Reading :: Discovering Qualitative Methods, Second Edition

Discovering Qualitative Methods: Field Research, Interviews, and Analysis
By Carol A.B. Warren and Tracy Xavier Karner

I really enjoy reading texts on qualitative methodology, even those that, like this one, are pitched to upper-level undergrads and incoming graduate students. They're easy to read through and compare, and sometimes they highlight differences in fields, disciplines, and research programs more clearly than looking at the literature itself. That's especially true for Discovering Qualitative Methods, which is aimed at sociologists in training. Reading it, I was intrigued by the clues about sociology that it conveyed through its assertions.

The book follows a basic approach of introducing qualitative methods and giving background on law, politics, and ethics before diving into the practical issues of gaining entrance to a site, collecting various data (observations, interviews, artifacts), and analyzing the data. The first two chapters would seem familiar to anyone performing or reading about workplace writing in my field - although the examples tend to come from settings that are unfamiliar to most college students and academics, such as nursing homes, biker gangs, cults, and the radical environmental movement. (Other examples, such as a lesbian community, would perhaps have seemed more exotic to students in the past. Still others, such as drug dealers, represent activities that we hope are exotic to them.) Indeed, as the book unfolds, the authors pull out still more examples along these lines, and ask students to use caution when investigating them. For me, these example sites seemed quite odd - almost like sightseeing for academics - compared to the workplace and organization sites to which I send my students.

As I read further, other differences emerge. For instance, in the chapter on fieldnotes, readers are cautioned not to take observational notes while observing, because "it is virtually impossible to continue to observe closely while looking downward taking notes" (p.112). Instead, readers are told to observe for a half hour or more, then find a quiet place to write a thick description (p.118) - one that includes sights, sounds, smells, textures, and anything else they can record. The examples are heavy with adjectives and adverbs: they read like the work of nonfiction creative writers. A finished field note "resembles an essay or narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end" (p.120). The authors advocate using quotation marks to identify quotes, even when the exact quotation is not available and the researcher is conveying only the gist (p.120). This strategy of writing field notes, presumably, works well over the long period of time that it takes to write an ethnography - but it would be difficult to execute faithfully when examining microlevel details in shorter case study research.

Again, these different methodological choices represent different research objectives and orientations. I'm just startled at how different these turn out to be. And the theme continues when we get to analysis. The first page of the analysis chapter actually made me laugh out loud: the authors grimly tell us that analysis will involve physical and emotional exhaustion (p.215). But I can see why: analysis involves open coding, which leads to themes, which are then linked into analytical descriptions (p.237). Other than that, the authors provide examples but not much guidance. This sort of analysis is quite inductive, involving multiple passes over thick field notes and interviews, and the authors assume that these documents will all be separate rather than in a database or analysis software. How to organize all of these data? "Some sociologists use visual diagrams, process flow charts, or organizational structure charts. Others have drawn maps of their settings .... we find ourselves using the tried-and-true format of an outline" (p.238). For an example, the authors provide a half-page outline. I can understand why, since the authors are expecting longer ethnographies in which researchers seek to generate coherencies from the data rather than examine it with a preexisting framework. But still, the analytical tools - and their process - are much less specified than I expected.

As you may have picked up, I spent a lot of time comparing this book to how I teach my qualitative methods classes. Based on my field's assumptions and goals, I don't think I would use this book - but at the same time, I can see how it would be a better fit for sociology than the methods I use. It's an intriguing read, and I recommend a look for anyone who is teaching qualitative research methods.

Reading :: Apprenticeship in Thinking

Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context
By Barbara Rogoff

If you read my review of Rogoff's The Cultural Nature of Human Development, you have the gist of this earlier one. The Cultural Nature of Human Development summarized Apprenticeship in Thinking and related research in a popular version. This book is the original, which means that it's less polished but more obviously an academic argument, with appropriate cites and a bit more involved with debates on cognitive development.

Here, Rogoff defines her subject matter:

For the purposes of this book, cognition and thinking are defined broadly as problem solving. I assume that thinking is functional, active, and grounded in goal-directed action. Problem solving involves interpersonal and practical goals, addressed deliberately (not necessarily consciously or rationally). It is purposeful, involving flexible improvisation toward goals as diverse as planning a meal, writing an essay, convincing or entertaining others, exploring the properties of an idea or unfamiliar terrain of objects, or remembering or inferring the location of one's keys. (pp.8-9)

But, Rogoff adds, "Problem solving is not 'cold' cognition, but inherently involves emotion, social relations, and social structure" (p.10). Indeed, as in The Cultural Nature of Human Development, Rogoff emphasizes problem solving within the sociohistorical milieu in which people develop and participate. To get there, she relies on work grounded in Vygotsky and Piaget. Reasonably, she reminds us that

my work, like that of anyone else, involves the appropriation of concepts that I have found useful in the works of others. The use that I make of their ideas undoubtedly involves some transformation from the ideas they offered. This is in the nature of dialogue. The transformation is liable to be greater the more distinct the backgrounds of the speaker and listener, or the author and the reader. The refraction of Vygotsky's ideas, like those of Piaget, through a foreign lens - through differences in time and place, language and intellectual climate - contributes to the listener's making something new of the speaker's words, for better or worse. My purpose in this book is not to explain Vygotsky or Piaget or others, but to build from what I make of them. (p.14)

This is a nice move, since it lets us get past the issue of fidelity to a theory and pushes us toward Rogoff's observations and inferences. Again, you get the gist of these from my review of The Cultural Nature of Human Development, so I won't repeat them here except to say that you'll quickly see why this book is a classic. If you're a casual reader, I'd read The Cultural Nature of Human Development first; if you're publishing in this area, read Apprenticeship in Thinking.