Source: Ragin, Charles, Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method, Northwestern University, Pine Forge, Thousand Oaks, 1994, extracts from Chapter 4.
Usually when we think of social science we think of sweeping statements like: "People with more education tend to get better jobs". "Poor countries tend to have more social conflict and political instability than rich countries". These statements offer "big-picture" views that say nothing about individual cases. In these big-picture views, a single statistic or percentage can summarize a vast amount information about countless cases.
But a lot may be missed in the big picture. Often, researchers do not want these broad views of social phenomena because they believe that a proper understanding can be achieved only through in-depth examination of specific cases. Indeed, qualitative researchers often initiate research with a conviction that big-picture representations seriously misrepresent or fail to represent important social phenomena.
Consider the researcher who wants to understand the fascination that some people have with guns - gun collectors, some military personnel, hunters, and other enthusiasts. A big-picture view might show that certain categories of people are more likely to collect guns. But does this really say very much about the fascination with guns?. What's the best way to study and understand this fascination?. A lot can be learned simply by talking to gun enthusiastic. From interviews, it would be possible to build an image of at least one major type of gun enthusiast, to craft a composite image based on interviews of many individuals. This composite image could be fleshed out further by studying the magazines and other literature that the interviewees read and by observing what goes on at social gatherings of gun enthusiasts. The key would be to achieve as much in-depth knowledge as possible and look for common patterns among gun enthusiasts and their social worlds.
Self-evaluating questions:
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Because of its emphases on in-depth knowledge and on the refinement and elaboration of images and concepts, qualitative research is especially appropriate for several of the central goals of social research. These include giving voice, interpreting historical or cultural significance, and advancing theories.
Self-evaluating question: |
GIVING VOICE
There are many groups in society, called marginalized groups by social scientists, who are outside of society's mainstream, for example - the poor, sexual minorities, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrant groups, and so on. Often these groups lack voice in society. Their views are rarely heard by mainstream audiences because they are rarely published or carried by the media. In fact, their lives are often misrepresented - if they are represented at all. Techniques that help uncover subtle aspects and features of these groups can go a long way toward helping researchers construct better representations of their experiences. By emphasizing close, in-depth empirical study, the qualitative approach is well suited for difficult task of representing groups that escape the grasp of other approaches.
INTERPRETING HISTORICALLY OR CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT PHEOMENA
How we thing about important event of historic episode affects how we understand ourselves as a society or as a nation. For example, in the middle to late 1800s the US was involved in a series of territorial struggles with Mexico. These struggles can be interpreted as part of the inevitable westward expansion of European-Americans across a vast, sparsely populated continent. Or perhaps they can be seen as part of a pattern of unjust bullying of a generally peaceful neighbor. As the United States gains an ever-larger Hispanic population, a revision of our understanding of these territorial struggles may help us adjust our view of the diverse collection of people who make up American society.
Methods that help us see things in new ways facilitate this goal of interpreting and reinterpreting significant historical events. Of course, if the evidence does not strongly support a new image, or offers better support to existing images, then new ways of understanding past events will not gain past acceptance. The important point is that the qualitative approach mandates close attention to historical detail in the effort to construct new understandings of culturally or historically significant phenomena.
ADVANCING THEORY
There are many ways to advance theory. New information about a broad pattern that holds across many cases can stimulate new theoretical thinking. However, in-depth knowledge - the kind that comes from case studies - provides especially rich flaw material for advancing theoretical ideas. When much is known about a case, it is easier to see how the different parts or aspects of a case fit together.
The value of qualitative research for advancing theory also follows directly from practical aspects of this type of research. It is impossible to decide which bits of evidence about a case are relevant without clarifying the concepts and ideas that frame the investigation. The initial goal of knowing as much as possible about a case eventually gives way to an attempt to identify the features of the case that seem most significant to the researcher and his or her questions. This shift requires and elaboration and refinement of the concepts that initially prompted the study or the development of new concepts. Researchers cannot forever remain open to all the information that their cases offer. If they do, they are quickly overwhelmed by a mass of indecipherable and sometimes contradictory evidence.
Finally, qualitative research also advances theory in its emphasis on the commonalties that exist across cases. In some studies cases may be selected that at first glance may seem very different. Identifying commonalties across diverse cases requires that the investigator looks at the cases in a different way and perhaps discovers new things about them. Diane Vaughan's study Uncoupling, for example, focused not only on the breakup of homosexual relationships. Despite profound differences in the sexual orientations of her subjects, Vaughan found striking similarities in the process of "uncoupling" across these different kinds of relationships. By looking for similarities in unexpected places, social researchers develop new insights that advance theoretical thinking.
Exercise: |
Qualitative research is often less structured than other kinds of social research. The investigator initiates a study with a certain degree of openness to the research subject and what may be learned from it. Qualitative researchers rarely test theories. Instead, they usually seek to use one or more cases or to develop ideas. The qualitative researcher starts out by selecting relevant research sites and cases, then identifies "sensitizing concepts", clarifies major concepts and empirical categories in the course of the investigation, and may end the project by elaborating one or more analytic frames.
SELECTING SITES AND CASES
Qualitative research is strongly shaped by the choice of a research subject and sites. When the goal of the research is to give voice, a specific group is chosen for study. When the goal is to assess historical or cultural significance, a specific set of events or other slice of social life is selected. When the goal is to advance theory, a case may be chosen because it is unusual in some way and thus presents a special opportunity for the elaboration of new ideas.
Sometimes, however, cases are chosen not because they are special or unusual or significant in some way, but because they are typical or undistinguished. A researcher interested in medical schools in general, for example, might select a school that is typical or average, not the best or the worst. To select a school at either extreme might limit the value of the study for drawing conclusions about medical schools in general. In short, because qualitative researchers often work with a small number of cases, they are sometimes very concerned to establish the representativeness of the cases they study.
In-depth knowledge is sometimes achieved through the study of a single case. Often, however, it is best achieved by studying several instances of the same thing because different aspects may be more visible in different cases.
When qualitative researches collect data on many instances of the phenomena under study, they focus on what the different instances have in common. Examining multiple instances of the same thing makes it possible to deepen and enrich a representation. A study of environmental activists might focus on the life experience they share. A study of Catholic priests might focus on how they maintain their religious commitments.
When many instances of the same thing are studies, researchers may keep adding instances until the investigation reaches a point of saturation. The researcher stops learning new things about the case and recently collected evidence appears repetitious or redundant with previously collected evidence. It is impossible to tell beforehand how many instances the researcher will have to examine before the point of saturation is reached. In general, if the researcher learns as much as possible about the research subject, he or she will be a good judge of when this point has been reached.
Even when qualitative researchers study many instances of the same thin (as when fifty priests are interviewed), they often describe the case as singular ("the case of Catholic priests) because the focus is on commonalties - features that the instances share. By contrast, a quantitative researcher interested in systematic differences would emphasize the fact that the research summarized information on many cases (fifty priests). Statements about patterns of covariation (for example, "older priests appear to be more committed than younger priests") are more likely to be accepted if they are based on as many cases as possible"
"The distinction is subtle but very important. The qualitative researcher who interviews fifty priests seeks to construct a full portrait of "the priest" and how priests maintain their deep religious commitments. It may be that the images that emerged changed very little, if at all, after the tenth priest was interviewed, and not much was learned from the remaining forty priests. The difference between ten and fifty is not important; what matters is the soundness of the portrayal of this case. If a study is done properly and is based on sufficient number of interviews, it can be used for comparison with other cases (for example comparing Catholic priests with Protestant ministers). The important point is that even though many examples of the same thing may be examined, research that emphasizes similarities seeks to construct a single, composite portrait of the case.
USE OF SENSITIZING CONCEPTS
It is impossible to initiate a qualitative study without some sense of why the subject is worth studying and what concepts might be used to guide the investigation. These concepts are often drawn from half-formed, tentative analytic frames, which typically reflect current theoretical ideas. These initials, sensitizing concepts get the research started, but they do not straitjacket the research. The researcher expects that these initial concepts, at a minimum, will be altered significantly or even discarded in the course of the research.
A researcher studying hospital patients may bring "social class" as a sensitizing concept to the research and expect to find that patients from families with more income receive better care. However, the concept of social class, as expressed in income, might prove to be too limiting and may be supplanted by a social status. Sometimes concepts that seem important or useful early in the study prove to be dead ends, and they are replaced by new concepts drawn from different frames. Armed with these new concepts, the research may decide that some of the evidence that earlier seemed irrelevant needs to be reexamined.
For example, John Walton studied the conflict over water rights in Owens Valley, California, a struggle that pitted the residents of Owens Valley against water-hungry Los Angeles. The battle over water rights dragged on for decades and generated so much mass protest and collective violence that it became known as "California's dirty little civil war". At first, Walton tried to use concepts that centered on social class and class conflict to understand this struggle. These were his initials, sensitizing concepts. He found that these concepts did not help him make sense of the evidence that he collected, nor did they direct him down data collection paths that advanced the study. Eventually he came to understand the struggle more in terms of collective responses anchored in local conditions to changing governmental structures, especially the growing influence and power of the federal government. These new concepts directed him to important historical evidence that he might have overlooked otherwise.
CLARIFYING CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES Qualitative research clarifies concepts (the key components of analytic frames) and empirical categories (which group similar instances of social phenomena) in a reciprocal manner. These two activities, categorizing and conceptualizing, go hand in hand because concepts define categories and the members of a category exemplify or illustrate the concepts that unite them into a category. Generally, the members of a category are expected to be relatively homogenous with respect to the concepts they exemplify. It is important to examine the members of a category to make sure that they all display the concepts they are thought to exemplify. Researchers develop concepts from the images that emerge from the categories of phenomena they examine. They then test the limits of the concepts they develop by closely examining the members of relevant categories. The core issue in the clarification and elaboration of categories and concepts is the assessment of the degree to which the members of a category exemplify the relevant concept. Are the same elements present in each instance in more or less the same way?. When encountering contradictory evidence, researchers have two choices. They can discard the concept they were developing and try to develop new ones- concepts that do a better job of uniting the members of the category. Or they can narrow the category of phenomena relevant to their concept and try to achieve a better fit with the concept.
ELABORATING ANALYTIC FRAMES
Because categories and concepts are clarified in the course of qualitative research, the researcher may not be certain what the research subject is a "case of" until all the evidence is collected and studied. Deciding that the research subject is a case of something and then representing it that way is often the very last phase of qualitative research.
The open character of qualitative research can be seen clearly in the role played by analytic frames in this strategy. In some research strategies, the main purpose of the analytic frame is to express the theory to be tested in terms of the relevant cases and variables. In qualitative research, by contrast, there is often only a tentative, vaguely formulated analytic frame at the outset because it is developed in the course of the research.
As more is learned about the cases and as categories and concepts are clarified, the researcher can address basic questions: What is this case a case of? What are its relevant features? What makes the chosen research subject or site valuable, interesting, or significant? As qualitative researchers elaborate analytic frames, they also deepen their understanding of their cases.
Not all-qualitative researchers develop analytic frames. Sometimes they leave this task to other researchers studying related cases. The development of analytic frames is challenging because it requires the extension of the concepts elaborated in one case to other cases. Many qualitative researchers are content to report detailed treatments of the cases they study and leave their analytic frames implicit and unstated. They feel that their cases speak well enough for themselves.
This unwillingness to generalize is found in all types of qualitative research, from observations of small groups to historical interpretations of the international system. For this reason, qualitative researchers are often accused of being "merely descriptive" and not "scientific" in their research. As should be clear by now, however, the process of representing research subjects is heavily dependent on the interaction between concepts and images, regardless of whether this interaction is made explicitly be researchers when they present their subjects. Without concepts, it is impossible to select evidence, arrange facts, or make sense of the infinite amount of information that can be gleaned from a single case. Like other forms of social research, qualitative research culminates in theoretically structured representations of social life - representations that reflect the regimen of social research.
Exercise: Construct hypothetical qualitative research design. For this research defend the choice of sites and cases, the use of sensitizing concepts and elaborate the analytic frame. |
There are many textbooks on qualitative methods and they describe qualitative methods in a variety of ways. In part, this diversity of views follows from the emphasis on in-depth investigation and the fact that there are many different ways to achieve in-depth knowledge: participant observation, in-depth interviewing, fieldwork, and ethnographic study. These methods emphasize the immersion of the researcher in a research setting and the effort to uncover the meaning and significance of social phenomena for people in those settings. These techniques are best for studying social situations at the level of person-to-person interaction.
The key features common to all qualitative methods can be seen when they are contrasted with quantitative methods. Most quantitative data techniques are data condensers. They condense data in order to reveal the big picture. For example, calculating the percentage of unionized workers who vote for the Democratic party condenses information on thousands of individuals into a single number showing the ling between these two attributes (union membership and party preference). Qualitative methods, by contrast, are best understood as data enhancers. When data are enhanced, it is possible to see key aspects of cases more clearly, depending on how it is done.
In many ways, data enhancement is like photographic enhancement. When a photograph is enhanced, it is possible to see certain aspects of the photographer's subject more clearly. When qualitative methods are used to enhance social data, researchers see things about their subjects that hey might miss otherwise. Data enhancement is the key to in-depth knowledge.
Almost all qualitative research seeks to construct representations based on in-depth, detailed knowledge of cases, often to correct misrepresentations or to offer new representations of the research subject. Thus, qualitative researchers share an interest in procedures that clarify key aspects of research subjects - procedures that make it possible to see aspects of cases that might otherwise be missed. Data enhancement is the key to in-depth knowledge.
Almost all qualitative research seeks to construct representations based on in-depth, detailed knowledge of cases, often to correct misrepresentations or to offer new representations of the research subject. Thus qualitative researchers share an interest in procedures that clarify key aspects of research subjects - procedures that make it possible to see aspects of cases that might otherwise be missed. While there are many such procedures, two that are common to most qualitative work are emphasized here: analytic induction and theoretical sampling. Both techniques are data enhancers.
ANALYTIC INDUCTION
The term means very different things to different researchers. Originally, it has a very strict meaning and was identified with the search for "universals" in social life. Universals are properties that are invariant. If all upper middle -class white males over the age of fifty in the United States voted for the Republican Party, then this would constitute a "universal". If only one person in this category voted for some other party, then the pattern would not be universal and thus would not qualify as a finding, according to a very strict, very simple minded application of the method of analytic induction. Today, however, analytic induction is often used to refer to any systematic examination of similarities that seeks to develop concepts or ideas.
Rather than seeing analytic induction as a search for universals, a search that is likely to fail, it is better to see it as a research strategy that directs investigators to pay close attention to evidence that challenges of disconfirms whatever images they are developing. As researchers accumulate evidence, they compare incidents or cases that appear to be in the same general category with each other. These comparisons establish similarities and differences among incidents or cases that appear to be in the same general category with each other. These comparisons establish similarities and differences among incidents and thus help to define categories and concepts. Evidence that challenges or refutes images that the researcher is constructing from evidence provides important clues for how to alter concepts or shift categories.
In effect, the method of analytic induction is used both to construct images and to seek out contrary evidence because it sees such evidence as the best raw material for improving initial images. As a data procedure, this technique is less concerned with how much positive evidence has been accumulated (for example, how many cases corroborate the image the researcher is developing), and more with the degree to which the image of the research subject has been refined, sharpened, and elaborated in response to both confirming and disconfirming evidence.
Analytic induction facilitates the reciprocal clarification of concepts and categories, a key feature of qualitative research. When Howard Becker narrowed his category from "all marijuana users" to "those who use marijuana for pleasure", he used the technique of analytic induction. Essentially, the technique involves looking for relevant similarities among the instances of a category, and then linking these to refine an image. If relevant similarities cannot be identified, then either the category is too wide and heterogeneous and should be narrowed, or else the researcher needs to take another look at the evidence and re-conceptualize possible similarities. Negative cases are especially important because they are either excluded when the relevant category is narrowed, or they are the main focus when the investigator attempts to reconceptualize commonalties and thereby reconcile contradictory evidence.
THEORETICAL SAMPLING Sometimes qualitative researchers conduct investigations of related phenomena in several different settings. Most often this interests in a broader investigation follows from a deliberate strategy of theoretical sampling a term which describes the process of choosing new research sites of cases to compare with one that has already been studied. For example, a researcher interested in how environmental activists in the United States maintain their political commitments might extend the study to (1) environmental activists in another part of the world or perhaps to (2) another type of activist. General questions that arise in a study of the Russian Revolution of 1917 might be addressed by examining the Chinese Revolution of 1949 or the recent Nicaraguan Revolution. There may be questions about the role of peasants in the Russian Revolution that could be answered by examining the Chinese case and comparing it to the Russian case.
When a researcher employs a strategy of theoretical sampling, the selection of additional cases is most often determined by questions and issues raised in the first case studied. Selection of new cases is not a matter of convenience; the researcher's sampling strategy evolves as his or her understanding of the research subject and the concepts it exemplifies matures. The goal of theoretical sampling is not to sample in a way that captures all possible variations, rather in one that aids the development of concepts and deepens the understanding of research subjects.
This example of theoretical sampling also shows that it is a technique of data triangulation. Triangulation is a term that originally described how sailors use stars and simple trigonometry to locate their position on earth. More generally, triangulation can be understood as a way of using independent pieces of information to get a better fix on something that is only partially known or understood. In the example just presented, the researcher used evidence from two other hospitals, one with more resources and one with fewer, to get a better fix on the first hospital. Y comparing the three hospitals, arrayed along a single continuum of resources, the researcher could assess the validity and generality of findings from the first hospital.
Theoretical sampling is also a powerful technique for building analytic frames. Howard Becker (1963) studied a variety of groups classified as "deviant". He joined these different cases together in a single analytic frame and called all these groups "outsiders". His frame emphasized a dual process of social learning (people learn 'deviant' behaviors) and labeling (society's tendency to label some groups deviant furthers their isolation from the larger society). His work challenged conventional thinking that certain types of people were at a greater risk of becoming deviant and focused subsequent research on social processes.
While the strategy of theoretical sampling is an excellent device for gaining a deeper understanding of cases and for advancing theory, many qualitative researchers consider the representation of even a single case sufficient for their goals. Some consider the addition of new cases - using the strategy of theoretical sampling - to be a useless detour from the important task of understanding one case well. They are content to leave the comparison of cases and the development of broad analytic frames to researchers more interested in general questions.
Exercise:
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The techniques of analytic induction and theoretical sampling work best when there are multiple instances of the phenomenon the researcher is studying. What techniques can researchers use when they study only a single instance - for example, one person's life or a single historical event? While it is true that most data procedures are designed for multiple instances, the study of a single case is not haphazard and unstructured. In fact, the single-case study is structured in ways that parallel analytic induction.
For illustration, consider a researcher who seeks to evaluate the significance of the resignation of President Nixon. Suppose the gold of the researcher in this investigation is to try to interpret this episode as a serious blow to the authority of the US government, at least in the eyes of the American people. Because of what transpired, according to this interpretation, the American people could never again see their politicians as statement or trust government leaders and officials to tell them the truth.
Of course, there are many different ways to interpret each historical episode, and each interpretation is anchored in a different analytic frame. The researcher's interpretation sees the events surrounding the resignation of President Nixon in terms of the authority and legitimacy of governments. What kinds of conditions and events enhance a government's authority? What kinds undermine its authority?.
In order to evaluate this interpretation, the researcher would have to assemble facts relevant to the analytic frame (which emphasized factors influencing a government's authority) and see if they can be assembled into an image that supports this interpretation. Of course, there are many facts, and not all will necessarily be consistent with the initial interpretation. The key question is: among the relevant facts, which are consistent and which are not?. Analytic frames play an important part in this process because they define some facts as relevant and others as irrelevant, and different frames define different sets of facts as relevant.
It is important to remember that each different interpretation is anchored in a different frame. Thus, the facts relevant to one frame will not overlap perfectly with the facts relevant to another. Thus, there can be many different ways to frame a single case, and each interpretation may be valid because of this imperfect overlap. Cases that can be interpreted in a variety of different ways are considered "rich" because they help researchers explore the interconnection of the ideas expressed through different frames.
Researchers use qualitative methods when they believe that the best way to construct a proper representation in though in-depth study of phenomena. Often they address phenomena that they believe have been seriously misrepresented, sometimes by social researchers using other approaches, or perhaps not represented at all. This in-depth investigation often focuses on a primary case, on the commonalties among separate instances of the same phenomenon, or on parallel phenomena identified through a deliberate strategy of theoretical sampling.
Qualitative methods are holistic, meaning that aspects of cases are viewed in the context of the whole case, and researchers often must triangulate information about a number of cases in order to make sense of one case. Qualitative methods are used to uncover essential features of a case an then illuminate key relationships among these features. Often, a qualitative researcher will argue that his or her cases exemplify one or more key theoretical processes or categories. Finally, as qualitative research progresses, there is a reciprocal clarification of the underlying character of the phenomena under investigation and the theoretical concepts that they are believe to exemplify.
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