Download Free PDF View PDF
Qualitative Research: Practices and Challenges
Download Free PDF View PDF
Qualitative Research in Psychology, 4, 364-366.
Keywords in qualitative methods’ is a reassuringly compact (195 page) paperback which sets out in alphabetical order from Access Negotiations to Writing entries explaining 62 concepts relevant to qualitative research. Each entry follows a structure of concept definition, distinctive features, examples, evaluation, associated concepts (within the book), and key readings (with a *indicating the, presumably, key-key readings). The book does not set out to be an encyclopaedia but aims ‘to provide some practical assistance’ (p. 1), seeks ‘to be helpful rather than authoritative (p. 3), and values ‘brevity over exhaustiveness’ (p. 3). In general, I did think the book fulfilled these aims. I used it as a resource for a paper I was writing, found it helpful, and thought most entries usefully concise and appropriately structured. However, I also agree that such a wide-ranging authored, not edited, work cannot be authoritative in all areas and found it to lack a certain coverage. But first, more about what I liked. Qualitative research methods have a long a varied history across several academic disciplines and, as a psychologist, I found it particularly educational to read such a wide ranging text which presented my area of expertise from a different perspective. The panel of advisors is drawn from sociology, education, psychology, criminology, anthropology, geography, and linguistics. The stated emphasis is ‘anthropology and sociology first and foremost’ (p. 3) followed by (I’m not sure if the order is significant) ‘education, geography, linguistics, management science, psychology, public health and nursing studies’ (p. 3), with an explicit de-emphasis on ‘commercial research practice’ (p. 4). It was, therefore, refreshing to have familiar concepts explained through a different disciplinary eye using unfamiliar examples and to meet approaches that I had not come across in psychology.
Download Free PDF View PDF
Download Free PDF View PDF
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
Download Free PDF View PDF
International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being
Download Free PDF View PDF
A multiplicity of theoretical methodologies can be grouped together 'qualitative inquiry' and they are increasingly used in academic fields that investigate issues of personal and social life. Amongst them we find biographic investigation, narrative, cultural studies, discourse analysis and autoethnography. This list is not restricted. Among the many kinds of qualitative research we find a growing differentiation within each. None of them is monolithic. Within each, differences grow, based on different thematic fields, epistemological emphases, methodological options, ethical frames, as well as from their influence on each other. And these subfields claim their independence, a tendency that is repeated inside each sub-field. Many of them (if not all) claim a disciplinary or interdisciplinary identity as well that exceeds the methodological. Those who argue this, understand qualitative inquiry as a moment in the process of production of knowledge regarding a given phenomenon. For many of them, qualitative inquiry can even be what allows them to constitute the phenomenon in the best way possible. Others insist that a mixed approach is necessary in their research. This affects not only the social sciences. We find similar arguments in interdisciplinary spaces that are closer to the Humanities and the so-called applied disciplines. An intriguing case in particular is that of action-inquiry, whose emphasis on transformation and participation would seem to situate it inside qualitative research, though many participants think this is not so. Their position arises from reasons that are theoretic-methodological but also invokes arguments of strategy. Given what has already been said, I am convinced that Investigación Cualitativa must confess and practice an epistemological cosmopolitanism. Consider that qualitative inquiry, like any other academic field, is both an area within the cartography of knowledge and a socio-intellectual community. And of course we should recognize that qualitative research is not one but several socio-intellectual communities. At this point things are not only complex but also complicated. In effect, Investigación Cualitativa is born within one of those communities. I dare to say that it is born with the promise to promote the growth and diversification of the production of knowledge and contact amongst those who cultivate it-and cultivate themselves through it. This is the community that speaks and works in Spanish and Portuguese and meets year after year during the days of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) under the name of ADISP, A Day in Spanish and Portuguese. This way, the internal distinction and external intersections of the socio-intellectual communities of qualitative inquiry rise in our case from the linguistic specificity as well as national differences. Needless to say, the provocation of writing and engaging in conversation in your own language when it is about qualitative inquiry transforms into an epistemological need, 1 PhD (c) in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. dfjohns2@illinois.edu
Download Free PDF View PDF
