Tracy Notes 2

Tracy, Ch. 2

The Nature of Qualitative Research

               Logic tends toward inductive (bottom-up) or deductive (top-down) approaches, but qualitative research focuses on the emic (description from the actor’s point of view, context specific). This is different from etic (behavior described through external, preset criteria). Inductive and emic research goes together; they both EMerge. Deductive and etic work is based on External Theories. The inductive process tends to move from observation, to conceptual patterns, to claims, to conclusions that build theory. Deductive begins with theory, makes a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis, and either confirms or denies the theory.

               Qualitative work is concerned with both actions (of people) and structures (shape, guide, and constrain action). This appears in discourse studies as small-d (everyday talk) and large-D (unspoken rules and guidelines). One type of structure is the grand narrative, which is a system of stories driven by our expectations for things to unfold in a particular way.

Key Characteristics of the Qualitative Research Process

               One of the major ideas of qualitative research is gestalt, or the essence of form or shape that is untranslatable. It generally refers to our tendency to see various items as a whole. Another such idea is bricolage, which refers to a “a pieced together set of representations that is fitted to the specifics of a complex situation.” This can be used to talk about the way that qualitative researchers tend to piece together various theories, methodologies, and traditions. As researchers, we can put together numerous types of data to make an interesting whole. Tracy also brings up the funnel metaphor, which illustrates the process of qualitative inquiry. It starts broad, with a large research question. But as time goes on, work in the field will cause the question to get narrowed further and further. The theories or topics that one starts off with are referred to as sensitizing concepts. These can be theoretical concepts that we are fond of looking for or using for interpretation.

Key Definitions and Territories of Qualitative Research

Qualitative methods: “an umbrella concept that covers interviews, participant observation, and document analysis.” They “need not include long-term immersion into a culture or require a holistic examination of all social practices.”

Naturalistic inquiry: “the process of analyzing social action in uncontrived field settings in which the inquirer does not impose predetermined theories or manipulate the setting.” It is also “described as value-laden and, by definition, always takes place in the field, which may be an organization, a park, an airport, or a far-away culture”

Ethnography: a “key type of qualitative research” that requires “ethnographers… to live intimately beside and among other cultural members,” focusing on “language use, rituals, ceremonies, relationships, and artifacts.”

Narrative inquiry: The study of gathered stories, using fieldnotes, interviews, oral tales, blogs, letters, or autobiographies. Narrative scholars believe that narratives are fundamental to the human experience.

Autoethnography: “the systematic study, analysis, and narrative description of one’s own experiences, interactions, culture, and identity.”

Impressionist tales: also known as “performance and messy texts, creative analytic practice ethnography, and the new ethnography.” Involves an author analyzing their own stories.

Grounded theory: “a systematic inductive analysis of data that is made from the ground up”

Historical Matters

               Early ethnography was an extension of colonialism—looking to “barbaric” or “savage” cultures and trying to better control or exploit them. Many of these studies could be seen as ethnocentric. In the early 1900s, researchers (including DuBois) began questioning colonization and showing how it enforced racial prejudice. This ended some of the earlier types of ethnography. With the two world wars, researchers stayed closer to home. Orwell, Whyte, and Gramsci were all writing at this time, as well as the Chicago School of Sociology, which used ethnography to study social problems.

               After WWII, the Nuremburg Code was drafted, which required ethical guidelines for research. This led to the founding of the IRB. Ethically questionable work, such as that undertook by Milgram and in the Stanford Prison experiments have led to the creation of human subject protections.

               More recently, ethnographers have been sent out of their home countries again, studying areas termed “Third World.” In the mid-70s, social science scholars began to use more qualitative methods. Though this was in contrast to the “realist” ethnography, these types of studies gained a greater foothold through the 1980s.

               Currently, there are certain controversies. Qualitative methods are not accepted in all parts of the academy, and governmental intervention into education are requiring more and more emphasis on quantitative knowledge.