, or the way firemen communicate during "down time" at a fire station. Like anthropology scholars, communication scholars often immerse themselves, participate in and/or directly observe the particular social group being studied.[32]

Other fields The American anthropologist George Spindler was a pioneer in applying ethnographic methodology to the classroom.

Anthropologists like Daniel Miller and Mary Douglas have used ethnographic data to answer academic questions about consumers and consumption. In this sense, Tony Salvador, Genevieve Bell, and Ken Anderson describe design ethnography as being "a way of understanding the particulars of daily life in such a way as to increase the success probability of a new product or service or, more appropriately, to reduce the probability of failure specifically due to a lack of understanding of the basic behaviors and frameworks of consumers."[33] Businesses, too, have found ethnographers helpful for understanding how people use products and services, as indicated in the increasing use of ethnographic methods to understand consumers and consumption, or for new product development (such as video ethnography). The recent Ethnographic Praxis in Industry (EPIC) conference is

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Ethnography evidence of this. Ethnographers' systematic and holistic approach to real-life experience is valued by product developers, who use the method to understand unstated desires or cultural practices that surround products. Where focus groups fail to inform marketers about what people really do, ethnography links what people say to what they actually do—avoiding the pitfalls that come from relying only on self-reported, focus-group data.

Evaluating ethnography Ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of philosophical standpoint (such as positivism and emotionalism). Ethnographic studies nonetheless need to be evaluated in some manner. While there is no consensus on evaluation standards, Richardson (2000, p. 254)[34] provides 5 criteria that ethnographers might find helpful.

1. Substantive Contribution: "Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social-life?"

2. Aesthetic Merit: "Does this piece succeed aesthetically?"

3. Reflexivity: "How did the author come to write this text…Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view?"[35] 4. Impact: "Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?" Does it move me?

5. Expresses a Reality: "Does it seem 'true'—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the 'real'?"

Ethics Gary Alan Fine argues that the nature of ethnographic inquiry demands that researchers deviate from formal and idealistic rules or ethics that have come to be widely accepted in qualitative and quantitative approaches in research.

Many of these ethical assumptions are rooted in positivist and post-positivist epistemologies that have adapted over time, but nonetheless are apparent and must be accounted for in all research paradigms. These ethical dilemmas are evident throughout the entire process of conducting ethnographies, including the design, implementation, and reporting of an ethnographic study. Essentially, Fine maintains that researchers are typically not as ethical as they claim or assume to be — and that "each job includes ways of doing things that would be inappropriate for others to know".[36] Fine is not necessarily casting blame or pointing his finger at ethnographic researchers, but rather is attempting to show that researchers often make idealized ethical claims and standards which in actuality are inherently based on partial truths and self-deceptions. Fine also acknowledges that many of these partial truths and self-deceptions are unavoidable. He maintains that "illusions" are essential to maintain an occupational reputation and avoid potentially more caustic consequences. He claims, "Ethnographers cannot help but lie, but in lying, we reveal truths that escape those who are not so bold".[37] Based on these assertions, Fine establishes three conceptual clusters in which ethnographic ethical dilemmas can be situated: "Classic Virtues," "Technical Skills," and "Ethnographic Self."

Much debate surrounding the issue of ethics arose after the ethnographer Napoleon Chagnon conducted his ethnographic fieldwork with the Yanomani people of South America.

While there is no international standard on Ethnographic Ethics, many western anthropologists look to the American Anthropological Association for guidance when conducting ethnographic work.[38] The Association has generated a code of ethics approved in February 2009 which states that Anthropologists have "moral obligations as members of other groups, such as the family, religion, and community, as well as the profession".[39] The code of ethics goes on to note that anthropologists are also part of a wider scholarly and political network as well as human and natural environment which needs to be reported on respectfully.[39] The code of ethics recognizes that sometimes very close and personal relationship can sometimes emerge out of doing ethnographic work.[39] The American Anthropological Association does recognize that the code is a bit limited in scope mainly because doing ethnographic work can sometimes be multidisciplinary and anthropologists need to familiarize themselves with ethic not only from an anthropological perspective but also from the perspectives of other disciplines.[40] The eight page code of ethics

21

Ethnography outlines ethical considerations for those conducting Research, Teaching, Application and Dissemination of Results which are briefly outlined below.[41] • Conducting Research-When conducting research Anthropologists need to be aware of the potential impacts of the research on the people and animals they study.[42] If the seeking of new knowledge will negatively impact the people and animals they will be studying they may not undertake the study according to the code of ethics.[42] • Teaching-When teaching the discipline of anthropology, instructors are required to inform students of the ethical dilemmas of conducting ethnographies and field work.[43] • Application-When conducting an ethnography Anthropologists must be "open with funders, colleagues, persons studied or providing information, and relevant parties affected by the work about the purpose(s), potential impacts, and source(s) of support for the work." [44] • Dissemination of Results-When disseminating results of an ethnography the code notes that "[a]nthropologists have an ethical obligation to consider the potential impact of both their research and the communication or dissemination of the results of their research on all directly or indirectly involved." [45] Research results of ethnographies should not be withheld from participants in the research if that research is being observed by other people.[44]

Classic virtues • "The kindly ethnographer" – Most ethnographers present themselves as being more sympathetic than they actually are, which aids in the research process, but is also deceptive. The identity that we present to subjects is different from who we are in other circumstances.

• "The friendly ethnographer" – Ethnographers operate under the assumption that they should not dislike anyone. In actuality, when hated individuals are found within research, ethnographers often crop them out of the findings.

• "The honest ethnographer" – If research participants know the research goals, their responses will likely be skewed. Therefore, ethnographers often conceal what they know in order to increase the likelihood of acceptance.[46]

Technical skills • "The Precise Ethnographer" – Ethnographers often create the illusion that field notes are data and reflect what "really" happened. They engage in the opposite of plagiarism, giving credit to those undeserving by not using precise words but rather loose interpretations and paraphrasing. Researchers take near-fictions and turn them into claims of fact. The closest ethnographers can ever really get to reality is an approximate truth.

• "The Observant Ethnographer" – Readers of ethnography are often led to assume the report of a scene is complete – that little of importance was missed. In reality, an ethnographer will always miss some aspect because they are not omniscient. Everything is open to multiple interpretations and misunderstandings. The ability of the ethnographer to take notes and observe varies, and therefore, what is depicted in ethnography is not the whole picture.

• "The Unobtrusive Ethnographer" – As a "participant" in the scene, the researcher will always have an effect on the communication that occurs within the research site. The degree to which one is an "active member" affects the extent to which sympathetic understanding is possible.[47]

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Ethnography

The ethnographic self The following appellations are commonly misconceived conceptions of ethnographers: • "The Candid Ethnographer" – Where the researcher situates themselves within the ethnography is ethically problematic. There is an illusion that everything reported has actually happened because the researcher has been directly exposed to it.

• "The Chaste Ethnographer" – When ethnographers participate within the field, they invariably develop relationships with research subjects/participants. These relationships are sometimes not accounted for within the reporting of the ethnography despite the fact that they seemingly would influence the research findings.

• "The Fair Ethnographer" – Fine claims that objectivity is an illusion and that everything in ethnography is known from a perspective. Therefore, it is unethical for a researcher to report fairness in their findings.

• "The Literary Ethnographer" – Representation is a balancing act of determining what to "show" through poetic/prosaic language and style versus what to "tell" via straightforward, ‘factual’ reporting. The idiosyncratic skill of the ethnographer influences the face-value of the research.[48] eight principles should be considered for observing, recording and sampling data according to Denzin: 1. The groups should combine symbolic meanings with patterns of interaction.

2. Observe the world from the point of view of the subject, while maintaining the distinction between everyday and scientific perceptions of reality.

3. Link the group's symbols and their meanings with the social relationships.

4. Record all behaviour.

5. Methodology should highlight phases of process, change and stability.

6. The act should be a type of symbolic interactionism.

7. Use concepts that would avoid casual explanations.

References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture.

In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (pp 3-30). New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers Philipsen, G. (1992). Speaking Culturally: Explorations in Social Communication. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press Boaz. N.T. & Wolfe, L.D. (1997). Biological anthropology. Published by International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research. Page 150.

Maynard, M. & Purvis, J. (1994). Researching women's loves from a feminist perspective. London: Taylor & Frances. p. 76 Ember, Carol and Melvin Ember. Cultural Anthropology. 2006. Prentice Hall, Chapter One Heider, Karl. Seeing Anthropology. 2001. Prentice Hall, Chapters One and Two. "Ethnology" at dictionary.com (http:/ / dictionary. reference. com/ browse/ ethnology). Токарев, Сергей Александрович (1978) (in Russian). История зарубежной этнографии (http:/ / historia-site. narod. ru/ library/ ethnology/ tokarev_main. htm). Наука. .

[10] [Brewer, John D. (2000). Ethnography. Philadelphia: Open University Press. p.10.]

[11] (http:/ / www. anthrobase. com/ Dic/ eng/ def/ kinship. html) [12] [nightingale, David & Cromby, John. Social Constructionist Psychology: A Critical Analysis of Theory and Practice. Philadelphia: Open University Press. p.228.]

[13] G. David Garson (2008). "Ethnographic Research: Statnotes, from North Carolina State University, Public Administration Program" (http:/ / faculty. chass. ncsu. edu/ garson/ PA765/ ethno. htm). Faculty.chass.ncsu.edu. . Retrieved 2011-03-27.

[14] Genzuk, Michael, PH.D., A Synthesis of Ethnographic (http:/ / www-bcf. usc. edu/ ~genzuk/ Ethnographic_Research. html), Center for Multilingual, Multicultural Research, University of Southern California [15] Naroll, Raoul. Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology.

[16] Chavez, Leo. "Shadowed Lives: Undocumented workers in American society (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology). 1997 Prentice Hall.

[17] "University Press of Florida: Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia" (http:/ / www. upf. com/ book. asp?id=DEANXS07). Upf.com. 2009-11-15. . Retrieved 2011-03-27.

[18] Ember, Carol and Melvin Ember. Cultural Anthropology. 2006. Prentice Hall, Chapter One [19] Heider, Karl. Seeing Anthropology. 2001. Prentice Hall, Chapters One and Two. [20] cf. Ember and Ember 2006, Heider 2001 op cit.

[21] Ember and Ember 2006, op cit., Chapters 7 and 8 [22] Truner, Victor. The Forest of Symbols. remainder of citation forthcoming

23

Ethnography [23] Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Culture Chapter one.

[24] Olaf Zenker & Karsten Kumoll. Beyond Writing Culture: Current Intersections of Epistemologies and Representational Practices. (2010).

New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-675-7. Pgs. 1-4 [25] Paul A. Erickson & Liam D. Murphy. A History of Anthropological Theory, Third Edition. (2008). Toronto: Broadview Press. ISBN 978-1-55111-871-0. Pg. 190 [26] Paul A. Erickson & Liam D. Murphy. A History of Anthropological Theory, Third Edition. (2008). Toronto: Broadview Press. ISBN 978-1-55111-871-0. Pgs. 190-191 [27] Olaf Zenker & Karsten Kumoll. Beyond Writing Culture: Current Intersections of Epistemologies and Representational Practices. (2010).

New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-675-7. Pg. 12 [28] Luke E. Lassiter. 'From "Reading over the Shoulders of Natives" to "Reading alongside Natives", Literally: Toward a Collaborative and Reciprocal Ethnography'. (2001). Journal of Anthropologcal Research, 57(2):137-149 [29] Luke E. Lassiter. 'Collaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology'. (2005). Current Anthropology, 46(1):83-106 [30] http:/ / oak. cats. ohiou. edu/ ~mv537899/ sc. htm [31] Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., and Piele, L. J. (2005). Communication research: Strategies and sources. Belmont, California: Thomson Wadworth. pp. 229.

[32] Bentz, V. M., and Shapiro, J. J. (1998). Mindful inquiry in social research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. pp. 117.

[33] Salvador [34] Richardson,L. (2000). Evaluating ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 253-255 [35] For postcolonial critiques of ethnography from various locations, see essays in Prem Poddar et al, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures--Continental Europe and its Empires, Edinburgh University Press, 2008.

[36] Fine, p. 267 [37] Fine, p. 291 [38] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics http:/ / www. aaanet. org/ issues/ policy-advocacy/ upload/ AAA-Ethics-Code-2009. pdf, p.1 [39] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.1 [40] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.2 [41] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.1-8 [42] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.2-3 [43] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.4 [44] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.5 [45] American Anthropology Association Code of Ethics, p.5-6 [46] Fine, p. 270-77 [47] Fine, p. 277-81 [48] Fine, p. 282-89

Suggested Reading • Agar, Michael (1996) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. Academic Press.

• Clifford, James & George E. Marcus (Eds.). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. (1986).

Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Douglas, Mary and Baron Isherwood (1996) The World of Goods: Toward and Anthropology of Consumption.

Routledge, London.

• Erickson, Ken C. and Donald D. Stull (1997) Doing Team Ethnography : Warnings and Advice. Sage, Beverly Hills.

• Fine, G. A. (1993). Ten lies of ethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), p. 267-294.

• Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures.

• Heath, Shirley Brice & Brian Street, with Molly Mills. On Ethnography.

• Hymes, Dell. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

• Kottak, Conrad Phillip (2005) Window on Humanity : A Concise Introduction to General Anthropology, (pages 2–3, 16-17, 34-44). McGraw Hill, New York.

• Marcus, George E. & Michael Fischer. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. (1986). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Miller, Daniel (1987) Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Blackwell, London.

• Spradley, James P. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning.

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Ethnography • Salvador, Tony; Genevieve Bell; and Ken Anderson (1999) Design Ethnography. Design Management Journal.

• Van Maanen, John. 1988. Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Westbrook, David A. Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters. (2008). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

External links • Use of ethnographic research in product and service design (http://www.closeupresearch.co.uk/ ethnographic_research.html) • 100 of the Most Influential Ethnographies and Anthropology Texts (http://www.architectonictokyo.com/ 100_of_the_Most_Influential_Ethnographies_and_Anthropology_Texts.html) • Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (http://www.epiconference.com) • Genzuk, Michael (2003) A Synthesis of Ethnographic Research (http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~genzuk/ Ethnographic_Research.html) • Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History (http://anthro.amnh.org/anthro.html) - Over 160,000 objects from Pacific, North American, African, Asian ethnographic collections with images and detailed description, linked to the original catalogue pages, field notebooks, and photographs are available online.

• Ross Archive of African Images (http://raai.library.yale.edu/site/index.php) • Ethnographic material collection from Northern Anatolia and Caucasus -Photo Gallery (http://www.karalahana. com/fotograflar/thumbnails.php?album=9) • Ethnography.com (http://www.ethnography.com) A community based Ethnography website for academic and professional ethnographers and interested parties • New Zealand Museum (http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/) Images of objects from Pacific cultures.

• University of Pennsylvania's "What is Ethnography?" (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthro/anthro/ whatisethnography) Penn's Public Interest Anthropology Web Site • American Ethnography -- Definitions: What is Ethnography? (http://www.americanethnography.com/ ethnography.php) A collection of quotes about ethnography (Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss, Geertz, ...)

• Doing ethnographies (http://www.qmrg.org.uk/files/2008/12/58-doing-ethnographies.pdf) (Concepts and Techniques in Modern Geography) • Cornell University Library Southeast Asia Visions (http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/s/sea/index.php) • Ethnography for the masses (http://www.2cv.co.uk/documents/19Ethnography for the Masses.pdf) 2CV's Practical Application of Ethnography in Market Research • Scott Polar Research Institute (http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/catalogue/armc/) Arctic Material Culture Collection

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Grounded theory

26

Grounded theory Grounded theory method (GT) is a systematic methodology in the social sciences involving the discovery of theory through the analysis of data.[1][2] It is mainly used in qualitative research, but is also applicable to quantitative data.[3] Grounded theory method is a research method which operates almost in a reverse fashion from traditional social science research. Rather than beginning with a hypothesis, the first step is data collection, through a variety of methods. From the data collected, the key points are marked with a series of codes, which are extracted from the text. The codes are grouped into similar concepts in order to make them more workable. From these concepts, categories are formed, which are the basis for the creation of a theory, or a reverse engineered hypothesis. This contradicts the traditional model of research, where the researcher chooses a theoretical framework, and only then applies this model to the phenomenon to be studied.[4]

Background Grounded theory method was developed by two sociologists, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss. Their collaboration in research on dying hospital patients led them to write the book Awareness of Dying. In this research they developed the constant comparative method, later known as Grounded Theory Method.[5]

Four stages of analysis Stage

Purpose

Codes

Identifying anchors that allow the key points of the data to be gathered

Concepts

Collections of codes of similar content that allows the data to be grouped

Categories Broad groups of similar concepts that are used to generate a theory Theory

A collection of explanations that explain the subject of the research

Premise Grounded theory method is a systematic generation of theory from data that contains both inductive and deductive thinking. One goal is to formulate hypotheses based on conceptual ideas. Others may try to verify the hypotheses that are generated by constantly comparing conceptualized data on different levels of abstraction, and these comparisons contain deductive steps. Another goal of a grounded theory study is to discover the participants’ main concern and how they continually try to resolve it. The questions the researcher repeatedly asks in grounded theory are "What’s going on?" and "What is the main problem of the participants, and how are they trying to solve it?"

These questions will be answered by the core variable and its subcores and properties in due course.

Grounded theory method does not aim for the "truth" but to conceptualize what is going on by using empirical research. In a way, grounded theory method resembles what many researchers do when retrospectively formulating new hypotheses to fit data. However, applying the grounded theory method, the researcher does not formulate the hypotheses in advance since preconceived hypotheses result in a theory that is ungrounded from the data.[6] If the researcher's goal is accurate description, then another method should be chosen since grounded theory is not a descriptive method. Instead it has the goal of generating concepts that explain the way that people resolve their central concerns regardless of time and place. The use of description in a theory generated by the grounded theory method is mainly to illustrate concepts.

Grounded theory In most behavioral research endeavors, persons or patients are units of analysis, whereas in GT the unit of analysis is the incident.[7] Typically several hundred incidents are analyzed in a grounded theory study since usually every participant reports many incidents.

When comparing many incidents in a certain area, the emerging concepts and their relationships are in reality probability statements. Consequently, GT is a general method that can use any kind of data even though the most common use is with qualitative data (Glaser, 2001, 2003). However, although working with probabilities, most GT studies are considered as qualitative since statistical methods are not used, and figures are not presented. The results of GT are not a reporting of statistically significant probabilities but a set of probability statements about the relationship between concepts, or an integrated set of conceptual hypotheses developed from empirical data (Glaser 1998). Validity in its traditional sense is consequently not an issue in GT, which instead should be judged by fit, relevance, workability, and modifiability (Glaser & Strauss 1967, Glaser 1978, Glaser 1998).

Fit has to do with how closely concepts fit with the incidents they are representing, and this is related to how thoroughly the constant comparison of incidents to concepts was done.

Relevance. A relevant study deals with the real concern of participants, evokes "grab" (captures the attention) and is not only of academic interest.

Workability. The theory works when it explains how the problem is being solved with much variation.

Modifiability. A modifiable theory can be altered when new relevant data is compared to existing data. A GT is never right or wrong, it just has more or less fit, relevance, workability and modifiability.

Grounded theory nomenclature A concept is the overall element and includes the categories which are conceptual elements standing by themselves, and properties of categories, which are conceptual aspects of categories (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The core variable explains most of the participants’ main concern with as much variation as possible. It has the most powerful properties to picture what’s going on, but with as few properties as possible needed to do so. A popular type of core variable can be theoretically modeled as a basic social process that accounts for most of the variation in change over time, context, and behavior in the studied area. "GT is multivariate. It happens sequentially, subsequently, simultaneously, serendipitously, and scheduled" (Glaser, 1998).

All is data is a fundamental property of GT which means that everything that gets in the researcher’s way when studying a certain area is data. Not only interviews or observations but anything is data that helps the researcher generating concepts for the emerging theory. Field notes can come from informal interviews, lectures, seminars, expert group meetings, newspaper articles, Internet mail lists, even television shows, conversations with friends etc.

It is even possible, and sometimes a good idea, for a researcher with much knowledge in the studied area to interview herself, treating that interview like any other data, coding and comparing it to other data and generating concepts from it. This may sound silly since you don’t have to interview yourself to know what you know, but you don’t know it on the conceptual level! And GT deals with conceptual level data.

Open coding or substantive coding is conceptualizing on the first level of abstraction. Written data from field notes or transcripts are conceptualized line by line. In the beginning of a study everything is coded in order to find out about the problem and how it is being resolved. The coding is often done in the margin of the field notes. This phase is often tedious since you are conceptualizing all incidents in the data, which yields many concepts. These are compared as you code more data, and merged into new concepts, and eventually renamed and modified. The GT researcher goes back and forth while comparing data, constantly modifying, and sharpening the growing theory at the same time as she follows the build-up schedule of GT’s different steps.

On a related note, Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998) also proposed axial coding and defined it in 1990 as "a set of procedures whereby data are put back together in new ways after open coding, by making connections between categories." They proposed a "coding paradigm" (also discussed, among others, by Kelle, 2005) that

27

Grounded theory involved "conditions, context, action/ interactional strategies and consequences.� (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p.

96) Selective coding is done after having found the core variable or what is thought to be the core, the tentative core.

The core explains the behavior of the participants in resolving their main concern. The tentative core is never wrong.

It just more or less fits with the data. After you have chosen your core variable you selectively code data with the core guiding your coding, not bothering about concepts with little importance to the core and its subcores. Also, you now selectively sample new data with the core in mind, which is called theoretical sampling – a deductive part of GT. Selective coding delimits the study, which makes it move fast. This is indeed encouraged while doing GT (Glaser, 1998) since GT is not concerned with data accuracy as in descriptive research but is about generating concepts that are abstract of time, place and people. Selective coding could be done by going over old field notes or memos which are already coded once at an earlier stage or by coding newly gathered data.

Theoretical codes integrate the theory by weaving the fractured concepts into hypotheses that work together in a theory explaining the main concern of the participants. Theoretical coding means that the researcher applies a theoretical model to the data. It is important that this model is not forced beforehand but has emerged during the comparative process of GT. So the theoretical codes just as substantives codes should emerge from the process of constantly comparing the data in field notes and memos.

Memoing Theoretical memoing is "the core stage of grounded theory methodology" (Glaser 1998). "Memos are the theorizing write-up of ideas about substantive codes and their theoretically coded relationships as they emerge during coding, collecting and analyzing data, and during memoing" (Glaser 1998).

Memoing is also important in the early phase of a GT study such as open coding. The researcher is then conceptualizing incidents, and memoing helps this process. Theoretical memos can be anything written or drawn in the constant comparison that makes up a GT. Memos are important tools to both refine and keep track of ideas that develop when you compare incidents to incidents and then concepts to concepts in the evolving theory. In memos you develop ideas about naming concepts and relating them to each other. In memos you try the relationships between concepts in two-by-two tables, in diagrams or figures or whatever makes the ideas flow, and generates comparative power. Without memoing the theory is superficial and the concepts generated not very original.

Memoing works as an accumulation of written ideas into a bank of ideas about concepts and how they relate to each other. This bank contains rich parts of what will later be the written theory. Memoing is total creative freedom without rules of writing, grammar or style (Glaser 1998). The writing must be an instrument for outflow of ideas, and nothing else. When you write memos the ideas become more realistic, being converted from thoughts in your mind to words, and thus ideas communicable to the afterworld. In GT the preconscious processing that occurs when coding and comparing is recognized. The researcher is encouraged to register ideas about the ongoing study that eventually pop up in everyday situations, and awareness of the serendipity of the method is also necessary to achieve good results.

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Grounded theory

Sorting In the next step memos are sorted, which is the key to formulate the theory for presentation to others. Sorting puts fractured data back together. During sorting lots of new ideas emerge, which in turn are recorded in new memos giving the memo-on-memos phenomenon. Sorting memos generates theory that explains the main action in the studied area. A theory written from unsorted memos may be rich in ideas but the connection between concepts is weak.

Writing Writing up the sorted memo piles follows after sorting, and at this stage the theory is close to the written GT product. The different categories are now related to each other and the core variable. The theoretical density should be dosed so concepts are mixed with description in words, tables, or figures to optimize readability. In the later rewriting the relevant literature is woven in to put the theory in a scholarly context. Finally, the GT is edited for style and language and eventually submitted for publication.

No pre-research literature review, no taping and no talk GT according to Glaser gives the researcher freedom to generate new concepts explaining human behavior. This freedom is optimal when the researcher refrains from taping interviews, doing a pre research literature review, and talking about the research before it is written up. These rules makes GT different from most other methods using qualitative data.

No pre-research literature review. Studying the literature of the area under study gives preconceptions about what to find and the researcher gets desensitized by borrowed concepts. Instead, grounded theories in other areas, and GT method books increase theoretical sensitivity. The literature should instead be read in the sorting stage being treated as more data to code and compare with what has already been coded and generated.

No taping. Taping and transcribing interviews is common in qualitative research, but is counterproductive and a waste of time in GT which moves fast when the researcher delimits her data by field-noting interviews and soon after generates concepts that fit with data, are relevant and work in explaining what participants are doing to resolve their main concern.

No talk. Talking about the theory before it is written up drains the researcher of motivational energy. Talking can either render praise or criticism, and both diminish the motivational drive to write memos that develop and refine the concepts and the theory (Glaser 1998). Positive feedback makes you content with what you've got and negative feedback hampers your self-confidence. Talking about the GT should be restricted to persons capable of helping the researcher without influencing her final judgments.

Split in methodology Divergence Since their original publication in 1967, Glaser and Strauss have disagreed on how to apply the grounded theory method, resulting in a split between Straussian and Glaserian paradigms. This split occurred most obviously after Strauss published Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists (1987). Thereafter Strauss, together with Juliet Corbin, published Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques in 1990. This was followed by a rebuke by Glaser (1992) who set out, chapter by chapter, to highlight the differences in what he argued was original grounded theory and why, according to Glaser, what Strauss and Corbin had written was not grounded theory in its "intended form" but was rather a form of qualitative data analysis. This divergence in methodology is a subject of much academic debate, which Glaser (1998) calls a "rhetorical wrestle". Glaser continues to write about and teach the original grounded theory method.

29

Grounded theory According to Kelle (2005), "the controversy between Glaser and Strauss boils down to the question of whether the researcher uses a well defined 'coding paradigm' and always looks systematically for 'causal conditions,' 'phenomena/context, intervening conditions, action strategies' and 'consequences' in the data, or whether theoretical codes are employed as they emerge in the same way as substantive codes emerge, but drawing on a huge fund of 'coding families.' Both strategies have their pros and cons. Novices who wish to get clear advice on how to structure data material may be satisfied with the use of the coding paradigm. Since the paradigm consists of theoretical terms which carry only limited empirical content the risk is not very high that data are forced by its application. However, it must not be forgotten that it is linked to a certain micro-sociological perspective. Many researchers may concur with that approach especially since qualitative research always had a relation to micro-sociological action theory, but others who want to employ a macro-sociological and system theory perspective may feel that the use of the coding paradigm would lead them astray." [8]

Glaser's approach Glaser originated the basic process of Grounded theory method described as the constant comparative method where the analyst begins analysis with the first data collected and constantly compares indicators, concepts and categories as the theory emerges. [9] The first book, The Discovery of Grounded Theory, published in 1967, was "developed in close and equal collaboration"[10] by Glaser and Strauss. Glaser wrote "Theoretical Sensitivity" in 1978 and has since written five more books on the method and edited five readers with a collection of grounded theory articles and dissertations.

The Glaserian method is not a qualitative research method, but claims the dictum "all is data". This means that not only interview or observational data but also surveys or statistical analyses or "whatever comes the researcher's way while studying a substantive area" (Glaser quote) can be used in the comparative process as well as literature data from science or media or even fiction. Thus the method according to Glaser is not limited to the realm of qualitative research, which he calls "QDA" (Qualitative Data Analysis). QDA is devoted to descriptive accuracy while the Glaserian method emphasizes conceptualization abstract of time, place and people. A theory discovered with the grounded theory method should be easy to use outside of the substantive area where it was generated.

Strauss & Corbin's approach Generally speaking, grounded theory is an approach for looking systematically at (mostly) qualitative data (like transcripts of interviews or protocols of observations) aiming at the generation of theory. Sometimes, grounded theory is seen as a qualitative method, but grounded theory reaches farther: it combines a specific style of research (or a paradigm) with pragmatic theory of action and with some methodological guidelines.

This approach was written down and systematized in the 1960s by Anselm Strauss (himself a student of Herbert Blumer) and Barney Glaser (a student of Paul Lazarsfeld), while working together in studying the sociology of illness at the University of California, San Francisco. For and with their studies, they developed a methodology, which was then made explicit and became the foundation stone for an important branch of qualitative sociology.

Important concepts of grounded theory method are categories, codes and codings. The research principle behind grounded theory method is neither inductive nor deductive, but combines both in a way of abductive reasoning (coming from the works of Charles Sanders Peirce). This leads to a research practice where data sampling, data analysis and theory development are not seen as distinct and disjunct, but as different steps to be repeated until one can describe and explain the phenomenon that is to be researched. This stopping point is reached when new data does not change the emerging theory anymore.

In an interview that was conducted shortly before Strauss' death (1994), he named three basic elements every grounded theory approach should include (Legewie/Schervier-Legewie (2004)). These three elements are: • Theoretical sensitive coding, that is, generating theoretical strong concepts from the data to explain the phenomenon researched;

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Grounded theory • theoretical sampling, that is, deciding whom to interview or what to observe next according to the state of theory generation, and that implies starting data analysis with the first interview, and writing down memos and hypotheses early; • the need to compare between phenomena and contexts to make the theory strong.

Differences Grounded theory method according to Glaser emphasizes induction or emergence, and the individual researcher's creativity within a clear frame of stages, while Strauss is more interested in validation criteria and a systematic approach.

Constructivist Grounded Theory A later version of GT called constructivist GT, rooted in pragmatism and relativist epistemology, assumes that neither data nor theories are discovered, but are constructed by the researcher as a result of his or her interactions with the field and its participants.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Data are co-constructed by researcher and participants, and colored by the researcher’s perspectives, values, privileges, positions, interactions, and geographical locations.

This position takes a middle ground between the realist and postmodernist positions by assuming an “obdurate reality” at the same time as it assumes multiple realities and multiple perspectives on these realities. Within this approach, Thornberg has discussed the problems of delaying literature review until the end of the research process, and highlighted how to use literature in a constructive and data-sensitive way without forcing it on data.[19]

Criticism Critiques of grounded theory have focused on i) its misunderstood status as theory (is what is produced really 'theory'?), ii) the notion of 'ground' (why is an idea of 'grounding' one's findings important in qualitative inquiry—what are they 'grounded' in?) and iii) the claim to use and develop inductive knowledge. These criticisms are summed up by Thomas and James.[20] These authors also suggest that it is impossible to free oneself of preconceptions in the collection and analysis of data in the way that Glaser and Strauss say is necessary. They also point to the formulaic nature of grounded theory method and the lack of congruence of this with open and creative interpretation - which ought to be the hallmark of qualitative inquiry. They suggest that the one element of grounded theory worth keeping is constant comparative method.

Grounded theory method was developed in a period when other qualitative methods were often considered unscientific. It achieved wide acceptance of its academic rigor. Thus, especially in American academia, qualitative research is often equated to grounded theory method. This equation is sometimes criticized by qualitative researchers using other methodologies (for example, traditional ethnography, narratology, and storytelling). One alternative to grounded theory is engaged theory. It puts an equal emphasis on doing on-the-ground work linked to analytical processes of empirical generalization. However, unlike grounded theory, engaged theory is in the critical theory tradition, locating those processes within a larger theoretical framework that specifies different levels of abstraction at which one can make claims about the world.[21]

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Grounded theory

References [1] Patricia Yancey Martin & Barry A. Turner, "Grounded Theory and Organizational Research," The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, vol. 22, no. 2 (1986), 141..

[2] Faggiolani, Chiara, " Perceived Identity: applying Grounded Theory in Libraries (http:/ / leo. cilea. it/ index. php/ jlis/ article/ view/ 4592)," JLIS.It, vol. 2, no. 1 (2011). doi:10.4403/jlis.it-4592.

[3] Glaser, 1967, chapter VIII. [4] G. Allan, "A critique of using grounded theory as a research method," Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, vol. 2, no. 1 (2003) pp. 1-10.

[5] See Glaser & Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory, 1967.

[6] Glaser & Strauss 1967 [7] Glaser & Strauss 1967 [8] Kelle, U. (2005). "Emergence" vs. "Forcing" of Empirical Data? A Crucial Problem of "Grounded Theory" Reconsidered. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 6(2), Art. 27, paragraphs 49 & 50. (http:/ / www. qualitative-research. net/ fqs-texte/ 2-05/ 05-2-27-e. pdf) [9] --~~~~Glaser, B. (1965). The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis. Social Problems, 12(4), 445, 436.

[10] Strauss, 1993, p. 12 [11] Bryant, A. (2002). Re-grounding grounded theory. Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, 4, 25–42.

[12] Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 509–535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[13] Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing grounded theory. London: Sage.

[14] Charmaz, K. (2008). Constructionism and the grounded theory method. In J.A. Holstein & J.F. Gubrium (Eds.), Handbook of constructionist research (pp. 397–412). New York: The Guilford Press.

[15] Charmaz, K. (2009). Shifting the grounds: Constructivist grounded theory methods. In J.M. Morse, P.N. Stern, J. Corbin, B. Bowers, K. Charmaz, & A.E. Clarke (Eds.), Developing grounded theory: The second generation (pp. 127–154). Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

[16] Mills, J., Bonner, A., & Francis, K. (2006). Adopting a constructivist approach to grounded theory: Implications for research design.

International Journal of Nursing Practice, 12, 8–13.

[17] Mills, J., Bonner, A., & Francis, K. (2006). The development of constructivist grounded theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5, 25–35.

[18] Thornberg, R., & Charmaz, K. (2012). Grounded theory. In S. D. Lapan, M. Quartaroli, & F. Reimer (Eds.), Qualitative research: An introduction to methods and designs (pp. 41-67). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley/Jossey-Bass.

[19] Thornberg, R. (2012). Informed grounded theory. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 56, 243-259.

[20] Thomas, G. and James, D. (2006). Reinventing grounded theory: some questions about theory, ground and discovery, British Educational Research Journal, 32, 6, 767–795.

[21] See P. James, Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing theory Back In, Sage Publications, London, 2006; and P. James, Y. Nadarajah, K. Haive, and V. Stead, Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development: Other Paths for Papua New Guinea, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2012

Further reading • Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

• Glaser, B. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

• Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Clarke, A. (2005). Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

• Bryant, A. & Charmaz, K. (Eds.) (2007) The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory. Los Angeles: Sage.

• Morse, J. M., Stern, P. N., Corbin, J., Bowers, B., Charmaz, K. & Clarke, A. E. (Eds.) (2009). Developing Grounded Theory: The Second Generation. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

• Kelle, Udo (2005). "Emergence" vs. "Forcing" of Empirical Data? A Crucial Problem of "Grounded Theory" Reconsidered. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 6(2), Art. 27, paragraphs 49 & 50. (http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/2-05/05-2-27-e.pdf) • Mey, G. & Mruck, K. (Eds.) (2007). Grounded Theory Reader (HSR-Supplement 19). Cologne: ZHSF. 337 pages • Thomas, G. & James, D. (2006). Re-inventing grounded theory: some questions about theory, ground and discovery. British Educational Research Journal, 32 (6), 767–795.

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Grounded theory • Goulding, C. (2002). Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide for Management, Business and Market Researchers.

London: Sage.

• Stebbins, Robert A. (2001) Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Glaser • Glaser BG, The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis. Social Problems, 12(4), 445, 1965.

• Glaser BG, Strauss A. Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for Qualitative Research. Sociology Press (http:/ /www.groundedtheory.com/index1.html), 1967 • Glaser BG. Theoretical Sensitivity: Advances in the methodology of Grounded Theory. Sociology Press (http:// www.groundedtheory.com/index1.html), 1978.

• Glaser BG (ed). More Grounded Theory Methodology: A Reader. Sociology Press (http://www.groundedtheory. com/index1.html), 1994.

• Glaser BG (ed). Grounded Theory 1984-1994. A Reader (two volumes). Sociology Press (http://www. groundedtheory.com/index1.html), 1995.

• Glaser BG (ed). Gerund Grounded Theory: The Basic Social Process Dissertation. Sociology Press (http://www. groundedtheory.com/index1.html), 1996.

• Glaser BG. Doing Grounded Theory - Issues and Discussions. Sociology Press (http://www.groundedtheory. com/index1.html), 1998.

• Glaser BG. The Grounded Theory Perspective I: Conceptualization Contrasted with Description. Sociology Press (http://www.groundedtheory.com/index1.html), 2001.

• Glaser BG. The Grounded Theory Perspective II: Description's Remodeling of Grounded Theory. Sociology Press (http://www.groundedtheory.com/index1.html), 2003.

• Glaser BG. The Grounded Theory Perspective III: Theoretical coding. Sociology Press, 2005.

Strauss & Corbin • Anselm L. Strauss; Leonard Schatzman; Rue Bucher; Danuta Ehrlich & Melvin Sabshin: Psychiatric ideologies and institutions (1964) • Barney G. Glaser; Anselm L. Strauss: The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for Qualitative Research (1967) • Anselm L. Strauss: Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists (1987) • Anselm L. Strauss; Juliet Corbin: Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques, Sage (1990) • Anselm L. Strauss; Juliet Corbin: "Grounded Theory Research: Procedures, Canons and Evaluative Criteria", in: Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 19. Jg, S. 418 ff. (1990) • Anselm L. Strauss: Continual Permutations of Action (1993) • Anselm L. Strauss; Juliet Corbin: "Grounded Theory in Practice", Sage (1997) • Anselm L. Strauss; Juliet Corbin: "Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques". 2nd edition. Sage, 1998.

• Juliet Corbin; Anselm L. Strauss: "Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques". 3rd edition. Sage, 2008.

Constructivist Grounded Theory • Bryant, Antony (2002) ‘Re-grounding grounded theory’, Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, 4(1): 25-42.

• Bryant, Antony and Charmaz, Kathy (2007) ‘Grounded theory in historical perspective: An epistemological account’, in Bryant, A. and Charmaz, K. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory. Los Angeles: Sage. pp. 31-57.

• Charmaz, Kathy (2000) ‘Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods’, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. pp. 509-535.

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Grounded theory • Charmaz, Kathy (2003) ‘Grounded theory’, in Smith, J.A. (ed.), Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide to Research Methods. London: Sage. pp. 81-110.

• Charmaz, Kathy (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory. London: Sage.

• Charmaz, Kathy (2008) ‘Constructionism and the grounded theory method’, in Holstein, J.A. and Gubrium, J.F. (eds.), Handbook of Constructionist Research. New York: The Guilford Press. pp. 397-412.

• Charmaz, Kathy (2009) ‘Shifting the grounds: Constructivist grounded theory methods’, in J. M. Morse, P. N. Stern, J. Corbin, B. Bowers, K. Charmaz and A. E. Clarke (eds.), Developing Grounded Theory: The Second Generation. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. pp. 127–154.

• Charmaz, Kathy (forthcoming) Constructing Grounded Theory 2nd ed. London: Sage.

• Mills, Jane, Bonner, Ann, & Francis, Karen (2006) ‘Adopting a constructivist approach to grounded theory: Implications for research design’ International Journal of Nursing Practice, 12(1): 8-13.

• Mills, Jane, Bonner, Ann, & Francis, Karen (2006) ‘The development of constructivist grounded theory’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(1): 25-35.

• Thornberg, Robert (2012) 'Informed grounded theory', Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 56: 243-259.

• Thornberg, Robert and Charmaz, Kathy (2011) ‘Grounded theory’, in Lapan, S.D., Quartaroli M.T. and Reimer F.J. (eds.), Qualitative Research: An Introduction to Methods and Designs. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley/Jossey-Bass. pp. 41-67.

• Thornberg, Robert & Charmaz, K. (forthcoming) 'Grounded theory and theoretical coding', in Flick, U. (ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative analysis. London: Sage.

External links • • • • •

The Grounded Theory Institute (http://www.groundedtheory.com/) (Glaser tradition) Grounded Theory Online (http://www.groundedtheoryonline.com/) (Supporting (Glaserian) GT researchers) Grounded Theory Review (http://www.groundedtheoryreview.com) Sociology Press (http://www.sociologypress.com) An Introduction to GT by the Action Research Unit, Southern Cross University Management School (http:// www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/grounded.html)

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Article Sources and Contributors

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Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors File:Thed Björk interview 2012.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Thed_Björk_interview_2012.jpg License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Contributors: AlphaZeta, Green Yoshi File:Izmir Ethnography Museum.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Izmir_Ethnography_Museum.jpg License: GNU Free Documentation License Contributors: User:Quintucket File:Ethnography Museum Budapest architecture.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ethnography_Museum_Budapest_architecture.jpg License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Contributors: Julie Lyn from Washington, DC, USA File:Bronisław Malinowski among Trobriand tribe.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Bronisław_Malinowski_among_Trobriand_tribe.jpg License: anonymous-EU Contributors: Unknown (maybe Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1885-1939)

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License

License Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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