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QUALITATIVE

RESEARCH journal

official publication of the association for qualitative research

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www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr

volume 2 number 3 2002

A REFEREED JOURNAL

E D I T O R I A L

A R T I C L E S

AQR Conference Sydney 2003


CALL FOR PAPERS

1620 JULY

click here for more info!

The place of theory and the development of a theoretical framework in a


qualitative study Carmel Seibold

16

When yes means sometimes

30

All in the family monitoring postschool student pathways by using the


Modified Snowball Technique Joan Abbott-Chapman and Hazel Baynes

45

The effects of censoring and the Spiral of Silence on focus group interviews:
a case study of discussions on immigration Niranjala D. Weerakkody

62

Whats colour got to do with it? Reflections on messy methodology issues


from a multiracial feminist Caroline Gopalkrishnan

79

A Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction of a published first-person narrative


Merrill Crabtree

R E V I E W S

Janice McDrury and Jenny Conder

[click here to view a complete list of reviews covered in the following three sections]

92

R E V I E W

E S S A Y of a classic or landmark qualitative study or text

103

C O M P A R A T I V E

112

B O O K

126

Notes to Contributors

136

AQR Executive Acknowledgements

R E V I E W S

R E V I E W S

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editorial
E D I T O R S
Darrel N. Caulley
Institute for Education
La Trobe University Vic. 3086
Australia

Carmel Seibold
School of Nursing
Faculty of Health Sciences
Australian Catholic University
Locked Bag 4115, Fitzroy Vic. 3065, Australia

E DI T ORI AL

BOA R D

Jan Browne
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

Judith Bessant
Australian Catholic University
Melbourne, Australia

Benjamin Crabtree
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
New Brunswick NJ, USA

Pam Green
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Joy Higgs
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Ros Hurwoth
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Helen Marshall
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Christopher Pole
University of Leicester, Leicester, England

Lyn Richards
QSR, Ringwood, Australia

Suprya Singh
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Annette Street
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

Ruth Webber
Australian Catholic University
Melbourne, Australia

Josef Zelger
University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

CONTRIBUTIONS
Contributions to the Qualitative Research
Journal should be emailed to the Editor,
Dr Darrel N. Caulley:
d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au
The journal uses the Publication Manual of
the American Psychological Association,
5th ed., 2001.

Welcome to the fourth issue of the Qualitative Research Journal (QRJ), the official
publication of the Association for Qualitative Research (AQR). Most of the articles included
in this edition are refereed papers from the AQR Conference held in Melbourne in July
2001.
We welcome refereed papers for publication from the forthcoming AQR Conference in
Sydney, July 1620, 2003. The deadline for abstracts is 24 January 2003 and
confirmation of abstract acceptance will be given by 24 February 2003. Further
information about the conference can be found on www.latrobe.edu.au/www/aqr/.
Those people attending the Conference who want their papers refereed, can do so
through the refereed Qualitative Research Journal which will publish papers in issues
following the Conference. Send all papers in Microsoft Word format by email (not a
disk) to d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au after 24 February 2003 (the date of abstract
acceptance the closing date for abstracts is 24 January 2003) and until 1 April 2003.
The Editors will do everything in their power to let you know by the 30 June (the close
of registration for the Conference) if your paper(s) has passed the referees. In order to
assist with refereeing, which is anonymous, the title, the authors (s) name, the
corresponding authors address, telephone number, and email address should be sent
on a separate page. The main body of the text of the paper should
have an abstract of not more than 250 words. Authors should
read the Notes to Contributors in this issue of QRJ for details of
the publication style.
As with previous issues we have a number of book reviews, each
being a review of a single book. However, in this issue are two
comparative reviews which are each a review of more than one
book in the same topic area. The comparative review, as well as
reviewing each of the books, compares and contrasts the books.
There is a new section in this issue of QRJ which is titled Review
Essay of a Classic or Landmark Qualitative Study or Text. In each
issue a well-known qualitative researcher will be asked to write
a review essay of their favourite classic or landmark qualitative
study or text. In order to show what we have in mind the Editors
have written a review essay of Carol Gilligans 1982 landmark
study In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Womens
Development which is found in this issue.
We hope that you find something that is interesting and
enlightening to read in this issue of QRJ.
Darrell N. Caulley and Carmel Seibold
Editors

MEMBERSHIP 2002
Full Membership: A$66
Student concession: A$33
To join the association download a membership form from the AQR website
(www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr). Complete the form and send with cheque or credit card
details to:
Dr Margarete White, WorkSafe Victoria, Level 23, 222 Exhibition Street,
Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia, Email: margarete_white@workcover.vic.gov.au

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Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2002, pp. 315

The place of theory and the


development of a theoretical framework
in a qualitative study
Carmel Seibold, School of Nursing, Australian Catholic University

ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the place of theory and a conceptual/theoretical framework
within a qualitative study. Reflecting on a feminist qualitative study of single midlife
menopausal women undertaken in the mid 1990s, the paper discusses the way in
which theory informed the process of refining the research questions and
methodological approach, and the way in which a conceptual or theoretical
framework was developed. The developing framework, while initially influenced by
feminist interpretations of Foucaults theory of language and power in relation to the
way in which midlife women construct and manage menopause and midlife health,
moved to a broader theoretical approach which better reflected what was emerging
in the data. This was the significance to health of the development of a sense of
midlife identity. The theoretical framework that finally developed had as an
overarching framework involving Giddens theory of self-identity incorporating the
notion of the reflexive self, and emphasising agency in decision making, as well as
the discursive and embodied construction of self. The framework was further
enhanced by feminist poststructuralists interpretations of Foucaults theory of
language and power and positioning in discourse, along with feminist and other
writings on embodiment.

INTRODUCTION

Discussions held with research students and members of a special interest group
concerned with identifying and debating topical issues in qualitative research, raised the
question of the place of theory and a theoretical framework within a qualitative research
study. This paper discusses conceptual and theoretical frameworks, their place within a
qualitative, as opposed to a quantitative study, and, using a study of single midlife
women, the way in which theory frames a study, as well as the way in which a theoretical
framework was developed as the study progressed.

THEORY, THEORETICAL/CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS AND RESEARCH

There is confusion as to what constitutes a theoretical as opposed to a conceptual


framework, with some texts seeing them as one and the same thing. Neiswiadomy (1998,
p. 96), differentiates between the two. A theoretical framework is defined as, a broad,
general explanation of the relationships between the concepts of interest generally based
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on one theory and a conceptual framework as the linking of concepts selected from
several theories, or from previous research, or from the researchers own experience. A
conceptual framework is seen as an impetus for the formulation of theory.
The place of a theoretical framework, or conceptual framework is clear within a
quantitative study. It is less so within a qualitative study. Consider the process usually
followed when proposing to undertake a quantitative research or 'mixed method' study:
the researcher identifies a problem, then reviews various theories and selects the theory
for examining the identified problem. Sometimes the selection of the appropriate theory,
or theories, comes about as a result of a general review of the literature; alternatively, the
researcher already has a notion of the theory they wish to adopt. In any case, once the
theory is selected the next step is to develop an hypothesis, or hypotheses, based on
research questions, or statements generated from the theory. Part of this process involves
operationalising variables, usually drawing on definitions from the theory or theories to
be tested. Study instruments, congruent with the theory, are then selected. The study
findings are described and related to the existing theory, and the way in which the
findings support the theory are identified in the conclusion of the study.
Many qualitative studies do not follow the process as outlined above. In a cursory review
of several qualitative texts, predominantly in the health field (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994;
Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Ezzy, 2002; Grbich, 1999; Holloway & Wheeler, 1996; Lincoln
& Guba, 1985; Rice & Ezzy, 1999; Streubert & Carpenter, 1995), the term theoretical
framework appears only in the index of one text by Grbich (1999). Grbich (1999, pp.
2729), in Qualitative Research in Health identifies three types of theory, namely micro,
macro and grand theory, and four broad approaches as to how theory may guide
qualitative research.
Four broad approaches to the use of theory in qualitative research

The four broad approaches identified are: theory/concept-driven research, theory/conceptgenerating research, postmodernism and feminism (Grbich, 1999, p. 29). In
theory/concept-driven research the researcher familiarises him/herself with theorist(s)
whose views seem most relevant to the research topic (Grbich, 1999, p. 29). For
example, Foucault's views on body surveillance may be relevant to researching the
medical professions increasing control over definitions of health and illness. Refining the
studys major questions can follow this exploration and data analysis and emergent
findings may be compared with particular theoretical positions.
In theory/concept-generating research the researcher draws on an
interpretivist/interactionist perspective influenced by theorists from within that tradition,
such as Mead and Goffman. Research approaches from within this perspective include
grounded theory, ethnography and phenomenology. Grounded theory, in particular, is
seen as a research process with a strong emphasis on identifying concepts and developing
micro theory through following a rigorous process of analysis. Since the aim of this
approach is to develop a substantive theory the researcher avoids allowing existing ideas
to dominate the studys design, analysis and interpretation. While previous theories are
acknowledged in analysis of qualitative data, the final discussion, rather than being an
exposition of the way in which the findings support the theory, is a critical dialogue
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between the data, the emergent theoretical positions and relevant theoretical/conceptual
frameworks (Grbich, 1999, p. 30).
While Grbich identifies postmodernism/poststructuralism and feminism as theories
influencing qualitative research, they are, to my mind, better termed research perspectives
that guide research. Denzin and Lincoln (1994, p. 41) make reference to the Fifth
Moment of qualitative research as having arrived with researchers needing to have an
orientation towards more action and activist-oriented research, and more social critique
shaped by critical theories, feminism and postmodernism. This is a position with which I
identified.
A postmodern research perspective

A number of unifying themes can be identified within postmodern theory.


Postmodernism, in philosophical and sociological terms, is a critique of modernism and,
as such, rejects grand theories or projects of Enlightenment, such as Marxism; throws into
doubt objective and rational concepts of truth and knowledge; questions the
Enlightenment view of the subject as rational, centred and purposive; and, views
subjectivity or self identity as a discursive construction (Barrett, 1992; Bordo, 1993; Flax,
1990). For those researchers influenced by postmodernism it can be seen as an umbrella
term that includes poststructural currents, most particularly the way poststructuralism
looks at the structure and use of language by social agents (Lacan, 1979) and the
deconstruction of language and discourse (Derrida, 1982; Foucault, 1980). Social
meanings are defined, constructed and contested. Contesting language, or deconstruction,
is an integral part of the postmodern project and involves analysis of social and cultural
texts and other texts that purport to speak of the lived experience of interacting
subjects (de Laine, 1997, p. 186). Postmodern feminists engaged in deconstruction ask
the question: Where is the feminine in this text? and if the feminine is repressed how
does this contribute to pretensions to truth and identity (Game, 1991, p. 77). Researchers
who identify themselves as postmodern or poststructural place emphasis on highlighting
the text and the potential for many, not one, explanatory perspective (Grbich, 1999).
A feminist research perspective

Just as there are multiple positions within poststructuralism, so too are there in feminism
(Tong, 1995). Nonetheless, feminist researchers, while often occupying very different
positions, share certain principles regardless of the methodology chosen. These are: that
womens experiences are the major object of investigation; that the researchers always
attempt to see the world from the vantage point of a particular group of women; and,
researchers, are critical and activist in efforts to improve the lot of women (Lengermann
& Niebrugge-Brantley, 1988). Other researchers (see Duffy, 1985; Oakley, 1981) stress
the importance of a nonexploitative egalitarian and emancipatory relationship between
researcher and researched and ensuring that issues of power, honesty and ownership are
addressed.

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THE USE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY IN RESEARCH ON SINGLE


MIDLIFE WOMEN

In order to illustrate how a qualitative study is guided by theory at various levels and
stages of the process, I will describe a study of single midlife women conducted in the
1990s. The literature drawn on reflects the historical moment in which the study took
place. Initially the study sought to explore single womens (that is never married,
separated, divorced and widowed) experience of midlife and menopause. Twenty women,
between the ages of 44 and 55, were interviewed twice, 12 months apart and in the
interim kept a diary. Prior to commencing the study I identified my research approach as
feminist. As the study progressed I found myself grappling with ethical and
methodological issues from a feminist perspective: namely, the difficulties associated
with striving for a nonexploitative approach, issues related to power, knowledge and
control, and the degree to which interpretive studies are critically activist (see Seibold,
2000).
Early data in relation to the study was analysed using grounded theory techniques and the
underlying principles of symbolic interactionism. At this point I was using theory to
guide my research at the level identified by Grbich as theory/concept generating. Because
my initial research questions were concerned with identifying the impact of menopausal
symptoms and the debate surrounding hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on the lives
and decision making processes of single midlife women, I was also using theory at the
level Grbich identifies as concept-driven research. Investigating Foucaults theories, and
feminist interpretations of his theories, in relation to knowledge, discourse and power,
and body surveillance appeared relevant at the outset of the study and continued to be so
throughout data analysis.
Investigating Foucault's theories of knowledge, discourse and power

Foucault saw discourse as a particular form of language use that may be identified by the
institutions to which it relates, by the social position from which it comes, and that
position (such as scientist or expert) which it marks out for the speaker (MacDonnell,
1986, pp. 23). Of particular interest in a study of midlife women and menopause was
Foucaults notion of the way power is exercised through the production of sexual identity
(Foucault, 1981) and his notion of the 'medical gaze' (Foucault, 1976). Foucault (1981)
maintained that women's bodies were given meaning and became the subject of medical
science from the 18th century onwards and the medical gaze is the means by which
medical knowledge, through the exercise of power, is produced and promulgated. The
medical gaze, as reflected in the medical examination, is a form of disseminated power
that allows the physician to acquire knowledge about the body, observable in signs and
symptoms. The symptoms of a disease, or for that matter a medicalised condition such as
menopause, become a sign which is then translated into a clear ordered language
medical discourse (Foucault, 1976, p. 94). This knowledge and expertise, however, is
achieved at the expense of those subjected to the power of the gaze since it is accepted
that the body, in terms of signs and symptoms, can be read only by medical experts.
Medicine can be seen as engaged in the production of a discourse on the individual
which corresponds to an extended disciplinary power (Armstrong, 1983, p. 116).
'Disciplinary power' results in individual self-surveillance and self-correction to norms,

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such as might occur in women deciding to take HRT to control menopausal symptoms, or
a body 'out of control', as well as to prevent disabling conditions, such as osteoporosis.
The constitution of subjectivity is an important part of Foucault's notion of the gaze,
including the medical gaze (Fox, 1995, p. 29). Subjectivity is seen as created through
the social power of discourse, and as precarious, contradictory and in a constant process
of being reconstituted every time we think or speak. At the same time language, in the
form of socially and historically specific discourses, cannot have any social and political
effect except in and through the actions of the individuals who become its carriers. They
take up the forms of subjectivity, with meanings and values intact, and act upon them
(Foucault, 1982).
Foucault's (1980) explanation of the exercise of power in creating subjectivity draws on a
circulating notion of power, that is, power is viewed as always exercised in relation to a
resistance with both parties participating in a power relationship. He argued that wherever
there was power, such as that exercised by the dominant discourse, there was also
resistance and resistance was all the more effective because it was formed at the point
where power was exercised.
Feminist interpretations of Foucault

At the time I was exploring these issues, and as the study progressed, I found feminists
(Bordo, 1993; Hollway, 1998; Weedon, 1987) interpretations and criticisms of Foucault
useful. Hollway and Weedon were particularly helpful in articulating a theory as to why
the women in the study had chosen to position themselves in certain ways, at different
times in their lives, and how at midlife they were often resisting this positioning. Weedon
(1987), while acknowledging the importance of Foucault's emphasis on the need to pay
attention to historical specificity in the production of women's subject positions, the
modes of femininity and their place in the overall network of social relations, stressed the
potential for resistance. Weedon maintained that discourses around sexuality, including
the way in which femininity is constructed, while powerful and with institutional bases
(such as the family), also allow for resistance or the generation of reverse discourses.
Paying attention to historical specificity undermines the truth of discourses in
circulation. Feminists can approach the question of truth from within this same
discursive framework, aiming through reversal, to establish new truths, compatible with
their interests (Weedon, 1987, p. 131). Points of resistance, which were evident in some
women's stories, occurred as a result of alternative discourses, particularly radical
feminist discourses.
Hollway (1998) was useful in maintaining that at any given moment, rather than a
dominant discourse being in circulation, several equally influential and potentially
contradictory discourses can co-exist and make available different positions and different
powers for men and women. This interpretation, Hollway contended, allows us to ask the
question: Why do people take up positions in one discourse rather than another?
Answering the question is aided by paying attention to the histories of individuals in
order to understand why individuals position themselves in a particular discourse and the
degree of investment or reward of that location for that person (Hollway, 1998, pp.
237238).
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Analysis of the data revealed that concerns relating to sexual identity and health, and the
way in which bodies were implicated in this process, appeared as relevant to midlife
women as to younger women. The women's accounts were replete with descriptions of
perceived loss of attractiveness, compromises taken to achieve or maintain physical
attractiveness and, or, relationships, as well as health concerns and the need to constantly
monitor the body.
Bordo (1993), writing at a time relevant to the situation of the women participants,
explored the impact on women of discourses surrounding the body in relation to
Foucault's theory of disciplinary power involving continual body surveillance. I found her
contention that power relations were far more complex than the simple model of
oppressor and oppressed suggested by earlier feminists (eg. Coward, 1984) as particularly
relevant. For example, women who take control by dieting and 'working out' in order to
achieve a certain body type as dictated by prevailing norms, can also find that on gaining
physical strength and confidence they experience a new-found power (Bordo, 1993).
Several divorced women in the study were concerned with maintaining physical
attractiveness through diet and exercise, taking HRT, and, possibly, having plastic
surgery, with a view to repartnering. However, they were very clear as to their motives
for doing so and saw this as taking control of their lives.
I therefore found Bordo's (1993) repostulation of Foucaults theory about the way in
which power operates and which goes beyond a simple notion of oppressed and
oppressor, useful for several reasons. In the first instance it allowed for the possibility that
power and pleasure do not necessarily cancel one another out, and secondly, it
acknowledged that men, too, are implicated and embedded in institutions and practices.
These notions allowed for a far more complex analysis of power, especially with regard
to the notion of resistance. Bordo claims that Foucault's argument that power always
operates with resistance allows for understanding the ways in which individuals can
effect transformations over time. She states:
Dominant forms and institutions are continually being penetrated and reconstructed by the
values, styles, and knowledge that have been developing and gathering strength, energy and
distinctiveness at the margins (Bordo, 1993, pp. 2728).

Weedon, Hollway and Bordo, therefore, extended Foucault's theory of resistance to


dominant discourses, such as those of medicine, science and the patriarchal family, by
maintaining that women actively position themselves in discourses, albeit with varying
degrees of power relative to the discourse. As part of hearing and analysing women's
stories I, like Bordo (1993), came to see the complexity of power in this positioning.
As data analysis proceeded, as well as considering the impact of medical and other
discourse on womens decision-making processes, I was becoming aware of the need to
pay attention to the way the women constructed, through narratives of past and present
experience of their body, their identity. This appeared important to the women as they
strived for a sense of wellbeing. At this point I moved away from a grounded theory
approach to that of discourse analysis, as identified by Potter and Wetherall (1987), and
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employed by Hollway (1998). That is a form of analysis that gave added emphasis to
gendered subjectivity, as well as the influence on the women of social and scientific
discourses in circulation.
As the analysis progressed still further I became uneasy about the decentring of the
subject and the relative lack of individual agency allowed within certain
postmodern/poststructural approaches. These concerns were also being highlighted in
early 1990s feminist literature (Bordo, 1993; Di Stefano, 1990; Harstock, 1990), most
particularly the notion of a fluid and fragmented subjectivity and the resultant loss of a
relatively unified agentic social subject, woman, and what this might mean for a
feminist politic. These concerns led to a further exploration of theories in relation to
subjectivity, self and identity, and embodiment.
Subjectivity self and identity

Subjectivity is defined by Weedon (1987, p. 32) as the conscious and unconscious


thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of
understanding her relation to the world. Jane Flax (1990) considers that contemporary
discourses, namely psychoanalysis feminism and postmodernism, have rendered
modernist views of subjectivity obsolete. Psychoanalytic theories achieved this by
uncovering the existence of the unconscious, feminists by emphasising the gendered
nature of the mind/body dualism and the way in which it enters into power relations, and
postmodern feminists through acknowledging consciousness as a fragmented and
contradictory effect of a discursive struggle. However, in terms of postmodern discourse,
Flax argues for a coherent narrative of self and an approach which acknowledges multiple
fluid subjectivities, rather than the fragmentation of self (Flax, 1993, p. 102). Lather
(1991), writing from a similar perspective to Flax, claims that, rather than the death of the
subject per se:
what has died is the unified monolithic reified essentialised subject capable of fully
conscious rational thought .... replaced by a provisional, contingent, strategic constructed
subject which while not essentialised, must be engaged in the processes of meaning making
... [H]ence de centering is not so much the elimination of the subject as it is the
multicenteredness of action, a reconceptualisation of agency from subject centered agency
to the plurality and agency of meaning. (Lather, 1991, p. 120)

I found this position an advance on a simple deconstructionism. Decentring is not about


the loss of a thinking subject but rather an acknowledgment that for feminist researchers
using deconstructive methods, the process must be a reflexive one that acknowledges the
interpretive and constructivist role of both the researcher and the researched. While the
influence of discourse on identity construction is acknowledged, the role of individual
agency, albeit constrained, is also emphasised.
It was at this point that Giddens (1991) theory of a reflexive project of the self, while not
a feminist argument, proved useful. At this stage of analysis I became aware of the need
to acknowledge, not only the influence of circulating discourses around midlife and
menopause, but also womens agency as they repositioned themselves in discourse and
constructed a life narrative incorporating both past and present experiences of the body.
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Giddens theory of identity as narrative

Giddens (1991), while rejecting the postmodern label, preferring to speak in terms of
high, or late, modernity, has similar notions of subjectivity and agency to that of Flax and
Lather. He stresses the transformative nature of individual action and the importance of
reflexivity in the project of constructing the self. Giddens views self-identity, not as a
collection of traits possessed by an individual, but rather as something understood by the
person through their biography. This view of self-identity, according to Giddens,
presumes reflexivity, described as the continuous monitoring of the circumstances of
one's activity, with the monitoring always having discursive features. Monitoring
assumes a practical consciousness that is seen as nonconscious rather than unconscious
(Giddens, 1991, pp. 3536).
Giddens theory of self-identity has three major elements which I found useful in
understanding the way the women in the study constructed a sense of self. First, his
notion of the reflexive project of self, defined as the process whereby self-identity is
constituted by the reflexive ordering of self-narratives (Giddens, 1991, p. 244). Second,
his emphasis on the role of agency, defined as purposive action, in the project of a self
reflexively made, and his conceptualisation of agency, which recognises the influence of
globalisation on the dissemination of information, and its influence on positioning in
discourse. The globalisation of communication means that the dissemination of
information is often impersonal and this has the potential for alienation as the individual
balances risk and trust. Expert systems are seen as helping to construct self-identity via
reflexively organised life planning, which normally presumes consideration of risk as
filtered through contact with expert knowledge disseminated globally (Giddens, 1991, p.
5). It is through institutional reflexivity the regularised use of knowledge about the
circumstances of daily life as a constitutive element in its transformation that presents
the opportunity for the individual to undermine the certainty of knowledge and also to ask
troubling existential questions (Giddens, 1991, pp. 2021). Existential questions were
part of the womens quest for a midlife identity and health and related to the third element
of Giddens theory, that is, life politics or lifestyle decisions.
Giddens considers that life politics has superseded emancipatory politics in the reflexive
project of self. Life politics, according to Giddens is about lifestyle or a politics of life
decisions (Giddens, 1991, p. 214). He contends that feminism, particularly 1960s
feminism, has opened up life politics through giving priority to the question of women's
self-identity and involves decisions which extend to the wider community, via moral,
ethical and legal questions. Analysis of data demonstrated that the majority of the women
were certainly engaged in a politics of life decisions as they reflected on questions
involving health and identity in the broader context of larger moral issues.
Giddens also explores the notion of the reflexivity of the self extending to the body and
views experiencing the body as a way of cohering the self as an integrated whole
(Giddens, 1991, pp. 7778). While Giddens asserts that the body has become more
immediately relevant to the identity of the individual, he, along with Foucault, fails to
articulate adequately the way, and at what level, embodiment influences identity. I
therefore turned to other theorists to fill this gap.
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The embodied self

Turner (1992), along with other social theorists, including Shilling (1993), and feminists
(Bordo, 1993; Grosz, 1994; Diprose, 1994; Moore, 1994), who identify with the
postmodern critique, were useful in analysis in the way in which they emphasised
embodiment as important in constituting identity. While acknowledging their debt to
Foucault, feminists including Grosz (1994, p. 156) contend that his view of the body as a
blank passive page, the so-called docile body waiting to be inscribed, is problematic, as
is his failure to acknowledge the materiality of the body.
Bordo (1993, p. 38) also views as problematic certain current postmodern feminist
tendencies to textualize the body at the expense of its material locatedness in history
practice and culture. Both Bordo (1993), and Diprose (1994), who cites French feminists
such as Irigaray, argue for a material practice, or an opening of one's embodied ethos
towards other possibilities that acknowledge sexual difference in creating identity.
One writer who has explored the material locatedness of the body is Moore (1994).
Moore, a feminist and an anthropologist, drawing on Bourdieu's (1992) theory of bodily
praxis, explores the way in which sexual difference and embodiment contribute to
identity construction. Bourdieu, working in an anthropological context, based his theory
on Havelock who contends that the body engages with the material world and is
constantly mingled with the knowledge it produces (Havelock cited in Bourdieu, 1992,
p. 73). Embodiment is seen as a subconscious process over time attached to a series of
meanings and values inherent in a particular culture. Moore (1994, p. 71) maintains that
we give insufficient attention in theories of gender difference to bodily praxis as both a
mode of knowledge and the material conditions in which that practice takes place. She
contends:
Praxis is not simply about learning cultural rules by rote, it is about coming to an
understanding of social distinctions through your body, and recognising that your
orientation in the world, your intellectual rationalisations, will always be based on that
incorporated knowledge (Moore, 1994, p. 78).

Moore (1994, pp. 8081) sets store, not only on cultural norms, but also on individual
history and makes the point that resistance to dominant discourses need not be discursive,
coherent or conscious, and that body knowledge can both refuse and traduce us. Connell
(1995, pp. 6061) goes further, not only acknowledging the activity of bodies in social
processes, but arguing for a theoretical position where bodies are seen as sharing in
social agency . In describing a number of young men's initial experience of sex, he
makes a case for the way in which the experience, or the body's response, had a directing
influence on subsequent decisions about sexual conduct and partner preference. He
termed this process body reflexive practice. While acknowledging the significance of a
female body, or a male body, to the construction of femininity or masculinity, he views
bodily processes as entering into social process and becoming part of a history, both
personal and collective, and thus a possible object of politics (Connell, 1995, p. 66).

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Both Moore's (1994) interpretation of Bourdieu's (1992) theory of bodily praxis and
Connell's (1995) related theory of body reflexive praxis were useful in analysing
midlife women's stories of making sense of past and present decisions involving their
bodies, most notably contraceptive choices, including sterilisations and abortion, and
HRT. However, much of what these authors said was about body processes experienced
at a subconscious level (Moore, 1994; Connell, 1995) or the result of cumulative self
abusive practices, such as drug taking and heavy drinking (Connell, 1995). Neither
Moore nor Connell referred to body processes consciously experienced as disruptive,
such as menopausal symptoms, and how this might link with social processes.
Leder (1990), a physician and a philosopher, however, provided the missing element.
Leder has explored disruptive body processes such as illness. In describing bodily
presence from a phenomenological perspective he refers to the body's highly paradoxical
nature. His thesis is that although in one sense the body is the most abiding and
inescapable presence in out lives, it is also essentially characterised by absence (Leder,
1990, p. 1). Leder considers that when the body is functioning it tends to disappear or
move to the side, and we are therefore largely unaware of our body in health. He sees
this body absence as contributing to the Western tendency to identify self with the mind.
Phenomenological bodily absence is thus compounded by the cultural realities of the
mind/body split, of how we think and talk about the body as well as the way we act
towards our own.
According to Leder, a body that is dysfunctional is a body no longer absent. Leder (1990,
p. 75) describes the way in which pain can draw attention back to the physical body, and
at the same time engender a sense of alienation from the body. Separating from the body
and rendering it other can be the result of the disruption but also an adaptive response.
At the same time a desire to be free of the pain and/or disruption occurs. According to
Leder the body becomes the object of an interpretative process as we seek to understand
the disruption. This process may include reflecting on our bodily history as well as taking
steps to integrate mind and body. Bodily history in this context could be seen as part of a
life narrative in constituting self referred to by Giddens (1991) and Flax (1993).
Leder (1990, p. 84) coined the term dys-appearance to describe a radical shift in
embodiment such as occurs with pain, and maintained that at times like these the body
can no longer be taken for granted. He makes the point that this dys-appearance can also
occur at certain times in one's life, for example, puberty, and that women's bodies, in
midlife, more than men's, stand out as a place of transformation. Aspects of Leder's
model of dys-appearance, therefore, were useful in understanding the heightened
awareness of the body and the alienation experienced by some women as a result of
distressing menopausal symptoms. Appreciating the steps the women took to integrate
mind and body was aided by Freunds (1982) theory of the individual's need for
mind/body integration, or balance, in order to maintain or achieve what he terms wellbeing and a taken for granted body (Freund, 1982, p. 40). The two interrelated
conditions he sees as necessary to body integrity are: the individual being able to regulate
homeostatic functions such as hormone levels and electrolyte balance; and, having a
sufficient degree of control over the close integration that exists between mind and body.
He refers to this control as being in touch. Losing touch can occur as a result of stressful
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social situations as well as bodily disruption. A number of women were experiencing


extremely stressful events as well as menopausal symptoms. Freund was particularly
useful in explaining how the women's experiences of health and illness were connected to
social relationships, as well as the interrelationship between emotional and feeling states.
In summary, in conceptualising the relationship between self-identity, the body and
striving for health, I found useful an eclectic group of theorists from the fields of
structuration theory, poststructuralism and phenomenology. In this I subscribed to
Turner's (1992) plea for a recognition that our perspectives on the body are the product of
social constructions, as well as an appreciation of the phenomenological nature of the
lived body. He states:
Sociological theory is often written as if one had to choose between competing and
incommensurable paradigms. My own view, which could be called methodological
pragmatism, is that epistemological standpoint, theoretical orientation and methodological
technique which a social scientist adopts, should be at least in part be determined by the
nature of the problem (Turner, 1992, p. 57).

CONCLUSION

This paper has described the way in which theory at various levels enters into the process
involved in carrying out a qualitative study. A feminist qualitative study that initially was
about the way midlife women construct and manage menopause and midlife health, came
also to be about the way women construct a midlife identity and how relevant that
process was to a sense of wellbeing. As analysis proceeded, theory guided, and was
guided by, data analysis. The theoretical framework finally developed incorporated
Giddens notion of the reflexive self emphasising agency in decision making, as well as
the discursive and embodied construction of self. This framework was further enhanced
by feminist poststructuralist interpretations of Foucault's theory of language and power
and positioning in discourse, along with feminist and others contemporary writings on
embodiment. Feminist poststructuralists' interpretations of Foucault's theory of language
and power, particularly Hollway's notion of competing but equally influential discourses
being in circulation, provided a way of understanding the way the women positioned
themselves in discourse. Feminist and other social theorists' accent on embodiment in
identity construction was useful in understanding the women's experience of menopause,
as well as the emphasis placed on their past experience of their bodies as they constructed
a narrative of past and present experience and strove for wholeness and integration.
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(Accepted for publication in October 2002)

CARMEL SEIBOLD is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing,


Faculty of Health Sciences at Australian Catholic University. Carmel's
current research interests are in the area of women's health, including
midwifery.

Contact details:
Carmel Seibold
Senior Lecturer
School of Nursing
Faculty of Health Sciences
Australian Catholic University
St Patricks Campus
115 Victoria Parade
Fitzroy, Victoria 3065
Australia
Phone: +61 3 9953 3186
Fax: +61 3 9953 3355
Email: c.seibold@patrick.acu.edu.au

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Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2002, pp. 1629

When yes means sometimes


Janice McDrury and Jenny Conder, Otago Polytechnic

ABSTRACT
Research results are frequently used as a basis for decision making. Quantitative
data is perceived as providing clear precise information with qualitative data
providing richness and depth. Results of this research show that quantitative and
qualitative responses are not necessarily congruent. Using a specific question,
asked as part of a community survey seeking ideas, attitudes and opinions
regarding the role of the nurse in a community setting, the processes involved in
exploring the data to ensure that respondents meanings are uncovered, as well as
the ways in which knowledge is constructed and communicated, are explored.

INTRODUCTION

When engaging in teaching, writing or professional discussions, questions frequently


arise about what is known, how it is known and on what basis decisions are made. In
particular, issues arise about currency of material and representativeness of ideas that
impact on the decision-making process. Undertaking research or referring to results is an
important part of ensuring appropriateness of material. Research results are seen to offer
opportunities to find answers to questions, inform thinking and make overt what
particular target populations are thinking in relation to issues or concerns. Yet, as I
engage in research, I am more convinced that the ability of results to meet these
expectations must come under question.
Much of social science has borrowed heavily from the positivist paradigm. Even though
there are some who identify the importance of constructivism in science or discuss the
impact of the researcher on data collection, it does not seem to result in data itself coming
under question (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer & Scott, 1994; Zahorik, 1997).
Certainly within social sciences the issues of objectivity and subjectivity are frequently
discussed, and in this postmodern era the boundaries have been extended even further.
Yet when exploring the relevance of research results the interface between qualitative and
quantitative data continues to raise questions. It is not sufficient to acknowledge the
limitations of the results or ensure that issues such as validity and reliability are
addressed. What needs to be examined is the potential meaning of results if they were
viewed from different perspectives or were collected or collated in different ways
(Beanland, Schneider, LoBiondo-Wood & Haber, 1999; Cluett & Bluff, 2000; Denzin &
Lincoln, 1994; Grbich, 1999; Sandelowski, 1986).

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In this paper some of the issues and concerns related to qualitative and quantitative data
are outlined before examining one question from a survey which attempted to gain insight
into perceptions held by the public regarding the role of the nurse in the community
setting. The qualitative and quantitative results from this question will be explored with
particular emphasis on the problems that arose when collating these responses into a
coherent whole. Finally, the unanswered questions are voiced and possible directions for
further exploration outlined.

QUANTITATIVE DATA

The desirability of objective data, which has long been part of the scientific approach, is
acknowledged within the social sciences. Its value becomes apparent when it is possible
to equate various positions as separate from each other. As individual entities they can be
seen in relation to each other. In the purist form such positions and relationship can be
expressed numerically, compared and contrasted.
To achieve such data it is necessary to accept that positions or responses can be viewed
separately as objective or subjective. While many scientists recognise observer influence
on so-called objective data, in a postmodern world it would seem necessary to go even
further and realise it is impossible to talk of one without the other. Reliance on validity
and reliability to ensure good quality data also creates challenges. Care with various types
of validity can disintegrate into good levels of face validity with different interpretations
of the task or the data. Even high reliability cannot provide a safeguard as poor validity
(Example 1) or collective assumptions present within subcultures (Example 2) can impact
on interpretations.

Example 1: Poor validity impacting on objective data


A seven-year-old child receives consistently low scores for problem solving in
mathematics. Remedial work seems to be necessary even though this child
achieves well in other types of maths. With exploration and discussion it
becomes evident that the child can achieve well in problem solving when
working in dialogue. A check on the reading level required in the maths problem
reveals that it is several levels higher than the childs current reading level.

Example 2: Collective assumptions impacting on results


A 14-month-old child has very little verbalisation and she is known to have a
heart defect. The childs mother reports that she may have been in contact with
measles during the pregnancy. This child is identified as being severely
intellectually disabled she fits the picture. When she is in hospital for heart
surgery the nurse became confused by the subjective data being presented by
the child. She seemed bright, alert and aware. The assumptions are challenged.
Further investigation, sparked by these subjective observations, revealed that
the child was profoundly deaf. She was in fact very bright and had managed the
beginnings of verbalisation without any support.

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The problem inherent in separating objectivity from subjectivity is that to make sense of
data, information needs to be processed subjectively through senses, thought processes
and the past experiences of the people seeing, recording and reporting it. To place a
slightly different twist on the words of Bernard Lonergan (1968), Some people speak
about knowledge as if it could exist independently of people who know. Or as Schwandt
(1994) states findings or outcomes do not exist outside of the persons who create and
hold them; they are not part of some objective world that exists apart from their
constructors (Guba & Lincoln, 1989, p.143).
In this study there are a number of issues that have arisen in relation to quantitative data
that relate to the collection, collation and reporting processes. These are not new issues or
specific to this research, but have lead to a re-examination of the meaning of the research
results.
Identified issues

Even with good collaborative discussion, framing of questions, thought about the
range or order of items, and establishing of possible response categories, a context
evolves which is likely to influence responses.
Even with focus groups to establish the best questions, there are some questions that
remain unasked or are too complex to address through an objective approach.
While care is taken in selecting, working with and piloting questions, some
participants are likely to feel dissatisfied when presented with the limited responses.
Participant responses do not necessarily fit the options given so they are forced into
choices that reflect and articulate the researchers thinking rather than their own.
Participants may not always understand what is being asked; yet through anxiety or
obligation select an answer or response.
Collating data also proves difficult. Participants present the researcher with a number
of dilemmas. In particular there were the double dippers who choose two options.
Frequently there are also in-betweeners who create a mid-point choice, and arrow
people who indicate one choice but with an arrow that signals movement in a
particular direction. In particular, researchers have to make choices. Additional
categories may be created to deal with double-dippers, in-betweeners and arrow
respondents that result in a four-point scale extending to a seven-point (or more) scale.
These responses can then be coded at the new points. One is left only to wonder what
other respondents may have chosen if they had the extended options. The other choice
of course is to round up or down consistently but this creates interesting distortions of
data.
At some point in the analysis a particularly interesting phenomenon occurs. There is
an almost magical transformation where the data become fixed and certain. From
this point all uncertainty and decision making disappear. These numbers can now be
averaged, graphed, used to determine standard deviations, etc. They can be reported as
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being clear, concise, and informative. They represent facts that can inform thinking
and decision making.

QUALITATIVE DATA

Unfortunately, the decision to collect qualitative data does not enable all these issues to
be resolved. There are as many different ways in which such data can be collected and the
more interactive the process, the greater the possibility that dialogue can assist with
clarification of meaning. However, it is also likely to provide masses of material that
creates its own unique challenges in terms of analysis.
Key issues that have a particular impact on qualitative data

The context in which questions are set is particularly important. Questions that are
presented create a context that shapes or influences the thinking of participants. This is
particularly evident when structured interview schedules, be they oral or written, are
used. It is likely that these will focus thinking and thus impact on what participants
choose to include or exclude in terms of information. The way the questions are asked,
when, where and how they are asked will all shape the response. When using
semistructured interviews the ability to fashion the questions into a conversational
dialogue to enhance meaning making, results in another layer of contextual issues with
the interviewer making connections and assumptions that are placed on the
conversation.
The ability for the participants to choose their own words to express meaning is an
important aspect of qualitative research. It provides freedom and choices that are not
otherwise present. However, questions arise about establishing the meaning of such
data and of course about consistency. What would the response be if the same topic
were under discussion tomorrow or in a different context? What about a slip of the
tongue, orally or in writing? What are the processes that are in place to verify data?
How are opportunities offered and what is checked, when and where or how does it
occur? And, even with such processes in place, the issue of researcher interpretation
of data remains. The researcher reads, analyses, makes sense of data, creates themes
and frameworks and reports their interpretations. Meaning making is an essential
aspect of data analysis, yet not clearly understood. Establishing credibility and an
audit trail are crucial but with so many factors impinging on the analysis in particular
it is difficult to attain (Sandelowski, 1986; Schwandt, 1994).
The analysis of qualitative data is as problematic as quantitative material. The unit of
analysis, the framework and philosophical approach, along with the research
methodology, all impact on what happens in the process of attempting to find meaning
from text. The analysts may choose to utilise computer-assisted qualitative data
analysis software (QAQDAS) such as NUDIST but is then presented with another
range of decisions. The range of decisions include the basic issues regarding the unit
of analysis be it word, lines, sentences or paragraphs or more complex questions
such as how to interrogate the data adequately, or provide an appropriate framework
through which to present the meaning that emerges. What is linked, how is it linked
and what difference does it make to meaning that is presented as results? Interestingly
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the process of analysing data from more limited or contained open-ended questions
requires similar issues to be addressed.

THE QUALITATIVE-QUANTITATIVE INTERFACE IN PRACTICE.

The question that is the focus of this paper was asked as part of a community survey
seeking ideas, attitudes and opinion from both urban and rural members of the public
regarding the role of the nurse in the community setting. The survey, which consisted of
eight questions, collected both quantitative and qualitative data. The question explored
was Question 7 and related to nurse prescribing. It existed within a specific context.
Question 1 aimed at collecting functional data related to participants contact with nurses.
Questions 2, 3 and 4 collected data related to perceptions of the work nurses did in
relation to health promotion and education. Questions 5 and 6 focused on what nurses did
in the community and what additional things they could do. Question 8, the questions that
followed the topic of this discussion, asked about a range of frequently occurring health
issues. Responses were received from 486 participants, a response rate of 32%.
Question 7 consisted of two parts. The first involved quantitative data and required
participants to choose one of four responses by ticking the appropriate box. The second
part of the question provided an opportunity to explain their choice with seven lines being
provided for an extended response. The number of lines provided was consistent
throughout all the survey questions.

Figure 1: The survey question Question 7

Do you think nurses should be allowed to prescribe medication?


In some circumstances

Yes

No

Dont Know

Why?

The question was comparatively simple and of topical interest as the government of the
day had suggested providing nurses with some form of prescribing opportunities. The
issue that arose in analysing data was that there was inconsistency between quantitative
and qualitative data.

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ANALYSIS OF QUANTITATIVE DATA

The response rate to this question was very high at 97%, with over half the participants
indicating support for nurses prescribing in some circumstances. However there was
nearly a third who felt that nurses should not prescribe medication.

Summary of responses to Question 7 Part A

In some circumstances

250

Yes

55%

42

No

9%

121

Dont Know

41

27%

9%

In addition there were 13 respondents (4%) who were double dippers. Placing double
dippers into a category of their own was seen as the most appropriate way of representing
their choice.
Of these participants 26% (125) chose not to respond to the second part of the question.
Because the focus of this paper is on the relationship between the two responses, this
group will not be incorporated into the following discussion. The proportion of
respondents who were excluded in this way was reasonably consistent across all
categories.
Revised respondents to Question 7 Part A

In some circumstances

194

Yes

56%

29
8%

No

98

Dont Know

28%

12
3%

Eleven of the 13 double dippers provided comment and therefore became part (3%) of
the revised sample.

ANALYSIS OF QUALITATIVE DATA

The qualitative data was collated into five main themes with most participants
incorporating more than one theme into their response.
1 These responses focused on particular medical conditions, drugs or events. Medical
conditions included such things as common childhood illnesses, sore throats and
earache. Many referred to minor ailments without being more specific and the
researcher assumed that this included similar conditions to those stated by others. The
drugs that were named fell into three main categories. The most common response
related to repeat prescriptions. Some indicated that they felt that nurses were capable
of carrying out appropriate checks to ensure that issuing of the repeat prescriptions
was safe. The next category of drugs related to a range of frequently prescribed
medications such as antibiotics, contraceptives, laxatives and minor pain relief. Finally
there was a suggestion, especially from those in isolated rural areas, that nurses should
be able to prescribe major pain relief, such as morphine, in emergencies. The main

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event that was mentioned was emergencies, especially those occurring in the isolated
rural areas.
A third of all participants incorporated some aspects of this theme into their response.
2 These responses focused on the availability, primarily of the doctor. This was a
particularly frequent response from participants living in the rural areas. Some also
noted that the nurse was available in the rural setting and therefore it was sensible for
her to be able to prescribe.
These responses frequently accompanied material from theme one and were presented
by approximately a fifth of respondents.
3 These responses focused on time, cost or pressure on doctors. While time referred to
saving time for patients and doctors, the cost was very much a saving for the patient.
Easing the pressure on doctors was also about saving time although some commented
that it could mean that the doctors time was being spent more appropriately dealing
with the more difficult or serious cases.
Respondents presenting this material frequently also included material from theme
one and/or theme two. This was found in approximately a quarter of responses.
4 These responses focused on the competence, experience and knowledge of nurses and
doctors. This category was the most frequently addressed area. Comments ranged
from nurses being sufficiently qualified to prescribe, through to many suggesting that
more education was required and some noting that nurses were not appropriately
educated. Other participants focused on the more adequate education of doctors rather
than commenting on nurses.
Over half of the respondents mentioned qualifications or experience.
5 These responses were presented by about a tenth of the respondents and focused on
the role of doctors and nurses. Many in this category reinforced the traditional roles of
doctors and nurses. Prescribing was part of the role of a doctor and nurses taking on
prescribing would compromise their existing nursing roles.
6 These responses focused on preference for either the doctor or the nurse and were
identified by about a tenth of respondents. Most in this group preferred the doctor to
prescribe. However, some felt that the nurses knew the patient better than doctors and
therefore they preferred the nurse to prescribe. \

THE INTERFACE BETWEEN QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE DATA

When analysing the data it became evident that some of the qualitative and quantitative
responses were not congruent.

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In an attempt to clarify the responses they were divided into three categories:
Congruent, where information in both sections of the question was in agreement.
Some discrepancy, where some information in Part 2 was in agreement with Part 1 but
part of the information indicated a different position.
Incongruent, where the information in Part 2 was not in agreement with choices in
Part 1.
All responses were read as a totality in an attempt to identify which of the categories they
fitted. It was a complex task. In some cases there was a clear change of position.
However, in most cases there was a response that supported the chosen position and then
additional comments that were incongruent.
Obviously this type of analysis is wide open to interpretation. To ensure intra-rater
reliability on initial coding each tenth script was rechecked. In addition, to ensure interrater reliability 5% of the scripts were analysed by the team of three coders. Five were
completed at the beginning, a further five after each third of the scripts were coded and
the final five at the end. The results were compared between researchers throughout the
working process to assist in decision making. Achieving reliability was particularly
difficult in relation to scripts recoded as having some discrepancy. These discussions
then impacted on some responses that had been identified as congruent or where a clear
discrepancy was found.
Trying to find meaning from these brief statements was difficult. There were times when
it was necessary to attempt to gauge the tone of the response and other occasions when it
was difficult to interpret what was actually meant. Three or four respondents talked of
prescribing throughout their response but then concluded in a final phrase that on balance
nurses should be able to administer medication. It is difficult to know if such a shift in
terminology was a slip of the pen or if in fact they wanted to maintain the status quo and
restrict nurses to administration of drugs. Yet, such a position was not necessarily
congruent with the other information they offered. For example, one respondent in
providing further qualitative data in relation to the category, in some circumstances
wrote:
In some circumstances: Children with ear trouble or other small ailments would benefit
having an antibiotic straight away as well as adults. If an accident is attended and pain
relief is needed or a life saving drug, I think the nurse should be able to administer them.
(H090)

The desire to clarify what was meant also occurred with participants who discussed the
issue of educational qualifications and competence. Only rarely did respondents indicate
any awareness of the current knowledge or competence held by nurses. One was left
wondering if and how positions could have changed if such information were available.
Whether participants did not know this information, or did not understand the
implications of such preparation, or did not feel such preparation was adequate remains
unknown. What was clearly evident, however, was that the information that was available
was not sufficient to allay their concerns.

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Table 1: Overview of shift in responses

Option
In some circumstances

Congruent

Some discrepancy

Incongruent

150

40

Yes

12

13

No

88

10

11

Dont know
Double dippers

Congruent responses

Participants who chose In some circumstances generally identified a particular


circumstance, such as minor ailments, repeat prescriptions or emergencies. Most then
provided a reason for their choice or justified the circumstances they had outlined, such
as, it would save time and/or money, there is no doctor available, they were living in an
isolated area or the nurse knew the patients better. Responses frequently added in
conditional statements such as the need for nurses to undergo further education or be
supervised by a doctor:
Some senior nurses should be able to prescribe some routine medication when contact and
good rapport between patient/GP and nurse is firmly in place. The nurse would appreciate
recognition of responsibility and the GP may be relieved of some routine work. (L047)

Respondents who indicated yes in their quantitative data tended to justify their response
by indicating patients could save money and both patients and doctors save time. Those
in the rural areas added that since they had no full-time doctor and were isolated, it made
sense to have the nurse, who was available, prescribe medication with statements such as,
Doctors are often too busy. I feel that nurses are more prepared to give a person time and
really listen (L062).
Most of those who chose no in the first part of the question justified their choice by
focusing on nurses lack of appropriate educational preparation. In addition, many
mentioned the possibility of nurses making mistakes and the risk of over-prescribing:
Already there is significant over-prescribing, i.e. poly-pharmacy, and prolonged courses of
treatment without proper justification. Adding nurse prescribing would only compound the
problem. Background, training and knowledge are basic requirements to drug usage. Does
the current nursing course contain sufficient safeguards? (H087)
Some discrepancy and incongruent responses

The two groups of respondents who were most likely to have some level of incongruence
were those who chose yes or dont know. In both cases nearly two-thirds of these
participants provided responses that contradicted their quantitative choice to some degree.
Most of the yes responses shifted to in some circumstance because the extended
response included some restriction on nurses practice. Usually this involved placing
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some constraint on practice such as attending to minor ailments or suggesting that the
nurse would require supervision by a doctor.
Yes: But under GP advice. (L055)
Yes: Under certain circumstances. (L288)

There was only one person whose response indicated a clear discrepancy. The yes
response was accompanied by an explanation that seemed to indicate a no response!
Yes: I dont believe they have the qualifications. (251)

Of the 12 participants who chose dont know, three indicated that they would be in
agreement in some circumstances while another four expressed the opinion that they did
not agree with nurses prescribing. Two of these provided a very clear indication while the
other two wavered between not knowing, disagreeing with nurse prescribing and
wondering about possible circumstances when it would be acceptable:
Dont know: I prefer my GP to prescribe my medication, because he is trained for
diagnosis and treats health problems accordingly. However, I have no doubt in some
circumstances a trained nurse should be able to prescribe medication. (L373)
Dont know: Dont know if they are qualified to prescribe medication though if they are
specialised in a certain area, I dont see why not. (L123)

The largest group of respondents, those who chose in some circumstances, contained
nearly a quarter who presented some level of incongruence. While most of these were
slight discrepancies (40), some were clear discrepancies (4). Most of the slight
discrepancies involved a shift to a yes response. Many indicated that they felt that
nurses were sufficiently prepared and would be suitable for the role of prescribing.
In some circumstance: Senior nurses with day-to-day care of unwell patients possibly
understand the patients better than a doctor who is just in and out at intervals. (L106)

However, they also named particular types of drugs such as antibiotics and contraceptives
as being ideally suited for nurse prescribing. Several rural respondents also mentioned
morphine, which was needed in emergencies.
The order of some statements appeared to influence meaning, with the placement of
statements about a nurse being suitable for prescribing before or after conditional
statements being particularly open to interpretation. On other occasions there was an
attempt to comprehend the tone of the response to gain understanding especially when
almost identical statements were used by way of explanation for yes, in some
circumstance and double dippers who incorporated yes and in some circumstance:
In some circumstances: Because they are trained. (L005)

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Those who showed some shift from in some circumstances towards a no response
focused on lack of qualification and feared the possible mistakes that could be made.
For respondents who provided incongruent responses there were two who shifted towards
yes and two towards no.
In some circumstances: They have not the training and experience to be expected to know
all the medications available for the respective diseases. Too much responsibility would
rest with them. After all they are only trained nurses not doctors. In an emergency only.
(L180)

The overall impact of such shifts is interesting. The no responses retained a similar
percentage of the total while in some circumstances dropped from nearly two-thirds to
under half. The yes and dont know responses showed the most dramatic shift with
both more than halving their numbers. Yes dropped from 29 responses (9%) down to 14
(4%). The dont know responses similarly dropped from 12 (4%) to 5 (1.5%).

Table 2: Summary of the adjusted responses with additional categories


Response

In some

Yes

No

Dont Know

circumstances

Adjusted
totals

(ISC)
ISC

150

26

13

Yes

12

Yes No

No

ISC Yes

ISC No

153

39 (12%)

10
1

(46%)

88

10

14

(4%)

14

(4%)

93 (28%)
10

(3%)

Dont know

5 (1.5%)

Dont know No

2 (0.5%)

Dont know ISC

Original total

194 (58%)

29 (9%)

98 (29%)

(1%)

12 (4%)

With the many who presented some inconsistency, there were in fact a number who
became double dippers. This presents an interesting position with five new categories
being created. This may indicate that the forced choice in the first part of the question did
not carry through to the second open-ended section but it leaves the unanswered question
about possible choices if all nine options were actually available to all participants. This
also raises a further dilemma because I suspect there are most likely few research or
ethics committees who would feel comfortable approving research where such imprecise
options were made available to participants.

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Shifting position the impact on themes

When the shifts in position are explored from the perspective of the themes some
interesting trends appear. Firstly, there are two combinations of themes presented through
the responses.

Table 3: Combinations of responses


Fir st combination of themes
1 Conditions, Drugs and Events

4 Knowledge and Competence

2 Availability

5 Role of Doctor or Nurse


6 Preference for Doctor or

3 Time, Cost and Pressure

Nurse
Sec ond combinat ion of themes

With the first combination of themes respondents usually mention any two of the themes
although quite a number mentioned three. No-one included all four themes. With the
second combination most mentioned knowledge and competence and linked it with either
of the other themes.
The number of themes incorporated into a response impacted on the likelihood of a shift
between quantitative and qualitative data. Those participants who identified only one
theme were likely to present a statement that was congruent with their quantitative
response. The more themes incorporated into the response the greater the possibility of
some level of incongruence existing. Frequently two themes were congruent with the
quantitative statement but the third theme presented a contrast. In fact, this was often
presented as an exception.
The theme where there was least likelihood of shift was number 6, which related to
preference for either the doctor or the nurse. These statements, particularly if standing
alone or with one other theme, usually maintained internal consistency. There was also a
decreased likelihood of a shift when respondents had indicated no to Part 1 and
indicated inadequate educational preparation.
The theme where there was the most likelihood of shift was in the first combination as
defined above. In particular, the combination of ideas across these themes frequently
resulted in statements that lacked internal consistency.
The theme, which presented the widest range of opinion, was theme 4 which related to
knowledge and competence. While most respondents indicated that the nurse needed
further education, there were a number who indicated that they did not consider the nurse
was qualified to prescribe. In contrast, there were some that felt that the nurse was
sufficiently qualified or that she had adequate experience in the area of specialty practice.

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CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Analysis of this data has raised interesting questions in relation to use of both quantitative
and qualitative data as a basis for informing decision making. However, the issues that
have arisen from analysing this data are bigger than the subjective and objective debate,
or the issues of validity and reliability.
In discussing these responses with other researchers it is clear that a range of alternatives
needs to be considered. Certainly in the process of working with data, trying to appreciate
what respondents were wanting to communicate, I have wondered about the necessity of
revisiting some of the philosophical and educational theories that move toward
constructivism and hermeneutics.
In particular, it would seem appropriate to revisit constructivist theory as modern
approaches provide insight into some of the dilemmas that this data has presented.
Because personal constructivist theories explore ways in which reality is constructed, it
has the potential to inform our understanding about the thinking processes of both
participants and researchers. While such views include multidimensional approaches,
identifying social, cultural, personal and emotional aspects, which is inviting, the rigidity
of grids that can result is less appealing, as the flexibility of the various dimensions,
which lend themselves to an interactive model, seem to be limited when placed in a
structured format.
Yet, suggestions by various authors that it is necessary to blur the observer/observed
boundaries, be comfortable with multiple conflicting constructions and engage in
dialectics that can lead to joint construction are more helpful when applied to dialogue
than finding meaning in written responses. (Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Schwandt, 1994)
What does seem evident is that such research responses and dilemmas are far from
unique. There appears to be little available in terms of finding ways to work through the
dilemmas and find answers, particularly in relation to open-ended survey responses.
Certainly new directions are needed. The question remains, How are we to come to
know anything useful from research?
References
Beanland, C., Schneider, Z., LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (1999). Nursing research: methods,
critical appraisal and utilisation. Sydney: Mosby
Cluett, E., & Bluff, R. (Eds.). (2000). Principles and practice of research in midwifery. Edinburgh:
Bailliere Tindall.
Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (Eds.). (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Driver, R., Asoko, H., Leach, J., Mortimer, E., & Scott, P. (1994). Constructing scientific
knowledge in the classroom. Educational Researcher, 23(7), 512.
Grbich, C., (1999). Qualitative research in health. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Longergan, B. (1968). The subject. Milwaukee, WI: Marquett University Press.
Sandelowski, M. (1986). The problem of rigor in qualitative research. Advances in Nursing
Science, 8(3), 2737.
Schwandt, T. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In Denzin, N., &
Lincoln, Y. (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 118137). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.

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Zahorik, J. (1997). Encouraging and challenging students' understandings. Educational


Leadership, 54(6), 3032.
(Accepted for publication October 2001)

JANICE McDRURY coordinates and teaches postgraduate certificates in


child and family health, and child and youth mental health. She has
research interests in these areas.

Contact details:
Dr Janice McDrury
Senior Lecturer
Otago Polytechnic
Private Bag 1910
Dunedin, New Zealand
Phone: +64 3 479 6135
Fax: +64 4 474 1957
Email: janicem@tekotago.ac.nz

JENNY CONDER teaches in Community Health at undergraduate and


postgraduate level and has research interests in this area.

Contact details:
Jenny Conder
Lecturer
Otago Polytechnic
Private Bag 1910
Dunedin, New Zealand
Phone: +64 3 479 6135
Fax: +64 4 474 1957
Email: jennyc@tekotago.ac.nz

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Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2002, pp. 3044

All in the family

monitoring
postschool student pathways by using the
Modified Snowball Technique

Joan Abbott-Chapman, Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania


Hazel Baynes, Youth Studies Group, University of Tasmania

ABSTRACT
A study of rural Tasmanian Year 10 leavers postschool outcomes combines
quantitative, qualitative and longitudinal methods to investigate study, employment
and unemployment destinations after Year 10 completion. A questionnaire survey of
rural school leavers is supported by a survey and intensive one-to-one interviews
with a sample of parents of participants. Subsequently a Modified Snowball
Technique (MST) is used to follow up the pathway experiences of leavers and a
number of their siblings, in relation to educational and employment experiences of
parents. The interviews with parents and siblings provide a different but
complementary perspective on the postschool choices and pathways of the leavers
and other family members. A rich family profile results which enables us to view
holistically the role which family support financially, materially and emotionally
plays in the leavers decision making about postschool careers, especially in rurally
disadvantaged regions. Although numbers are small and findings tentative, new
insights emerge on the push/pull factors of educational and family priorities that
confirm the methods usefulness. These relate to lack of job opportunities in the
local community, family history in which siblings and/or parents may have been
unable to obtain full-time or stable employment and thus the experimental nature
of study away from home that sometimes results in student discontinuation. The
methodology helps us to understand factors within the family that shape postschool
outcomes in a way that would be impossible in a survey of the individual leavers
alone.

INTRODUCTION: THE POSTSCHOOL PATHWAYS IN RURAL SCHOOLS


PROJECT

This research maps the pathways to study or work taken by students completing Year 10
in three northern Tasmanian rural high schools and investigates how they choose a
pathway, or how it is chosen for them by events, and why. The studys significance lies in
the fact that Tasmanian post-Year 10 retention rates are traditionally among the lowest in
Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001, p. 99). In 1999, some rural high schools
in Tasmania introduced vocational education and training (VET) Year 11 programs, as an
alternative to travel to senior secondary colleges in urban centres, and the study aims to
find out how far this curriculum change has contributed to retention. The project, directed
by Sue Kilpatrick and Joan Abbott-Chapman, was funded by an Australian Research
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Council (small) grant and examines the influences of aspirations, ability, gender, family,
school, curriculum, work opportunities and community culture on pathways taken
(Abbott-Chapman & Kilpatrick, 2001).
As well as documenting the post-Year 10 leaver pathways, the research comes to focus
over time upon the influences within the family, school and community which affect
leavers decisions about whether to go on with studies or leave early to try to get work, in
areas where there is high unemployment and under-employment. Much is already known
of pathways and influences upon them, especially of parents and families (Dwyer,
Harwood & Tyler, 1999; Dwyer, Harwood, Costin, Landy, Towsty & Wyn, 1999) but
less is known of the actual process which leads to a particular decision being taken, and
the dynamic interrelationships involved within different sociocultural and family contexts
(Abbott-Chapman & Kilpatrick, 2001). The process is examined in detail as experienced
by a small number of rural families.
This small-scale intensive study is set within a series of large-scale, longitudinal cohort
studies which have taken place over the last 15 years, which framework the findings and
allow valid generalisations to be made from in-depth qualitative data. (Abbott-Chapman,
Hughes & Wyld, 1986, 1991; Choate, Cunningham, Abbott-Chapman & Hughes, 1992).
It also builds on previous work on vocational education and training and other learning in
rural Australia (Kilpatrick, Bell & Falk, 1999; Falk & Kilpatrick, 2000). The study is a
part of a multimethod, multisite approach. The aim is to track the initial study and
employment histories of a sample of rural Year 10 leavers in the first months after
leaving school and to find out what effect, if any, the availability of VET courses in
secondary schools has on student retention and motivations to study. What the study
actually discovers by using integrated qualitative and quantitative research design is that
parental opinions and family employment history have as much influence on postschool
choices and educational take up as the education and training options available. Key
questions which emerge are: Why do some Year 10 leavers within the same low SES
disadvantaged area go on to further study and others do not? and What is it within the
relatively socially homogenous sample which discriminates between leavers outcomes in
terms of family job history and family relationships? The Modified Snowball Technique
(MST) allows us to uncover the role played by the prior postschool experiences of
siblings, who had not been seen as part of the original data-gathering design. These
sibling experiences inform parents about, and influence attitudes towards, local youth
employment situations and educational opportunities of the sampled Year 10 leavers.
Hence the methodology, which represents theoretical sampling, is crucial in interacting
with the data to identify new conceptual categories of persons and events which help to
explain postschool outcomes (Dey, 1999, p. 15).

METHODOLOGICAL AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES ARISING FROM THE


LITERATURE

This paper discusses research design and data collection methods rather than analysis and
interpretation per se, though these are clearly related. The focus is upon the purposes,
conduct, sequences, benefits and disadvantages of the MST as part of an integrated
qualitative and quantitative research design. As Crabtree and Miller assert in the
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dynamics of the qualitative research process multiple, specific sampling, data


collection, data management and data analysis options exist from which to select. Almost
any mix and match is possible and depends on the aims, objectives and research question.
The second distinguishing feature is the recursive, cyclical nature of the process
(Crabtree & Miller, 1992, p. xiv). The Snowball Technique itself is a method of
sampling, selection and self-selection of participants in semistructured interviews, within
a sociocultural setting about which there is only partial or outside knowledge. The MST
discussed in this paper shows how a variation of the original Snowball technique, which
allows for integration of quantitative and qualitative methods, in a multiphase recursive
research design, is useful in uncovering family relationships and influences on leavers
decision making and the shape of life narratives which were not accommodated within
standard integrated qualitative and quantitative designs. Since the research examines
family, as well as individual responses to Year 10 leavers postcompulsory education and
training opportunities, the complexities of family relationships and experiences have been
taken into account in the choice of a combination of methods (Gilgun, Daly & Handel,
1992, p. 26). The final discussion summarises the benefits and disadvantages involved in
the use of this data-gathering technique.
The Snowball method is a nonprobability, purposive form of sampling and is not
haphazard, accidental or convenience sampling (Neuman, 1997, p. 205). It is related to
theoretical sampling and involves the theoretical value of sites (for generating categories)
rather than their representational value (as cases from which to generalise). Categories
that are generated, as through grounded theory, become conceptual elements of a theory.
They are analytical, provide meaning, and vary in degrees of abstraction (Dey, 1999, p.
5). Snowball sampling is one way of exploring the meanings and relationships of
categories of social actors from their point of view. The crucial feature is that each
person under study is connected with another through a direct or indirect link (Neuman,
1997, p. 207). Snowball sampling is also called network, chain referral or reputational
sampling. Snowball sampling is a multistage technique in which the researcher asks each
person interviewed from a theoretically based target group to recommend someone else
like themselves to take part. The sample thus grows like a rolling snowball. The sampling
may be stopped arbitrarily or when no new names are given. The method allows for the
study of implicit norms, values and meanings of an interconnected group and also allows
the interconnections and relatedness to be mapped, as in a sociogram.
The research design is based on an analytic induction whereby a specific problem,
question or issue becomes the focus of the research. Data are collected and analysed to
provide a descriptive model that encompasses all cases of the phenomenon (in this case
the variety of postschool pathways) (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992, p. 70). In this situation the
Snowball sampling technique is useful, in that each person interviewed is asked to
recommend others who have a significant contribution to make to the understanding of
the phenomenon. At each stage the developing theory is revisited and modified to fit each
new case. Not only is the theory modified during the research process to fit all new facts
that arise, but the research question can also be redefined (narrowed) to exclude the cases
that defy explanation by it. By choosing what categories to include or exclude, you also
control the breadth of the work by limiting the theorys scope (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992,

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p. 91). While the analysis becomes more encompassing as new cases are presented, the
developing theory becomes more defined.
In this research the qualitative methods associated with the Snowball sampling technique
are combined with a questionnaire survey of Year 10 leavers and a plot is made of the
leavers study/work trajectories since leaving school. This led to the modification of the
Snowball technique at least in its initial stages, and an integration of the quantitative and
qualitative methods in a reiterative cycle. Research designs which are able successfully to
integrate qualitative and quantitative data enable the confirmation and corroboration of
each other via triangulation (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 40) and also the elaboration
and development of analysis, and the initiation of new lines of thinking, providing fresh
insight (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 41). Such an integrative approach is important
within interpretive social science, based on the work of Max Weber. This goes beyond
abstract explanation to emphatic understanding or verstehen of everyday lived
experience. Weber argued that social scientists need to study meaningful social action,
that is, the meanings and purposes that guide decisions to act in particular ways (Weber,
1949). Interpretive social science stresses the underlying meanings of actors, rather than
what can be read by the social scientist on the surface, in the explanation of social
phenomena. This involves in-depth field research, participant observation, and face-toface interviews, all of which immerse the researcher in the culture of those being studied.
For meaning is created through our actions and our interpretations of our own and each
others actions (Feldman, 1995, p. 11).
Snowball sampling uses qualitative thinking to approach the meanings and social
relationships of those being studied (Gilgun, Daly & Handel, 1992, p. 24). It is often used
as a stand-alone qualitative technique, especially investigating topics of high sensitivity
(Abbott-Chapman, 1973). We chose to modify it in terms of the way the original target
group is selected (on the basis of a quantitative survey and probability sampling) and in
the combining of the Snowball technique with quantitative methods. We have done so as
part of a two-phase design in which the two methodological paradigms, though related,
are separate, which enables the researcher to present thoroughly the paradigm
assumptions behind each phase (Cresswell, 1994, p. 177). For Cresswell there are five
main purposes for combining qualitative and quantitative methods: triangulation;
complementarity through which overlapping and different facets of the phenomenon may
emerge; development through which the first method is used sequentially to help inform
the second method; initiation, wherein contradictions and fresh perspectives may emerge;
expansion, whereby the mixed methods add scope and breadth to the study (Cresswell,
1994, p. 175). We have benefited in all these ways from the integration of qualitative and
quantitative methods and from the combination of a questionnaire survey of a probability
sample, with the Snowball sampling of participants and their families in follow-up
interviews. Findings help us to reinterpret the quantitative findings from the initial
surveys. Concepts are developed in the form of themes, generalisations and taxonomies,
while context assists in understanding underlying meaning. Attention to social context
means that a qualitative researcher notes what came before or what surrounded the focus
of study (Neuman, 1997, p. 331).

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The integration of qualitative and quantitative aspects of research is increasingly regarded


as a mark of sound research. However, it is a temptation in such studies to regard the
qualitative and interpretive methods of data collection and analysis as the handmaiden
of the stronger quantitative research even where this is unwarranted, or to see the choice
of methods as an either/or situation involving conflict of ideologies. But is this necessary?
(Abbott-Chapman, 1993). The point is made strongly here that in-depth ethnographic
research and grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) contribute not merely to the
development and refinement of quantitative studies but to the redirection of the initial
enquiry, and the reinterpretation of data. This takes place in an iterative process in which
the weighting to be given to each phase may not be able to be decided until the research
sequence is finished, and closure of data analysis is achieved.
Three main stages have been identified in the process of ethnographic generation and
development of theory (Burns, 2000, p. 396). In the initial stage of exploration a range of
possible ideas guided by broad research questions leads to the second stage where
significant classes of people and events emerge relative to the key research questions, and
this leads to reformulation of the initial guiding propositions. In the third stage a more
focused collection of data relevant to the reformulation occurs. There is an interplay
between personal observations and theory which leads to decisions about what might be
useful to observe and what questions might be relevant to ask (Burns, 2000, p. 396). The
careful formulation of guiding hypotheses on the basis of literature searches and the
researchers own previous research is crucial in this process of gradual refinement
especially in generating further questions to be asked and in searching for patterns. The
methods used are based on regard for process, naturalisitic enquiry, holism with regard to
sociocultural behaviours and multiple perspectives (Burns, 2000, p. 398).
For these reasons the methods of sampling or selection are of central importance to the
integration of ethnographic/qualitative and quantitative research methods. Purposeful
rather than random sampling may be used. Such sampling uses a criterion-based selection
of people, such as those who have shared a recent experience (in our study, school
leaving and deciding what to do next, specifically in a disadvantaged rural area). Such
sampling may provide illustrative material for life stages, events, experiences and
aspirations. Selecting those times, settings and individuals that can provide you with the
information that you need in order to answer your research questions is the most
important consideration in qualitative sampling decisions (Maxwell, 1996, p. 70). The
aim of purposeful sampling in small qualitative studies is to achieve representativeness or
typicality by choosing cases, individuals or situations that are known to be typical
(Maxwell, 1996, p. 71). In order to capture the heterogeneity of the population under
study, and hence maximum variation sampling, it is best to have foreknowledge of the
dimensions of variation in the population that are most relevant to your study and so to
select the most important possible variations on these dimensions (Maxwell, 1996, p.
72). This suggests some pre-existing survey data that provides these parameters. Findings
may highlight the processes in question in a way that a representative cross-sectional
survey may not.
There are, however, trade-offs in the integration of methods between the unstructured and
structured survey and the unstructured and structured sample. While prestructured
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qualitative surveys can help to ensure comparability of data across sources and are
particularly useful in understanding the processes that lead to specific outcomes, the
more unstructured approaches trade generalisability for internal validity and contextual
understandings (Maxwell, 1996, p. 64). Triangulation of data collection methods
reduces the risk that your conclusions will reflect only the systematic biases or
limitations of a specific method and it allows you to gain a better assessment of the
validity and generality of the explanations you develop (Maxwell, 1996, pp. 75, 76)
hence the importance of the integration of qualitative methods such as observation,
semistructured interviews and focus groups and quantitative methods such as
questionnaire surveys.
The cleaner and less ambiguous the research questions (and the survey samples) the less
ambiguous the interpretation of the research findings. But we must question whether they
are true to the real life and sometimes messy experiences being studied. Sometimes
lived experience falls through the cracks created by official statistical analyses (of
school retention for instance) and the statistics take on a normative quality which seems
to make invalid the lived experience itself. This poses the problem of our
preunderstandings and prejudgments as researchers. The problem of phenomenological
enquiry is not always that we know too little about the phenomenon we wish to
investigate, but that we know too much so that our preunderstandings and
presuppositions and assumptions predispose us to interpret the nature of the phenomenon
before we have even come to grips with the significance of the phenomenological
question (van Manen, 1990, p. 46). The prejudgment for instance that educational
participation and retention are good in all cases and entry directly into work and hence
early leaving are not good in all cases implies a deficit model of aspects of rural
family and community culture as seen from above. This may not square with actors in
the situation. A constructivist view seeks to establish the value base for both positions,
especially with regard to the development of family and community social capital (Falk
& Kilpatrick, 2000).
In deconstructing the experiences and situations of our respondents van Manen (1990)
suggests we need to bracket the phenomenon under study by taking hold of the
phenomenon and placing it outside of our pre-existing knowledge about the phenomenon.
Thus the visiting and revisiting of the views of those closest to the bracketed
phenomenon is essential within an iterative framework. Phenomenological experiences of
those who may have appeared initially to lie outside the bracketed phenomenon and
outside the scope of the initial research questions may thus be brought back into the
study. Strauss and Corbin (1990) suggest that the data as well as the phenomena they
attempt to capture may be conceptualised as steps, phases or stages. The movement may
be forward, backward, upwards or downwards. Handling process in this manner is
particularly useful when one is engaged in studies that examine passages such as:
development, socialisation, transformation, social mobility, immigration and historic
events (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, p. 153). We believe that the use of the MST within an
integrated qualitative and quantitative research design answers many of the
methodological and conceptual questions and dilemmas raised above.

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THE USE OF THE MODIFIED SNOWBALL TECHNIQUE

Data discussed come from 84 completed leavers questionnaires, 29 completed parents


questionnaires, followed by 11 in-depth one to two hour long parents interviews, nine
equally long interviews with leavers and six with leavers siblings. Two more leavers
agreed to be interviewed but could not be contacted in time. The 84 survey respondents
(45 females and 39 males) comprise 35% of the 240 Year 10 leavers from the three rural
high schools, and are representative of the school population in terms of gender and
locality of residence.
The research purposes are to discover the complex multilinear pathways which the
leavers follow in the months following school leaving, to find out their reactions to the
outcomes identified in terms of study, work and unemployment combinations, and to find
out which were perceived by the leavers to be the most important people and events
influencing those outcomes. The questionnaire survey measures the leavers postschool
activities and their duration over a four-month period. The one year, Australian Research
Council funded project does not allow time or resources to continue the tracking beyond
this, although the methodology would certainly be able to cope with a much longer time
period and larger sample. In addition, the leavers reactions to these activities and their
overall pattern, in both a qualitative and quantitative way are to be uncovered and
understood. Finally, the process whereby individuals make career choices, as influenced
by significant others, are to be mapped. The combination of quantitative survey methods
with a sequence of semistructured interviews using the MST is found to be ideal for this
task.
The original Snowball method of sampling potential interviewees usually relies upon
identification of key informants within a social network through observation, or
participant observation (Abbott-Chapman, 1973). Informants roles and influence are
postulated, but their social networks and extent of networks of influence are not known.
Hence the characteristics of others participating in these networks are not known and the
characteristics, attitudes and behaviours which these others share with the known key
informants can at this stage only be guessed at. This represents the initial stage of
ethnographic enquiry discussed by Burns (2000, p. 296). The movement into the second
stage where significant classes of people and events emerge relative to the key research
questions and the guiding hypothesis is, by use of the Snowball technique, assisted by the
key informants themselves rather than the researcher. It is their perspectives on the
research questions and the researcher rather than that of the researchers questions and
persona which guide events and the research sequence, and the acceptability of further
respondents. Depending on research design and research questions the data may become
broader and looser or broader and tighter in focus as interviews progress and the
sample gets larger.
The method starts with the interviews of the key informants. As the sociocultural context
is still being explored, rather than known, and the researcher is still an outsider, or
relative outsider, to the group or culture under study, the interviews are usually
semistructured or unstructured. This allows the interviewee to guide the topics covered
and to introduce new topics and issues they see as important. They take place in the
interviewees own familiar territory or locale the home, office or social venue. The
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location contributes information on culture and context. These interviews and this
technique are particularly suited to topics in which there is an element of sensitivity
and/or power differential, or even where members of a group seek to keep identities and
activities hidden, such as studies of power elites or street gangs. It is clear, however, that
the ethical considerations are enormous and have to be handled very carefully.
During the progress of the Snowball technique the number of persons interviewed is
growing but, importantly, the researchers own credibility and insider knowledge is also
growing. The ethnographic enculturation of the researcher develops through the
Snowball technique and assists in moving to the final stages of ethnographic refinement
in which the reformulation of the original propositions of the research is supported or
challenged by the collection of this increasingly focused data. At the same time the
researcher becomes both insider and outsider and privy to insider knowledge (AbbottChapman, 1973). The format of interviews may also change, for example tightening up of
questions, unproductive questions dropped. The MST is used within an integrated
quantitative/qualitative research design rather than a purely ethnographic design and so is
introduced at a different point in the research sequence. The benefits and achievements
are very similar.
The postschool Pathways study begins with a quantitative data-gathering stage. A
questionnaire survey is conducted of a sample of Year 10 leavers during the year after
they left school. The schools and localities are known to the researchers and earlier
research has given rise to propositions and hypotheses about the pattern or mosaic of
study/work/unemployment options and choices likely to be evidenced, and the sorts of
influences which are brought to bear upon choices. There is also a presupposition (found
to be incorrect) that although parents have enormous influence upon their childrens
educational participation and postschool careers the leavers themselves will not always
admit to it, preferring to believe they did it all themselves. The questionnaires therefore
include structured and open-ended questions and begin with a diary of what the leaver
has been doing on a month-by-month basis since leaving school. Any or all of a range of
possibilities could be indicated including paid and unpaid work, full-time or part-time;
full-time or part-time study in its various modes; on-the-job training, and so on. These
data are analysed using a binary weighted sum technique to produce a mosaic profile for
each leaver over the period.
The questionnaires also yield statistical data on a number of issues, including the leavers
views on which person or people have most influence on their decisions. Results reveal
that parents are an important influence on the Year 10 leavers decision-making processes
when making the initial choice of pathway after Year 10. A total of 88% of leavers rate
Mother as very important or important and the corresponding figure for Father is
76%. This contrasts markedly with the figure for best friend that is only 44%. Parents
are even more influential when the Year 10 leaver is planning for the future. Mothers
advice rates as very important or important for an astounding 89% of leavers. The
corresponding figure for fathers is 82%.
The questionnaires are linked through use of ID numbers to questionnaires to go out to
parents. The original idea was to interview the leavers first following both questionnaire
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surveys in order to elucidate and elaborate their responses. However, it was decided to
interview some of the parents next because the findings showed parents to be a very
important influence on leaver choice and decisions, as recognised by the leavers, and as
significantly more influential than teachers. Hence the leavers parents, who have
completed questionnaires, are invited to take part in an interview and 11 parents agreed to
this. These parents are thus identified as an important category of key informants on the
postschool pathway decisions of leavers. As such they start the Snowball sampling.
The interviews with the parents, conducted mainly in their homes, prove most
illuminating, not only in the light they throw upon the leavers options and choices, but
on the employment patterns and sociocultural context of the family as a whole. The
parent interviews become part of the family ethnography of the rural areas in which they
live. They are important in themselves, but also because they become the next stage in the
development of the MST. Firstly, Year 10 leavers of these parents are selected for
interview rather than a random sample of questionnaire respondents. Secondly, some
parents recommend we also speak to an older sibling of the Year 10 leaver who had gone
through the period of postschool transition some time before. This is because they feel
their information and perceptions of postschool options, and the benefits and
disadvantages of each, have been increased and enhanced by the experiences of the older
sibling during their postschool transition. Parents also draw comparisons between their
own postschool experiences, that of older sibling(s) and that of the current Year 10
leaver. The ways in which these earlier experiences, whether positive or negative, affect
the perceptions of work or study of the younger sibling in our survey are discussed. We
managed to interview nine out of 11 leavers and six siblings within the time and resource
confines of the study. Some other siblings were willing to participate in an interview but
organising a time to suit proved impossible because of study and/or work commitments.
Experiences of friends of siblings illustrating other options are also mentioned and they
are volunteered but resources do not allow us to extend the research this far. In a larger
survey the interviews with siblings and friends would be a good way to snowball the
data further. Therefore, what we describe here is a pilot in which findings are suggestive
of the usefulness of the sampling and data-gathering methods for uncovering dimensions
of the influence of family social capital on postschool career choices. These might be
further developed in larger surveys.
The part played by key respondents themselves in leading the data gathering allowed us
to bracket the phenomenon and also expand it (van Manen, 1990). The method
therefore fulfils the two conditions set out by Miles & Huberman (1994, p. 27) of setting
boundaries to cases studied, and also creating a frame to help uncover, confirm or qualify
the basic processes or constructs that undergird the study. Should a subsequent research
study be mounted on another population the qualitative data and interpretation will assist
with sequential development and instrumentation (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 41) in a
more elaborate way than has been possible this time.

CONTRIBUTION OF THE MST TO FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS

The in-depth interviews with 11 parents living in rural and remote areas (one was by
telephone) reveal the high level of these parents interest and involvement in advising and
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supporting their childs career choices. Interviews help to explain why the leavers
appreciate their parents influence so much, and the sorts of choices they make. The
parents own educational experiences were limited but in the main they appreciate that
times have changed and that education and training are now more important than ever.
Generally, the family environments are characterised by cooperation and support to work
out whats right for them, by leavers being encouraged to try available options in study
and work and by parents understanding when leavers changed their minds. The
interviews allow the issues surrounding the influence of parents experiences and life
narratives to be identified.
In brief, the parent, leaver and sibling interviews demonstrate some of the multiple
realities (Schutz, 1972) involved in the pressures to educational retention from the
perspective of the formal educational system and from the leaver perspective. Parents
want to do the best for their child in helping them to achieve happiness (rather than
just a good job) and since the school leaver is perceived as still relatively young (about
15/16 years old) this might involve keeping them close to home for work or study. In
facing the complexities and paradoxes presented, most parents opt out of taking a stand
and say that their child should make their own decision. To a degree this accentuates the
uncertainties and ambiguities faced by leavers at the postschool transition. Qualitative
insights gained from the MST interviews are presented below in relation to parental
experiences, sibling experiences and the perceptions and choices of the leavers
themselves.
Parents say:
My own experience has an impact. I found Year 11 hard as I lacked career direction and
this made me more understanding of my daughters position.
It was easier then, more jobs were available. I think it makes me more understanding of
them.
Now kids get wonderful opportunities to study different things. Id have loved to have done
some of them so I encourage them to take those opportunities.

The way in which the experience of older siblings help shape parental advice, is
illustrated by the following parental comments:
Having older children helped us we knew other areas, other places to go for advice. We
were more confident in seeking advice.
VET worked extremely well for our oldest son.
My eldest son didnt have career goals, went on to college, lived in a flat with friends and
dropped out.

The interviews also highlight the web of family relationships impacting on career
decisions. The importance of leavers interactions/discussions with other members of the
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family such as grandparents in their decision making and the effect of leavers decisions
on the family as a whole is revealed. (In an extended program the MST would be used to
interview other relatives.)
She had family, including grandparents, to discuss with. She got a lot out of talking to a
range of people.

With regard to sibling experiences, the MST is dynamic and allows for the complexity of
postschool experiences over time (Neuman, 1997). The six siblings all left school
between 1990 and 1995, and related to this were the historical school factors and
economic conditions prevailing at those times. The inclusion of siblings experiences also
allows comparisons to be made within the same family, albeit on a small scale. The
shrinking job opportunities and the need for postschool qualifications are a key focus,
especially among siblings.
There are less jobs and opportunities now.
Employers now prefer you to have Year 12.
Id rather have had a job with more of a future.

Another says about lack of guidance and information on options in the past:
Lots of people influenced my bad choices. I never visited a guidance officer/counsellor. I
should have done. My parents didnt know then what options were available.

The MST uncovers the insider family views about leaving school and the options
available because the rolling interview network gains views of parents, siblings and the
leavers about what is important about choices, rather than what the researchers think is
important. For instance, problem issues about leaving home loom larger from the family
point of view than is often anticipated by educators promoting school retention as a social
benefit.
Shes had a bit of trauma, separation difficulties.
Hes settled down, though its taken the whole year to adjust.
We need to support our child emotionally and economically.

Parents compare the experiences of younger and older siblings in explaining their own
views.
Some have big problems. My eldest sons best mate/flat mate committed suicide. That had
a terrible effect on him and his attitude to study.

While educators may see dropping out or changing course of study as signs of failure,
parents are not critical when leavers change plans or have no goals.
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Hes had a dramatic course change pressure was put on him to do certain courses ,
hes changed to those I thought would keep him going to school.
We understand lack of goal is not a huge issue. People can change career, get new goals at
any time in life. Its not an issue to not know at 16.

In the case of three school leavers there is evidence from the parent or sibling interview
that an older sibling had had a similar experience.
The employment situation is another aspect that was sometimes seen differently from
researchers expectations. Local part-time work is often considered more acceptable than
elusive full-time jobs as rural people have learned to manage on part-time pay (sibling
interview). In addition, families do not necessarily see the value of academic choices, and
prefer TAFE, whereas teachers often unwittingly promote the values of Year 11 and 12
and academic study, and appear critical of those who leave early to get a job, even a
steady job. Parents comments include:
I would like to have seen more life skills choices at school. Something more practical.
The emphasis was on academic subjects.
Because they have been encouraged to do academic or pretertiary subjects they seem to
waste the first year.

One of the siblings with similar views says looking back:


The skills I needed were got on the job. In the sort of job I do, the harder you work the
more jobs you get.

In many ways the unplanned sibling interviews through the MST add as much if not
more than the parent interviews and, in total, the leaver, parent and sibling interviews
create a richer sociocultural description of family collaboration and resilience in the face
of disadvantage than could be gained by leaver interviews in isolation. Leavers views
include:
If you dont want a professional career I dont imagine youd need Year 11/12. My brother
didnt go to college and hes always had plenty of work. Hes 21 now.
Its important only for employers not for the people trying to get jobs. Its about looks.
Theyre not really any better after doing Year 11/12. My older brother did a couple of VET
courses, has been on a world trip and had lots of practical experience of mechanics, but still
has no formal qualifications. Hes successful and is working for a local Tasmanian
company.

These quotes reveal the sometimes conflicting views about the value of further education
held by teachers, leavers and their families.

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CONCLUSIONS: BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES OF USING THE MST

The MST is not a new method of collecting qualitative data it is a modified version of a
very old sampling method. The modifications lend themselves to better integration within
a mixed qualitative and quantitative research design, allowing for participants to emerge
as key informants from a quantitative survey and meriting further in-depth ethnographic
analysis. As we discuss, snowballing is not an example of opportunity or convenience
sampling, which is criticised throughout the research literature, because the sample is not
a result of happenstance nor convenience. The original participants are chosen because
they share some key characteristics, identified by the researchers. In the next stage others
are nominated because they share characteristics, perspectives and/or life experiences
with other informants who have nominated them, rather than the researcher. In this regard
they reflect social action in terms of the actors own terms of reference (Burns, 2000, p.
398), are able to uncover hidden meanings, and to identify discrepancies between the
official and unofficial version of events. The triangulation and integration of the
insider/outsider perspectives also overcomes to some degree the biases inherent in middle
class academic researchers interviewing and surveying working-class respondents.
The MST may also enable processes over time to be examined through the lived
experience and life narratives of different generations concerning the same life event,
for example leaving school and getting a job. In the Pathways study the parents are as
surprised as the researchers at the degree to which they are seen to have influenced their
childrens decisions, so many years after they themselves have left school, and with
information they believe is essentially out of date. However, the snowballing of the
siblings interviews show that their experience of leaving school in the mid or early
1990s, which was more current, had updated parental information, and had acted as a
rehearsal for what was decided with or by the Year 10 leavers. Official information and
advice were also accessed more readily if the process had been gone through before.
The most striking benefit of the MST is the way in which it uncovers and relates
information about the respondents to their social and family relationships. In a larger
survey one would be able to develop this and find out how information, values and beliefs
run along network interconnections and are intensified or attenuated in the transmission
process (perhaps a way to test the permutations and transforming properties of the selffulfilling prophecy). The ability to take account of changing education, employment and
social contexts in historical time through the lens of participants also contributes to the
dynamism of the method, and the researcher must remain open to even the most
unexpected findings. The findings from the Pathways project show that some rurally
disadvantaged families may accept casualisation and part-time work as the norm and a
way of life with which they must cope, and their aspirations for their children reflect this.
Interviews show that families act as a positive buffer against study and work
disappointments in providing support and fostering self-help. Family social capital may
also act inadvertently to depress students educational aspirations, so that student
outcomes may reveal more about the strength or weakness of the family social capital
than the importance of the attraction of work or study. This is just one example among
many, as the data collection methods attempt to keep up with the speed of change in lived
experience.

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Ethical considerations are much easier to deal with in the MST than in participant
observation because the aims, intentions and methods of the research are totally
transparent from the outset; participants and their parents (if participants are under 18years-old) are fully informed in writing, and informed consent is formally sought.
Nothing is hidden from participants, and their anonymity, and that of other participants is
assured. The additional sample(s) discovered by the Snowball technique are also
informed and their consent gained as the study progresses.
Needless to say the technique is very costly in labour, time and resources hence samples
so far have been small. A great deal of time is spent tracing informants and setting up
interviews by telephone, and more time is spent travelling to the different locales to
conduct interviews on-site rather than in a structured one-site interview situation. This is
especially challenging in rural areas though the benefits of being on-site far outweigh the
disadvantages, because of the improved understanding of where and how people actually
live. With more time and resources researchers could follow extended chains of
involvement and relationships through whole communities, using the choice of
postschool pathways as the unifying focus.
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Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Neuman, W. L. (1997). Social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches (3rd
ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Shutz, A. (1972). The phenomenology of the social world. London: Heinemann Educational
Books.
Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory, procedures and
techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience. London, Ontario, Canada: The Althouse
Press.
Weber, M. (1949). The methodology of the social sciences. (E. A. Shils & H. A. Finch, Trans).
New York: Free Press.
(Accepted for publication in August 2001)

JOAN ABBOTT-CHAPMAN is Associate Professor in Education and


Co-ordinator of the Youth Studies Group, Faculty of Education,
University of Tasmania, Australia. She has published widely on factors
affecting post-compulsory education and training participation and postschool study and work outcomes. Her current research includes patterns of
risk-taking attitudes and behaviours among Year 11/12 students.

HAZEL BAYNES is a Junior Research Fellow and PhD student in the


Youth Studies Group, Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania. Her
research interests include study and employment pathways of rural school
leavers and family and community factors that encourage study resilience
among rural school leavers.

Contact details:
Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania
GPO Box 252-66
Hobart, Tasmania 7001
Australia

Phone: +61 3 62262580


Fax: +61 3 62267839
Email: J.AbbottChapman@utas.edu.au

All in t he fam ily/Abb ott-Ch apman/ Baynes

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Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2002, pp. 4561

The effects of censoring and the Spiral of


Silence on focus group interviews: a case
study of discussion on immigration
Niranjala D. Weerakkody, School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University

ABSTRACT
Focus groups assess the oral expressions of opinions of participants on a particular
topic under discussion. They have several advantages over other qualitative
research methodologies such as depth interviews because focus groups can
discover peoples attitudes and motivations while revealing the underlying views or
values held by them. However, as focus groups elicit more socially expressed and
contested opinions and discourses than individual opinions, their discussions can
be contaminated by the situational constraints and social pressures within the
group. These include group dynamics, conformity, censoring, the Group Leader
Effect, the Groupthink Syndrome, the effects of the Spiral of Silence, characteristics
of group members, and the climate of opinion within the group and in society at the
time.
This case study examines the effects of these factors on the horizontal interactions
between group members during a discussion with undecided voters about
immigration, using two situations where focus group members took offence at
comments made by another and challenged them, when the topic under discussion
was personally relevant to them. Other members of the group, offending or
otherwise, then remained silent, retracted their opinions to placate the challenger,
and expressed neutral or conciliatory opinions in an effort to return the discussion
to a state of equilibrium.
It then examines some measures that can reduce such contaminations, including
methodological triangulation, where several methods and methodological
approaches are used to examine a given phenomenon, instead of just one method,
such as the sole use of transcripts of focus group discussions.

INTRODUCTION

Qualitative research stresses the socially constructed nature of reality, the close
relationship between the researcher and what is studied, and the situational constraints
linked to that inquiry (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). Focus groups are an increasingly
popular method of qualitative inquiry used in applied social research (Morgan, 1998),
industry-driven commercial investigations (Green, 1999), and in recent times in the
marketing of political candidates (Morgan, 1998, p. 41). The unique feature of the focus
group is its explicit use of the group interaction among members, to generate the
research data (Morgan, 1988, p. 12). Therefore, it is important to study situations and
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factors related to group interaction that may inhibit, constrain or contaminate the
collection of data from focus groups.
Focus groups are carried out to assess oral expressions of opinions of participants on a
particular subject under discussion. The rationale for using them in communication
studies and related research is that focus groups can discover people's attitudes and
motivations as well as reveal how people may speak or think about a given issue or topic
(Lunt & Livingston, 1996). An advantage of focus groups over depth interviews is the
speeding up of the sampling by having more than one interview at the same time. The
participants are selected for a purpose and are focused on a given topic (Wimmer &
Dominick, 1997), while creating a chemistry and dynamic that is greater than the sum of
the members (Carey, 1994). These interviews when guided by neutral, experienced and
skilled moderators who pose open-ended questions, explore people's thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours as well as the how and the why behind them (Lederman, 1990;
Kitzinger, 1994).
Focus groups involve horizontal interactions among participants, in addition to the
vertical interactions between the moderator and participants. The group situation in a
focus group can reduce the influence of the interviewer on the research subjects by
tilting the balance of power toward the group and its participants, in contrast to an
individual interview where a participant has less power (Madriz, 2000, p. 838). But, most
focus group research examines the manifest content of the group discussion even though
the hallmark of the focus group is its reliance on the interaction within the group
(Morgan, 1997). While the effects of the moderators communication style, their
demographic and other characteristics on the groups willingness to express opinions
have been studied in depth (McDonald, 1993), other research has explored the effects of
group dynamics (Janis, 1982), such as individuals who dominate the discussion or those
who are inhibited from full participation, based on the real or perceived differences
related to status and power between group members (Hollingshead, 1996) or the group
composition (Wright, 1994). However, not many studies have examined the effects of the
micro-dynamics involved in the horizontal interactions within focus groups such as turn
taking, pauses in interaction, eye contact, patterns of speech (Morgan, 1997), or the
social-psychological aspects of focus groups (Carey, 1994) affecting communication
within the group.
This paper argues that in addition to these micro-dynamics within focus groups, any
specific phenomena adversely affecting the expression of opinions on a given issue or
topic, thereby contaminating the research data, need to be studied as well. Therefore, this
paper examines a case study of how constraints related to group dynamics and
communication such as censoring and the Spiral of Silence affected two focus groups
when they were discussing the issue of immigration. This issue was relevant to the
Democracy 92 project (for which these focus groups were conducted) that examined
voter evaluations of the most important issues for themselves in the context of a political
campaign, but resulted in the researchers of not being able to hear what some of the
participants may have wanted to say about it. It reports the outcomes of this inquiry
about the lessons to be learnt which even though not a generalisation, can serve as a

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working hypothesis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) that relates to the understanding of the
phenomena under study. \

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

A classic issue in social psychology is the effect of group influences on what an


individual will say in a group setting (Janis, 1982). Focus groups will mainly generate the
socially expressed and contested opinions and discourses more so than individual
opinions (Paulis, 1989). Focus groups tend to result in conformity by group members or a
false consensus effect where some participants assume that everyone in the group thinks
in similar ways on a given issue (Livingston & Lunt, 1994). But what a person is willing
to say in public in comparison to what they may say in private could be very different. At
the same time, there will also be a tendency toward polarisation as some focus group
participants may express extreme views in a group, that they would normally not say in
private (Morgan, 1997), which could be opinions unrepresentative of an individual or
their social group (Livingston & Lunt, 1994)).
Saferstein (1994) points out that focus groups emphasise opinions expressed by
individuals, providing researchers with insights into the themes under which certain
issues may be thought and spoken about by individuals in society. But he acknowledges
that focus groups lack the contingencies of routine human interaction, even though they
allow for more interpretation activity among participants than in depth interview
situations. However, a focus group or any other kind of qualitative research does not tell a
researcher how widely distributed an attitude or motivation might be. But it does shed
light on where they arise, how they are structured and what broader significance they may
have for a person's behaviour (Goldman & McDonald, 1987).
Effect of sociological factors on focus group discussions

Focus group discussions can be contaminated with social pressures such as group
dynamics (Bormann & Bormann, 1988; Schiffman, Bednall, Watson & Kanuk, 1997),
conformity (Hestie, 1986), the Groupthink Syndrome (Janis, 1982), censoring (Carey,
1994), the effects of the Spiral of Silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1974), the characteristics of
group members (Hollingshead, 1996), and other factors, which constrain or distort
individual expression of opinions (Livingston & Lunt, 1994). These factors include the
topic, the composition and nature of the group, the personality of the participants, the
climate of opinion within the group and society-at-large on a given topic at the time, and
the chemistry stirred by the moderator and between the group members (Stycos, 1981).
The group leader effect

A self-appointed group leader, who is more articulate or aggressive than the other
members, can dominate a focus group. They may monopolise the discussion and thereby
influence or inhibit the opinions expressed by the others. They may cause resentment
within the group, adversely affect the discussion, and contaminate the data collected by
the researcher. However, a skilled moderator can neutralise such individuals and their
negative impact on the group discussion, by encouraging and providing a chance for the

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other members to express their views, or by tactfully keeping the problematic individual
under control (Wimmer & Dominick, 1997).
Group dynamics, the Groupthink Syndrome and the Spiral of Silence

Group loyalty or cohesion (team spirit) within a group is developed through


communication. Such cohesion developed during the course of a focus group discussion
can influence the patterns and quality of communication within the group (Bormann &
Bormann, 1988; Templeton, 1994). Cohesion helps a discussion to run smoothly and
productively, but as Janis (1972) suggests, too much cohesion in a group has its downside
as pressure to agree with the group can be very powerful. This will lead to the Groupthink
Syndrome, which is the tendency for group members to suppress their disagreements in
favour of maintaining consensus within the group (Janis, 1972). This results in opinions
that contradict the dominant view being unexpressed or overlooked. As a means of
minimising or avoiding the Groupthink Syndrome, researchers can request each
participant to write down their answer to the starter question before the focus group
discussion begins. This creates a commitment on the part of the members to their own
views when faced with apparent disapproval from other members (Stewart &
Shamdasani, 1990).
Participants of focus groups, just as those in surveys, could provide opinions or answers,
which they consider as socially desirable within a given climate of opinion existing
within the group or in society at the time, rather than say what they actually think or feel
(Wimmer & Dominick, 1997). This is an effort made by individual group members
toward a positive self-representation (van Dijk, 1987). Some participants may also get
carried away by the discussion or the audience, and express exaggerated views (Carey,
1990).
A person could also be coerced into immediately changing their opinions on a particular
subject if another participant personally affected by those opinions challenges them. This
agrees with Noelle-Neumann's (1974, 1984) Spiral of Silence theory where people feel
afraid to express any views conflicting with those most prevalent in the situation they are
in, even if the dominant view in question may be wrong or unfair. This is due to their fear
of losing face, being humiliated, or feeling embarrassed in front of the others in the
group (Goffman, 1967), being isolated, and/or ostracised (Noelle-Neumann, 1984).
Characteristics of group members

Characteristics relevant to social status of participants make groups think about their
members in terms of their expertise, tenure, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and what
contributions they can make to the task at hand (Wright, 1994). A low-status member in a
group may become more interested in being accepted by the high-status group members,
and confirm their views during a discussion. For example, younger, less educated or
lower status women may remain very quiet during focus group interviews, while men
could dominate the discussion in a mixed-sex setting. People in focus groups generally do
not share uniquely held information but focus on the common ones (Hollingshead, 1996).

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Social support or opposition

Perceptions of social support or opposition to a particular view or opinion within the


group could shape the formation and expression of opinions in a focus group. The climate
of opinion concerning who is on what side, also affects opinions just as the group
dynamics within the group does. As Noelle-Neumann (1984) has shown, a distorted
perception of the climate of opinion can alter public communication, opinion-formation,
and expression, as it will affect focus group participants' willingness to state their views
or disclose certain information. As Morgan (1997) points out, it is the perception of
homogeneity of the group members and their views, rather than the real similarities or
differences among them that matters, when members decide to express their opinions
freely.
Homogeneity of a group in terms of sex, age, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic
background, life styles, etc. creates a perception of members being similar to each other,
making them comfortable when discussing a topic they see as applicable to everyone in
the group in the same way (Morgan, 1997). However, both similarities and differences
between participants can contribute to enriching the discussion (Kitzinger, 1994).
Focus groups as a research methodology

The aim of a focus group is to bring a number of different perspectives into contact, as
group members will be unaware of their own implicit perspectives, until they interact
with each other on a given topic. The need for members to explain or defend their own
perspectives and challenge those of others they do not agree with, provides a researcher
with insights and data that are not easily obtained through other methods (Morgan, 1997,
p. 46). Focus groups also give rise to displays of a more textured and less judgmental
sense of self for the participants (Fine, Weiss, Weseen & Wong 2000).
Morgan (1988, 1997, 1998) sees the use of focus groups as a self-contained method of
inquiry, as well as a supplementary method, where some other methodology such as
surveys, depth interviews, or participant observation is used as the primary means of data
collection. He discusses group interaction within the focus group as leading to some
topics being precluded from the discussion due to the level of involvement of the
participants (high or low interest in the subject) on a topic or issue, affecting the quality
of the data collected. Morgan (1997) sees similar problems occurring when the topic
under discussion is either too controversial or if there is a real potential for disagreement
among the participants. He sees such situations as a potential source of weakness of any
given research project that uses focus groups as a self-contained method of data
collection. The current case study falls under a situation where disagreement among
participants arose due to a topic that was raised by the participants themselves without
being prompted by the moderator, but was triggered by comments made on a related issue
that could not have been foreseen as controversial or offensive to members of an
apparently homogeneous group, and resulted in censoring, the Spiral of Silence, and the
Groupthink Syndrome coming into effect in the discussion.
The focus group as a microcosm

Templeton (1994) considers a focus group as a microcosm where interactions between


members are as important as those between members and the moderator, because the
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former exists beyond the moderator-member reciprocity. This view sees the interaction
between members in terms of role assignments, the process of diffusion of ideas, and
interchanges among the members, acting as a small but distinct community. She argues
that the tone, mood, and ambience of the group, ultimately depends on the temperaments
of the members, both individually and collectively. Therefore, members who feel
offended by any opinions expressed during the discussion may become defensive and
lead to a climate in which censoring (Carey, 1994) and the Spiral of Silence (NoelleNeumann, 1974, 1984) can take effect.
Madriz (2000) considers the multiple lines of communication created by focus groups as
offering the participants a safe environment where they can share ideas, beliefs, and
attitudes in the company of those who they perceive as sharing many demographic and
other characteristics with themselves. She considers focus groups as suitable for women
of marginalised groups, who may find the one-to-one interview situation with a
researcher scary or intimidating. Morgan (1998) outlines some studies where focus group
participants saw the experience more gratifying than individual interviews and Carey
(1994) found that focus groups are more suitable for discussing complex issues involving
many levels of feelings and experiences, as interactions among members lead to more
synergetic exchanges.
Pies (1993) studied the level of comfort of participants in focus groups and found that
members were uncomfortable discussing certain topics such as birth control. Morgan
(1997) also reports that participants can change their views on a topic after viewing
stimulus material shown to the focus group, which can be measured through pre and
post stimulus surveys. But none of these studies have addressed the changing of opinions
of a participant or participants, due to being challenged by a member in the focus group
who personally takes offence by a comment made by another.
Effect of sychological factors on focus group discussions

Members participation in a focus group is interactive, due to their contributions to the


discussion being influenced by previous statements or factors such as conformity and
censoring. They limit the quality of the data and present challenges to the data analysis
(Carey, 1994). Therefore, it is important to recognise the impact of these psychosocial
factors on the data collected from a group discussion and contrast them with data
collected from other formats.
Censoring and conformity

Censoring and conformity are major drawbacks of the focus group technique. They occur
when participants adjust their own behaviour as a result of personal impressions formed
of other members and as adjustments to their own needs and history (Carey, 1994). When
conforming, participants will tailor their opinions to fit their perceptions of the group or
moderator. In censoring, a person will withhold a potential contribution due to lack of
trust with the other group members, the moderator, the research project, for the purpose
of being socially acceptable, or due to fear of being the odd one out. Members could also
mentally reconstruct or cognitively reframe their experiences based on the ongoing
discussion (Carey, 1994).

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Conformity and censoring affect focus groups at both individual and group levels. The
factors affecting the individual level are trust, deviancy, anonymity, commitment to ones
own opinions expressed, self-esteem, experiences related to the topic under discussion,
gender, affiliations used, and the need for social comparison (Hestie, 1986). Group level
factors include group size, group unanimity, history of agreement, group cohesion, and
members demographic characteristics. The Bandwagon Effect occurs when members
interpret their role as consensus building and try to resolve issues under discussion by
mutual agreement. This is counterproductive in a focus group as a person who has not yet
formed an opinion on a subject will use the opinions of others in the group in forming
their own (Krueger, 1988). Examining patterns within a member or the group context
helps to evaluate the effects of conforming and censoring on a discussion, because such
data can then be interpreted as less valid or credible. In order to maximise the positives
and minimise the negatives of focus group data, it is necessary to think back to place the
members in the context of the experience (retrospection), examine the breadth or range of
their experience, attain specificity by providing detailed descriptions, and providing a
personal context to the opinions expressed based on individual meanings of the actual
experience (Carey, 1994). Examining how participants react to each other during the
discussion also gives an in-depth view of the range of their experiences and opinions
(Morgan, 1998).
A case study

As a form of research, a case study is defined by the interest in individual cases and not
by the method of inquiry used (Stake, 2000). Lincoln and Guba (1985) define a case
study as a depth examination of an instance or an intensive examination of a facet of an
issue. It can be carried out for the purpose of testing a particular theory or hypothesis
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985), such as censoring and the Spiral of Silence. According to Fidel
(1992), the case study as a method of research helps one to develop a comprehensive
model describing patterns of behaviour and this is why it has been chosen in this instance.

METHOD

This case study involved the analysis of data from focus group interviews carried out with
undecided voters (as to which candidate they will vote for) during the 1992 US
Presidential election campaign, conducted for the Democracy '92 project (Just et al.,
1996). The interviews were held at two different geographic locations, namely Boston,
Massachusetts (east) and Los Angeles, California (west), in the USA. The participants for
the focus groups were selected using quota sampling based on the latest demographic
data for white voters in the two cities. The participants were asked to discuss the three
most important problems to them in the context of the election and to express their
opinions on the candidates.
Three waves of focus groups were conducted at different stages of the campaign, namely
before the primary (wave 1), after the primary (wave 2), and just before the election
(wave 3). In the first wave, one focus group at each location consisted of all males and
the other of all females. In the second and third waves, the groups were of mixed-sex. All
participants were whites and each focus group consisted of 8 to 12 members. In mixed-

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sex settings, the ratio between men and women was somewhat equal. Each interview
lasted for about two hours and was conducted by an experienced moderator.
The small size of the focus groups was helpful in examining the horizontal interactions
(Madriz, 2000) and group dynamics in action (Stycos, 1981; Lederman, 1990). Selecting
participants who were strangers to each other, but were homogeneous in terms of race
and ethnicity was in anticipation of reducing inhibitions in expressing their political
views (Lederman, 1990). To reduce the Groupthink Syndrome (Janis, 1982), the Group
Leader Effect (Houghton, 1998), conformity, censoring (Carey, 1994) and the Spiral of
Silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1974, 1984), the members were asked to write down the three
most important issues for them and their opinions of the various candidates, before the
discussion began. This was aimed at minimising the Social Desirability Effect and other
influences of the group, along the lines suggested by Stewart and Shamdasani (1990).
This was carried out by means of a questionnaire filled out by each participant. The typed
transcripts of the six focus group interviews were carefully examined for any occurrences
of censoring or the Spiral of Silence during the discussions and were analysed in terms of
segments involving the discussion of immigration.

FINDINGS

In examining if the context and dynamics of being in a focus group had a significant
effect on the focus group interview discourse, this case study analysed situations where
the effects of the Spiral of Silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1984), the prevalent climate of
opinion in the country and the focus group, the Groupthink Syndrome (Janis, 1982),
censoring and conformity (Carey, 1994) had influenced the discussions. These cases were
examined in terms of where the issue of immigration was discussed and two instances
where such factors influenced the discussion are discussed below.
Is the alien the problem?

During the focus group discussion of the all white male focus group in Los Angeles,
California, during wave 1 of the interviews, the following exchange took place where
group dynamics and other factors came into play between Larry, Jesse, Howard and
Colin. Larry was a 35- year-old electrical contractor with some college education who
owned a business and earned over $50,000 a year the highest income category listed by
the researchers. He had lived in Los Angeles and its environs all his life and had declared
himself an Independent voter, who leans towards the Democratic Party.
Jesse was a 61-year-old who had lived in Los Angeles for 42 years. He had a university
degree and worked in manufacturing and sales. He was a Democratic Party supporter and
earned between $35,00050,000 a year. Howard managed an apartment building and was
between 3554 years of age. He was a high school graduate earning less than $20,000 a
year and a Democratic-leaning Independent voter. Colin was a 25-year-old who had
lived all over the world, had some college education and earned between
$20,00024,000 a year. He had lived in Los Angeles for three-and-a-half years and was a
Republican Party supporter.

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At the beginning of the interview, the moderator had asked each of the participants to
introduce themselves to the group and thereafter they began discussing the three most
important problems to each of them in the context of the presidential election. Jesse,
Howard and Colin were discussing the issues of abortion, violence on TV and morality,
when Howard suddenly introduced the issue of immigration.
Howard: I haven't heard them (the Republican Party candidates) talk about all the illegal
aliens coming in (sic) this country. They don't talk about that or crime. I mean
Jesse: You have to build a fence, you know, a hundred feet high, just to keep them out, you
know. And let's face it. The alien it's a major, major problem. But how do you stop it?
What do you do?
Howard: But the big companies like it, because it is cheap labour to them.
Colin: But is the alien the problem? My wife's an alien.
Jesse: I don't believe the alien is a problem at all.
Colin: I think, wouldn't it be fair to say that the problem is the aliens who come into this
country and take advantage of this country, versus the aliens who are coming for legitimate
reasons?
Jesse: Well, we are all aliens. We all come from alien people, one way or another.
Larry: Right. This country is a melting pot. The majority of us are children of aliens.
Moderator: Let's talk one at a time here. Ken?
(The moderator moves the discussion to another participant (Ken) giving Ken the chance to
state the most important problem to him and keeping the focus group on track as well as
ending the awkward discussion on aliens.)

Discussion
The discussion between Colin, Howard, Larry and Jesse on immigration where Jesse had
to make a complete turnaround of his opinions agrees with Noelle-Neumann's (1974,
1984) Spiral of Silence. This was also a situation where censoring (Carey, 1994) was
imposed by one member (Colin) who had a personal interest in the topic under
discussion. His wife is from Europe and with his challenge of Jesse, he immediately
became the dominant member of the group, which had been criticising an issue close to
his heart. This was in spite of Colin being the youngest of the four individuals involved in
the discussion at the time, less educated, and earning a lower income than two of them.
The proximity and salience of the issue to Colin made Jesse retract his original comments
made on the subject about the need to build a fence a hundred feet high to keep the
aliens out. Jesse probably said it while being carried away by the a receptive audience
and perceived support for his views as the group consisted of all white males from Los
Angeles, California, which as a city and a state, records high levels of illegal immigration
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from Central and South America. As Jesse is an older white male who had lived in Los
Angeles for 42 years, he may have held more conservative, if not prejudiced, views on
immigration. In Jesses case, it also turned out to be an instance where a perception of
homogeneity of views on immigration in an all white group in Los Angeles was
mistaken.
Howard who initiated the discussion on immigration took a neutral stance, while the rest
of the group of all males, except for Larry, remained silent, once Colin challenged Jesse
about the latter's views on immigration and Jesse retracted his earlier statement. After
Jesses retraction, Larry supported Jesse in his new view of aliens and moved the
discussion towards re-equilibrium and a more neutral position on immigration, at which
stage the moderator intervened.
The fact that Colin and Jesse are both white males from different age groups is important
to note. Colin is much younger than both Jesse and Larry, and Larry who expressed the
neutral opinion in a conciliatory effort and brought the discussion back to equilibrium, is
from the age group between the other two. Jesse (an Independent voter leaningDemocrat) and Colin (a Republican Party supporter) are also supporters of rival political
parties. It is also noteworthy that Howard, who initiated the discussion on aliens,
remained silent once Colin challenged Jesse. The final say was also given to Colin, the
person who took offence at the negative comments on aliens. At the same time, having to
retract his original opinions on aliens, probably caused Jesse to lose face (Goffman,
1967) and feel embarrassed in front of the group.
Non-English speaking immigrants

In the Boston, Massachusetts, all white, mixed-sex focus group interview in wave 2, an
occurrence of scapegoating of both immigrants and teachers took place during a
discussion between Frank, Chrissy and Earl. Scapegoating refers to blaming someone for
the faults of others.
Frank, was a 55+-year-old retiree with a college degree who earned between
$35,00050,000 a year and was a Republican Party supporter. Chrissy was a primary
school teacher from the 3554 age group and an Independent voter, who was leaning
towards the Democratic Party. She had a postgraduate qualification and earned over
$50,000 a year. Earl, a male from the 55+ age group was semiretired and earned between
$34,00050,000 a year. He too had a post graduate qualification and was a Republican
Party supporter.
In discussing the different candidates in the running for the Presidency, one of the group
members had mentioned the Democratic Partys plan on education (which included job
retraining) as the only well-defined plan among all those put forward by any of the
candidates on any issue. At this stage, Frank recalled a news item he had read in the Wall
Street Journal, which referred to unemployed people being provided with job training by
the government, but who were slack and indifferent toward taking advantage of the
opportunity.

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Frank: (In) Today's Wall Street Journal, there was an article about some of the carpet
factories, mills, in (the) South. They are finding it difficult (to find suitable workers)
the people have to be retrained completely for what they were doing actually had a
program where they would bring people in disadvantaged people so that they would
realise that they have to be on the job five days a week just can't come in (to work on
time) , Today's Tuesday and then uh, next week, I'll come on Monday and then spend,
take the rest of the week off. So, this is one of the problems that you have today the
education of the people it seems. No poor reflection on you people (referring to Chrissy
who is a teacher).
Chrissy: A large part of what I think is that a lot of the people we have there, in the work
force, were not educated here in this country.
Frank: That's right.
Chrissy: In the last 12 years, we had more immigrants arrive here in this country, which
means that you had more people to employ than you did in the entire wave of immigration
in the 1920s.
Frank: Right.
Chrissy: And you know, that's a drain on the educational system for their children, but
right away, it certainly tests the work force, because you have people who aren't educated,
aren't trained, perhaps not speaking English as a first language. Their literacy rates are low,
and and that's just thrust upon the businessman and how do they deal with it? And if the
schools are fumbling at a younger age, certainly the businesses are fumbling too. You need
money for job training programs, and all of a sudden, you had more people than there was
money for programs that were even existing.
Earl: I strongly disagree , though, with approaching the solution to that problem by
federal money. I used to contribute (as taxes), and to me, that would be the death knell to
public education. To have major support from the federal government, control from the
federal government. The true education of the child starts in the home, whether they be
(sic) foreign born on not, and most of the education takes place We teach children how to
uh decipher, things of that sort, in more formal settings, but it's the home that really
needs to be the focus, and with the mix of the new cultures that are coming in, principally
from the Far East and so on, I think that it's going to take a while for us to get it sorted out.
George: To me education area, uh, I care about the voucher system that's being
Earl: I support that.
(Thereafter, the discussion moved to the Republican Partys proposed voucher system for
education. This system advocated providing vouchers to parents, which are to be used to
send their children to private schools.)

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Discussion
It is important to note that the heated outburst of Chrissy was responded to only by Earl,
the 55+ retiree who made a very neutral comment, which had very little relevance to the
arguments of Chrissy or the original comment made by Frank about the slack trainees.
Earl only said, The home is what really needs to be the focus (of true education of a
child ) This too is an example of the Spiral of Silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1984) and
censoring (Carey, 1994), where no-one except Earl, a male older than Chrissy and also
with postgraduate qualifications and therefore probably of the same social status as her,
responded. Earl (a Republican Party supporter) and Chrissy (a Democrat-leaning
Independent) are also supporters of different political parties. Frank on the other hand,
simply agreed to the comments of Chrissy, apparently due to feeling uneasy about
making a somewhat unwarranted and invalid comment about teachers being responsible
for the lack of work ethic in some people that obviously placed Chrissy on the defensive.
The others completely remained silent and Earl's comment was also a conciliatory one,
which helped the discussion to regain its equilibrium.
No-one dared to point out that Chrissy's resentment against non-English speaking
immigrants was unjustified in this context as she was assuming that employers were
compelled to hire uneducated, unqualified, unsuitable, and non-English speaking
immigrants to jobs in their businesses. They also did not point out the fact that Frank had
not provided any demographic details of the disadvantaged individuals lacking a work
ethic mentioned in the Wall Street Journal or that Frank should not automatically blame
the education system for the work ethic of the slack trainees. Chrissy also had no
grounds to assume that the slack trainees situation was or had been created by nonEnglish speaking immigrants in any way. This disagrees with Carey (1990), who found
instances where the others questioned exaggeration or errors in facts made by one
member of a focus group, resulting in the original member recanting or revising their
earlier comments as such a situation did not occur here. However, unlike Colin in the
earlier mentioned situation, Chrissy did not get to have the last word in this discussion.
It is noteworthy that in the second instance involving the slack trainees it was another
member of the group, George, and not the moderator as in the alien situation, who
intervened to change the subject and bring the discussion back to equilibrium. This agrees
with the Bandwagon Effect (Krueger, 1988) where members interpret their role as
consensus-building and try to resolve issues under discussion by mutual agreement and
that the power balance in a focus group shifts from the moderator to the group members
(Madriz, 2000) in contrast to a depth interview.
These two situations of censoring and the Spiral of Silence which gave rise to the
Groupthink Syndrome, were clearly counter productive to the data collection for the
research project with these two focus groups, because immigration is an important issue
relevant to any presidential election campaign in the USA.

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CONCLUSION

The Spiral of Silence and censoring came into effect in the two instances involving Colin
and Chrissy, when the issues under discussion were personally relevant to them and the
comments made by another participant offended them. In these situations, other
participants, offending or otherwise, remained silent, changed their stance to placate the
challenger or made neutral or conciliatory remarks to return the discussion to equilibrium.
In the case of Colin, he as the injured party, was given the last word, even though Colin
had insufficient grounds to feel offended by Jesses comment on illegal aliens as his wife
is not one. However, Colin used this situation to create a perceived consensus for the
group about aliens according to his own views.
In the case of Chrissy, who took offence to a comment made by another group member,
she scapegoated an unrelated, marginalised, and disadvantaged group in society while
most of the other group members remained silent instead of pointing out that both Chrissy
and Frank were unjustified in blaming non-English speaking immigrants and the
education system respectively, indicating the Groupthink Syndrome. Those who spoke
simply made conciliatory comments to bring the discussion back to equilibrium and to
end an awkward situation. Chrissy's comments also indicated her deep resentment against
non-English speaking immigrants, which probably arose due to her personal experiences
of being a primary school teacher who may have had dealings with children from nonEnglish speaking backgrounds, which had given rise to her prejudices.
Even though no generalisations can be made, it is noteworthy that in both cases, the
member who expressed the offending opinions and the challenger, supported different
political parties. Therefore, it can be suggested that group members may have found it
easier to disagree with someone who is from the opposite political camp from their own.
The finding also indicates that all voters are not necessarily polarised along party lines
(Kinder & Sanders, 1996) on the issue of immigration and that immigrants to the USA
are also seen as coming from Europe and not necessarily from nonwhite regions of the
world, by at least some voters. The findings also disagree with previous research findings
that claim the higher educated (Chrissy) as less prejudiced against marginalised groups
such as immigrants than the less educated (Colin) (Luttbeg & Martinez, 1990), and
confirms that the proximity of the issue and issue salience (Gamson, 1992) of aliens and
the education system were instrumental in making these two members take offence at
others comments. Proximity and salience are factors increasing the involvement of focus
group members on the discussion of a given topic (Gamson, 1992).
The findings indicate that group dynamics, including censoring, the Spiral of Silence, the
Groupthink Syndrome, demographic and other characteristics of group members, the
prevalent climate of opinion, and other such factors have an effect on focus group
discussions and could contaminate the data collected. In other words, the researchers
were deprived of the chance of obtaining any meaningful opinions on immigration, from
the two focus groups examined. Immigration was an important issue in the 1992
presidential campaign, as Pat Buchanan, a vocal opponent of immigration, performed
well in the primaries, and opinions expressed by whites in these focus groups would have
been valuable to the research findings.

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Therefore, as Green (1999) suggests, even if widely used, focus group data should not
always be used alone when examining a given research question. They should be used in
conjunction with data collected using methods such as depth interviews (Lunt &
Livingston, 1996) or as a part of methodological triangulation (Jick, 1979; Wimmer &
Dominick, 1997), where several methods and methodological approaches, both
qualitative and nonqualitative, are used to examine a phenomenon under study. For
example, the Democracy 92 project, which the two focus groups in this case study
were part of, used depth interviews, focus groups, and surveys in combination, to study
how political candidates, the media, and voters communicated with each other (Just et al.,
1996).
Silverman (2000) advocates depth interviews for qualitative research as offering a gaze
into the soul of a participant (p. 823). Denzin and Lincoln (2000) consider the use of a
range of interconnected interpretive practices in qualitative inquiry as making the world
visible in different ways (p. 24). However, they argue that as objective reality can never
be captured, (and therefore) we can know something only through its representation.
Using multiple methods of data collection in a research project creates redundancy of
data, but it reduces the likelihood of misinterpretation (Stake, 2000). Flick (1998) sees the
use of multiple methodologies or methodological triangulation not as a tool or a strategy
for validation but as an alternative to validation (p. 231). However, Richardson (2000)
sees the use of multimethods not as triangulation, but as crystallisation, where the
researcher tells the story from different points of view (or facets of the crystal) and
obtains a better overall perspective of the research problem examined. The use of
multimethods can also neutralise any contamination of data collected by one method
alone, such as focus groups influenced by situational constraints, group dynamics, and
other factors discussed in this case study.
Although the group situation in a focus group is seen as reducing the influence of the
moderator on the group members by tilting the balance of power toward the group
(Madriz, 2000), this case study shows that phenomena such as the authoritative
moderator, and the self-appointed group leader or expert are not the only factors that
affect the discussions in a focus group. The perceived or real homogeneity of a group (in
terms of race, ethnicity and undecided voters) as to its composition was also no guarantee
that the occurrence of the Spiral of Silence or censoring will be reduced or controlled, and
thereby protect against the contamination of data gathered from focus groups.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

To neutralise the negative effects of censoring and the Spiral of Silence on focus group
data, a researcher can contact the participants by telephone after the interview, where
censoring and the Spiral of Silence were observed, and ask them to express any opinions
they may want to express about the topic in question (Morgan, 1998).
For a more in-depth understanding of the dynamics of horizontal interactions between
members of focus groups, in terms of instances of the Spiral of Silence or censoring
taking place, a researcher could use the original audiotape recordings of the interviews in
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addition to the typed transcripts. This would help the data analysis by providing the
researcher with the opportunity to incorporate and examine the aspects of paralanguage
(messages that accompany or supplement language) (Burgoon & Saine, 1978; Ruben &
Stewart, 1998), involved in the segments of the discussions in question. The aspects of
paralanguage include the use of vocalic forms such as the pitch, volume, rate, pauses,
tone, rhythm, and their variations utilised by the speakers. Examining the tone of voice of
the speaker which may sound intimidating, emotional, friendly, or threatening to the
others, will provide clues as to why the group discussions and behaviours occurred as
they did when members took offence and challenged others opinions. In other words, it
will provide researchers with insights into the temperaments of the group members and
changes in their emotional states during such segments.
In situations involving censoring and the Spiral of Silence, it is also important for the
moderator or the researchers assistant, who is present during the discussion, to take notes
as to the emotional states, temperaments, specific aspects of the paralanguage and
nonverbal expressions such as gaze, body language, facial expressions, gestures, haptics
(touch), or personal space used by the persons involved in the discussion, to indicate their
effect on the horizontal interactions (Carey, 1994). These notes, or in cases where the
focus group interviews are videotaped, the actual videos will provide additional
information on paralanguage and other nonverbal aspects of the discussion to the
researcher, in making interpretations of focus group dynamics and data (Bottorff, 1994).
They will also provide an understanding of the emotional states involved, of the relevant
group members, with reference to the phenomena under study.
The above measures can help to increase the validity of data collected from focus groups,
especially in the discipline of communication, as they incorporate both the verbal and
nonverbal aspects of focus group communication, when analysing and interpreting
members opinions and behaviours.
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(Accepted for publication in May 2001)

NIRANJALA WEERAKKODY (PhD, Rutgers University, New Jersey,


USA) is a Lecturer in Communication Studies at Deakin University. Her
research interests include discourse analysis of prejudiced talk of both
the privileged and marginalised individuals in society, methodological
triangulation and combining qualitative and quantitative methods in data
analysis.

Contact details:
School of Communication and Creative Arts
Faculty of Arts
Deakin University
Geelong, Victoria 3217
Australia
Phone: +61 3 5227 1340
Fax: +61 3 5227 2484
Email: ninaw@deakin.edu.au
Website: http://arts.deakin.edu.au/slcs

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Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2002, pp. 6278

Whats colour got to do with it?


Reflections on messy methodology
issues from a multiracial feminist

Caroline Gopalkrishnan, Faculty of Communication and Education, University of Canberra

ABSTRACT
The invisibility of women educators of colour (in Australia) is central to this story
about my research journey. The peripheralisation of antiracism (education) and the
marginalisation of the experience of women educators of colour make it very
difficult to critically discuss the culturally normative assumptions of what education
is, notions of difference and the role of nonwhite women educators teaching for
social change in Australia. As a multiracial woman educator, my interest lies in
finding out who these women are, what knowledge(s) women educators (of colour)
produce and how this knowledge is negotiated through their social identities in an
Australian context. In my view, the conceptual issues in my research project cannot
be separated from the methodology. It is within this context that practice, theory and
life history are inextricably interwoven. The life history dimension is the key which
gives a deeper insight into the ways in which theory and practice interact. This
paper explores the aforementioned (messy) methodology issues as they are arising
in the context of my doctorate research project prior to data collection; the kinds of
resources within various academic traditions which I have sought in my
development of a methodology/research design; and explores the ethical concerns
which have driven my decision making to date.

ME, MYSELF, THEY: INTRODUCING MESSY METHODOLOGY ISSUES

The invisibility of women educators of colour in Australia (Osborne & Tait, 1998;
Pettman, 1994; Young, 1990) is central to this story about my research journey. The
peripheralisation of antiracism education and the marginalisation of the experience of
women educators of colour make it very difficult to critically discuss the culturally
normative assumptions of what education is, notions of difference and the role of
nonwhite women educators teaching for social change in Australia. As a multiracial
woman educator, my interest lies in finding out with whom I can speak, what
knowledge(s) women educators of colour produce, and how this knowledge is negotiated
through the self and social identity in an Australian context. In my view, practice,
theory and life history are inextricably interwoven. The life history dimension is the key
which offers particular insight into how these three aspects interact together. Sounds
straightforward. But is it?

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As a woman of colour I wish to give voice to empower my sisters, or women of colour, to


speak to issues of concern in our educational practice, to celebrate our shared
understandings and uncover our points of departure in our visions for the future. As a
woman of colour, I can have an insider perspective to those traditionally viewed as
Other. It sounds simple, doesnt it? It isnt. Women of colour does not represent a
homogenous group or a mythical sisterhood that necessarily resonates in harmony in its
otherness. As a woman who identifies as a multiracial or hybrid educator, I am unable
to position myself as a uni-racial or white woman (educator) or teach only from a white
dominant cultural perspective. I cannot position those whom I speak with as uni-racial,
either without knowing how they choose to identify themselves and how those identities
are constituted in a variety of ways within different communities and a wider social
political and historical context. I cannot assume that I speak for or about the women in
my study. I can only assume or hope that I might gain insight into other women
educators lived experiences and knowledges, through dialogue with them.
This paper will focus on the conceptual issues which are informing my methodological
framework for my doctoral research project. I will be utilising methodology in the same
context as Sandra Harding (1987). Harding differentiates between method and
methodology. The former refers to techniques for gathering empirical evidence. The
latter refers to the theory of knowledge and the interpretive frameworks that guide every
research project. Methodology, then, is about particular assumptions about the nature of
reality (ontology) and the ways of knowing that reality (epistemology) and the changing
contours of morality and values (axiology), which the researcher brings to all research
projects (Scheurich & Young, 1997).
The conceptual issues are not separate, but are locked in an embrace with the researcher.
The researchers world view defines, for its holder, the nature of the world, the
individuals place in it, and the range of possible relations to the world and its parts
(Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 107). To separate methodology from what the researcher
perceives as conceptually salient, would be to ignore some of the deepest assumptions
underlying much education research, that is, assumptions which are so embedded in
dominant ways of Western civilisation, science and scholarly endeavours, that these
have over time become natural and invisible (Scheurich & Young, 1997). For example, in
educational research, the epistemologies are more often derived from the social history
arising from members of the dominant white race (Scheurich & Young, 1997). There are
far fewer epistemologies derived from Indigenous (Moreton-Robinson, 2000), AsianAustralian, or other racial/cultural groups constructed around markers of race and
ethnicity. The paper problematises what is perceived as conceptually important in the
doctoral study, and shows how issues such as colour, race, whiteness and
Otherness play a central role in the methodology development process. It is within this
context that the naming of whiteness is intricately related to my methodology.
Whiteness, is a complex issue which has begun to circulate in many discussions about
race and racism in Australia (Perera, 1997; Pettman, 1994; Ram, 1996; Stephenson,
1997; Yuval-Davis, 1999). Whiteness can be said to be invisible in an everyday context.
However, to whom is it invisible? (G. S. Dei, by email communication, February 21,
2001). On the one hand, whiteness can be said to be invisible in the lived experience of
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the majority of white dominant culture members in Australia. On the other hand, many
nonwhite Australians attribute a multiplicity of meanings to whiteness, sometimes
through the practice of not naming it. For some, it is an act of naming ones (conscious)
awareness of the power differentials which accompany whiteness. For others, it is
something which is desired and equated with the norm. Perhaps there are moments and
tensions between the desire to assimilate, to become less visible or invisible and the desire
to become (sometimes strategically) visible. How is power accessed by subordinated
and (pre)dominant voices in the construction of in/visibility? (G. S. Dei, by email
communication, February 21, 2001). Who is asking the question? Why is s/he asking it
and does s/he have the resources and the discourses to query these constructs in the first
place (Carrim, 2000)?
I use the phrase messy methodology issues to describe the many connections and
tensions between conceptual issues, the interpretive framework of the study and the
theories of knowledge which underpin the study, which are arising in the course of my
research journey. In this paper, I will explain the ways in which I have resolved particular
methodological and ethical dilemmas. Firstly, I will address the authors place in the text
by situating myself (as the researcher) in the research, and by exploring my relationship
to the women educators in this study. Secondly, I will refer to standpoint feminist,
narrative/life history and social constructionist scholarship to demonstrate their value in
the development of my methodology. Thirdly, I will explore the bigger picture ethical
dilemmas and concerns which have influenced the research process. Finally, I will
explore the notion of conversation in an oral life history context. In conclusion, I will
highlight the key issues and how these interact with the methodology I have chosen for
my research project.

DANCING WITH DISCOURSE(S): THE SITUATING OF A HYBRID


RESEARCHER

Every time someone asks, So, where do you come from? here is my answer, or is it?
As a female educator I am constituted by a dominant patriarchal construction which sees
me working in a profession that traditionally views female work roles as carer and
nurturer, terms which evoke notions of motherhood and child care. Or I am constituted by
the dominant formation of the white Western woman which is traditionally seen as
representing all women (within the early feminist movement). As I am Penang born and
of Indian/Chinese heritage with Swedish cultural influences, I am constituted by a
dominant Malaysian postcolonial Indian and Chinese culture. In Sweden I am constituted
as Other with a capital O in a dominant culture based on Aryan/Nordic mythology. As
a (Malaysian born) Australian citizen, I am constituted by the dominant European
construction of the Oriental exotic Eastern woman who settles in the West for a
better life. This is an implicit hierarchical relationship between West and East, which
constructs the Oriental through the fearful lens of the yellow peril and the unknown
(East). As a female, notions of Orientalism construct me as a generic Asian woman.
This stereotype can unfold in a variety of ways: images of travel brochures come to mind.
The female is traditionally garbed, passive, inviting, mystical, or a manipulator. Better
still a sexual dominatrix or servant as portrayed within the genre of Asian pornography.

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Asian in an Australian (uni-racial) context can refer to Malaysian, Vietnamese, Sri


Lankan, Japanese, Burmese, Hongkong Chinese, Indigenous or Indonesian woman (to
name a few). The word Australian appears as a prefix or suffix, depending on how
people choose to identify themselves. However, the issues which affect one race of
women do not necessarily affect another race of women (in the same way). So, what
does multiracial or hybrid mean for me? Cor, I need a Panadol.
The language used to describe the self or selves in relation to others is complex and
problematic. The previous narrative reveals how I am constructed by available discourses
and discursive practices of race, colour, class and gender and how many positions are
available to me and yet constrain and entrap me. I am all and none of these. I find it is a
continuous process of negotiation that changes according to the context I am in. Clearly,
the act of positioning is not something which is natural, essential and taken for granted.
As Ruth Arber (2000, p. 46) points out, my interrogation of my multiple positions is
something strategic, a coalition, a way of resistance, a precursor of agency and yet at the
same time something relational and contingent, mediated by, and mediating, a crisscrossing of understandings and ways of doing. This study begins with an interest in the
multiple positions available to other women educators of colour like myself. The choice
of a life history approach offers a particularly rich way of understanding the complexity
and multiplicity of individual and collective lived experience (McCormack, 2000a,
2000b) from the perspectives of a diverse range of women educators of colour. The next
section refers to the different theoretical influences which I have drawn on and found the
most satisfying in my attempt to resolve messy methodology issues.

FROM WHERE I STAND THE VIEW IS POSITIVELY STUNNING

I have utilised standpoint feminist, narrative/life history, social constructionist and


antiracist approaches to develop a methodology which positions me as someone who is
more than an objective extractor of a predeterminate external truth which resides
innately within individual women educators of colour. I, as the researcher, am implicated
in the very process of rejecting these assumptions. As a result, I want to pause and reflect
on the assumptions that I do bring to my research project (and the ethical implications of
these). The following is an exploration and retracing of the different traditions from
which I have drawn for the purpose of my study.
A standpoint feminist position enables me to explore the relationship between knowledge
and the interplay between life history and antiracist work narratives in a way that
acknowledges multiple standpoints and dimensions of experience (Harding, 1987;
OBrien Hallstein, 1999; Stanley, 1996; van Schalkwyk, 1998). In the context of my
study, I am seeking a space for dialogue amongst women of colour, not as separate from
history and social life, but as a group of women, myself included, who are socially
located differently. As producers of knowledge and thought (our) standpoints do not
necessarily emerge from a dominant/hegemonic world view (although they undoubtedly
interact with these in different ways).
Lynn OBrien Hallstein (1999) suggests that there is no unified body of writing that
constitutes feminist standpoint theory; rather, there are many grounded in the notion that
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knowledge is socially located and arises in social positions that are structured by power
relations (pp. 23). Different feminist standpoint scholars have applied this central
theoretical position in a variety of different ways from a range of unique social locations,
and in doing so, acknowledge that it takes a science and politics to achieve a standpoint.
For many standpoint feminists, womens ways of knowing emerge from womens
subordinate locations in a patriarchal, and I would add a predominantly white, Western
knowledge tradition (Delgado Bernal, 1998; hooks, 1994; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1994;
OBrien Hallstein, 1999; Roman, 1993; van Schalkwyk, 1998).
Rosemary Hennessy (1993) refers to standpoint as a position in society shaped by, and
also helps to shape, ways of knowing, structures, power, and resource distribution. A
feminist standpoint, in her view, is a positioned feminism which produces accounts
through different ways of conceptualising reality, from the diverse vantage points of
womens lives. Similarly, Annalet van Schalkwyk (1998) describes standpoint as a
position that is derived from the terms of members of society who have less access to
power. For her and other standpoint advocates, there are people who, due to their own
disadvantaged position in the social stratification, have a kind of double vision or
knowledge of both marginal and dominant social realities. This double vision, offers
people a complete or more complex understanding and overview of immediate social
conditions and of others who are more advantaged. A feminist standpoint therefore
implies an epistemology derived from an awareness of ones social location and of this
locations relationship to ones lived experience (van Shalkwyk, 1998, p. 7). Whilst
standpoint epistemology at first impression opens up possibilities for new voices to
emerge, the notion of epistemic privilege is problematic.
Christopher Preston (1997) states that objectivity in research, and the social and political
contexts within which research is conducted, are not and should not be mutually
exclusive issues. However, he critiques the view that marginalised standpoints are
privileged because they provide better access to the truth (Preston, 1997, emphasis
added). Epistemic privilege, according to Preston (1997) helps to bring attention to the
ways that marginalised groups learn dominant viewpoints as some people may be more
open to seeing and knowing social conditions of both the disadvantaged and the more
advantaged. However, their double vision offers a superior perspective only in
comparison with those who never experience the limitations of their dominant
viewpoints (Preston, 1997, pp. 12, emphasis added).
In other words, the notion of epistemic privilege can be seen as problematic if it is based
on the assumption that there is only one prevailing truth. In Prestons (1997) view, the
saliency of a standpoint perspective cannot rest on the assumption of a qualitative degree
of validity where one perspective is better than another. This excludes particular groups
of people from producing valued knowledge and from knowing a range of different
standpoints/productions other than ones own. If the concept of epistemic privilege reifies
the metaphor of the margin and the centre (hooks, 1994; Preston, 1997), then we have to
move beyond notions of epistemic privilege to find new ways of appropriating
epistemologies in coalition and for a shared purpose. It may be more productive to utilise
the term epistemic saliency, as it enables us to focus on the importance of allowing
subordinated voices to count (Dei, by email communication, February 21, 2001).
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In response to these points, Preston proposes the following:


Multiple standpoints should be acknowledged, incorporated, even cultivated not because
the truth can be attained only from privileged standpoints but because multiple standpoints
are a rich resource for the generation and criticism of hypotheses and ideas. The diverse
experiences of various ethnic or religious groups, men, women, hetero- and homosexual
members of various social classes may give rise to fruitful ways of looking at social and
natural relations. (1997, p. 2)

I do not wish to reify the concepts of the mainstream and the margins. In my view,
these are parts of a binary (social) construction which does not create fertile conditions
for understanding how stories of practice, life history and theory interact as a whole. I
believe that the existing disconnectedness between the mainstream and margin is both
a product of cultural imperialism (Young, 1990) and at the same time reifies it. Iris
Marion Young (1990) uses the term cultural imperialism to describe the way a group is
marketed and stereotyped in a particular way while at the same time the group is rendered
invisible. This actually makes it difficult to see who is producing knowledge and
what/how knowledge is produced; and to hear how concepts are received or contested by
a diverse range of peoples.
The inclusion of multiple standpoints is pivotal in any exploration of life history/
educational professional practice, as together they offer a breadth and depth of insight
into social relations at a particular social, political and historical moment. Aileen
Moreton-Robinsons (2000) work about the importance of Indigenous womens priorities,
is an excellent example of how multiple perspectives can reveal ways in which some
knowledges are valued to the exclusion of others. Her work brings attention to the ways
in which everyday participation and practices of racial domination, by whites (and I
would add some nonwhites) operates. More than a critique, she proposes alternative
ways of acting and knowing. Such perspectives recognise the importance of women of
colour, their priorities and uniqueness. Following Christopher Preston (1997), the
inclusion of perspectives from a range of women educators narratives and lived
experience can precipitate new ways of looking at social and natural relations.

A STORY IS MORE THAN MEETS THE EYES, EARS AND MOUTH

Rubby Dhunpath (2000, p. 546) uses the term narradigm to describe the ways in which,
our lives are intrinsically narrative in quality and we experience the world and re-present
our experience narratively. The study of the narrative becomes a means of studying ways
in which humans experience the world (Dhunpath, 2000; Polkinghorne, 1988). A life
history is a story, but a story which in itself is a social cultural construction. I am utilising
a narrative/ sociocultural constructionist approach because it provides a holistic
framework for understanding the What am I examining?, Why am I examining it? and
How am I examining it? questions in my research journey. These traditions offer ways
of understanding knowledge as something which is not innate within individual
psychologies, but as something which is negotiated in the shared interactions between
individuals (Freedman & Combs, 1996; Wenger, 1998).
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I am interested in the intersubjective domain, the spaces between, often referred to as


notions of hybridity or difference within difference (Arber, 2000; Bhabha, 1990;
Yuval-Davis, 1999). This is the domain where interpretation occurs in community with
others (Freedman & Combs, 1996; McCormack, 2000a, 2000b; Wenger, 1998). My story
is fragmentary and parts of mine intersect with other women educators stories which
circulate within and beyond the individual, somewhere out there which we call the
wider society, in discourses, social and cultural narratives and via the mass media (Maher
& Thompson-Tetreault, 1997; Wenger, 1998).
For many researchers who use a social constructionist framework and the narrative
metaphor, the notion of the discovery of the self or selves, and enhancement of
identity is not a solo activity, but rather a process in which we are constantly engaged
with each other through dialogue and relationship as we author and re-author, negotiate
and renegotiate our stories continuously (Freedman & Combs, 1996; McCormack,
2000a). Self-reflection, in this context, can be a starting point for the development of
concerns of both the individual and the larger whole or groups/communities (Kobayashi,
1994), rather than going down the path of individual trajectories. The notion of trajectory
can be seen to imply a fixed course and destination, suggesting a path that can be
preplanned or charted (as implied in the context of cognitive/developmental psychology).
In contrast, it can also be interpreted from a social constructionist view as a continuous
motion which has a coherence through time, connecting past, present and future (Wenger,
1998).
Carola Conle (2000) describes the narrative as both a product and process, where writing
itself becomes a method of inquiry that involves different ongoing stages of selfreflection. Conle draws attention to the way in which the interrelatedness between the
process and product creates a tension in which the researcher/writer finds herself in
continual struggle for an understanding of how content is connected with methodology
(and methods). In other words, the thing you end up with, a narrative, is both a product
and a process or methodology (Conle, 2000). It is a place where writing, producing, and
analysing happen, not in a chronological way, but in a spiral way, not in a vacuum but in
dialogue with others.
Finally, I believe it is also important to acknowledge that narrative and scientific
knowledge are viewed as:
having different criteria; both are comprised of sets of statements and rules specific to each
particular kind of knowledge, therefore making it impossible to judge the existence of
validity of narrative knowledge on the basis of scientific knowledge or vice versa, as the
criteria are different. (Sarup, 1993, p. 136)

For these reasons, I have looked to feminist standpoint/narrative/social constructionist


and antiracist scholarship to contemplate the implications of my research question and
aims, in a way which sees methodology and content as intricately related.

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I BREATHE, THEREFORE I AM, OR THERE GOES THAT BLACK WOMAN


AGAIN!: ETHICAL CONCERNS OR SELF-INTERROGATION?

This section is a discussion of how the notion of ethics has unfolded in my journey. I
am not referring to the discipline itself, but to the politics of practice which I refer to as
ethics. The ethics of practice has emerged as a meta level issue informing my
methodology. In the process of getting ethics clearance for a social science research
project, there are a range of ethics discourses to consider, usually evolving around
consent, storage of data, and the formal qualifications of those involved. For me,
discourses of ethics must go beyond these requirements to be inclusive of more profound
epistemological concerns about the theory of knowledge and interpretive frameworks that
guide every research project (Harding, 1987).
Within traditional epistemologies, the production of knowledge is only possible if one
insists on and strives for objectivity. Research becomes a means for progress via the
attainment of a universal truth/unbiased knowledge, a knower must continually seek to
overcome their partiality and social location, as if these were weaknesses or impediments.
Knowledge production and reasoning, in this context, are seen as separate from the
historical context (OBrien Hallstein, 1999). I agree with OBrien Hallstein (1999) that
standpoint theories do employ what she calls strong objectivity because they ground
knowledge production and reasoning within the particular social, historical, economic and
political realms of those producing knowledge.
I also see the process of acknowledging fundamental research assumptions and priorities
inherent in my study and problematising these as essential. In George Sefa Deis (1999)
words:
When educators make claims to knowledge, whether as producers or owners of knowledge,
it is important to ask what is the nature of such claims, especially if we are to work with the
idea that knowledge is collectively produced. (Dei, 1999, p. 405)

WHO AM I TO JUDGE? THE ETHICS OF POWER

Some of the ethical concerns which resonate the strongest allude to the notions of
knowledge and power, and the need for these to be problematised. I have come to a
conclusion that the researcher, simply by engaging in activities and practices for the
common good of all (Widdershoven & Smits, 1996) or in the spirit of good science
(Preston, 1997), is enacting his or her understandings of the concepts of knowledge and
power. If knowledge and power are relational, then how we relate to something, or how
we enact knowledge and legitimise some knowledge(s) more than others, is dependent on
what we pay attention to (in power relationships).
Traditionally, the researcher is understood to be the holder of and initiator of power in the
relationship between research/researched (Bloom, 1998). In this context, knowledge is
fixed and static, something to be taken from or emptied into other (empty or full) vessel.
One does not necessarily have to see the field as unknown and strange and the
subjects as objects and the Other. If we assume that power does not reside innately
within the researchers head, but is constituted by us and also shapes us, and that
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knowledge is co-created within the intersubjective domain (through the actual


negotiation, resistance and exchange between the researcher and the co-researchers in a
particular research situation) then this has important implications for the methods we use
(Etter-Lewis, 1991, 1996; McCormack, 2000a). We cannot know what that knowledge is
until it is shared in that particular (research) context. Within the thesis/story there lies
many endings: the researchers, the co-researchers and the audience/readers
(McCormack, 2000b; Freedman & Combs, 1996).
In the case of my research project, what if the co-researchers with whom I speak, are able
to enact power more than I, in terms of status, income or access to resources and the
artefacts needed to participate in certain discourses? (Bloom, 1998; Wenger, 1998). What
if we alternate moments of enaction of power during the course of our conversations? In
my view, we need to pay attention to the hidden or taken for granted assumptions, the
contradictions and silences, for the purpose of reconstituting and resisting power which is
used in ways that undermine the interests of those who traditionally are constituted as
having less power on the grounds of their social and historical location. In other words,
For what purpose should research be inclusive? Can we assume that all those who are
constructed as oppressed or ignorant through their social and historical location, have
access to the double consciousness which many writers articulate (Arber, 2000; Aziz,
1992; de Root, 1999; Scheurich & Young, 1997)? How do we acquire new resources and
practices? At what moment do we acquire double consciousness, and in what contexts
do we?
If visibility and invisibility work in conjunction with power (G. S. Dei, by email
communication, February, 21, 2001), then who is describing and why are they using these
terms to construct particular groups? The power to construct either concept lies within the
realm of the researcher and the academy (which defines the parameters of what counts
as a more valued perspective than others). Can we speak beyond the epistemological
questions of knowledge to the whole idea of seeking ethical clearance in the specific case
of academic research? Do ethical review boards of the academies, for example, speak for
the subjects when they grant such clearance? (G. S. Dei, by email communication,
February 21, 2001). In my view ethical review boards and the academy are more often
comprised of a majority of white, Western/dominant culture members who speak for and
to scholars and educators of colour rather than with them (and about their concerns).

THE ETHICS OF VISION: THE SMOKESCREENS GET IN MY EYES

The second messy methodological/ethical issue is race and the naming of whiteness
which are not natural, but socially constructed categorisations. I must acknowledge too,
that by using the term women of colour to describe myself and the women whom I seek
out for the research project, I am constituting myself as a member of a fictive community.
However, the aim of my study is not to naturalise or essentialise concepts of race,
knowledge, reality or being. My interest is in the problematising of these concepts, as a
means of gaining insight into the ways in which cultural imperialism (Young, 1990)
operates in individual and collectives life spheres. I am interested in learning more about
how the aforementioned elements interact with women who tell life history/work/social
narratives from a range of standpoints (Roman, 1993). Following Lynn OBrien Hallstein
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(1999), I believe that the unfolding of a subjects viewpoint requires an acceptance of the
assumption that it is a socially mediated perspective and that all individuals
perspectives require social mediation to become legitimate, objective knowledge claims
about social relations (p. 6, emphasis added).
I concur with Roman (1993), that we need to look beyond an essentialist discourse of
race and toward a focus on the unequal effects of racism for different groups of people to
reveal how race operates in daily practice as a set of complex and changeable
meanings (Roman, 1993, pp. 56).
As a researcher I have to create a self-conscious awareness of how different racisms
constitute the categories of the narrative (Stanley, 1996, p. 2). This is not an easy position
to maintain but a crucially important one.
The particular feminist standpoint epistemologies of Dolores Delgado Bernal (1998) and
Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot (1994) enable them to incorporate and acknowledge
themselves as researcher and subject in the research. Hence, the researchers personal
history becomes a relevant part of the analysis, and is seen as a way of recognising the
unique knowledge that comes from the collective and personal experience of Chicana
(Delgado Bernal, 1998) and Afro-American communities (Lightfoot-Lawrence, 1994) in
the United States. Delgado Bernal (1998) uses the term cultural intuition to describe
how both her collective and personal experience reside together, where ancestral wisdom,
community memory and intuition interact with personal experience, acting as a kind of
wormhole to establishing a collaborative and dialogic relationship with the
Chicana/American students in her study.
Cultural intuition, in Delgado Bernals (1998) view, is dependent on the researchers
previous reading and experience with or relevant to the data. While I understand that her
epistemology is one which seeks to value the knowledge of the Chicana students in her
study, and her goal is to situate herself as an insider in her research, I also find the
concept of referring to a racial collective (such as Chicana, Afro-American, or Asian)
also constraining, in the same way that the term women of colour is. I am not trashing
the notion of collective identity per se (what if racism is mostly collective, white and
nonwhite?). My intention is not to weaken or devalue coalition and the collective process,
but to bring attention to the ways in which we both knowingly and unknowingly constitute
ourselves as individuals and as members of a range of communities (of practice), for
specific purposes in our work for social change.
I feel more comfortable speaking from a position which problematises difference within
difference, that steers away from a view which sees the interests of women, and
knowledge production from women as necessarily unified on the grounds of their
common racial identification. This may be the case for some women but is it universally
assumed to be true for all women of colour, or all Chicana women, or all Japanese
women or women who identify themselves as part thereof? Is it the same for Chicana
women who live in the United States as it is for Chicana women living in Australia? (see
Carrim, 2000). Indeed, the term Chicana does not have the same value or currency in
Australia that it has in the United States, in a historical context.
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Both Delgado Bernal (1998) and Lawrence-Lightfoot (1994) acknowledge the difference
within the experiences of women who identify themselves in a similar way to them and
yet are able to articulate common generational, ancestral and collective links. However, I
ask myself, how can I do that if I speak as a multiracial woman? I cannot associate myself
with any one uni-racial collective identity, or perhaps I do but I dont know it, or I do it
both knowingly and unknowingly? Many others, like myself, ask, How might I
constitute myself or am I constituted in this light?
Timothy Stanley (1996, p. 3) writes about traditional notions of history as narrative and
the power of nationalistic narratives in contemporary life. Concurring with Stanley
(1996), I think it is unwise to respond by ignoring or completely rejecting grand
narratives, as their effects are real and all pervading. I also do not see nonnationalistic
narratives as better narratives but necessary ingredients in a so-called multicultural
societal context. The importance lies in the creation of conditions which allow for the
telling of multiple narratives. The inclusion of nationalistic and nonnationalistic
narratives (Stanley, 1996, p. 3) enables us to understand the self through others, and how
our story is the same and different to other women educators of colour in an Australian
context. Nonnationalistic narratives can interrupt hegemonic narratives which resonate
in my own life and practice and in others, to foster new meanings, and possible ways of
being and practices (Dei, 1999; Kobayashi, 1994; Stanley, 1996).
Concurring with Carl Gopalkrishnan (2000), the ethical issue of harm is very tricky. If
dominant narratives embody practices of violence and racism, in my view, we cannot
condone their effects. In this context, description and understanding is not enough. We
have to effect change and challenge such practices individually, collectively and
structurally.
Perhaps that is why I am wanting to explore this with and in collaboration with a range of
nonwhite women, rather than with white women or white males, or nonwhite males, or
with a cohort of women educators who see themselves in uni-racial terms. Thus my
objective is not to speak for or about (in a falsely distanced, objective and dichotomised
way) but with a range of women educators of colour as shared knowledge. If I to speak
with nonwhite women who have, for example, worked in conflict areas of the world, we
might not have the shared grounds or common experiences and/or mutual interest in
teaching and learning processes. The former would be an entirely different project,
requiring another permutation of possible decisions, methodology and research design. I
as the researcher would be positioned very differently in relation to the participants in the
study.
These questions present a complex and sticky web of meaning that calls for further
discussion and exploration which are outside the scope of this paper. My inclusion of
these questions is to illustrate the kinds of ethical concerns which are influencing my
journey. What began as trying to fit the ethics criteria, has now extended my vision to
look at the politics of research, the researcher/subject relations and the uses of knowledge
as enactments of power in academia (see also Scheurich & Young, 1997).

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TONGUE TIED AND EXHILARATED: THE CONVERSATION

Having located this project within a methodological and ethical framework, the
practicalities of the life history as interview need to be considered. Steiner Kvale (1996)
aptly describes the qualitative research interview as a construction site for knowledge
(p. 14). The specific research situation/interview becomes the background and context for
a particular type of engagement between the people involved in the research process
(McCormack, 2000a, 2000b; Mishler, 1986). This can play out in a variety of ways.
Given the complexities of the discursive practices and discourses available to women
educators of colour in an Australian context, a written questionnaire or structured
interview would not generate the kinds of rich data about womens experiences and the
process of constructing knowledge from the diverse standpoints which I am seeking.
There would be little point in observing the women in action doing their work for social
change, as my purpose is not to compare what they say with what they do. Rather I see
the interview as a site for shared or co-constructed knowledge to emerge. This knowledge
is the basis from which educators draw from in their work for social change.
Conversation can imply that the researcher and co-researchers are mindful of the ways in
which they engage with each other for the purpose of the research study. We can try to
create an awareness of our common ground and differences and to respect and value
diverse standpoints as we strive together to generate ethical and moral decision making
across our differences (OBrien Hallstein, 1999). The in-depth life history interview as a
conversation is a valuable resource for this purpose. It is not for the purpose of seeking an
definitive external truth; verifying the accuracy of memory recall, or a site where the
researcher is the expert authority on the life of those whom they speak with (EtterLewis, 1996; McCormack, 2000a). Rather, if the narrator is seen as the authority over her
life story, the conversation can be a resource for developing a relationship of mutual trust
and benefit. Both the researcher and the co-researchers can access power and agency to
navigate topics and issues of interest. From a narrative analysis perspective, the
conversation is comprised of the stories we tell and retell, for the purpose of developing
new insights and practices in coalition and dialogue, leading to insights for both the
researcher and co-researcher (Chase, 1996; Josselson, 1996; Widdershoven & Smits,
1996).
For these reasons, I will be storying with other women educators of colour in a
collaborative and negotiative context using unstructured in-depth oral history interviews.
This does not necessarily imply an ad hoc approach. It does imply that as researchers we
can be rigorous in addressing the foundational assumptions underpinning our work. By
using inclusive epistemological and methodological frameworks and specifying what
these mean, we can begin to question in whose interests we are working and how we
might be implicated in the research process in mutually beneficial ways and sometimes in
quite different ways (Josselson, 1996; Widdershoven & Smits, 1996).
Interpretation and co-construction of texts can be negotiated to this end. The multiple lens
metaphor (McCormack, 2000a, 2000b; Pamphilon, 1999) is an interesting one, that
implies that the researcher can zoom in and out, from a micro (individual) to a macro
(broader societal) context; and that there are multiple ways to re-present knowledge as
lived experience for the purpose of understanding, that which women, as social actors
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involved in history, have held as significant in the past (and present); and how they have
perceived and interpreted this through the meaning making and stories that they have
internalised (Chanfrault-Duchet, 1991, p. 90). A multiple lens metaphor (McCormack,
2000a, 2000b; Pamphilon, 1999) is invaluable for the interpreting and writing processes
as no single e can capture the multiplicity of perspectives, individuality and the
complexity of life (McCormack, 2000a).
A life history conversation opens up possibilities for gaining information which is more
detailed and complex to analyse than that collected through other approaches (ChanfraultDuchet, 1991). According to some feminist oral history practitioners, we need to shift the
focus from directive questions, to the interactive process, and on the dynamic unfolding
of the subjects viewpoint (Anderson & Jack, 1991, p. 23). As I am the one who will be
writing up the thesis, I have to differentiate between the co-subjects (including myself) in
a way that highlights our differences and commonalities. The differences may appear
messy but may give insight into our new and negotiated knowledge and practices.

AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING: THE WAYS SHE WEARS HER SKIN

In this paper I have retraced the steps of my research journey to locate the many tensions
and methodological issues which are arising in the predata collection phase of my
journey. I have described some of the ways in which I position myself in response to
particular methodology and ethical dilemmas. As the conversations develop with the
women educators in my study, new issues will undoubtedly emerge as I engage in more
detailed dialogue and analysis with the women. The researcher is implicated in every
research project in different ways before, during and after the dialogue commences. As
researchers we can choose to see the content (or what we study), methodology, theory,
practice and life history as inextricably linked and constantly interacting or as individual
and unrelated entities. We can look to bigger picture ethical concerns as the compass
bearings which navigate our journeys in profound ways.
As a nonwhite educator/researcher/woman I cannot assume that this title entitles me to a
deeper insider insight. In a racially conscious society, although the colour of an
interviewers skin is quite likely to influence the way a person responds, it is erroneous
to assume that a qualitative difference necessarily implies that one type of account is
intrinsically superior to another (Rhodes, 1994, p. 548). The different types of accounts
(white on nonwhite, nonwhite on nonwhite, and the rarer instances of nonwhite on white
research) offer different insights, not in the sense of either being superior or inferior to the
other.
I believe we need to problematise concepts such as race and racism in greater depth
within and beyond antiracism education (Baca Zinn & Thornton Dill, 1999; hooks, 1994;
Roman, 1993; Scheurich & Young, 1997) to continually strive to understand how power
relations accompany differences. We need to understand why and how concepts such as
race, class, gender and sexual orientation become primary organising principles of
society which locate and position groups within that societys opposing powers (Baca
Zinn & Thornton Dill, 1999, p. 103).

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Concepts of race and racism, while acknowledged social constructs (Aziz, 1992;
Stephenson, 1997), have very real emotional, economic and social impact on peoples
lives in quite significant and different ways (Dei, 1999). Hence, we need to look closer at
the many changing meanings of difference within difference, as a site of personal identity
as well as power relations, wherein we can critique and resist what has conventionally
passed as the norm (normal) and what is culturally implicit (Dei, 1999, p. 400). In this
context, the acknowledging of difference becomes an integral part of our work for social
change (Dei, 1999). Hence, social science research is also a way of working for social
change. We need to go beyond individual, institutional and societal definitions of racism,
although these have significant outcomes that should not be overlooked or trivialised, to
ask whether the research epistemologies we use, are racially biased (Scheurich & Young,
1997). To bridge the gap and to address epistemological racism (Scheurich & Young,
1997), we need to accept that what we do as knowledge producers is interrelated with the
politics, desires and interests that shape what we do as knowledge producers. These
interests are always shifting and changing, just as concepts of antiracism is not something
which is fixed or static (Dei, 1999), and racism and sexism are incredibly flexible
phenomena, and yet their effects are remarkably durable (Kobayashi, 1994).
Increasingly questions such as For what purpose do we ask questions?, Who is
asking? and How do we go about it?, influence the ways in which we navigate
research, the journey itself and the outcomes for all those involved. Perhaps, as
Kobayashi (1994, p. 76) points out, if political action intended to shift the social balance
of power begins from a position of differential power, then as social researchers, we can
be asking, How do we use our privilege to social ends? and What does this entail?
Finally, by problematising the relationship between the conceptual issues, the
researchers interests and the communities where we conduct our research, we can begin
to understand and gain insight into existing practices and new practices in our work for
social change. By learning about how we learn and by questioning what is perceived as
conceptually salient to our inquiry, we can gain insight to the hidden assumptions which
construct the Other, the mainstream/margin, and the in/visible in educational
research and in other sites of knowledge production. A life history dimension can provide
a space for learning about how theory and practice interact in this context, where messy
methodology issues are welcome interruptions to the research process. A life history/
theory/practice approach allows us to interrogate the ways in which conceptual issues and
methodologies interact as we go about our sense making. It is both a way of interpreting
and also effecting social change.
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(Accepted for publication in May 2002)

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CAROLINE GOPALKRISHNAN is currently undertaking a doctoral


study in Education and teaching at the University of Canberra. She has
worked as an educator in Sweden and Australia, in secondary schools, the
youth sector, performing arts and in preservice education in the tertiary
sector in Western Australia and in the Australian Capital Territory. She is
also a playwright and a co-writer of the comedy Two Loud Slopey
Chicks, performed in Canberra, Sydney and Perth.

Contact details:
Faculty of Communication and Education
University of Canberra
12 Mollison Street
Scullin, ACT 2612, Australia
Email: baubau@austarmetro.com.au

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Refereed article: Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2002, pp. 7991

A Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction of


a published first-person narrative
Merrill Crabtree, Department of Occupational Therapy, The University of Queensland

ABSTRACT
Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction (Rosenthal, 1993) is a systematic method of
analysing biographical self-presentations from an interpretivist perspective. The
method consists of five major analytic steps. The first is an analysis of the
biographical data that can stand independently of the narrator's perspective.
Objective data is extracted from the text or interview transcript and ordered
chronologically. Secondly, a thematic field analysis is undertaken in which the data is
divided into separate units according to the type of text used, whilst keeping the
sequence of these texts units intact. In this step, hypotheses are developed regarding
the potential significance of the style and sequence of the events presented. The
product of this second step is a reconstruction of the life story. A reconstruction of
the life history then follows as the third step. The purpose of this step is to generate
hypotheses about the meanings that biographical experiences might have had for the
narrator at the time they occurred, given the sociocultural context in which they
occurred. In the fourth step, microanalysis of individual text segments is undertaken,
in which all hypotheses generated in the earlier steps are tested against the text for
support or refutation. The final step consists of a contrastive comparison of the life
history and life story. The life story and life history are compared to determine, for
example, which aspects of the narrator's experience have been emphasised or
minimised. Through this comparison, the selective process is highlighted. This is
referred to as the case structure. This paper describes an application of this method
to a published first-person narrative of a woman's experiences of sustaining a brain
injury in a motor vehicle accident.
In this paper I aim to illustrate an application of the Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction
method (Rosenthal, 1993, 1997, 1998) to the analysis of the published
autobiographical text Doing up Buttons by Christine Durham (1997). Hermeneutic
Case Reconstruction is a method of data analysis that was devised for the
interpretation of a narrative text generated through the interview process. Rosenthal
described the use of an interview structure in which an informant is encouraged to
generate a narrative about their experiences relating to a particular topic. At the
conclusion of this narration, called the main narration (Rosenthal, 1993), the
interviewer then questions the person in order to clarify further issues related to the
particular focus of the research. In applying this method to a published
autobiographical narrative, I have treated the published text as the main narration
without a further element of questioning and clarification. Thus, this analysis focuses
on the text itself rather than the question of how the text relates to the actual
experiences of the author. Such a debate is beyond the scope of this paper.
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THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF HERMENEUTIC CASE


RECONSTRUCTION

Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction aims to highlight the selective processes that a narrator
has used in constructing their narrative. This aim is based on the interpretivist assumption
that people interpret the world and construct meaning selectively (Schwandt, 1998). This
selective process is thought to be evident in the production of narratives and can be
reconstructed through analysis of the narrative (Rosenthal, 1993). Two theoretical
concepts form the foundation for the reconstructive process used in the Hermeneutic Case
Reconstruction method. These are reconstructive analysis and sequentiality.
Reconstructive analysis is based on the theory of abduction of Charles Sanders Pierce, in
which theoretical knowledge is developed from concrete facts (Hartshorne & Weiss,
1960). Thus, in Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction, reconstructive analysis begins with the
concrete facts and experiences inherent within a person's narrative and, from these,
general theoretical concepts related to the meaning of those experiences are constructed.
Sequentiality refers to the assumption that, every action represents a choice between the
alternatives potentially available in a certain situation (Rosenthal, 1993, p. 66). When
analysing a person's narrative, one must consider the range of possibilities open to the
subject in a certain situation, the selection made, the possibilities ignored, and the
consequences of the decision (p. 66). This process of selection operates both in choices
of action at the time of the event as well as in decisions about inclusion and emphasis of
events and actions in the narrative itself. The sequences in which events and situations are
narrated are considered important to understanding the perspective of the narrator and
hypotheses are developed about the potential meanings produced by these sequences.
The Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction method consists of five major steps (Rosenthal,
1993), which will be explained and illustrated throughout the paper. These are a) analysis
of the biographical data, b) thematic field analysis (reconstruction of the life story), c)
reconstruction of the life history, d) microanalysis of individual text segments, and e)
contrastive comparison of the life history and life story. Through this five-step process, a
range of possible individual, social and political meanings are generated for biographical
events and compared with an analysis of the sequence and style of the text. A comparison
of how the story might have been told (hypothesised from the biographical data) and how
it was told highlights the selective process upon which the narrative structure is based.

HERMENEUTIC CASE RECONSTRUCTION OF DOING UP BUTTONS.

The following sections will contain an analysis of Doing up Buttons using the
Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction method. First, a reconstructed life history will be
presented and then a life story. Accompanying these reconstructions will be a description
of the steps involved in the method. Due to limitations of space, I have included below
the first part of the reconstructed life history with a summary of later biographical details
and hypotheses as well as a summary of the reconstructed life story relating to the first
major section of her narrated experiences. Finally, an analysis of the case structure will be
presented, which was developed through a microanalysis of the text to test hypotheses
and a comparison of the life history and life story.

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Life history

The life history was generated by first identifying the objective biographical data, that
is, the data that can stand independently of the narrative. Secondly, hypotheses were
developed about the potential meanings of each piece of biographical data given the
sociocultural context in which they were situated. The reconstruction of a life history
serves to develop a typified scenario about how the author might have presented their
experiences, against which the actual text is compared. A condensed version of the life
history is detailed below.
Born in Melbourne, Australia in approximately 1944. Her father grew up in Kew, a
suburb of Melbourne and was a pioneer in the field of hearing aids. Christine grew up in
Black Rock, a bayside suburb of Melbourne. As a child she and her family travelled
extensively through Africa, Europe and India. At some point (it appears she may have
been a young adult) she travelled to Timor, Bali and Indonesia.
Christine was a baby boomer, that is, a person born or growing up in the immediate
post-World War II period in Australia. This generation of Australians lived through a
historical time in which there was sustained economic growth, rapid technological
advancements and a rise in the status of women following their changed roles during the
war period.
It appears that her family may have had a high socioeconomic status and, therefore, might
have been expected to hold conservative values and be highly educated. The fact that her
father grew up in Kew and that the family travelled extensively at a time when travel was
very expensive may indicate that her family had inherited wealth. Her familys interest in
unusual travel destinations may reflect an adventurous spirit or, perhaps, a particular
interest in different cultures. She might have pursued a life trajectory in accordance with
her socioeconomic background. Alternately, she may have chosen to reject her family and
sociocultural values and pursued a different path.
Christine was a teacher. She worked in a primary school in Mt Isa, a mining town in
North Queensland, Australia.
Mt Isa would have been an unusual place to work if she had undertaken her teacher
training in Melbourne, the capital city of Victoria, a southern state on the eastern
seaboard of Australia. In contrast, Mt Isa is a remote mining town in Queensland in the
north of Australia. She could have been sent to Mt Isa to fulfil a bonding arrangement if
she had been supported by a scholarship during her teacher training. However, this would
have been more likely to occur within the state of Victoria. Alternately, her family may
have been living in Queensland at the time and she may have trained there. Regardless,
she may also have chosen to work in Mt Isa because she felt that it would be an exotic
place to work. This would be consistent with her familys interest in travel to interesting
places. Another possibility was that she was married at the time and her husband was
transferred there for work.
As a child her husband had lived across the road from her. He was the son of her music
teacher, so she had known him for many years prior to their marriage.
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Christines husband may have had a similar socioeconomic background to herself. The
fact that they had known each other for most of their lives might suggest that they both
held relatively conservative values and might have been expected to make choices in
congruence with their typified sociological group. Alternately, she may have been
encouraged by her family to marry within their socioeconomic strata and she may have
done this instead of following her own desires for something different. If so, the
relationship may have been characterised by some conflicting goals and attitudes.
They had four children, two girls and two boys. Christine would have been approximately
23-years-old when her eldest daughter Helen was born and 32 when her youngest son
Rob was born.
It would have been typical in the late 1960s for a woman of her socioeconomic
background at the time to be married at the time she fell pregnant and to cease working
when her children were young. While it is not clear whether Christine worked during this
time, she reported no details of teaching apart from her experiences in Mt Isa and her
commencement at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School, Melbourne, in approximately 1979,
when the youngest was four years old. She probably would have been approximately 20
when she finished her teacher training and then commenced child bearing at the age of
23. It is likely that she taught in Mt Isa at some time during these three years, whether
before or after her marriage.
The family lived in Thailand when Helen was in grade six (1977 or 1978). While the
older children attended the international school, Christine looked after Rob, the
youngest.
It is likely that the family went to Thailand for Teds work. This might suggest that he
worked for an international company. If they had gone to Mt Isa together, these two
biographical events might suggest that he worked in the mining industry. Alternately,
they may have chosen to go there because of a sense of adventure. Christines
experiences of travelling as a child may have influenced them in seeking to live in
another country for a period. However, the fact that the children went to an international
school suggests that they didn't simply 'pack up and go travelling' but were probably
engaged in a more formally financed arrangement. The chronology suggests that they
probably stayed in Thailand for a maximum of two years.
Christine taught at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School for 11 years from either 1979 or
1980.
Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School is a private school in an inner suburb of Melbourne. The
family may have recently returned from Thailand. Now that her youngest child had
commenced school, she may have felt that it was an appropriate time to return to her
career. Alternately, the family may have needed her to return to work as soon as possible
for financial reasons.

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She and Ted travelled to Mexico where she presented a paper at an International
Philosophy for Children Conference. At the time she was undertaking a Master of
Education degree at Melbourne University.
The fact that she returned to teaching as soon as her youngest child commenced school
and was also undertaking a Master of Education degree might suggest that her career was
particularly important to her. The conference itself may have served the dual purpose of
fostering her career in an international forum whilst also appealing as an interesting
destination for travel. A high level of education is also consistent with her socioeconomic
background.
Three weeks after returning from Mexico, she was involved in a motor vehicle accident
and sustained a brain injury. She was admitted to an intensive care unit for seven days
and then spent two weeks in a chest ward due to lung damage. She spent a total of seven
weeks in hospital. Her early symptoms included unremitting pain, a range of broken
bones, brachial plexus injury that produced weakness in her right arm and diplopia. Her
residual symptoms included substantial pain, diplopia, epilepsy, high muscle tone in her
left arm and leg, poor balance and coordination, fatigue, behavioural changes and
emotional lability. Residual cognitive and perceptual difficulties included memory,
understanding of time, space (distance and depth) and numbers, concentration, visual
scanning, abstract thinking, sequencing and word-finding difficulties.
It is unclear from her description whether she was transferred to a specialist brain injury
ward or a general neurology ward. Seven weeks in hospital may or may not have included
in-patient rehabilitation. Due to the pressure on beds in specialist neurological
rehabilitation wards, which are often small, patients with other medical problems are
often treated in acute wards. Because she sustained substantial medical and orthopaedic
injuries, she may have stayed longer in the acute medical ward and may have spent either
a shorter or no time in rehabilitation. Her residual difficulties are most likely to have had
a limiting effect on her ability to carry out her usual activities independently and would
probably have prevented her from returning to some of her previous work and leisure
roles. Her higher dependence needs would also have had an impact on her family.
Summary of remaining biographical data
The family lived in Eltham, Victoria, which is a semirural area 24 kilometres north-east
of Melbourne. Christine commenced outpatient rehabilitation three months after
discharge. She and Ted continued to travel together. She returned to her Master of
Education degree and completed it prior to publication of the book. She returned to work
at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School two days per week with alternate duties. Her daughter
Helen went to work in Thailand for four months and returned engaged to her long-term
boyfriend. Christine was a witness in the successful criminal prosecution of the man who
caused the accident. She and the family were also involved in successfully fighting a
claim from the man's insurance company and a civil case that was finally settled out of
court. Both daughters were married a year apart and Ted's mother and both her parents
died during this time. Five years after the accident she was still experienced substantial
pain in her shoulder and ribs, was disturbed by double vision and had persistent balance
problems.
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At the time, it was common for people to be discharged to home from hospital with a
follow-up appointment with a neurologist after three months. At this time, she may have
been referred to rehabilitation to assist her to develop and improve her skills for dealing
with life at home. Once she began to move into the community again, Christine appears
to have chosen to continue a biographical strategy of stability and continuity rather than
attempt to establish new and different roles and interests. For example, she chose to
return to two of her major roles as student and teacher. She successfully completed her
Master of Education degree and was unable to return to classroom teaching but continued
working on a part-time basis within the same school community. In addition, she and Ted
continued to travel and their daughter also appears to have continued this family interest.
While a strategy of stability is well established by her biographical data, such stability
may additionally or alternately have been explained by her cognitive difficulties. A
common residual deficit for people with a brain injury is a reduced ability to think
abstractly. As a consequence, people may need to gain concrete experience of a situation
in order to understand their abilities and disabilities in relation to that situation. This may
have been the case with Christine. She may only have been able to imagine herself
returning to her previous roles. It might not have been until she actually returned that she
was able to understand the effects of her disability on her ability to fulfil that role.
The biographical data also outlines a series of potentially distressing events that may have
adversely affected her health and wellbeing. The first was the series of court cases. At a
time when her sense of social status may have decreased through loss of previous roles,
she would have been required to submit to cross-examination. Her cognitive and memory
difficulties as well as the physical pain she was experiencing might have made this a
particularly distressing process. She may also have been concerned about whether justice
would be achieved with regard to the man who was responsible for the accident and about
her financial needs related to being unable to return to work. The second sequence of
events that may have been distressing for her was the death of her parents and mother-inlaw (who had been her music teacher as a child). Her parents both deteriorated in health
over a three-month period prior to dying three days apart. With her reduced abilities she
may have felt that she was unable to contribute help as their health deteriorated. Her
cognitive difficulties may have meant that her grief was protracted because of her
reduced ability to process information.
How might Christine have constructed and presented her life story?
1 She could have focused on her happy life, stressing the normal or quiet phases
growing up in a happy family, marrying and having children, working as a teacher,
travelling, having contact with her parents and Ted's parents.
2 She could have presented her experiences as characterised by a stability that was
essentially forced upon her by sociocultural pressures, resulting in a life that conflicted
with her own personal values.
3 She could have focused on the problematic phases of her life the accident and the
difficulties she had readjusting her life afterward.
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4 She may have taken the view that the accident was a blessing in disguise in that it
taught her to take a new approach to life in which she appreciated life more and took
less for granted.
Thematic field analysis

In the next section a life story reconstructed using a thematic field analysis methodology
will be presented. A thematic field analysis aims to highlight the particular way the
narrator has chosen to present his or her experiences. The text is divided into separate
units according to criteria that will be outlined below. Hypotheses are developed about
why the narrator's experiences have been presented in this way. These hypotheses are
developed in response to the sequence in which information appears, the sort of text used
to convey the information and the major themes that shaped the narrative.
The three criteria used to divide the text are turn taking, thematic shifts and text-sorts
(Rosenthal, 1993). Turn taking refers to changes in the speaker. This is most relevant to
interview data but might also occur in written narratives where a number of people have
contributed. For example, in Christine Durhams book, other members of her family
contributed to the narrative and each gave their individual perspective on a particular
situation or event. A thematic shift refers to a point at which the narrative moves from
one theme to another. By identifying these thematic shifts, the researcher is seeking to
highlight the relative importance of particular themes. For example, one might seek to
identify any themes that dominate the narrative and others that may have been touched
upon only lightly.
The third criterion are text-sorts. Rosenthal (1993) identified three major types of texts,
with one being further divided into subcategories. The main types of text are
argumentation, description and narration. Argumentation is a line of reasoning that
reflects the perspective of the present. It is where the narrator gives his or her
interpretation of the meaning of events or provides the reasoning behind a particular
behaviour. It includes any theorising or generalisations that the author might make.
Argumentation may occur within a narrative, where it is called evaluation, or may appear
independently.
Description is a sort of text used to convey the qualities or features of a situation without
linking information temporally. Thus, a distinguishing feature of description is that the
action is frozen or static rather than propelled by time. The following passage from
Doing up Buttons illustrates description.
The room was dark, but I was lit by a pool of brilliant white light. People were all about
me. They seemed to be panicking. I felt calm. Calm and detached. My mind hovered above
a tormented body. I could sense that it was me and I could feel the pain and agony. I was
floating near the ceiling, looking down at the still body and the people frantically doing
things to it. (p. 7)

Finally, a narration is a chain of sequences and events that are linked temporally.
Narrative can be further divided into subcategories, as follows:
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1 A report has a low temporal and contextual indexality. It might consist of a telegramstyle simplicity and often forms part of an explanation.
2 A single story is a salient episode occurring within a narrative. This form of narrative
has the highest degree of indexality and detail in that it is tied closely to time, place
and person.
3 Epic and dramatic narrations refer to chains of events that are drawn together into
common situations or in repetitive formulas respectively. For example, Durham
narrates a series of medical investigations that appear to have been linked together by
the theme of being treated as just a body.
4 An exemplifying narrative is used in conjunction with an argument to add plausibility
to or to illustrate a line of reasoning. In presenting an argument about being treated
with a lack of dignity in the hospital, Durham told two consecutive stories. First she
told of being left in a public area of the hospital scantily clad, only then to have two
students arguing in front of her about whether they were supposed to assess her left or
right side. She immediately followed with a story about a brain scan in which she was
told she would be in constant microphone contact, but that when she screamed in pain
the staff turned the microphone off and continued with the scan.
5 An evaluation, as outlined earlier, is an argument within a narrative. Whereas an
exemplifying narrative illustrates and supports an argument, an evaluation interprets
and explains a narrative.
In a thematic field analysis, the sequences, themes, or stages of the life story at which the
biographer argues, describes, or narrates are noted (Rosenthal, 1993, p. 69) and analysed
in the order in which they appear in the story. Hypotheses are generated about the
importance of these technical shifts in the style of telling. Typically, a researcher will ask
why this particular sort of text is being used to express this particular event or theme and
what the narrator's hidden agenda may be in telling the story in this way. Rosenthal
(1993) outlined a number of questions that guide the development of hypotheses. These
relate to whether the narrator is being carried along by the narrative flow, what themes
are present when particular sequences are raised, whether there are any patterns to the
themes raised and the sorts of text used to discuss these themes, which topics are
addressed and which are left out, and which details are emphasised within single stories
and why.
Life story

Christine's story was structured in three main sections. The first dealt with her personal
search for identity, the second described her experiences of the court system and the third
told about life with a brain injury. Due to the constraints of space, only the results of the
first section, about her search for identity, will be presented. In her introduction, she
outlined three themes and two goals for the book. She established the three themes of
independence, the kindness of her family, and being in charge of her life, through a story
about trying to dress herself and having her daughter tell her that she 'can't go out like
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that' and redoing the buttons for her. Her goals for writing the book were to gain an
understanding of what happened and, in the process, recapture her self and to forewarn
and help others.
She commenced the major narrative part of the book by recalling her trip to Mexico
where she presented a paper at the International Philosophy for Children Conference. She
and Ted returned from Mexico three weeks prior to her motor vehicle accident.
Recounting this event served the purpose of establishing that, for her, teaching was not
simply a job but a vocation, that is, like a quest for the Holy Grail (p. 4). By
commencing her narrative with this event, she appears to have been underlining both the
importance of her career (and associated postgraduate education) and its potential to
expand. She followed immediately with a narration about the car accident. This sequence
conveyed a thematic field that I have labelled, my career was on the brink of expansion
and suddenly it was all cut short.
The next section described an experience in hospital of separation from her body. She
then used narrative and argument to establish that the hospital was an uncaring and
hostile environment where she was treated as just a body and stripped of human dignity.
She encapsulated her experience of this hostile environment in a single story in which she
requested a single room and was refused. It was not until she locked herself in the
bathroom and refused to come out that she was eventually provided with one. The
juxtaposition of this sequence relating to her hospital experiences and the previous
sequence about her career suggests that she may have experienced a degradation of status,
from the potential for international recognition to almost less than human.
In the section that followed, she used description to convey her experience of and
response to increased dependence. Initially she focused on her own active participation in
trying to make progress. However, as time proceeded and her difficulties persisted, she
felt frustrated that she was not making progress and narrated a number of stories that
illustrated her reluctance to impose on others. Embedded in this sequence is the assistance
she gained from her family. However, she omitted any credit to hospital staff.
In the overall sequence of sections to this point she had presented herself as a person with
a strong sense of agency. Her reluctance to seek assistance whilst in a state of high
dependence might have suggested that she considered herself to be someone who does
things for others rather than a recipient of assistance. Such an orientation might have been
motivated by a well-developed sense of compassion for others, a strong need for control
in her life, or perhaps some combination of the two.
The next section formed a narrative link between hospital and home. She argued that she
expected her circumstances to improve once she returned home. Home became a focus
for her attention and a symbol of hope. She narrated returning home and their poodle's
almost immediate adjustment to her condition. This story highlighted the way she
polarised home and hospital. In the hospital, she felt she was treated as less than human
but at home, even the dog understood her needs. However, she ended this sequence with a
foreboding. She said, All the time, a strange little cloud was following me about, inside
and outside. It was good to be home, but in some surreal, strange way, it was and was not
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familiar (p. 28). She then followed with a long section in which the main theme was how
my life was dominated by difficulties, anger and despair. Home was not the solution she
had hoped it would be.
She then turned her attention to the two men at the scene of the accident. She commenced
with a narrative about Peter, the man who saved her life by freeing her from the seatbelt
that was choking her. Next she used argument to discuss Mr X, the name by which she
referred to the man who hit her car. As with hospital and home, she polarised these two
men into the good (she referred to Peter as her hero) and the bad (epitomised by the term
Mr X). This section also served as a turning point in the story. She presented Peter as a
symbol of good overcoming bad and announced that she decided she could no longer
afford to waste her energy hating Mr X. I called the thematic field in which this sequence
was embedded I faced up to what had happened to me and decided that it was up to me to
recapture my life. Here, she presented a re-emerging sense of agency.
Two themes encapsulated the three sections that follow. The first, prompted by her return
to the outside world, was conveyed in her quote I felt like an outsider, an interloper in
the world (p. 50). In the search for a place in the world outside of her family, she used
the analogy of Alice in Wonderland who was not herself when down the rabbit hole.
Christine said, I needed desperately to hear from another Alice who had been down the
rabbit hole and survived Someone who has sat at the top of the rabbit hole and had a
picnic, even if they've peered down, taken photos and studied it, is not as helpful as
someone who has fallen down that long, scary hole (p. 58). She was searching for hope
but did not find it in rehabilitation. Where might she have found this hope? At this point
she could proceed by presenting an Alice that she had found.
In the section that followed, however, she discussed her experiences of rehabilitation
through an epic narrative in which the main thematic field might have been I had lost
everything but, by pure determination, I began a snail-paced recovery. This section
focused on what Moore (1992) called the dark night of the soul, in which Christine
faced up to the harsh realities of her life and laid bare her grief. She had hit rock bottom.
At this stage she had no clear goals to work towards, only sheer determination to do
something. It was as if she was working in a void, not knowing where to go but simply
clinging to life itself. She had not yet found the source of hope.
She followed immediately with a narrative about driving with Ted to Lorne for a twonight stay. While she was terrified of travelling in a car, she presented the experience as
pivotal in helping to re-establish their relationship. Into this narrative, she wove events
with a symbolic connection to the past. For example, Ted brought her tulips in a milk
carton just as he had when they were in New York the year before. Following directly
from the dark night of the soul, and her search for hope, this section might indicate the
central place of her relationship with Ted on the path to a new life. She might have been
telling us that the first thing we did was to reaffirm our relationship. Everything else
followed from that.
The next two roles that she attempted to reinstate in her life were as Master of Education
student and teacher. In her presentation of activities at this time she also described the
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role reversal she experienced with her children, in that, the children cleaned up after her.
The process of selection seems evident in her choice of activities to embark upon. She
had chosen to return to previous activities, despite advice to the contrary, rather than
explore new possible roles and activities. This choice may reflect a reluctance to
relinquish the connection with her former identity represented by her well-established
roles. It may also reflect a reduced ability to think abstractly and flexibly due to cognitive
damage. In the case of teaching, she was unable to return to the classroom, therefore
forcing her to accept an altered role within the same organisation. She described how
good it was to be back teaching while she knew she was not the teacher she once was.
This juxtaposition of her present and past sense of identity appears to present a point of
choice. She might have ignored this tension by continuing to persevere with her altered
duties. Alternately, the inherent tension between these two selves might have prompted
her to seek alternate roles that might have been more fulfilling for her.
Next, she described her diagnosis with epilepsy and the effects of her disabilities on her
social interactions. Then she began a narration about the changes that occurred in her
family circumstances. Her eldest daughter followed the family tradition of travel by
working overseas in Thailand for four months and she returned engaged to her long-term
boyfriend. Her younger daughter moved into the room her sister had occupied in a share
house, therefore perhaps following in her elder sister's footsteps. Christine also related a
series of family celebrations such as their first Christmas together after the accident. She
closed this part of the book with a narrative about a late-blooming bird that found food
near the backdoor of their house, away from the other birds. By closing the section with
this narrative, she appears to have been affirming her own ability to survive in a hostile,
competitive world by looking for opportunities at the back door of life. This metaphor
appears to have established the foundations for a more fully developed sense of identity
that was explored later in the book. Her presentation of her experiences within the court
system was placed in between this major thematic section and the later one in which she
explored what life is really like with a brain injury.
Case structure

An analysis of the structure of the text is generated through a comparison of the life
history and life story and hypotheses are tested through a microanalysis of the text. Those
hypotheses that are supported by the microanalysis provide the basis for the case
structure. My analysis of Doing up Buttons suggests that the traumatic injuries Christine
Durham sustained to brain and body presented a major derailment from her expected life
trajectory. It may have been the first major challenge to her well-established biographical
pattern of stability and continuity. Until the time of the accident Christine had continued a
family tradition of travel to exotic places that extended to three generations. She had
married within her socioeconomic and sociocultural group and had produced four
children who were all highly educated like her. She also described her career as a
vocation, suggesting a lifetime commitment. There is no suggestion in her narrative that
she hoped for anything other than such a pattern of stability.
Through acquiring a brain injury, she lost two major self-identifying roles, those being
teacher and student, with the latter encapsulating her potential for further career
development. She experienced these losses as a major degradation of social status, which
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she primarily presented narratively through polarising her experiences of hospital and her
former life.
Christine presented her extended family as having close family ties and the support she
received from them all formed a major theme in her book. Her family relationships,
particularly with her husband, were central to the structure of her self-presentation.
Almost exclusively she presented her biographical information in relation to her
experiences as either a child within her family of origin or as a wife and mother. She gave
no clear details of her life as a single young woman. For example, it was only when she
was lamenting the loss of the me-I-had-been (p. 62) that she mentioned she had painted
watercolours in Mt Isa. However, it remains unclear whether she was single or married at
this time. The extent to which she referred to herself as an independent person was
contained in only three paragraphs of the book. This suggested that she might have
defined herself predominantly in relation to others. Consequently, it was the change in the
nature of these relationships that was a focus of her presentation. The omission of
independent biographical details might also suggest that she felt that nothing in her earlier
life had prepared her for dealing with her current experiences and therefore, they would
not be relevant to include.
She presented herself as a capable person upon which others could depend. Consequently,
it appears that the dependence that was forced upon her through her altered physical and
cognitive capacities was quite difficult for her to cope with. Throughout her narrative, she
emphasised her wish not to trouble others and gives examples of being reluctant to ask
the nurses for assistance. However, in her life-role choices she appears to have placed a
greater emphasis on recapturing her previous life than exploring new roles. Consequently,
she was required to accept substantial support from her family members in order to
achieve this. Unclear is the extent to which her cognitive difficulties may have
contributed to pursuing her previous roles at the expense of relinquishing her
independence. It may be that the one-track mind (p. 68) she talked about prevented her
from exploring a wider range of possible new activities and roles in which she might have
been able to redevelop her independence. However, the tension between her needs for
independence and for having meaningful roles arose as an ongoing tension within the
narrative. This tension was only addressed toward the end of the narrative through a
suggestion by her psychologist that persevering with her previous roles might be taking
too much of a toll on her.

CONCLUSION

Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction is a method used to understand biographical selfpresentations in narrative form. Texts are divided according to the style of telling,
thematic shifts and changes in speaker, and the principles of abstraction and sequentiality
are applied to the text units in order to highlight the process of selection that the author
may have used in constructing the narrative. In the case of Doing up Buttons, a
Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction revealed three main thematic fields that guided the
selective process used in constructing the narrative. These were, an impetus to maintain
continuity and stability in her life, an identity primarily constructed in relation to family,
and the experience of substantial degradation of status.
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References
Durham, C. (1997). Doing up buttons. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin.
Hartshorne, C. & Weiss, P. (1960). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Moore, T. (1992). Care of the soul. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Rosenthal, G. (1993). Reconstruction of life stories: Principles of selection in generating stories for
narrative biographical interviews. In R. Josselson & A. Lieblich (Eds.), The narrative study of
lives, (Vol. 1, pp. 5991). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Rosenthal, G. (1997). National identity or multicultural autobiography: Theoretical concepts of
biographical constitution grounded in case reconstructions. The Narrative Study of Lives, 5,
2139
Rosenthal, G. (1998). Questions and method. In G. Rosenthal (Ed.), The holocaust in three
generations: Families of victims and perpetrators of the Nazi regime (pages 27). London:
Cassell.
Schwandt, T. A. (1998). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In N. K.
Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The landscape of qualitative research: Theories and issues (pp.
221259). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(Accepted for publication in October 2001)

MERRILL CRABTREE is a Lecturer in occupational therapy at The


University of Queensland. Particular research interests are qualitative
research, experience of disability, clinical reasoning and student
education.

Contact details:
Department of Occupational Therapy
The University of Queensland
St Lucia, Queensland 4072
AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61 7 3365 2652
Fax: +61 7 3365 1622
Email: m.crabtree@shrs.uq.edu.au

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This new section of the Qualitative Research Journal invites a person to write a review essay of their favourite
classic or landmark qualitative study or text. To begin the section the Editors have chosen to review their
favourite landmark qualitative study.

Darrel N. Caulley, Institute for Education, La Trobe University; and


Carmel Seibold, School of Nursing, Australian Catholic University

TITLE: In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory


and Womens Development
Carol Gilligan
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982, 1993, ISBN 0-674-44544-9, paperback, 184
pages

Evidence that this is a landmark study comes from another brilliant bestseller, The
Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World
View by Richard Tarnas (1991). In the back of this latter book is a chronology of major
events from 2000 B.C. to 1990 A.D. (pp. 446467). For 1982 three major events are
listed: Gilligans In a Different Voice; aspect experiment confirms Bells theorem;
Schells The Fate of the Earth (p. 467).
By the year 2000, In a Different Voice had gone through its thirty-sixth printing with
more than half a million copies in print. Since its publication two decades ago, this highly
influential book has won international acclaim and pioneered a revolution in psychology
and the social sciences. In the 1993 edition the author added a 19-page addition titled
Letter to Readers, 1993 but the rest of the book was not changed in any way.
At the time of its first publication reviewers acclaimed it as the following illustrate:
It has the charge of a revelation [Gilligan] flips old prejudices against women on their
ears. She reframes qualities regarded as womens weaknesses and shows them to be human
strengths. It is impossible to consider [her] ideas without having your estimation of women
rise.
Amy Gross, Vogue
Gilligans book is feminism at its best Her thesis is rooted not only in research but in
common senseTheories of human development are never more limited or limiting than
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when their bias is invisible, and Gilligans book performs the vital service of illuminating
one of the deepest biases of all.
Alfie Kohn, Boston Globe
To those of us searching for a better understanding of the way men and women think and
the different values we bring to public problems and to our private lives, [this book] is of
enormous importance.
Judy Mann, Washington Post

Carol Gilligan is Professor in the Human Development and Psychology Program at the
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. She was Ms magazines 1984
Woman of the Year. Before the book was published she worked at Harvard with Erik
Erikson (known for his theory of lifespan psychosocial development) and Lawrence
Kohlberg (known for his theory of moral development, 1958, 1981) teaching psychology
in the traditions of the developmental theories of Freud and Piaget. In the book Gilligan is
critical of the theories of all four writers. In the early 1970s she worked with Kohlberg as
a research assistant as well as beginning the writing of In a Different Voice.
What was the authors aim? She states (p. 156):
the silence of women in the narrative of adult development distorts the conception of its
stages and sequence. Thus I want to restore in part the missing text of womens
development, as they describe their conceptions of self and morality in the early adult
years. In focussing primarily on the differences between the accounts of women and men,
my aim is to enlarge developmental understanding by including the perspectives of both of
the sexes. While the judgments considered come from a small and highly educated sample,
they elucidate a contrast and make it possible to recognise not only what is missing in
womens development but also what is there.

Gillian states her basic thesis about the differences in female and male development as
follows (pp. 89):
Consequently, relationships, and particularly issues of dependency, are experienced
differently by women and men. For boys and men, separation and individuation are
critically tied to gender identity since separation from the mother is essential for the
development of masculinity. For girls and women, issues of femininity or feminine identity
do not depend on the achievement of separation from the mother or on the progress of
individuation. Since masculinity is defined through separation while femininity is defined
through attachment, male gender identity is threatened by intimacy while female gender
identity is threatened by separation. Thus males tend to have difficulty with relationships,
while females tend to have problems with individuation. The quality of embeddedness in
social interaction and personal relationships that characterises womens lives in contrast to
mens, however, becomes not only a descriptive difference but also a developmental
liability when the milestones of childhood and adolescent development in the psychological
literature are markers of increasing separation. Womens failure to separate then becomes
by definition a failure to develop.

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Gilligan was the first to show that the developmental theories of Freud, Piaget, Erikson
and Kohlberg were all based on data drawn from mens lives, and womens development
was seen as an anomaly to these theories. The penchant of these theorists to project a
masculine image goes back at least to Freud (1905/1961) who built his theory of
psychosexual development around the experiences of the male child that culminate in the
Oedipus complex. Gilligan states (pp. 67):
After trying to fit women into his masculine conception, seeing them as envying that which
they missed, he came instead to acknowledge, in the strength and persistence of womens
pre-Oedipal attachments to their mothers, a developmental difference. He considered this
difference in womens development to be responsible for what he saw as womens
developmental failure.

Gilligan quotes (p. 7) Freud (1925/1961, pp. 257258) as saying that for women the
level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is in men and concluded that
women show less justice than men, that they are less ready to submit to the great
exigencies of life, that they are more often influenced in their judgments by feelings of
affection or hostility. Gilligan concludes that a problem in theory became cast as a
problem in womens development, and the problem in womens development was located
in their experience of relationships.
Despite Eriksons (1950) observations of sex differences, his chart of life-cycle stages in
psychosocial development remains unchanged and is based on males. With regard to
moral development, the criticism that Freud makes of womens sense of justice, reappears
not only in the work of Piaget but also in that of Kohlberg. While in Piagets account
(1932/1965) of the moral judgment of the child, girls are an aside, a curiosity to whom he
devotes four brief entries in an index that omits boys altogether because the child is
assumed to be male, in the research from which Kohlberg derives his theory, females
simply do not exist. Kohlbergs theory of moral development from childhood to
adulthood is based on his study over 20 years of 84 boys. Gilligan states (p. 18):
Yet herein lies a paradox, for the very traits that traditionally have defined the goodness
of women, their care for and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them as
deficient in moral development. In this version of moral development, however, the
conception of maturity is derived from the study of mens lives and reflects the importance
of individuation in their development.

She stresses the importance of women as nurturers and carers (p. 17):
Thus women not only define themselves in a context of human relationship but also judge
themselves in terms of their ability to care. Womens place in mans life cycle has been that
of nurturer, caretaker, and helpmate, the weaver of those networks of relationships on
which she in turn relies. But while women have thus taken care of men, men have, in their
theories of psychological development, as in their economic arrangements, tended to
assume or devalue that care. When the focus on individuation and individual achievement
extends into adulthood and maturity is equated with personal autonomy, concern with

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relationships appears as a weakness of women rather than as a human strength


(Miller, 1976).

Three studies are referred to throughout the book. The college student study explored
identity and moral development of males and females in the early adult years. The
abortion decision study involved 29 women, ranging in age from 15 to 33, diverse in
ethnic background and social class, some single, some married, a few the mother of a
preschool child, were interviewed during the first trimester of a confirmed pregnancy at a
time when they were considering abortion. Twenty-one were interviewed again at the end
of the year following choice. Both of these two studies were different from the previous
studies of moral development in which the participants were presented with a moral
problem for resolution. Instead interviewees were asked how they defined moral
problems and what experiences they construed as moral conflicts in their lives.
The findings from these two studies concerning different modes of thinking about
morality and their relation to different views of self were further explored and refined
through the rights and responsibilities study. This study involved a sample of males and
females matched for age, intelligence, education, occupation, and social class at nine
points across the life cycle: ages 69, 11, 15, 19, 22, 2527, 35, 45, and 60. We doubt that
such a matching across five variables was practically feasible as our experience is that
even matching participants on two variables is difficult enough. From a total sample of
144 (eight males and eight females at each age), including a more intensively interviewed
subsample of 36 (two males and two females at each age), data were collected on
conceptions of self and morality, experiences of moral conflict and choice, and judgments
of hypothetical moral dilemmas.
One defect of the book is that the methodology and circumstances of the three studies are
given scant description. Having a methodological appendix could have solved this. One
has to rely on the supposed methodological competence of the author who states (p. 2):
All of the studies relied on interviews and included the same set of questions about
conceptions of self and morality, about experiences of conflict and choice. The method of
interviewing was to follow the language and the logic of the persons thought, with the
interviewer asking further questions in order to clarify the meaning of a particular response.

The interview data are reported in quotes which are analytically discussed, often quite
extensively. The amount of data reported is small compared to the amount collected. The
basis on which the quotes were chosen is not given and a devils advocate could easily
claim that the quotes chosen were only those that support the authors argument.
In the last decade or so much attention has been given to the rigour of qualitative studies
(e.g. Lincoln & Guba, 1986). This however has come after the publication of the book
and Gilligan does not report any attention to rigour. We assume the book is for a general
readership and not solely for academics who would probably be satisfied with a
methodological appendix.

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The author states specifically (p. 2) that she makes no claims about the origins of the
differences described between females and males, or their distribution in a wider
population, across cultures, or through time. In fact she does not state what her population
is. The samples were not chosen randomly to represent a population (which would be
hard to do anyhow), and the samples appear to be convenience ones. It is not indicated
what type of college the female and male college students interviewed came from, but if
they were from Harvard University, the students would not be typical of American
college students. The women in the abortion study varied in ethnicity and social class. In
the third study, the rights and responsibilities study, there was a sample of females and
males across a range of age, intelligence, education, occupation and social class. While
the author did not indicate where the participants came from, it might be assumed that
they all came from the Boston area.
While Gilligan was Kohlbergs research assistant in the early 1970s, she is critical of
what she sees as a deficit in his stages of moral development. In the book she discusses
research participants reactions to one of Kohlbergs moral dilemmas. In this particular
dilemma, a man named Heinz considers whether or not to steal a drug which he cannot
afford to buy in order to save the life of his wife. In the standard format of Kohlbergs
interviewing procedure, the participant is asked the question, Should Heinz steal the
drug? The reasons for and against stealing are then explored through a series of
questions that vary and extend the parameters of the dilemma in a way designed to reveal
the underlying structure of moral thought.
Male and female reactions to this dilemma are compared as being very different. The
male response is based on logic, justice, rules and laws, and the individual being alone.
The female response instead, sees the world as comprised of relationships rather than
people standing alone, a world that coheres though human connection, care and
responsibility, rather than through systems of rules and laws. Even Kohlbergs dilemma is
seen as having as having a male perspective, as the female response is to think of ways to
resolve the dilemma by other than stealing, that would result in the preservation of human
relationships and connections. In terms of Kohlbergs stages and sequences of moral
development, the female responses appear to be at a lower stage in maturity than those of
the male responses.
Gilligan reports on a study (Pollak & Gilligan, 1982) that involved male and female
college students stories of their reactions to pictures of the Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT). The study began with Pollaks observation of seemingly bizarre imagery of
violence in mens stories about a picture of what appeared to be a tranquil scene, a couple
sitting on a bench by a river next to a low bridge. In response to this picture, more than
21% of the 88 men had written stories containing incidents of violence homicide,
suicide, stabbing, kidnapping, or rape. In contrast, none of the 50 women had projected
violence into the scene. It should be noted that the scene is one of affiliation and not of
achievement or separation. In response to all pictures the men projected more violence
into situations of personal affiliation than they did into impersonal situations of
achievement. In contrast, the women saw more violence in impersonal situations of
achievement than in situations of affiliation. Gilligan states (p. 43):

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If aggression is tied, as women perceive, to the fracture of human connection, then the
activities of care, as their fantasies suggest, are activities that make the social world safe, by
avoiding isolation and preventing aggression rather than seeking rules to limit its extent. In
this light, aggression appears no longer as an unruly impulse that must be contained but
rather as a signal of fracture of connection, the sign of a failure of relationship. From this
perspective, the prevalence of violence in mens fantasies, denoting a world where danger
is everywhere seen, signifies a problem in making connection, causing relationships to
erupt and turning separation into a dangerous isolation.

An interesting case that Gilligan describes is that of Claire who, after finishing college,
worked as a counsellor in an abortion clinic. She was troubled by the ethics of abortion.
Claire came to feel that the question of whether to have an abortion or not was not just a
matter of an absolute such as an absolute that abortion is morally wrong. Claire states (p.
58):
life is sacred, but the quality of life is also important, and it has to be the determining
thing in this particular case. The quality of that mothers life, the quality of an unborn
childs life I have seen too many pictures of babies in trash cans and that sort of thing,
and it is so easy to say, Well, either/or, and it just isnt like that. And I had to be able to
say, Yes, this is killing, there is no way around it, but I am willing to accept that, but I am
willing to go ahead with it, and its hard. I done think I can explain it. I dont think I can
really verbalise the justification.

Gilligan comments that Claires inability to articulate her moral position stems in part
from the fact that hers is a contextual judgment, bound by the particulars of time and
place, contingent always on that mother and that unborn child and thus resisting
categorical formulation (pp. 5859). Nowhere does Gilligan state her position on the
question of abortion. A significant portion of the book is devoted to the thinking of
women who have to make a decision about whether to have an abortion or not. Gilligan
makes it clear that the research focused on the relation between judgment and action
rather than on the issue of abortion per se. Thus the findings of the research pertain to the
different ways in which women think about dilemmas in their lives rather than to the
ways in which women in general think about the abortion choice. Gilligan finds that (p.
73):
Womens construction of the moral problem as a problem of care and responsibility in
relationships rather than one of rights and rules ties the development of their moral thinking
to changes in their understanding of responsibility and relationships, just as the conception
of morality as justice ties development to the logic of equality and reciprocity. Thus the
logic underlying an ethic of care is a psychological logic of relationships, which contrasts
with the formal logic of fairness that informs the justice approach.

In the abortion study, in order to discern the development in moral thinking over time,
Gilligan interviewed women after a year following their abortion decision. In doing this
she drew on the work of Piaget (1968) who identified conflict as the harbinger of growth
as well as the work of Erikson (1964) who, in charting development through crisis,
demonstrates how a heightened vulnerability signals the emergence of a potential
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strength, creating a dangerous opportunity for growth. Gilligan did find transitions
precipitated by the abortion crisis. She states (p. 126127):
Crisis reveals character, says one of the women as she searches for the problem within
herself. That crisis also creates character is the essence of a developmental approach. The
changes described in the womens thinking about responsibility and relationships suggest
that the capacity for responsibility and care evolves through a coherent sequence of feelings
and thoughts. As the events of womens lives and of history intersect with their feelings
and thought, a concern with individual survival comes to be branded as selfish and to be
counterposed to the responsibility of a life lived in relationships. And in turn,
responsibility becomes, in its conventional interpretation, confused with a responsiveness
to others that impedes recognition of self. The truths of relationship, however, return in the
rediscovery of connection, in the realisation that self and other are interdependent and life,
however valuable in itself, can only be sustained by care in relationships.

Self-sacrifice is something that has been expected, even demanded of women, throughout
the ages, especially with regard to the raising of the children. It is now common for
middle-class women to return to education and/or work once their children have reached
a certain degree of independence. Gilligan quotes (p. 129) a mid-nineteenth century
womens rights campaigner in telling a reporter to put it down in capital letters: SELFDEVELOPMENT IS A HIGHER DUTY THAN SELF-SACRIFICE. The thing which
most retards and militates against womens self-development is self-sacrifice. Gilligan
states (pp. 129130) that the issue of womens self-development continues to raise the
spectre of selfishness, the fear that freedom for women will lead to an abandonment of
responsibility in relationships.
Gilligan sees a tension between womens concern for others and a concern for
themselves. She states (p. 138):
The underlying construction of morality as a problem of responsibility and the struggle for
women in taking responsibility for their own lives are evident in the dilemmas described by
other college students who took part in the rights and responsibilities study. A comparison
of the dilemmas described by three of the women shows, across a wide range of
formulations, how the opposition between selfishness and responsibility complicates for
women the issue of choice, leaving them suspended between an ideal of selflessness and
the truth of their own agency and needs.

Gilligan does not relate this to the New Testament where Jesus says: Love your
neighbour as you love yourself (Luke 10, v 27). The verse seems to say that loving your
neighbour does not mean that you will not love yourself, the tension which Gilligan
discusses. Womens ethic of care and responsibility is exemplified by Jesuss story of the
Good Samaritan (Luke 10, vv 3037) and so this ethic is very Christian. This ethic of care
and responsibility is also a part of Australians notion of mateship. Pfitzner (1988) puts it
this way (pp. 4243):
Your neighbour is your mate. Weve learnt this in the wars in which weve fought. We also
learnt this in the early days of settlement, when people battled to establish themselves in a

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new and hard land. People in the bush learnt that they had to stick together, they had to help
each other. This is where we learnt the rule, the unwritten law, that you always stick by
your mates, that you never let your mates down, that you can depend on them and they can
depend on you.

This latter sentence refers to what Gilligan refers to as interdependence.


The last chapter of the book focuses on the difference between men and womens adult
development. Again Gilligan points out that theories of human development are based on
mens lives for which relationships are subordinated to the ongoing process of
individuation and achievement. Gilligan states (p. 154):
there is the observation that among those men whose lives have served as the model for
adult development, the capacity for relationships is in some sense diminished and the men
are constricted in their emotional expression. Relationships often are cast in the language of
achievement, characterised by their success or failure, and impoverished in their affective
range.

On the other hand, womens development is based on care, attachment and affiliation.
It is important to note that Kohlberg accepted some of Gilligan's criticisms and
subsequently acknowledged a care perspective in people's 'higher order' moral thinking.
However, he maintained that an ethic of 'agape' (the Greek word for love) still must rely
on the stage 6 fairness principles to resolve justice problems (Kohlberg, 1981, p. 354).
There have also been criticisms of Gilligan's research, with authors such as Broughton
(1983) claiming that Gilligan appeals to the same rational principles that she condemns in
Kohlberg. Broughton considers that Gilligan's own theoretical stages of development are
not very different to Kohlberg and that the focus, in terms of gender, has simply changed.
A later work (Segal, 1987) maintains that looking more closely at Gilligan's research it is
hard not to see there, a methodology designed to exaggerate difference and to disregard
similarity between men and women (Segal, 1987, p. 147). Given that Gilligan's overall
aim was to focus on difference and redress the balance, this criticism seems a little unfair.
Despite these criticisms, Gilligan's theory of moral development has formed the basis for
a feminist ethics and a particular approach to moral decision making, particularly in the
field of bioethics. Feminists, such as Morgan (1988), view feminist ethics as a substantive
radical moral theory which aims to challenge the model of the moral subject as an
autonomous, detached, rational subject, seeing this hypermasculinist ideal of the moral
self as both psychologically and morally flawed (Morgan, 1988, p. 161). Morgan,
echoing Gilligan's thesis, sees feminist theory's contribution to a feminist ethic as
advocating a more pluralistic model of morality, and one which incorporates a sense of
moral imagination, moral empathy, and moral feeling into an integrated, other connected
self (Morgan, 1988, p. 162). Feminist ethics, by its very nature, is a critique of modernist
moral philosophy based on rationality and on critically reflective or reasoned abstract
principles of conduct (Johnstone, 1999, p. 119).

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One of the authors, as a health professional, working in a university with a strong


commitment to exploring ethical questions has often been struck by the abstract reasoning
that often characterises various academics presenting within the fields of philosophy and
theology. The reality of practice in the health care sector, or practical ethics, is very
different. Feminist ethical theory appears to offer nurses and midwives an approach to
ethical problem solving with a great deal of applicability and relevance.
There would be few ethics texts today that would not include a substantial section on
feminist ethics, or feminist moral philosophy, with a considerable amount of space
devoted to Gilligan's theory (see Beauchamp & Childress, 2001; Johnstone, 1999;
Kerridge, Lowe & McPhee, 1998; Preston, 1996). Gilligan has also been quoted
extensively in literature relating to an ethic of care in nursing, as well as literature
exploring moral reasoning in nursing. While it is not the intention of this paper to review
the extensive literature in this field, it is worth briefly exploring some of the literature in
relation to moral reasoning and ethical decision making in the primarily female
profession of nursing. Various researchers have studied the difference in the moral
reasoning of physicians and nurses (McInerney & Seibold, 1995; Sorderberg & Norberg,
1993; Uden, Norberg, Lindseth & Marhaug, 1992; Walker, Miles, Stocking & Siegler,
1991). Nurses have been found to be more likely to place emphasis on a care perspective,
and the context of a situation, in, for example, end of life decisions (McInerney &
Seibold, 1995) and doctors on quality of life and cost of care (Walker et al., 1991).
More recent studies, however, have found that there is little difference in the way in
which nurses' and doctors' approach moral reasoning. Oberle and Hughes (2001), for
example, in a study of doctors' and nurses' perceptions of ethical problems in end-of-life
decisions found that there was very little difference in the care versus cure distinction of
doctors and nurses. They found that differences in moral reasoning were a function of the
professional role of each, rather than difference in ethical reasoning and moral
motivation. The differences related to perceived constraints on nurses; that is, nurses
witnessed wrong choices and were unable to impact on decisions made and as a
consequence had to witness patients suffering. Doctors, however, also experienced
constraints and had difficulty exercising moral agency because of the hierarchy existing
within hospitals. In a study analysing women physicians' narratives, Sorlie, Lindseth,
Uden and Norberg (2000) identified an 'action' and 'relation' ethic, in the physicians
moral decision making, and noted that the physicians saw the differences between nurses'
and physicians' approaches as discipline specific, rather than being related to gender.
So what can be made of this? Perhaps health care professionals are a unique group, or,
given that earlier research did identify differences in the moral decision making of
doctors and nurses, perceptions are changing. There is also the fact that there are now a
higher percentage of doctors who are women. Nonetheless it is important to note that
Gilligan's landmark study was published in 1982 and needs to be viewed in its historical
context. Her research has had an enormous impact and has influenced the thinking of, at
least, two generations. It would appear that in the field of bioethics, where health
professionals deal with real moral dilemmas, as opposed to theoretical ones, both sexes,
whether nurses or doctors, increasingly employ an ethic of care within the constraints of
their respective disciplines. This may herald a change, but not necessarily for those
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ethicists trained in traditional schools. Segal (1987) might have a point. There may be a
need for more studies in all disciplines that, rather than focusing on differences, looks at
the similarities in men and women's moral decision making.
On rereading the book for this review, one is struck by its insightfulness and brilliance.
As the women interviewed agonise over their moral and developmental dilemmas, the
reader is forced to think about their own development and where they stand on certain
moral and ethical issues. While both males and females should read the book, we believe
that it is still particularly important for males to do so for the insights they might gain.
References
Beauchamp, T. L, & Childress, J. F. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics (5th ed.). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Broughton, J. M. (1983). Women's rationality and men's virtues: A critique of gender dualism in
gilligan's theory of moral development. Social Research, 50(3), 597642.
Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York: W. W. Norton.
Erikson, E. H. (1964). Insight and responsibility. New York: W. W. Norton.
Freud, S. (1961). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (J.
Strachey, Trans. and ed.). London: The Hogarth Press.
_____(1905). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. Vol. VII.
_____(1925). Some psychical consequences of the anatomical distinctions between the
sexes. Vol. XIX.
Johnstone, M. J. (1999). Bioethics: a nursing perspective (3rd ed. ). Sydney: Harcourt Saunders.
Kerridge, I., Lowe, M., & McPhee, J. (1998). Ethics and law for the health professions.
Katoomba, New South Wales: Social Science Press.
Kohlberg, L. (1958). The development of modes of thinking and choices in years 10 to 16.
Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). The philosophy of moral development. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1986). But is it rigorous? Trustworthiness and authenticity in
naturalistic evaluation. In D. Williams (Ed.), Naturalistic evaluation (pp. 7384). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
McInerney, F. & Seibold, C. (1995). Nurses definitions of and attitudes towards euthanasia.
Journal of Advanced Nursing. 22(1), 171182.
Miller, J. B. (1976). Towards a new psychology of women. Boston: Beacon Press.
Morgan, K. P. (1988). Women and moral madness. In L. Code, S. Mullett, & C. Overall (Eds.).
Feminist perspectives: Philosophical essays on methods and morals (pp. 146167). Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Oberle, K., & Hughes, D. (2001). Doctors' and nurses' perceptions of ethical problems in end-oflife decisions. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 33(6) 705715.
Pfitzner, J. (1988). Australian parables. Adelaide, SA: Lutheran Publishing House.
Piaget, J. (1965). The moral judgment of the child. New York: The Free Press.
Piaget, J. (1968). Six psychological studies. New York: Viking.
Pollak, S., & Gilligan, C. (1982). Images of violence in Thematic Apperception Test stories.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 159167.
Preston, N. (1996). Understanding ethics. Sydney: The Federation Press.
Segal, L. (1987). Is the future female? Troubled thoughts on contemporary feminism. London:
Virago Press.
Sorderberg, A. & Norberg, A. (1993). Intensive care: Situations of ethical difficulty. Journal of
Advanced Nursing, 18, 20082014.
Sorlie, V. Lindseth, A. Uden, G. & Norberg, A. (2000). Women physicians' narratives about being
in ethically difficula situations in paediatrics. Nursing Ethics, 7, 4762.
Tarnas, R. (1991). The passion of the Western mind: Understanding the ideas that have shaped
our world view. New York: Ballantine Books.
Uden, G., Norberg, A., Lindseth, A., & Marhaug, V. (1992). Ethical reasoning in nurses' and
physicians' stories about care episodes. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 17, 10281034.
Walker, R., Miles, S., Stocking, C., & Siegler, M. (1991). Physicians' and nurses' perceptions of
ethical problems on general medical services. Journal of Genera Internal Medicine, 6,
424429.
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DARREL N. CAULLEY is based at the Institute for Education


(Bundoora) at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He was Founding
President for three years of the Association for Qualitative Research.
Darrel was originally a statistician who forsook this for qualitative
research methodology. His current interest is the rigour of qualitative
methodology.
Contact details:
Darrel N. Caulley
Institute for Education
La Trobe University
Victoria 3086
Australia
Email: d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au

CARMEL SEIBOLD is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing,


Faculty of Health Sciences at Australian Catholic University. Carmel's
current research interests are in the area of women's health, including
midwifery.
Contact details:
Carmel Seibold
Senior Lecturer
School of Nursing
Faculty of Health Sciences
Australian Catholic University
St Patricks Campus
115 Victoria Parade
Fitzroy, Victoria 3065
Phone: +61 3 9953 3186
Fax: +61 3 9953 3355
Email: c.seibold@patrick.acu.edu.au

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Handbook of Ethnography

Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland and Lyn Lofland
(Editors)
Sage, London, 2001, ISBN 0-7619-6480-0, 507 pages, hardback

TITLE 2:

Quick Ethnography

W. Penn Handwerker
Altamira, Walnut Creek, California, 2001, 298 pages, paperback

Writing about ethnography, while not particularly difficult, is challenging inasmuch as


the topic defies attempts to draft a succinct and encompassing definition. Practitioners
themselves spend an inordinate amount of time debating the epistemological and
hermeneutic implications of their work, perhaps increasingly so over the past 15 years.
Given this setting the editors of Handbook of Ethnography have chosen wisely in
charting their way through the unsettlingly complex landscape of contemporary
ethnography.
Contributors throughout the book have mostly avoided attempts to present the reader with
an array of guidelines, of manual-like approaches to undertaking ethnography. Given that
this has been undertaken in numerous other texts they have instead focused their attention
on taking the reader on an odyssey of the history and development of ethnography, from
its nascent state early in the 20th century to the contemporary. Most engagingly, however,
this is delivered in a manner that portrays ethnography as an emergent, dynamic practice,
as an exploration of how best to explore, to inquire and to understand cultures and sub
cultures, and why this needs to be done. Chapter headings and authors appear to have
been carefully chosen to highlight the complex array of methods, of discipline-specific
issues, of tensions, of reasoning underlying certain methodologies, and of how seemingly
diametrically opposed views on methodologies can be not simply accommodated within
the practice of ethnography, but be an indication of the very feature that good
ethnographies seek to highlight in their participant community: that of multiple realities.
The practice of ethnography is now so multivariate, undertaken for so many different
reasons, among such disparate groups, communities and cultures, by individuals whose
own locatedness is itself clearly a major influence on their research outcomes, that neat
categorisations are not really feasible.
Having acknowledged the differences and tensions within the field of ethnography, there
is nonetheless a commonality of approach that marks the work of the ethnographer and

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sets it apart from other qualitative methods, and it is this that the editors have set out to
elucidate in this book. Its contents are arranged in three broad sections.
The first explores the origins of ethnography, and the influence of key individuals and
agencies in establishing ethnography together with the ideas and concepts that inform
ethnographic research. The editors have wisely eschewed attempts to provide a
comprehensive coverage of the vast range of themes, topics and problems within the field
of ethnography, instead selecting essays that discuss the significant epistemological and
methodological issues that inform varieties of contemporary ethnographic work. It should
be stated that the editors have restricted coverage primarily to the influence and impact of
the British and American ethnographic movements of last century, certainly a limitation
but an understandably pragmatic one.
Accordingly The Chicago School of Ethnography examines the heyday of the famous
school based in the University of Chicago, and its Herculean influence on the theory and
practice of sociology between 1892 and 1942. Mary Jo Deegan suggests that a small
group of leading academics were involved either directly or indirectly in the drafting of a
core of ethnographies that set the scene, or the pattern of the ethnographic tapestry, as she
terms it, that was woven within the school, and ultimately beyond it, in subsequent years.
Sharon Macdonald traces the concurrent development of British Social Anthropology and
the role of key figures, most notably Malinowsky. Her chapter includes a discussion of
one of the contentious issues of anthropology, that of complicity in the colonial agenda of
British and other administrations of the time. Macdonald argues that, due to their attempts
to understand the interactions of the communities being subdued and organised by
colonial powers from their own perspective, The predilection of anthropologists for
showing how native custom made sense, and even could be regarded as rational
was fundamentally at variance with this [colonial view]. As Malinowski put it, the
central goal of ethnography was to grasp the natives point of view, his relation to life, to
realise his vision of his world (1922, p. 25, emphasis in original).
While the focus of ethnographic research has moved on from Malinowskis native to
the more generic, less distant community, his fundamental premise remains surprisingly
relevant. In a subsequent chapter, Into the Community, Lodewijk Brunt explores
concepts of community and its relationship to place, as the focus of the ethnographer.
Brunt carefully exposes the myth of the modern location-based community as something
largely imagined, having been replaced by other bases for community, nonetheless
promoting community as the most appropriate context for the ethnographers focus.
Perhaps the most engaging chapter within the first section is Paul Rocks on Symbolic
Interactionism, the almost satirical name applied to a style of sociological reasoning and
methodology that evolved in the Chicago School during the 1920s. It is engaging in part
because it is more than simply an analysis of the concepts and methods associated with its
topic; it accurately captures something of the frightening experience that must be endured
by all novice ethnographers because of the very nature of ethnography. Given, as Rock
suggests, that the prime ethnographic maxim is that one cannot know what one is
exploring until it has been explored, there is a disturbing period of confusion and
muddle, a lack of purpose and direction and a sense acquired at some point that there
may be something interesting found for many people engaging in ethnography. For the
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seasoned researcher this is familiar territory but in the novice it can generate something
akin to panic.
This, together with Rocks use of Graham Wallas question, How do I know what I think
until I see what I say? (Weick, 1995, p. 12) captures the fundamental emergent element
of ethnography that so differentiates it from positivist research. Discussions such as these,
located as they are within broader epistemological, methodological and conceptual
concerns of ethnography, are critical in a handbook of ethnography, as the editors have
so aptly titled it. Not everyone who reads this book will be an experienced researcher, a
seasoned ethnographer untroubled by the self-doubt that can plague the lesser mortal
immersed in the uncertainties of ethnography. While the book makes no claims to be a
guide on how to conduct ethnographic research, it is wholly appropriate that the
experience of undertaking ethnography is discussed as that is itself a critical aspect of the
evolving discipline. It is a theme further addressed from a range of perspectives in the
first chapter of Part Three in the book, and to some extent in Charmaz and Mitchells
chapter entitled Grounded Theory in Ethnography.
Part Two of the Handbook of Ethnography examines sectors within which ethnography
has made, and continues to make contributions, and explores the manner in which
ethnography fashions such objects of research and is in turn itself fashioned by the object
and its setting. The chapters in this section focus on medicine and health, education,
crime and deviance, paid employment, childhood, material culture, cultural studies,
communication and visual communication. It is perhaps one of the shortcomings of the
book that the growing role, and increased potential, of ethnography within the arena of
international aid is not addressed. This may be partially due to the pragmatic response of
editors trying to present a workable tome on a vast and shifting topic, but it is somewhat
disappointing that it does not engage in discussion of one of the growth areas of
ethnography. Similarly Bloors Ethnography of Health and Medicine, while interesting
and relevant, lacks comprehensiveness for a field wherein the role, and impact, of
ethnography has been extensive and varied. Nonetheless the section is insightful, and the
editors acknowledge the difficulty of the task set for authors in this section in achieving a
degree of coverage that does justice to the dimensions of ethnographic application.
Part Three is more devoted to the debates about the methods that underpin ethnography,
how these have developed, and their continuing influence on the practice and theoretical
bases of ethnography. Arguably the editors have been more successful in achieving their
(albeit broad) goal in this section than in the previous section. Authors here discuss
methodologies employed by ethnographers, not as a manual of instruction, but rather in a
detailed and reflective manner that explores problems and issues associated with
ethnography as practice. Christopher Wellin and Gary Alan Fine present a fascinatingly
grounding account of the realities of engaging in ethnography in their chapter entitled
Ethnography as Work. Similarly, Elizabeth Murray and Robert Dingwall dredge the
ethical and political implications associated with ethnographic fieldwork, in their
particularly insightful chapter on the Ethics of Ethnography. Their analysis of the
contributions of feminist and postmodernist critics of ethnography should be essential
reading for every student ethnographer before taking to the field.

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The Handbook of Ethnography makes a fine effort of presenting the critical themes and
issues in contemporary ethnography despite the obvious challenge presented by the
variety of methodologies and applications relevant to the field. One of the features that is
considered characteristic of ethnography by the contributors throughout the book is
prolonged immersion in the participant community. The threat to this by fashionable
modern funding arrangements and political/economic doctrines is discussed briefly by
Wellin and Fine in their chapter in Part Three. More than ever before the pressure of time
and money on ethnographers is forcing them to restrict their fieldwork duration and, as a
result, their depth of immersion in their participant communities. This pressure can
translate into a departure from basic ethnographic tenets such as prolonged engagement,
or limit attempts to experience, or at least explore, the world as the subject experiences it.
In a recent book entitled Quick Ethnography, W. Penn Handwerker attempts to address
the time constraint confronting many social scientists who cannot afford the relative
luxury of a year in the field. While Handwerker has accurately identified this problem
and the many disciplines for whom it poses methodological challenges, it is hard to
reconcile the methodologies he proposes with the common themes emerging throughout
the Handbook of Ethnography. Handwerkers approach includes numerous positivist
strategies, including identification of variables, use of semistructured interviews, research
process sequencing, and analysis of data that is numerically based. His approach is geared
more to gathering data on predetermined topics in a given community in a short space of
time, but without any acknowledgement of the locatedness of the observer. This exposes
the researcher to a risk of identifying phenomena, events or concepts among the
community without reference to their context, their local meaning, meaning which
suitably empirical methods would help determine. As Rock states in his chapter on
Symbolic Interactionism, Ethnography needs an empirical approach. There is a need to
remain open to features that cannot be listed in advance of the study, and to ground
phenomena observed in the field (p. 30). Handwerkers argument is one of pragmatism,
that given the constraints on researchers to undertake qualitative research of a high
standard, one should adopt whatever methods are going to get the job done quickly.
However, pragmatism comes at a cost, and in this case the cost is the ethnographic
integrity of the authors methods. While they no doubt have their place in the field of
research, calling them ethnography would be stretching the boundaries of its already
broad definition too far.
The Handbook of Ethnography is a carefully crafted demonstration that ethnographers
continue the process of further refining and rethinking their discipline. Ethnography
remains a work in progress, as is so evident from the creative and profound contributions
in the Handbook of Ethnography. Despite this, the fundamentals of ethnography remain
surprisingly intact as we set about the new millennium of ethnographic research. As
Charmaz and Mitchell state in their chapter on Grounded Theory in Ethnography,
Methods are only a means, not an end. Our subjects worlds and our renderings of them
take precedence over methods and measures. A keen eye, receptive mind, discerning ear
and steady hand bring us close to the studied phenomena and are more important than
developing methodological tools. Insightful industriousness takes an ethnographer further
than mechanistic methods.

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References
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. An account of native enterprise
and adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London and New York:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Damien Morgan, Centre for International Health, Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical
Research and Public Health, Melbourne, Australia

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Biographical Research

Brian Roberts
Open University Press, Buckingham, England, 2002, ISBN 0 -35-20286-1, 212 pages, paperback

TITLE 2: Slices of Life: Qualitative Research


Snapshots
Pam Green (Editor)
RMIT University Press, Melbourne, Australia, 2002, ISBN: 0-86459-154-3, 188 pages, paperback

TITLE 3: Life History Research in Educational


Settings: Learning from Lives
Ivor F. Goodson and Pat Sikes
Open University Press, Buckingham, England, 2001, ISBN: 0-335-20713-8, 126 pages, paperback

Biographical Research is meant to be a comprehensive guide to major issues in the study


of lives, for students and researchers in the social science and related fields. It covers a
range of disciplines, how they are increasingly influencing each other and key issues of
analysis and methodology appropriate to the study of lives. It doesnt aim for precise
definitions but provides sufficient insights to allow individual researchers to perhaps
blend interrelated approaches to the study of individuals.
The first two chapters outline the methodological and theoretical issues and approaches
involved in biographical research and provide brief overviews of uses of biographical
research in education, oral history, health and ageing, feminist inquiry, narratives of the
body and sexuality, and autobiography and biography.
Most of the next eight chapters include a case study and an excellent recommended
reading section, which give sufficient details to whet ones appetite to delve deeper into
the recommended writers works.
These chapters examine autobiography and biography; auto/biography and sociology;
oral history; the narrative analysis of lives; memory and autobiography, and ethnography
and biographical research.
An interesting design feature of the book is the inclusion of about five boxes per chapter
containing summaries of books and sometimes quotes, pertinent to the concepts being
examined. This technique manages to make more readable an intensive text thick with
references.
A criticism of the book is the lack of an author page index. Although it has an extensive
reference section, the reader has to wade through the book in most cases to find where an
author is cited because the index fails to list all the authors referred to in the book. Having
discovered the citation in the reference section, there is no easy way to find it in the text.
An example is the lack of reference in the index to Ellis, Bochner or Reed-Danahay,
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exponents of the developing field of autoethnography, nor the term itself. This is a
significant oversight for a book intended as a guide for students and researchers. The
glossary could also have been more valuable had it been extended to include many of the
newer forms of biography.
These criticisms aside, I found it to be a very comprehensive summary of the field of
biographical research.
In closer detail, examining a specific area of biographical research, Life History Research
In Educational Settings: Learning from Lives opens with a brief chapter Developing Life
Histories, exploring the case for its increasing popularity and suitability to educational
settings where the authors argue that readable and accessible life history accounts enable
informants, readers and researchers to gain a recognisable impression of how particular
lives are lived and expressed in day-to-day contexts.
Chapter 2 Techniques for Doing Life History examines the specifics of negotiating
access and collaboration; data collection, interviewing techniques, respondent validation
and working with data through stages of transcribing, analysis and its presentation.
Chapter 3 What have you got when youve got a life story? examines life history from
the perspective of the life storyteller and from that of the life historian. It looks at the
basis questions of 'What have you got when youve got a life story? and What do you
do to turn it into a life history?
Chapter 4 Studying Teachers Life Histories and Professional Practice, is about the
same length as the other chapters and almost 50% of this section is devoted to a case
study of introducing computers into a teachers life. The difficulty with this kind of
example is that given the restrictions of space in such a book, it must be compressed in
nature. It is a pity that the book argues that life histories must have great detail about the
environment in which the teacher is working, entwining, if possible, details of both his
personal and professional lives, and then models in the space of eight pages, an example
of a life history.
The book leaves no doubt that to be a life history researcher, one needs to be insatiably
curious about other peoples lives and possess the courage to share with people
understandings of how their lives have been scripted and constructed, often without them
realising it, by the social order. The implications of being so intimately involved in
interrupting subjectivity via life history interviews, and possibly later collaborating in
redeveloping the informants story and being witness and counsellor as perhaps
unpleasant understandings are reached, requires sophisticated sensitivity and awareness
of ethical problems which may arise. In our enthusiasm for new approaches to work
closer with our subjects, we often fail to remove the rose-colored glasses and offer both
others and ourselves what can be false promises or expectations.
Chapter 6 Questions of Ethics and Power in Life History Research raises issues often
glossed over in other books encouraging people to adopt life history as a method with
emancipatory and empowering outcomes. The authors assert that such claims for life
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history research are nave and possibly ethically dubious. If this book contributes
something to this area of research, it will be to make the case for caution over
unquestioning celebration of perceived outcomes of the life history method.
It is interesting, however, that the book claims using life history as a strategy for personal
professional development by teachers has the following potential benefits: engaging in
self-reflection, enabling space to reflect, therapeutic benefits in times of crisis and
benefits from learning about school and schooling, theory and lived experience. In these
claims, I suspect the writers are also being nave. They accept that teaching is hectic
work, but state that taking time to step back and examine what they are doing will have
benefits for teachers in practice and attitude. I suspect that very few teachers will be able
to afford themselves this space, nor have the energy left over each day/week for the kind
of reflection required in life history work. In terms of affecting policy and practice, a
great many administrators and policy implementers will need to be required to read life
histories with compassion and an inherent desire to actually act on what they might
discover in the unpacking of peoples personal lives.
In summary, Life History Research in Educational Settings is an excellent text which
offers the researcher a thorough introduction not only to many of the techniques required
for life history research but importantly raises sensitivities about the passions and
purposes for which it is to be used.
A different form of detail is provided in Slices of Life: Qualitative Research Snapshots
which gains its title from the understanding that selected depictions of peoples lives are
provided within the text and can viewed as slices or snapshots of their lives. What any
slice or photograph looks like, depends as much on the perspectives and techniques of the
cutter/photographer as those of the subjects of the research.
Colleagues from the same institution wrote a series of monographs for research
colleagues and in particular for research students and from these the book emerged. Part
of the Qualitative Research Methods series, it is intended primarily to assist postgraduate
research students to understand various qualitative research methods and enable them to
choose the most appropriate methods for their research. It provides an overview of five
qualitative approaches to research: naturalistic inquiry, case study, narrative-based
approaches including biography and autobiography, historical research and collaborative
research.
Each of the five approaches is developed by the contributions of two or three authors who
depict their theoretical perspectives and illustrate and reflect on an instance of their
research. Thus 13 chapters elaborate and detail in relatively simple and elegant language,
ways of theorising and implementing quite different approaches to getting at truths (even
though there may be multiple realities in these) at various points in peoples lives.
What budding researcher will fail to read the chapter by Damon Cartledge, The Paradox
of Paradigm: What They Didnt Tell You About Doing Research? He reveals great
advice for those beginning their work in this area, particularly that of being not-

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prepared because the great adventure of naturalistic inquiry is that no-one knows what
will be encountered when they begin the journey.
Jenny Martins Life History Methodology draws on her doctoral work on the life
history of a 70-year-old Australian of Chinese Malaysian background. In 13 pages she
manages to explore interpretive interactionism theory, the nine steps she used to gather
her subjects life history, the progressive-regressive analysis method that framed the story
within its historical context. She examines how interesting aspects of the subjects story
were excluded at his request and the effect this had on reliability, validity and ethics.
I believe that the book will serve to meet the needs of those for whom it is intended by
virtue of the range of examples of qualitative research examined. It is pleasing to witness
an all-Australian book of this nature being published. One thing missing, however, which
would be exceptionally valuable to those for those investigating these areas, is an index.

Darren Adams, Institute for Education, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

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TITLE: Internet Communication and Qualitative


Research: A Handbook for Researching Online
Chris Mann and Fiona Stewart
Sage, London, 2000, ISBN 0-7619-6627-7, 248 pages

As the use of the Internet for communication continues to grow in areas relevant to
diverse groups of people ranging from the business environment through to social
interaction, it is not surprising to find a book such as Internet Communication and
Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online that explores the effectiveness
of using the Internet for conducting research. The Internet has become a valuable
resource not only for locating existing literature but also for obtaining relevant and timely
information.
It was difficult to ascertain the authors strengths, particularly in the area of computer
literacy. The back cover stated that Chris Mann is on the faculty of Social and Political
Sciences at Cambridge University and that Fiona Stewart is Director of Real World
Research and Communications in Australia. Their acknowledgement to a technical
consultant together with their simple approach when dealing with Internet technology
suggest two things. Firstly, that the authors were not computer and Internet experts
themselves and, secondly, that their intended audience would be researchers with
minimal Internet knowledge.
There are 10 chapters in this book beginning with practical and technical introductions
that define terms such as qualitative research and Internet communication which uses
computer mediated communication (CMC). The explanations are kept simple and
tailored for readers that may be novices not just in computer literacy but also in the area
of qualitative research.
This book explores ways that different types of services available via the Internet, for
example: email, online conferencing, chat and focus group facilities, can be used
effectively in conducting qualitative research online. With this in mind the authors have
devoted a concise chapter to addressing the ethical, confidentiality, security and legal
issues pertinent within an online environment. They focus on how netiquette can be
observed by outlining specific guidelines when communication is one-to-one (like email,
chat), one-to-many (like mailing lists and newsgroups) and many-to-many (like real-time
chat focus groups) (p.59).

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Several chapters are devoted to the various methods that may be used for gathering data
online for qualitative research. Subheadings are used extensively throughout these
chapters allowing the reader to quickly locate particular methods of interest. Each method
is explained before addressing their advantages and disadvantages when applied online.
Emphasis is placed on online focus groups; their practical application and their
drawbacks particularly in the area of participant verification as well as cultural and
gender biases. The authors argue that although the data collected by online focus groups
may be imperfect it is still an efficient and highly cost-effective mechanism for gathering
detailed data (p. 125).
The suitability of CMC for conducting online interviews is discussed and suggestions are
made for developing interviewing strategies for both one-to-one interviews and group
discussions. However, the authors choose to remain neutral when determining whether
using CMC, as an interviewing medium, would serve as a suitable method for gathering
data.
Due to my computer industry background, my personal challenge in reading this book
initially was to persist through its simplistic approach to computer and Internet
technology. Despite this, I was quickly captivated when reading the chapters that focused
on using online tools for gathering data in qualitative research. This may be attributed to
my personal interest in qualitative research as well as my already constant use of the
Internet. Although this book has focused on methods that are commonly used in
qualitative research it attempts to extend the versatility of these methods by suggesting
practical applications of online services. This online method of collecting data may
provide a useful resource when conducting qualitative research by taking advantage of an
environment where people are increasingly dependent and entranced by the Internet.

Luisa Signor, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia

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TITLE: A Students Guide to Methodology


Peter Clough and Cathy Nutbrown
Sage, London, 2002, ISBN 0-7619-7422-9, 212 pages, paperback

The brightly coloured, well-designed front cover of this text, gives a quote from Norman
Denzin, the well-known American qualitative writer and editor, who states: a
thoughtful, well-crafted, easily accessible book. It will be a treat to teach from
This British book is unique in that it is solely devoted to methodology and does not have
a title like Introduction to Research Methods, though it is related to books which have
such a title. The book does not deal with research methods in any detail as the authors
state that there are already many excellent books widely available, and they give an
extensive annotated list of such books in an appendix. The book has grown directly out of
research teaching sessions led by the authors with Masters and PhD students over the last
ten years, and so the book is designed for such students.
The book is designed neither for qualitative or quantitative methodology but for both. In
fact the book discusses methodology at a fairly general level such that the words
qualitative and quantitative do not enter into the discussion. The book assumes little
prior knowledge of either methodology or methods.
A feature of the book is the extensive activities and readings throughout the book so that
the book is effectively a course in developing critical research sensibility. In fact the book
would make an excellent text for a course in research methodology for students doing a
thesis or dissertation. In relation to the activities the authors state:
we would urge readers to record responses to some of the activities in a research journal;
we should expect that some of this writing would find its way in some form into your
final dissertation or thesis. We estimate that if you carry out the activities as we suggest
throughout this book you will write around 5,000 words which can be used as part of the
articulation of the methodology of your study (p. ix).
An important feature of the book is its interactive nature. Our own work with students
studying for Higher and Research degrees leads us to believe that it is through responding
to text as well as reading those texts that prompts their thinking. So, we suggest that, as you
begin to read this book, you also begin a research journal. Every chapter in the book
includes activities designed to help you to reflect on the ideas we are discussing. Many
activities ask you to respond, in writing, to a particular statement or article and at some
points in the book we suggest that you make an observation or reflect on a particular
scenario. These can all be recorded in your research journal. (p. x)

Wilfred Carr, in the foreword, sees methodology as a discipline in its own right (p. vii):

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In educational research and, more generally, in the social sciences, methodology is taken
to be a discipline whose function is to examine the underlying rationale for the methods
which produce valid knowledge. In this sense, methodology aims to prescribe what are
justifiable methods and procedures that ought to be used in the generation and testing of
valid knowledge.

Carr also points out that as methods and research procedures rest on the prescriptions of
methodology, so in turn methodology rests on philosophy. He states (p. vii):
Methodology then presupposes a particular kind of relationship between philosophy and
research in which one (philosophy) is able to judge and validate the claims to knowledge
advanced by the other (research). Just as research methods are justified by methodology, so
research methodologies are justified by philosophy.

Chapter 1 is concerned with the question of what is research. This is a somewhat abstract
question and the chapter treats it very abstractly without reference to the concrete. The
authors see all social research as purposive, persuasive, political and from a particular
position. They indicate that research is not research if it does not bring about some
change: change in the researcher, change in the researched, change in the user of
research. And since all social research takes place in policy contexts of one form or
another, research itself must therefore be seen as inevitably political. The authors remind
the reader that research is also a moral act in that the researcher holds responsibility for
ensuring that resulting change is for the better; in this sense researchers work for the
social good.
In this chapter the authors also indicate that they are against the idea of choice between
paradigms and they believe in a combination of paradigms which makes use of the most
valuable features of each. I do not agree with the authors on this as they fail to realise that
the word paradigm, as originally introduced by Thomas Kuhn (1962) in his famous
book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, means that paradigms are incommensurable,
and that it is not a matter of picking and choosing from paradigms. At the end of the
chapter the authors remind the reader: If you have worked through the activities in this
chapter, making notes and composing paragraphs as we have suggested, you will have
written around 2,000 words which can be later incorporated in your dissertation or thesis
(p. 19).
One of the purposes of A Students Guide to Methodology is to help students to untangle
the connection between methods and methodology, and so help them to make their
methodology preconceptions more explicit and more open to critical reflection. One of
the learning objectives of the key second chapter, titled What is Methodology?, is to
eliminate the confusion between methods and methodology. I do not think that the
chapter achieves this objective very successfully. While the chapter gives a very
illuminating discussion of methodology, the following distinction made by the authors is
not very helpful or informative: We suggest that, at its simplest, this distinction can be
seen in terms of methods as being some of the ingredients of research, whilst
methodology provides the reasons for using a particular research recipe (p. 22).

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However, as the authors point out, trying to produce a definitive definition of


methodology is rather like trying to catch water in a net.
The book stresses that it is not so much a case of choosing methods as making
specifically crafted tools for a specifically generated set of questions which respond to a
particular problem (p. 29). This theme is addressed through various examples in the
book.
The authors take a wide view of methodology and do not see it confined to the
methodology chapter of a thesis, but see it as evident throughout the thesis. They state,
The relationship of research questions to literature review is a matter of methodology;
the relationship of literature review to fieldwork is a methodological issue; the
relationship of the field work to the analysis of data is a methodological concern; the
relationship of the framework for analysis to the research report is methodological (p.
31).
The authors talk about the arrest of experience which means that research requires
researchers to step outside their everyday experience of people, objects and places, and
subject them to different sorts of examination. The authors state:
Whatever actual methods are ultimately employed in a study, we suggest that the arrest of
experience present in all research studies can be characterised by four forms of radical
enquiry. These are radical looking, radical listening, radical reading and radical
questioning. (p. 23)

These four forms are treated in Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively.


The authors explain: Radical looking is the means by which research process makes the
familiar strange, and gaps in knowledge are revealed (p. 23). Researchers need to look
beyond and transform their current knowledge. They need to be systematically informed
by perspectives outside of their normal vision; what is already known about the topic.
Radical listening is described as follows:
Radical listening, then, involves working out positionality. This means trying to understand
something of what lies behind what is said by research subjects and written by other
researchers; trying to understand this in terms of the speakers/authors intentions; and
trying to understand what this means within their particular social frameworks. If you
accept our argument in Chapter 1 that all research is political, then it follows that whatever
evidence you take from research subjects, or other research writers, embodies a particular
political position (however implicit this may be). This is what we mean here by voice. (p.
24)

In Chapter 4 the voices of researchers and that of research participants are discussed. This
forced me to think about my own voice as a researcher in the research I had done. It made
me realise that it was true what the authors were saying. That my own identity as a person
was a driving force in my own choice of research foci and that my own voice was part of
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my research reports. In the words of the authors, What we do and how we do it is


informed by who we are, how we think, our morals, our politics, our sexuality, our faith,
our lifestyle, our childhood, our race, our values. In other words, we are (as
researchers) our own blueprints for our research methodology (p. 70).
The authors state, Radical reading provides the justification for the critical adoption or
rejection of existing knowledge and practices (p. 25). Radical reading is a process which
exposes the purposes and positions of texts and practices. This process is inseparable
from radical looking and radical listening, but what distinguishes radical reading is the
notion of criticality (p. 25). Chapter 5 gives some good questions the reader of the
literature on a research topic can ask themselves in preparing to write a critical literature
review.
According to the authors radical questioning lies at the heart of a thesis and reveals not
only gaps in knowledge but also why and how particular answers might be morally and
politically necessitated (p. 25). They say that, at a minimum, there are three types of
questions: Personal questions which researcher must ask of themselves about what drives
their research; research questions; and field questions which are the question asked in
the field. Chapter 6 deals with questions in relation to the design and use of interviews
and questionnaires.
In generating research questions the authors use what they call the Russian doll
principle and the Goldilocks test. The authors describe the former as follows:
Applying the Russian doll principle means breaking down the research question from the
original statement to something which strips away the complication of layers and
obscurities until the very essence the heart of the question can be expressed. This may
well mean phrasing and rephrasing the question so that each time its focus becomes
sharpened and more defined just as a Russian doll is taken apart to reveal finally a tiny
doll at the centre. (pp. 3334)

After this the generated questions can then be subjected to the Goldilocks test which is a
metaphor for thinking through the suitability of the research questions for a particular
researcher in a particular setting at a particular time. Like in the Goldilocks story the
questions are: Is the study too big? or Is the study too hot? These questions will
enable us finally to identify those questions which might be just right for investigation
at this time, by this researcher in this setting (p. 34).
Chapter 7 is about research design. The authors describe the purpose of this chapter as
follows:
What we want to demonstrate in this chapter is how our definition of social research as
persuasive, purposive, positional and political together with our four processes of radical
enquiry are integral to research design and planning and how, if these are held central in the
researchers thinking, they will act as prods for the ongoing critique of any research plan
as it is being developed. (p. 136)

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A feature of this chapter is what the authors call the Research Planning Audit which is a
tool designed to help the thesis student devise their research plan and then subject it to
some critical reflection. I would recommend this audit to all students.
Reporting research is dealt with in Chapter 8. This chapter asks the student to evaluate
two research reports in terms of their qualities of persuasion, purpose, position and the
extent to which they are political. In making research public the authors show that it is
necessary also to express the ways in which the four processes of radical enquiry (radical
looking, listening, reading and questioning) have shaped the study. Ultimately the
research report should not only tell the story but also justify the enquiry (p. 156). The
chapter finishes with an extremely small section on the writing aspects of a thesis or
research report.
The purpose of the final, very brief chapter is to help the student get on with the
completion of their thesis and to make use of all the thinking that has been done in
working through the activities of the book. This thinking will have been recorded in the
students research journal which the authors estimate will be 5,000 words in length, some
of which will find its way into the students thesis. So the authors suggest the student go
through the journal with highlighter pens or post-it notes to identify those parts of the
journal which are important and could possibly go into the thesis. The student might use
additional notes in the research journal such as use in the literature review or include in
the discussion of the research questions. The authors suggest the possibility of creating
an index of these important parts of the journal. A timetable of tasks in doing the thesis in
the next year is also suggested as important to do.
The book has a few basic ideas which are recycled and reiterated throughout the book. It
has a clear writing style and is easy to follow. I highly recommend the book for thesis
students. While students could work through the book on their own, I think it would best
be used with a group of students, so that they can discuss and interact over their answers
to the activities distributed throughout the book.
Reference
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Darrel N. Caulley, Institute for Education, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

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TITLE: The Qualitative Inquiry Reader


Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (Editors)
Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 2000, ISBN 0-7619-2492-2, 399 pages, paperback

Reading The Qualitative Inquiry Reader is an intriguing way to encounter the


extraordinary interdisciplinary diversity and multiplicity of research conducted over the
last seven years, that still fits loosely under the umbrella term 'qualitative inquiry'. The
editors' introduction sets out the threefold goals of the Reader: To introduce cutting edge
work in qualitative inquiry; to present a critical framework for interpreting such work;
and to show how reflexive methodological work can contribute to critical, political, and
moral discourse (p. ix). These goals reflect Denzin and Lincoln's understanding of
qualitative inquiry as:
a civic, participatory, collaborative project, a project that joins the researcher with the
researched in an ongoing moral dialogue [that] has its roots in liberation theology, neoMarxist approaches to community development, and human rights activism (Kemmis &
McTaggart, 2000, p. 568). This project presumes a moral ethic provides the foundation
for social criticism and social action. As a cultural critic, the researcher is anchored in a
specific community of moral discourse. The moral ethnographer is politically engaged. (pp.
ixx)

Denzin and Lincoln regard the 20 readings, drawn from issues of the Qualitative Inquiry
(QI) journal (19952001), as illustrative of the seventh (and future) historical moments in
the complex sociocultural field of qualitative research, defined by the doubt that any
discourse has a privileged place (Richardson, 1991, p. 173). In the seventh moment:
there is a pressing demand to show how the practices of critical, interpretive qualitative
research can help change the world in positive ways. It is necessary to examine new ways
of making the practices of critical qualitative inquiry central to the workings of a free
democratic society. This is the charge of the QI Reader. (p. xii)

I welcome such goal and project setting as strong arguments for conceptualising and
addressing the so what questions of qualitative inquiry, by prioritising the socially
relevant, the critical, ethical and democratic. Consequently, informing perspectives on
human experience naturalistic, holistic and interpretive perspectives, all part of the
narrative turn in qualitative inquiry are enhanced and problematised in a field that is
inherently political and shaped by multiple ethical and political positions (p. x).
The 20 papers reflect the ways researchers are implementing the narrative turn in their
writing (p. xii). The papers are grouped and introduced in five main sections: Reflective
Ethnography; Autoethnography; Poetics; Performance Narratives; and Assessing the
Text. I think the first and last sections, Part One and Part Five, provide the most
substantial examples of the explosion of exploratory methodological work underway that
addresses this charge (p. xii), as quoted above. These sections are the focus of the
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remainder of this review. The much briefer examples comprising Parts Three and Four,
Poetics and Performance Narratives, are harder to represent well in the Reader format,
although they are engaging reading.
Part One: Reflexive Ethnography. Interpretive ethnographers make the world visible
through their writing practices. More specifically, reflexive ethnographers are self aware
politically and morally, privilege their own presence in their writing as part of the
inquired into, and anchor their experimental (and traditional) writing in an ongoing
dialogue with the members of a local community, thereby debunking the myth of the
lone ethnographer (pp. xii, 12). Autoethnography, Part Two, merges with Reflexive
Ethnography, but the researcher becomes the subject of the text, conducting and writing
ethnographies of their own experiences.
The shifts in different forms of writing, termed creative analytic practices by Richardson
(2000), are well illustrated by the four chapters in Part One. Their titles alone convey this:
'Research as Relationship'; 'Three Short Stories'; 'Skirting a Pleated Text: De-disciplining
an Academic Life'; and 'Circling the Text: Nomadic Writing Practices'. The last paper
(Chapter 4), by St Pierre, demonstrates that writing is a way of knowing, a method of
inquiring, not an innocent practice. It is always ethical, and always political (pp. 4). She
sets out ethical-writing practices that value disjunction, and difference, mapping shifting
understandings of self and subjectivity among older white women in a Southern
community in America, within systems of power. Adopting Foucault's (1985/1986)
practice of trying to get free of myself, of trying to think differently (p. 54) and using
writing as discovery, she takes up figurations such as the concepts of the 'fold' to explore
data, and of the nomad researcher to explore field the spaces in which our research
takes place, trying thereby to write and think outside the language of humanism (p. 61).
The six articles in Part Five: Assessing the Text illustrate multiple ways of assessing
interpretive text; the ongoing debates over what constitutes 'good' interpretation; and an
apparently agreed stance, according to the editors, Denzin and Lincoln, that:
the criteria for evaluating work in the seventh moment are moral and ethical ... (calling) for
a research model rooted in the concepts of care, shared governance, neighborliness, love,
and kindness. Such work should provide the foundations for social criticism and social
action. (Christians, 2000; Collins, 1991)
The following understandings structure the assessment process. Nothing is value-free.
Knowledge is power. Those who have the power determine what is aesthetically pleasing
and ethically acceptable. This position erases the usual distinctions between epistemology,
aesthetics and ethics. (pp. 229230)

Belgrave and Smith (Chapter 15) discuss their attempt to reconstruct and analyse the
process of conducting a collaborative, interpretive study of the experience of Hurricane
Andrew (p. 233), in Florida. The notion of 'negotiated validity' in collaborative
ethnography emerges, as they reflect on the complementary ways their own personal and
professional biographies and histories shaped their interview styles, how they attended to
and analysed data, and wrote different kinds of stories and accounts. As they conclude:
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Collaboration made it possible to identify some of the biases we brought and yielded
a richer interpretation of the hurricane experience than either of us would have produced
alone (pp. 233).
Bochner (Chapter 16 , 'Criteria Against Ourselves') challenges the very demand for
evaluative criteria, reviews the concept of alternative ethnography, and discusses
narrative as a major contributing form.
Enter narrative and what may now be called poetic social science, which represents one, not
all, of the multiple forms and purposes of alternative ethnography. [Usually] narratives
of the self which express a tale of two selves; a believable journey from who I was to
who I am, a life course re-imagined or transformed by crisis. (pp. 262263)

Chapter 17, 'Writing the Wrongs of Fieldwork: Confronting Our Own Research/Writing
Dilemmas in Urban Ethnographies', by Fine and Weis, repays careful reading. They have
written the article as a kind of methodological 'outing' an early coming out about
some of the methodological, theoretical, and ethical issues that percolate from our
fieldwork, keeping our email bills high, our nights long, our essays delayed, and our
commitments to social change and social theory in ambivalence (p. 269).
This is a chapter not to be missed. The main section headed Echoes (and Aches) in Our
Head raises deeply troubling issues and questions that the authors raise in the processes
of doing their research. For instance:
On community. Perhaps our most vexing dilemma at the moment concerns the question
What constitutes community? How do we write about communities in which we find little
sense of shared biography or vision? (p. 271)

A later subheading, When method and voice meet (p. 289), warrants further noting here,
especially given the high priority many researchers, myself included, place on individual
interviews as a research method. Furthermore, Fine and Weis's discovery in the midst of
data analysis, that collective, focus group interviews with the same urban poor produced
different, more hopeful data (were more likely to generate stories of possibility and
hope (p. 289)), brings us back full circle. We return to the threefold goals for The QI
Reader, and the editors' account of the qualitative inquiry project and charge with which
this book review began. So I'll let Fine and Weis have the last word, as well as
demonstrate the kinds of challenges The QI Reader at best has to offer its readers.
Methods are not passive strategies. They differentially produce, reveal, and enable the
display of different identities. To be more specific, if individual interviews produce the
most despairing stories, evince the most minimal sense of possibility, present identities of
victimisation, and voice stances of hopelessness, in focus groups with the same people, the
despair begins to evaporate, a sense of possibility sneaks through, and identities multiply as
informants move from worker to mother, to friend, to lover, to sister, to spiritual healer, to
son, to fireman, to once-employed, to welfare recipient. In the context of relative safety,
trust, comfort, a far more textured and less judgmental sense of self is displayed. In
these like-minded communities that come together to trade despair and build hope, we see a

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cacophony of voices filled with spirit, possibility, and a sense of vitality absent in the
individual data.
We make this point because we have stumbled again upon an issue that may appear to be
methodological but is deeply substantive and ethical. Both psychology and education have
depended religiously upon methods of individual surveys, interviews, observations, and so
on, at the cost of not seeing or hearing collectives. If, as we postulate, collectives are more
likely to generate stories of possibility and hope, then perhaps we have a social science,
painted in despair, that is as much a methodological artifact as is a condition of daily life in
poor communities. (p. 289)

References
Christians, C. (2000). Ethics and politics in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln
(Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 133155). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Collins, P. H. (1991). Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1985). The history of sexuality: Vol. 2. The use of pleasure (R. Hurley, Trans.). New
York: Vintage. (Original work published 1984)
Foucault, M. (1986). The history of sexuality: Vol. 3. The care of the self (R. Hurley, Trans.). New
York: Vintage. (Original work published 1984)
Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2000). Participatory action research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S.
Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.) (pp. 567606). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Richardson, L. (1991). Postmodern social theory. Sociological Theory, 9, 173179.
Richardson. L. (2002). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 923948). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Audrey Grant, Institute for Education, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia

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TITLE: The Qualitative Dissertation: A Guide for


Students and Faculty
Maria Piantanida and Noreen B. Garman
Corwin Press (Sage), Thousand Oaks, California, 1999, ISBN 0-8039-6689-X, 273 pages,
paperback

This book takes the reader through the processes and patterns of planning, conducting and
finishing a qualitative dissertation. It combines pragmatic, prescriptive advice for
conceptualizing, proposing, writing and defending a qualitative dissertation. This
pragmatic advice, however, is conceptualized within cycles of discursive deliberation.
Cycles of deliberation represent an evolutionary learning process that is cyclical,
iterative, deliberative and discursive. Iterative cycles refers to the nonlinear learning helix
of ever-increasing understanding from different vantage points developed through a
cyclical interplay between private ruminations, and sharing ones ideas with others in
formal and informal settings. These assumptions help in understanding why qualitative
dissertations are not linear processes and reinforce the principles of inductive inquiry.
Instead of proceeding from one phase to another, a qualitative dissertation involves
processes of revisiting ones thinking at each phase of the dissertation in ever-deepening
degrees. Each layer is an evolution leading to clearer conceptual connections among key
facets of the inquiry.
The first section of the book explores the notions of iterative cycles, deliberation and
discursive knowing. This sets the tone and framework for both process information and
exemplars drawn from the authors experience. In the first cycle of deliberation, Facing
the dissertation, topics of precommitment anxiety, the meaning of doctoral study, and
ways of deliberating and fostering the evolution of a topic for study are discussed, as well
as developing a personal research profile.
In Chapter 3, the second cycle of deliberation refers to the move from vague talk about
doing a dissertation to actually writing a research proposal. The focus of this chapter is
the immersion in formal discourses to formulate the intent of the study and making sense
of the existing literature. Of particular interest in this chapter is the different approaches
to examining and understanding different types of discourse, and the vulnerability of the
student when having to both challenge their own ideas, and challenge the literature.
Chapters 4 and 5 cover crafting the dissertation proposal, including strategies for refining
the study, the iterative nature inherent in being able to conceptualize and articulate the
proposal, and the structure of dissertation proposals. Also discussed in these chapters are
the issues of voice in writing, and again, the iterative and cyclical nature of revisiting the
discourse communities in order to contextualize and situate the study in relevant
discourses.
Chapter 6 is entitled Proposing the Study, and attempts to reframe issues related to the
proposal, including forming a committee, obtaining ethical approval, proposal review and
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dealing with the review outcomes, and moving forward with the study. These
considerations are addressed as separate entities but as part of the ongoing process of
deliberation and discourse.
Chapter 7 moves into Living with the Study: Generating Knowledge Through
Portrayals. This chapter addresses the fifth, and often prolonged cycles of deliberation in
which students live with the study, immersing themselves in inquiry from the time the
proposal is approved until a completed draft of the dissertation is submitted for
committee review. It is aptly described, as dissertation studies seem to take on a life of
their own, and in turn, take over the students life (p. 129). The authors attempt to
articulate and recognize the messiness and complexity of this phase by exploring the
different facets of living with the study: immersing oneself in the inquiry, amassing the
study of the inquiry, slogging through the stuff, coming to a conceptual leap, and crafting
portrayals. Central to this chapter is the generation of knowledge through the crafting of
portrayals or the meanings to be communicated, and the format used to represent those
meanings. Portrayals must be congruent with the epistemological assumptions of the
research traditions and methods guiding the study, and should include the articulation of
the essence and salient features of the phenomenon and context under study. In other
words the format and meaning of the dissertation are inextricable and should be able to
capture the essence of the phenomenon under study. Also critically important is the role
of reflection as recollection, as introspection and as conceptual reflection.
This is an extraordinarily thoughtful and provocative book. Rather than a pragmatic
listing of the activities, phases and strategies inherent in the dissertation process, the
authors combine a conceptual framework with pragmatic considerations. The conceptual
framework of cycles of deliberation and the notion of discourse communities reflects the
principles of inductive inquiry extremely well. However, this conceptualization highlights
and illuminates the practical details and common pitfalls in doing a qualitative
dissertation and has the effect of reframing and reconceptualizing them in a constructive
manner. The assumptions underlying the conceptual approach are clearly articulated and
consistent. Additionally, the personal exemplars, both positive and negative, provide
concrete examples both of the problems and the solutions that many students face in their
dissertation experience.
This book has been used as a basis of several dissertation workshops for doctoral students
from the human sciences. Without exception, the students have been stimulated and
motivated by it and have easily recognized their own situations in it. More importantly,
however, it has provided a foundation for challenging the notion of an individualistic,
linear and mutually exclusive staged approach to qualitative dissertations. Perhaps this is
the books most important contribution. As the authors note, the dissertation occurs in
cycles of deliberation and that deliberation must be based on discourses, both within the
student and with others in the scholarly community. However, the way in which one
approaches the literature will change as one starts and comes to understand the proposal
of the study, as one is immersed in the inquiry, and as one starts to create the portrayal of
the phenomenon. Thus, the cyclical nature of qualitative dissertations is one of the most
essential, but underrated features of qualitative inquiry at the doctoral level.

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The book will attract and engage doctoral students involved in qualitative inquiry from all
human science disciplines, although the focus and examples are from the education
discipline. Nonetheless, the authors have a breadth of experience and insight that makes
their examples applicable to students from all the human sciences. Similarly, the book is
useful for supervisors as a way to help students understand why dissertation processes
take much longer, and are less linear and straightforward than one could have expected
from reading the study proposal and research protocols.
The book makes the assumption that the dissertation is, and should be, an allencompassing reality for doctoral students. While this is philosophically congruent with
the conceptual approach used by the authors, it may be somewhat threatening for those
who believe or expect that dissertation work can be compartmentalized from the rest of
ones life. Lastly, while this book is specifically qualitative, we have heard many
comments from quantitative colleagues that it is equally useful and meaningful in the
quantitative dissertation.

Jude Spiers, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing (on leave), CIHR and Killam (Hon.)
Postdoctoral Fellow, International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada

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Notes to contributors
The Qualitative Research Journal is devoted to the communication of the theory and practice of
qualitative research in the human sciences. The present plan is to bring out two issues a year.
Contributions should be no longer than 60008000 words, excluding abstract and references. Send
all contributions in Microsoft Word format by email (not a disk) to d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au.
Double-space all manuscripts, including references, notes, abstracts, quotations, figures and
tables.
In order to assist refereeing, which is anonymous, the title, the author's name and affiliation, the
corresponding author's address, telephone number, email address and biographical material (which
will accompany your article upon publication and should not exceed 50 words for a single author
and 25 words in the case of multiple authors) should be typed on a separate sheet. For refereed
articles the title page should be followed by an abstract of not more than 250 words. Because of
the diversity of material submitted to the Journal, it is suggested that authors may supply the names
and addresses of one or more potential referees. Please send a head-and-shoulders photograph(s)
(colour or black and white) of the author(s) with the name of the author written on the back of the
photograph.
The Journal uses notes rather than footnotes. Australian, UK or USA spelling may be used. Other
than spelling, the Journal uses the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association,
5th edition, 2001.
Should double or single quotation marks be used? The Journal goes against the Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association and uses single quotation marks to enclose
quotations in text that are less than 40 words. Use double quotations marks within single quotation
marks to set off material that in the original source was enclosed in single quotation marks. Do not
use quotation marks to enclose block quotations (any quotations of 40 or more words).
Below are examples of referencing:
Journal article, two authors, journal paginated by issue
Klimoski, R., & Palmer, S. (1993). The ADA and hiring process in organisations. Consulting
Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 4(2), 1036.
Book, third edition, Jr. in name
Mitchell, T., & Larson, J. R., Jr. (1987). People in organisations: An introduction to organisational
behaviour (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Edited book
Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. N. (Eds.). (1991). Children of colour: Psychological interventions with
minority youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Article or chapter in an edited book, two editors
Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism in human memory. In H. L.
Roediger III & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory & consciousness (pp. 309330). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Report available from a government printing office, government institute as group author
National Institute of Mental Health. (1990). Clinical training in serious mental illness (DHHS
Publication No. ADM 901679). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Article in an Internet-only journal
Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive emotions to optimise health and well-being.
Prevention & Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November 20, 2000, from
http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre003000a.html

Notes to contributors (1 page)

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print this page and place it on your noticeboard

AQRConference
2003
JULY 1620, SYDNEY
C A L L F O R PA P E R S
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH:
Creating Spaces for
Understanding
SUBTHEMES
Creating space for understanding
Blurring boundaries of lands and people
Creating healthy people spaces

FOR MORE INFORMATION


visit www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr

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SAGE Publications
London

Thousand Oaks

15% DISCOUNT TO
AQR MEMBERS

New Delhi

Qualitative Research Books


June 2002

Readme First for a User's Guide


to Qualitative Methods

Qualitative Inquiry Reader


Oz Author

Janice M Morse & Lyn Richards


Offering a map to show readers how
some methodological choices lead more
directly than others to particular goals,
this book provides beginning
researchers with an overview of
techniques for making data and an
explanation of the ways different tools fit
different purposes and provide different
research experiences and outcomes.
The authors clearly explain why there
are many methods and show readers
how to locate their study within that
choice. Written as a pragmatic
companion, this text will help readers get confidently and
competently started on a research path that works for their
study. Distinctive Features:
Tutorials: Provide readers with the opportunity to practice
tasks with the data provided in the Appendices or with the
reader's own data. The tutorial can be performed in
conjunction with the data provided on the CD
Non Save version of Nvivo: Provides an opportunity to try
some of the tools available in modern software by using
QSR's Nvivo product with the data from two real projects,
Barbara Lloyd's "Body Images" study based on focus groups
and semi-structured interviews with school students , and
Paul Thompson's "100 Families" life history study.
Pbk 280pp 0761918914 $84 (SI)

Qualitative Researcher's Companion :


Classic & Contemporary Readings
Michael Huberman
This book seeks to introduce readers to
selections that provide a solid
intellectual grounding in the area of
qualitative research. Thoughtfully and
painstakingly culled from over a
thousand candidate articles, The
Qualitative Researcher's Companion
examines the theoretical
underpinnings, methodological
perspectives and empirical approaches
that are crucial to the understanding
and practice of qualitative inquiry.
Incisive, provocative, and drawn from
across the many disciplines that employ qualitative inquiry,
The Qualitative Researcher's Companion is a key addition to
the bookshelf of anyone involved in the research act.
Pbk pp 076191191X $83 (SI)

Denzin N & Lincoln Y


The Qualitative Inquiry Reader offers a
selection of landmark articles from the
popular SAGE journal Qualitative
Inquiry. These collected works
introduce the necessary critical
framework that will allow scholars and
students to interpret cutting-edge work
in the field of qualitative inquiry.
The Reader includes: examples from
across the behavioural and social
sciences; is divided into five accessible
sections: reflexive ethnography,
autoethnography, poetics, performance
narratives and assessing the text; reflects the ways in which
contemporary researchers have implem ented the narrative
turn in their writing; and contains cutting-edge work by top
scholars in the field.
Pbk 320pp 0761924922 $95 (SI)

Qualitative Research and Evaluation


Methods 3ed
Patton M
The completely revised and updated edition of this
methodological classic continues to provide practical,
comprehensive and strategic guidance on qualitative design,
purposeful s ampling, interviewing, fieldwork, observation
methods, and qualitative analysis and interpretation while
integrating the extensive qualitative literature of the last
decade. It offers a wide range of examples showing the
varieties of qualitative inquiry applications and practices,
including extensive attention to mixed methods. The chapter
contrasting theoretical orientations provides a critical
explication of 16 different perspectives that can inform
qualitative research and evaluation - the most
comprehensive review yet available. The chapter on
enhancing the quality and credibility of qualitative analysis
presents a new framework for differentiating five contrasting
and competing sets of standards for judging the quality and
utility of findings. The book examines and honors both the
science and art of qualitative inquiry. The qualities that made
previous editions of this widely used book so highly valued
by both seasoned professionals and students continue to
shine through in this revision, including Patton's extensive
experience, broad perspective, inclusive sensitivity, concrete
examples, pragmatic orientation, and fine writing.
Hbk 512pp 0761919716 $154 (SI)

Available from

14 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE IF NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED

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Content Analysis Guidebook


Neuendorf K
Content analysis is one of the most important yet complex
research methodologies in the s ocial sciences. The author
provides an accessible text for upper-level undergraduates
and graduate students, comprising step-by-step instructions
and practical advice.
Pbk 350pp 0761919783 $85 (SI)

Handbook of Research Design & Social


Measurement 6ed
Miller D & Salkind N
In addition to hundreds of new references features new to
this edition include: a comprehensive introduction to
qualitative methods including a review of existing computer
applications for collecting and analyzing data; the latest
information about the use of computers and online research
techniques, including the use of the Internet to locate actual
research instruments and journal articles; updated coverage
on new scales, internal and external validity, and new
analytic techniques with extensive references on each;
abstracts, citations and subject groupings by measurement
tool of the last five years of the American Sociological
Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, and the American
Journal of Sociology; extensive coverage of how to prepare
manuscripts for publication, including a list of all journals
covered by Sociological Abstracts along with the editorial
office address and URL for each entry; new coverage of
ethical issues; expansion of social indicators to include
international coverage; discussion of the importance of policy
research with presentation and discussion of specific models
as an adjunct to both applied and basic research techniques;
and the addition of an index to facilitate the reader's ability to
quickly locate a topic.
Pbk 808pp 0761920463 $164 (SI)

Systematic Self-Observation
Rodriguez N & Ryave A
Systematic self-observation (SSO) is a valuable research
method used by social scientists to gather information about
those social actions that are hidden, restricted or subjective.
The advantage of using self-observation over another
research method, such as interviewing, for these types of
actions is that the observer in SSO is the same as the
oberver. This is the only way one can successfully measure
thoughts, emotions and other criteria that are not always
openly displayed. The authors provide a practical
explanation and instruction to carrying out an SSO study.
They include case studies of four aspects of hidden or
elusive everyday social actions: lying, telling secrets,
withholding compliments and feeling envy.
Pbk 96pp 076192308X $37.95 (SI)

Theory-Based Data Analysis For Social


Sciences
Carol S Aneshensel
The advent of complex and powerful computer-generated
statistical models has greatly eroded the former prominence
of social theory in data analysis, replacing it with an
emphasis on statistical technique. To correct this trend, Carol
S. Aneshensel presents a method for bringing data analysis
and statistical technique into line with theory. She
approaches this task by first providing an overview that
explains the connection between data analysis, statistical

technique, and theory. This section includes a description of


the elaboration model for analyzing the empirical association
between two variables by adding a "third variable" to the
analysis.
Pbk 0pp 0761987363 $91 (SI)

Interpreting Quantitative Data


Byrne D
How do quantitative methods help
us to acquire knowledge of the real
world? What are the `do's' and
`don'ts' of effective quantitative
research?
This refreshing and accessible
book provides students with a
novel and useful resource for doing
quantitative research. It offers
students a guide on how to:
interpret the complex reality of the
social world; achieve effective
measurement; understand the use
of official statistics; use social surveys; understand
probability and quantitative reasoning; interpret
measurements; apply linear modelling; understand
simulation and neural nets, and integrate quantitative and
qualitative modelling in the research process.
Jargon-free and written with the needs of students in mind,
the book will be required reading for students interested in
using quantitative research methods.
Pbk 176pp 076196262X $61 (SP)

Qualitative Research in Social Work


Shaw Ian F & Gould Nick G
Qualitative Research in Social Work edited by Ian Shaw and
Nick Gould, provides a state-of-the-art exposition and
analysis of qualitative inquiry in relation to social work.... The
book has an unusual degree of coherence for one with
several authors. The five chapters by the editors (parts one
and three) do an exceptional job of providing the necessary
background information and setting the context for the six
application chapters and of highlighting and discussing the
issues raised in those chapters. The editors are respected
scholars well-versed in the theory and practice of qualitative
research. Similarly, the contributing authors represent both
considerable experience in this field and a diversity of
interests.
Pbk 240pp 0761961828 $64 (SP)

Persuasion : Theory and Research, 2nd


Edition
OKeefe, Daniel J.
If you're searching for a
comprehensive text in persuasion
theory and research, you can find no
better resource than Persuasion.
Written in an accessible style that
assumes no special technical
background in research methods, this
volume offers a comprehensive and
critical treatment of theory and
research in persuasion. This new
edition has the same clear,
straightforward presentation and the
same broad coverage as the first
edition, and has been thoroughly

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revised to reflect developments in persuasion studies.


Pbk 300pp 0761925392 $102 (SI)

Regression Basics
Leo Kahane
"This is a good manuscript. It fills an important place in the
statistical textbook world because it does not assume a great
deal of statistical knowledge and because it explains many
complicated statistical concepts in a very straightforward and
non-jargon-filled manner. A very refreshing and quite
enjoyable read.' Lynn Sorsoli, Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University.
Although many people have PCs with software capable of
performing regression techniques, only a few know how to
capitalize on the flexibility and wide application of regression
analysis. This book shows readers how to get the most from
regression by providing a friendly, non-technical introduction
to the subject. Accessible to anyone with only an introductory
statistics background, the book begins with the simplest, twovariable linear model and gradually builds towards models of
more complexity, such as multivariate regression.
Pbk 202pp 0761924132 $77 (SI)

Interpretive Interactionism 2ed


Denzin N
The expanded and updated Second Edition includes:
information on how interpretive work can be used to further
the workings of a free, democratic s ociety; a new chapter on
interpretive criteria in the Seventh moment; a re-examination
of the key notion of thick description, in light of the narrative
and performance turns in the social sciences; new material
on multisited ethnographies, the politics of place, the
ethnoscapes of group life; links made with recent qualitative
turns, from literary ethnography to feminist, cultural, critical
race, interpretive and Foucauldian studies; and new
coverage of narratives and sacred places and new writing
forms (layered texts, poetry, short stories).
Pbk 160pp 0761915141 $69 (SI)

Embedded Case Study Methods


Scholz R & Tietje O
In an embedded case study, the starting and end point is the
comprehension of the case as a whole in its real-world
context. However, in the course of analysis the case will be
faceted either by different perspectives of inquiry or by
several s ub-units. The book presents different
methodological approaches to organize this faceting
process. It uses the power of the system approach in order
to apply methods, which allow a scientific treatment of
complex cases in a way that will be also acknowledged by
the quantitative research community. The authors emphasize
that a qualitative analysis starting from the real-world level is
an indispensable part of case analysis. Thus the book
bridges the gap between quantitatve and qualitative
approaches to complex problems when using the case study
methodology.
Pbk 288pp 0761919465 $105 (SI)

Survey Research Methods 3ed


Fowler Jr F
Popular with over 49,000 readers for giving those who want

to collect, analyze, or read about survey data a sound basis


for evaluating how each aspect of a survey can affect its
precision, accuracy, and credibility, this new Third Edition
presents the latest methodological knowledge on survey
research. New to this edition is coverage of: Improved
techniques for evaluating survey questions; The latest
options available to researchers in using the computer and
the internet for surveys; Recent methodological findings to
enhance survey research
With an emphasis on the importance of minimizing
nonsampling errors through superior question design, quality
interviewing, and high response rates, this book helps
readers understand the relationship of data collection to
figures and statistics based on the survey-and how much
confidence to place in the reported results based on this
relationship.
Pbk 180pp 0761921915 $72 (SI)

Small-Scale Research : Pragmatic Inquiry in


Social Science and the Caring Professions
Knight P
Timely, assured and written with the
needs of students uppermost, SmallScale Research is a direct,
comprehensive guide for students
doing theses, dissertations, papers
and projects. It systematically works
through the central m ethods of inquiry
and demonstrates the strengths and
weaknesses of different approaches.
The advice on when and how to use
small-scale methods is pragmatic,
recognizing that small-scale
researchers are usually short on time
and resources. Yet behind this
pragmatism is the principle that research is, above all, about
thinking. Whatever needs to be done in a research project
has to be for the purpose of providing research audiences
with the best possible answers, in the circumstances, to the
research questions. The book argues that it is not enough to
apply research methods. Sense-making and claims-making
are central to good research practice.
Pbk 240pp 0761968628 $69 (SP)

Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis


Wodak Ruth & Meyer Michael
This book is designed as an
introduction to Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA) and gives an
overview of the various theories and
methods associated with this
sociolinguistic approach. It also
introduces the reader to the leading
figures in CDA and the methods to
which they are most closely related.
The text aims to provide a
comprehensive description of the
individual methods, an
understanding of the theories to
which methods refer and a
comparative treatment of each of these methods so that
students may be able to determine which is the most
appropriate to select for their particular research question.
Given the balance between theory and application, plus the

PO Box 418 Church Pt NSW 2105 Ph: 02 9997 3973 Fax: 02 997 3185 Email: sales@footprint.com.au

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intended audience - no previous knowledge of CDA is


assumed - Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis should be
useful reading for both students and researchers in the fields
of linguistics, sociology, social psychology and the social
sciences in general.
Pbk 224pp 0761961542 $66 (SP)

Internet Research Handbook: A Practical


Guide for Students & Researchers in the
Social Sciences
O'Dochartaigh Niall
This much-needed textbook provides
clear but detailed advice in all of the
main areas of Internet research. For
those carrying out research on-line, a
number of very different sets of skills
from the conventional 'system atic way
of asking questions', is required.
Using the Internet for research
involves learning how to access the
correct sites and extract information in
the shortest possible time. It involves
maximising the possibilities of opened
up email contact with other
researchers around the world, and it involves learning about
the major databases which are devoted to the social
sciences and learning how to do the detective work
necessary to evaluate and to cite documents whose
authorship and origins are often unclear. It sets out, in clear
and simple terms, best practice in the use of the Internet as a
mainstream research resource and deals with the Internet as
a thread which runs through the entire research process,
from formulating a research question to publishing the results
of your research.
Pbk 224pp 0761964401 $66 (SP)

Introduction to Social Research :


Quantitative & Qualitative
Approaches
Punch K oz

Oz Author
The social science researcher today
needs to understand the logic of both the quantitative and
qualitative approaches to empirical research. This book
provides comprehensive coverage of both, set within a
pragmatic view of research. It is an ideal starting point for all
students and researchers in the social sciences, where you
can learn about: eveloping a model for empirical research;
the logic of quantitative research - design, data collection,
data analysis; the logic of qualitative research - design, data
collection, data analysis; mixing the methods, evaluation and
research writing
Pbk 336pp 0761958134 $61 (SP)

Doing Statistics With SPSS


Kerr A et al
Doing Statistics With SPSS is derived from the authors'
many years of experience teaching undergraduates data
handling using SPSS. It assumes no prior understanding
beyond that of basic mathematical operations and is
therefore suitable for anyone undertaking an introductory
statistics course as part of a science based undergraduate
programme. The text will: enable the reader to make
informed choices about what statistical tests to employ; what
assumptions are made in using a particular test; demonstrate

how to execute the analysis using SPSS; and guide the


reader in his//her interpretation of its output. Each chapter
ends with an exercise and provides detailed instructions on
how to run the analysis using SPSS release 10. Learning is
further guided by pointing the reader to particular aspects of
the SPSS output and by having the reader engage with
specified items of information from the SPSS results.
Pbk 224pp 0761973850 $66 (SP)

Handbook of Qualitative Research 2ed


Denzin N & Lincoln Y
Once again, editors Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln
have put together a volume that represents the state of the
art for the theory and practice of qualitative inquiry. Built on
the foundation of the landmark first edition, published in
1994, the second edition is both the bridge and the roadmap
to the territory that lies ahead for researchers across the
disciplines.
The Second Edition is a significant revision-in fact, it is
virtually a new work. It features six new chapter topics,
including, among others, autoethnography, critical race
theory, applied ethnography, queer theory, and testimonio.
Another fifteen chapters are written by new contributors. And
every chapter in the book has been thoroughly revised and
updated. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is
necessary to re-engage the promise of qualitative research
as a generative form of inquiry. The Second Edition of the
Handbook reveals how the discourses of qualitative research
can be used to imagine and create a free and democratic
society. Groundbreaking, thought-provoking, comprehensive
and featuring the contributions of a virtual Who's Who in the
human sciences, Handbook of Qualitative Research, Second
Edition is absolutely an essential text for the library of any
scholar interested in the art and science of research.
Hbk 1144pp 0761915125 $264 (SI)

Three Volume Set of the First Edition of


Handbook of Qualitative Research
Landscape of Qualitative Research : Theories & Issues
V1
Pbk 480pp 0761914331 $79 (SI)
Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry V2
Pbk 368pp 0761914358 $79 (SI)
Collecting & Interpreting Qualitative Materials Vol 3
Pbk 472pp 076191434X $74 (SI)

Handbook of Action Research : Participative


Inquiry & Practice
Reason P & Bradbury H
In the last two decades post-positivist
research has received a great deal of
attention in graduate and professional
education, reflecting contemporary
debates about how social science
ought to be practised and about the
role of the researcher in a postmodern
world. Central to this debate are the
methods and techniques that have
been developed in 'action' or
participative research, highlighting as
they do the key questions that
surround objectivity, reflexivity, ethics,
the nature of 'knowledge' and the shifting boundary between

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theory and practice. Hitherto there has been no publication


which draws together the different strands of action research,
demonstrates their diverse applications and shows their
interrelations. This major Handbook fills that gap. Farreaching in scale and scope, the volume informs readers
about the latest approaches, both quantitative and
qualitative, in social inquiry, and moves the field forward with
fresh insights and applications. Throughout, the contributing
authors grapple with questions of how to integrate
knowledge with action, how to collaborate with coresearchers in the field, and how to present the necessarily
'messy' components in a coherent fashion. The organization
of the volume reflects the many different issues and levels of
analysis represented.The Handbook is divided into four
sections, but there are important themes of thinking and
practice running throughout. Part 1, 'Groundings', reviews
the range of paradigms and metatheories, the perspectives,
values and epistemologies that inform the different practices
of action research. Part 2, 'Practices', includes chapters
representing the diverse approaches to action research and
the range of methodologies and practices which constitute
the family of action research approaches. The chapters in
the third part, 'Exemplars', show how different researchers
have applied the various different groundings and practices
in their own work. The final section, 'Skills', addresses some
of the competencies that may be required for the initiation
and conduct of research.
Hbk 512pp 0761966455 $235 (SP)

NVivo Qualitative Project Book


Bazeley P & Richards L oz

Oz Author
This book invites readers to learn how
to use qualitative data analysis software
in the context of doing their research
project. The reader follows basic steps
for creating and conducting a real
project with real data, using the newgeneration software package, QSR
NVivo. The software tools are
introduced only as needed and
explained in the framework of what is
being asked. The reader is the
craftsperson, trialling processes of
getting started, tentative interpretation,
drawing links, shaping data, and seeking and establishing
explanations and theories. The NVivo Qualitative Project
Book allows the researcher to work through their own
project, or work with data provided from a real project.
Demonstration software is provided on the enclosed CDROM.
Pbk 208pp 0761970002 $64 (SP)

Using NVivo in Qualitative


Research
Richards L

Oz Author
This is a book about using qualitative software,
for students, teachers, practitioners and participants in
qualitative research. It explores what can be done with the
latest qualitative research package, QSR NUDIST Vivo
(NVivo), described as the new generation of research
software. The book is designed to be used in learning about
what the software can do and the research strategies and
approaches it supports. Using clear language and examples
it explains each of the processes of data editing, exploration,

coding, linking and searching available with the software's


tools. The integration of these processes is explored, with
emphasis on the ways the researcher can build up a project,
and the ways webs of data are linked and understanding
developed and tested. Much more than a manual, the book
offers practical advice with each section, addressing a range
of research approaches and priorities. Includes
demonstration CD-ROM of QSR's NVivo software. The CD
carries six tutorials with detailed, step by step online
instructions, and the software's full interactive Help. It also
carries over 20 instructional movies demonstrating the
processes discussed in the book. Pbk 240pp
0761965254 $61 (SP)

Research Design in Social Research


de Vaus D
This book is intended to show social science students the
importance of attending to design issues when undertaking
social research. One of the main problems in doing practical
research is that design and structure are inappropriate for
the uses of research. They often do not support the
conclusions that are drawn from it. Several research
methods books focus on data collection strategy and
statistical analysis. While these issues are pertinent, this
book argues that the core of research methods is the
structure and design of the research. The book: Provides
students with a clear understanding of the importance of
research design and its place in the research process;
Describes the main types of research designs in social
research; Explains the logic and purposes of design to
enable students to evaluate particular research strategies;
Equips students with the design skills to operate in real
world research situations
Pbk 296pp 0761953477 $68 (SP)

Interpreting Qualitative Data 2ed


Silverman D
This a much expanded and updated
version of David Silverman's bestselling introductory textbook for the
beginning qualitative researcher.
Features of the New Edition:- Takes
account of the flood of qualitative
work since the 1990s - All chapters
have been substantially rewritten
with the aim of greater clarity- A new
chapter on Visual Images and a
considerably expanded treatment of
discourse analysis are provided- The
number of student exercises has
been considerably increased and are now present at the end
of every chapter- An even greater degree of student
accessibility: Key Points and Recommended Readings
appear at the end of each chapter and technical terms are
highlighted and appear in a Glossary- A more interdisciplinary social science text which takes account of the
growing interest in qualitative research outside sociology and
anthropology from psychology to geography, information
systems, health promotion, management and many other
disciplines - 50% longer than the First Edition Interpreting
Qualitative Data - companion volume to Silverman's Doing
Qualitative Research (Sage, 2000), which is a guide to the
business of conducting a research project, together with its
accompanying volume of key readings Qualitative Research:
Theory Method & Practice, (Sage, 1997), which provides

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further more focused material that students need before


contemplating their own qualitative research study.
Pbk 344pp 0761968652 $65 (SP)

Reflexive Methodology : Interpretation &


Research
Alvesson M & Skoldberg K
Reflexivity is an essential part of the research process. It
provides the perspective necessary for successful
interpretation of field research and the development of
insightful conclusions. In their new overview of the problems
of reflexivity and interpretation Alvesson and Sk[um]oldberg
have provided an invaluable guide to this central aspect of
research methodology.The authors review and critically
discuss the major intellectual streams, and highlight their
problems and possibilities in empirical work - hermeneutics,
critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism,
discourse analysis, geneaology and feminism. Possible
implications of different kinds of empirical work are explored.
A large part of the book is devoted to the development and
exemplification of a reflexive methodology. This draws upon
insights of how culture, language, selective perception,
subjective forms of cognition, ideology all, in com plicated
way, permeate scientific activity.The book makes explicit the
links between techniques used in empirical research and
different research traditions, making possible a theoreticallyinformed approach to qualitative research. The text helps
researchers avoid the pitfall of naivete whilst pointing the
way to a more open-minded, creative interaction between
theoretical frameworks and empirical research.
Pbk 336pp 0803977077 $72

(SP)

Developing Effective Research Proposals


Punch K
A well-constructed research plan is
vital to the successful execution of
any research project. This book
shows how to design and prepare
research proposal and present it
effectively to a university review
committee, funding body, or
commercial client. The book is
organized around three central
themes: What are research
proposals; who reads them and
why?; what general guidelines and
strategies can help students
develop a proposal; and what might a finished proposal look
like? The book will be invaluable across all areas of social
science, both basic and applied, and for students
undertaking quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method
studies. Developing Effective Research Proposals can be
used as a workbook to Keith Punch's bestselling text An
Introduction to Social Research (Sage, 1998) or as an
independent guide.
Pbk 144pp 0761963561 $48.95

(SP)

Qualitative Research through Case Studies


Travers M
Although most undergraduates are able to collect qualitative
data without too much difficulty, they are often less
successful in turning this into an interesting, theoreticallyinformed analysis.Qualitative Research through Cas e
Studies will help students improve the quality of their work
through introducing a wide range of traditions, including
interpretive approaches such as grounded theory,

dramaturgical analysis, ethnomethodology and conversation


analysis and political approaches such as critical discourse
analysis, feminism and postmodern ethnography.Each
chapter introduces the theoretical assumptions of the
tradition through discussing a number of case-studies:
classic or exemplary studies which illustrate how different
researchers have used qualitative methods in researching a
variety of topics. There are also practical hints on designing
undergraduate projects, exercises and a guide to further
reading.The book is intended for students in a wide range of
disciplines and should be particularly useful for complete
beginners who are interested in conducting qualitative
research as part of their degrees.
Pbk 208pp 0761968067 $65

(SP)

Introduction to Quantitative Research


Methods : an Investigative
Approach

Oz Author

Balnaves M et al

Introduction to Quantitative Research


Methods is a student-friendly
introduction to quantitative research
methods and basic statistics. It uses a
detective theme throughout the text and
in multimedia courseware to show how
quantitative methods have been used
to solve real-life problems. The book
focuses on principles and techniques
that are appropriate to introductory
level courses in media, psychology and
sociology. Examples and illustrations
are drawn from historical and
contemporary research in the social sciences. The
multimedia courseware provides tutorial work on sampling,
basic statistics, and techniques for seeking information from
databases and other sources. The statistics modules can be
used as either part of a detective games or directly in
teaching and learning. Brief video lessons in SPSS, using
real datasets, are also a feature of the CD-ROM.
Pbk 272pp 0761968040 $64

(SP)

Doing a Literature Search : a


Comprehensive Guide for the Social
Sciences
Hart C
Doing a Literature Search provides a practical and
comprehensive guide to searching the literature on any topic
within the social sciences. This essential research tool will
enable the reader to search the literature effectively,
identifying useful books, articles, statistics and many other
sources of information.This accessible manual offers the
following features:- A quick reference guide to sources - print
and electronic abstracts, indexes, guides and gateways - for
the student, researcher and tutor- An aide to planning and
conducting a literature search that will include robust and
reliable referrals to other sources, organizations and texts- A
clear and concise introduction to doing either a quick review
or a comprehensive review of the literature- A guide to the
search tools for locating items- Advice on how to indentify
key items from the literature- An up-to-date list of key
reference materials both printed and electronic, especially
URLs and titles of guides to the literatureThis text will be an
invaluable research tool for postgraduates and researchers
across the social sciences.

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Pbk

194pp

0761968105

$53.95

(SP)

Qualitative Research Interviewing : SemiStructured Biographical & Narrative


Methods

intelligence gained through qualitative methods. Qualitative


Marketing Research clearly explains the use and importance
of qualitative methods, clarifying the theories behind the
methodology and providing concrete examples and
exercises which illustrate i ts application to Management
Studies and Marketing.
Pbk 256pp 0761963669 $72 (SP)

Wengraf T
Qualitative Research Interviewing is unique in its conceptual
coherence and the level of practical detail that it offers to the
beginning social researcher.It provides a comprehensive
resource for those concerned with the practice of semistructured interviewing, the most commonly used interview
approach in social research, and in particular for depth,
biographic narrative interviewing, the interview methods of
choice in qualitative research. It covers the full range of
practices from the identification of topics through to
strategies for writing up research findings in diverse ways.
Pbk 424pp 0803975015 $72 (SP)

Handbook of Visual Analysis


Leeuwen T & Jewitt C nz
The Handbook of Visual Analysis is a rich methodological
resource for students, academics, researchers and
professionals interested in investigating the visual
representation of socially sig nificant issues.The Handbook:
Offers a wide-range of methods for visual analysis: content
analysis, historical analysis, structuralist analysis,
iconography, psychoanalysis, social semiotic analysis, film
analysis and ethnomethodology Shows how each method
can be applied for the purposes of specific research projects.
Exemplifies each approach through detailed analyses of a
variety of data, including, newspaper images, family photos,
drawings, art works and cartoons. Includes examples from
the authors' own research and professional practice.
Pbk 224pp 0761964770 $61 (SP)

Doing a Literature Review : Releasing the


Social Science Research Imagination
Hart C
Reviewing the literature for a research project can seem a
daunting, even overwhelm ing task. New researchers, in
particular, wonder: Where do I start? What do I do? How do I
do it?Doing a Literature Review can h elp. This accessible
text offers advice on how to:{ search out existing knowledge
on a topic;{ analyze arguments and ideas;{ map ideas,
arguments and perspectives;{ produce a literature review;
{ construct a case for investigating a topic.Doing a Literature
Review is a practical and comprehensive guide to
researching, preparing and writing a literature review, an
essential component of research projects.
Pbk 230pp 0761959750 $61 (SP)

Qualitative Marketing Research


Carson D et al
As the importa nce of marketing to business grows, and as
new concepts and applications of marketing emerge and
evolve, so too does the need fo r up-to -date market
intelligence. This book recognizes that the contribution which
qualitative research can make to market understanding and
insight is immense, and that statistical information flows are
never enough but need to be compounded by market

Action Research : a Handbook for


Practitioners 2ed
Stringer E oz
Community-based action research
Oz Author
seeks to involve as active participants
those who have traditionally been called
subjects. This book provides a a simple but highly effective
model for approaching action research. The author describes
a simple and effective model for approaching action
research: Look - building a picture and gathering information;
Th ink - interpreting and explaining; Act - resolving issues and
problems.This revised edition contains summaries which
provide a p ractical checklist fo researchers, and an appendix
of electronic resources.
Pbk 240pp 0761917136 $64 (SI)

Doing Counselling Research


McLeod J
Written specifically for trainee and
practising counsellors who intend to
carry out research and for
counsellors who want to use
research findings in order to improve
their practice, this book is the first
practical, all -encompassing
introduction to the strategies
employed in counselling and
psychotherapy research.Taking an
interdisciplinary approach to
counselling, the book guides the
reader through the principles and the
practice of undertaking a successful
research project, describing how to locate, understand and
critique relevant literature and how to gain access to useful
research tools. John McLeod illustrates how to design and
implement an effective study plan and gives a detailed
account of the most useful research strategies, incorporating
careful consideration of ethical issues at all stages of the
research process.
Pbk 224pp 0803978049 $61 (SP)

Cultural Studies & Discourse Analysis


Barker C & Galasinski D
This novel and important book brings together insights from
cultural studies and critical discourse analysis to examine the
fruitful links between the two. Cultural Studies and Dis course
Analysis shows that critical discourse analysis is able to
provide the analytic context, skills and tools by which we can
study how language constructs, constitutes and shapes the
social world and demonstrates in detail how the
methodological approa ch of critical discourse analysis can
enhance cultural studies. In a richly argued discussion, the
authors show how marrying the methodology of critical
discourse analysis with cultural studies enlarges our
understanding of gender and ethnicity
Pbk 208pp 0761963847 $65 (SP)

PO Box 418 Church Pt NSW 2105 Ph: 02 9997 3973 Fax: 02 997 3185 Email: sales@footprint.com.au

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New & Recent From

Qualitative Research Methods Series...

New & Recent From


Quantitive Applications in the Social
Sciences Series

Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of


Social Construction

Longitudinal Research, 2ed

Nelson Phillips and Cynthia Hardy

Written in nontechnical language, this


popular and practical volume has been
completely updated to bring readers the latest advice on
major issues involved in longitudinal research. It covers:
research design strategies; methods of data collection; and
how longitudinal and cross-sectional research compares in
terms of consistency and accuracy of results.
Pbk 96pp 0761922091 $35.95 (SI)

Scott Menard

Discourse Analysis: Investigating


Due 8/02
Processes of Social Construction is the first
book to provide a concise, straightforward
guide for students and researchers who are interested in
understanding and using discourse analysis. The authors
reflect on the practice of analyzing discourse and the
potential for revealing the processes of social construction
that constitute social and organizational life.
Pbk 96pp 0761923624 $41.95 (SI)

Due 8/02

Logit & Probit


Borooah Vani K

Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences

Many problems in the social sciences are amenable to


analysis using the analytical tools of logit and probit models.
Within this genre an important class of models are those of
ordered and of multinomial models. This book explains what
ordered and multinomial models are and also shows how to
apply them to analyzing issues in the social sciences.
Pbk 96pp 0761922423 $41.95 (SI)

Stebbins R
Guided by the precept that to understand any phenomenon
well, it is necessary to start by looking at it in broad,
nonspecialized terms, Robert A Stebbins takes the reader
through the process of exploratory research in an easy-toread style providing the student or researcher with a
complete reference for carrying out this type of research.
Pbk 96pp 0761923993 $36.95 (SI)

Spline Regression Models


Systematic Self-Observation
Rodriguez N & Ryave A

Marsh L & Cormier D

Systematic self-observation (SSO) is a valuable research


method used by social scientists to gather information about
those social actions that are hidden, restricted or subjective.
The authors provide a practical explanation and instruction to
carrying out an SSO study. They include case studies of four
aspects of hidden or elusive everyday social actions: lying,
telling secrets, withholding compliments and feeling envy.
Pbk 96pp 076192308X $36.95 (SI)

Spline Regression Models shows the nuts -and-bolts of using


dummy variables to formulate and estimate various spline
regression models. Through the use of a number of
straightforward examples, the authors will show readers how
to work with both types of spline knot situations as well as
offering practical, down-to-earth information on estimating
splines
Pbk 70pp 0761924205 $37.95 (SI)

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www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr
AQR EXECUTIVE
Supriya Singh President
supriya.singh@rmit.edu.au
Rosalind Hurworth Immediate Past President
r.hurworth@edfac.unimelb.edu.au
Jan Browne President Elect
jlbrowne@deakin.edu.au
Andrea Agirides Secretary
andreaa@optusnet.com.au
Margarete White Treasurer
margarete_white@workcover.vic.gov.au
Carmel Seibold Member
c.seibold@patrick.acu.edu.au
Darrel N. Caulley Member
d.caulley@latrobe.edu.au
Harsh Suri Webmaster/Member
h.suri@latrobe.edu.au
Dianne Goeman Member
d.goeman@alfred.org.au
Helen Goodman Member
helengoodman@ozemail.com.au
Jenny Bryce Member
bryce@acer.edu.au
Pam Green Member
pam.green@rmit.edu.au
Helen Marshall Member
helen.marshall@rmit.edu.au

QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH journal
Editors
Darrel N. Caulley
Carmel Seibold
Copy editor
Helen Andersen, Style Matters
Proofreader
Karen Thompson-Caulley
Cover and page design
Ingrid Ciotti, Studio 673 Pty Ltd
The Qualitative Research Journal is a
membership service of the Association
of Qualitative Research.
Copyright Association for
Qualitative Research, 2002
Disclaimer
The responsibility for all statements
made in Qualitative Research Journal
lies with the authors. The views
expressed in this magazine do not
necessarily reflect the views and
position of the Editors or AQR.
AQR does not endorse advertised
products or services.

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contents of review sections


All content items are hyperlinked. Simply click on the
item of your choice to access the relevant pages.

92

R E V I E W
92

103

112

E S S A Y of a classic or landmark qualitative study or text

In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Womens


Development CAROL GILLIGAN reviewed by Darrel N. Caulley
and Carmel Seibold

C O M P A R A T I V E

R E V I E W S

103

1. Handbook of Ethnography eds. PAUL ATKINSON, AMANDA


COFFEY, SARA DELAMONT, JOHN LOFLAND AND LYN LOFLAND
2. Quick Ethnography W. PENN HANDWERKER
reviewed by Damien Morgan

108

1. Biographical Research BRIAN ROBERTS


2. Slices of Life: Qualitative Research Snapshots ed. PAM GREEN
3. Life History Research in Educational Settings: Learning from
Lives IVOR F. GOODSON AND PAT SIKES
reviewed by Darren Adams

B O O K

R E V I E W S

112

Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook


for Researching Online CHRIS MANN AND FIONA STEWART
reviewed by Luisa Signor

114

A Students Guide to Methodology PETER CLOUGH AND CATHY


NUTBROWN reviewed by Darrel N. Caulley

119

The Qualitative Inquiry Reader NORMAN K. DENZIN AND YVONNA


S. LINCOLN reviewed by Audrey Grant

123

The Qualitative Dissertation: A Guide for Students and Faculty


MARIA PIANTANIDA AND NOREEN B. GARMAN
reviewed by Jude Spiers

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22

E D I T O R I A L

391

A R T I C L E S

92102

315

The place of theory and the development of a theoretical framework in a


qualitative study

1629

When yes means know

3044

All in the family monitoring postschool student pathways by using the


Modified Snowball Technique

4561

The effects of censoring and the Spiral of Silence on focus group


interviews: a case study of discussions on immigration

6278

Whats colour got to do with it? Reflections on messy methodology issues


from a multiracial feminist

7991

A Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction of a published first-person narrative

R E V I E W
92102

103111

Back to contents

E S S A Y of a classic or landmark qualitative study or text

In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Womens Development

C O M P A R A T I V E

R E V I E W S

103107 1. Handbook of Ethnography


2. Quick Ethnography
reviewed by Damien Morgan
108111 1. Biographical Research
2. Slices of Life: Qualitative Research Snapshots
3. Life History Research in Educational Settings: Learning from Lives
reviewed by Darren Adams
112125

B O O K

R E V I E W S

112113 Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for


Researching Online
114118 A Students Guide to Methodology
119122 The Qualitative Inquiry Reader
123125 The Qualitative Dissertation: A Guide for Students and Faculty
126126

Notes to Contributors

127127

AQR Conference 2003 Call for Papers

128135

Special Book Offer for AQR Members

136136

AQR Executive Acknowledgements

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