SASS 614. Models of Qualitative Research
Instructor: Jeffrey L. Longhofer Ph.D., LISW
Fall 2007
Mailing Address: CWRU/MSASS
Office: (216) 368-0160 Office: MSASS, Rm 309 10900 Euclid Avenue
E-Mail Address: jeffrey.longhofer@case.edu Cleveland, OH 44106-7164
CRN#: 31613
Classes:
SASS 614: Models of Qualitative Research
Course Description
This course investigates models of qualitative research: ethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, the study of written (history) narratives, and narrative analysis. With each model we will consider the data gathering and methodological implications. We will focus on qualitative data and the work of moving from description to theory-building. The assumptions that guide and limit the appropriate use of these methods, their strengths and limitations, and common omissions in accounts of these methods are examined.
Course Objectives
Course Requirements
The Memo (50% of grade)
Thoughtful and timely reading of the assigned readings is essential! You will be held accountable for the reading, each day! They will require your close attention, regular review, and numerous rereadings. Because this class has a logical progression, failure to regularly attend will inevitably result in poor performance and certain disappointment. I have, moreover, discovered that successful discussion of the readings requires attendance: those who fail to attend often disrupt the class. The memos will count for 50% of the grade and they are to be submitted at the beginning of class on the day assigned. You will be expected to effectively use the memos and participation will be measured by your willingness to contribute to the discussion during each session and use of the reading for that day in making your interventions. And because this class is organized as a seminar, you will have numerous opportunities to demonstrate your preparation. In short, you will be favorably evaluated for participation if you have attended class and completed the assigned readings and memos in a timely manner. Memos submitted late will not be evaluated.
The purpose of the memo is to identify the central thesis or controlling ideas of the reading and to briefly examine the evidence or ideas used in their development. In addition to summary, it is the purpose of the memo to evaluate. You will be expected to pose questions regarding the logic of the work, its merits and shortcomings. Where the author uses data or cites evidence, you must examine the evidence and the conclusions drawn. They must be no more than two pages, typed, and single-spaced (12 pt, 1” margins). Please bring to class copies of the memos for your colleagues. They will be used in organizing our discussions.
Organizing the Memos
Here are some suggestions for writing the memos. You will find that from reading to reading you will apply these ideas in different ways. Some articles present different kinds of data, for example (e.g., historical, case study, ethnographic, quantitative, etc.). Other articles are based strictly on the development of an argument (theoretical or conceptual arguments) and use no data. You’ll need to read through these guidelines to make a determination about how best to discuss each article. In addressing these questions, try to consider: epistemology, ontology, theory and methodology.
1. What is being assumed in this article, passage, or argument?
- relationship between events and conditions?
Adapted from Helping Students Write Well, Barbara E. Fassler Walvoord, New York: MLA Press. 1986, Pages 56-58.
The Concept Paper (50% of grade)
Due Date: December 5, 2007
The concept paper should identify a problem, a tentative hypothesis or proposition, and some ideas about how and where evidence is to be found. In the concept paper, it is expected that you show how theory, qualitative methods and evidence will relate. Here, the purpose is to make explicit the logic by which they connect. The reader must see how you have designed your qualitative project and how you will approach the problem or question. If, for example, you are proposing to do a qualitative study of the relationship between social movement activity and globalization, you must be clear about how you will deploy specific methods.
Part of the conceptualization should be a description and analysis of the phenomenological practice gap . For most such analyses, key questions include: What are the key features of practice in this field? What do we know about the “lived worlds” of its members? What are the prescriptions, based on extant knowledge, that are provided for practice in this field? What are key differences between practice as prescribed and as actually performed? How do you conceptualize (explain) those differences?
It is often difficult and sometimes impossible to convince readers that information, appropriate to the question(s), can be collected and in responsible ways. For example, conducting interviews at a large public agency may mean that you cannot also do participant observation, ethnography, or archival research. This becomes even more complicated when students, as they often do, conduct research at multiple sites or in diverse communities. Selection and justification of a limited number of approaches will demonstrate that you have thought through the implications and the kind of information needed. If you intend to conduct open-ended interviews, you must ask a whole series of secondary questions: What do I want to get out of these interviews? With whom am I going to conduct these interviews? How do I know they will talk to me? How many interviews must I do? Upon completion of the conceptual paper, you will have only tentative answers to some of these questions.
The concept paper must also situate the problem within a theory. Here, it is important to note that it is ‘theoretical’ precisely because it leads us to some expectable practice-related outcome, even though the theory may in the end fail to offer an adequate explanatory account. It is theoretical because it is useful and can persuade the reader to understand something about what you think is going on within a practice domain. Here, as well, it is your challenge to persuade the reader why it is important to pursue the question. Here, using the literature, you must convince the reader that we will learn something that we do not already know and why it is worth knowing in relationship to some particular area of practice. The purpose is to demonstrate that you have mastered a body of theory by examining the shortcomings of a theory or theories and show how your work will make a contribution by addressing deficiencies, again, in relationship to a specific area of practice. Here, however, the purpose is not to allow the concept paper to drift into a meandering, aimless, literature review.
Many if not most social work students conduct research across disciplines or areas of knowledge. When you do this it is a good idea to examine the areas of overlap among theories or differing literatures. Consider giving emphasis to rival theoretical claims that can be resolved by additional or different kinds of empirical work. Remember, the purpose of the theoretical review in the concept paper is to justify your research question and show how it may relate to a particular practice issue and research design (again, even though the work on the research design will be refined in future semesters).
Readings: PDF files Posted on CWRU Blackboard
See Blackboard site (http://blackboard.cwru.edu) for required readings.
Abrams, L. and Curran, L. (2004). Between Women: Gender and Social Work in Historical Perspective. Social Service Review 78(3): 429-446.
Charmaz, K. (1990). ‘Discovering chronic illness: Using Grounded Theory. Social Science Medicine, 30(11), pp. 1161-1172.
Darnton, Robert. January 11, 2007. On Clifford Geertz. Fieldnotes from the Classroom. New York Review of Books.
Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Towards an interpretive view of culture, in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books.
Geertz, C. 1972. Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight, in: Myth, symbol, and culture. Daedalus: journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol 101 no. 1, pp. 1-38
Hammersley, M. (1992). Ethnography and realism. In, What’s wrong with ethnography?, edited by M. Hammersley. London: Routledge. Pp.43-56.
Houston, Stan. (2001). Beyond Social Constructivism: Critical Realism and Social Work. British Journal Social Work, 31: 845-861.
Longhofer, J. and Floersch, J. The Phenomenological Practice Gap. Unpublished manuscript.
Rhodes, Lorna. (1991). Emptying Beds: The Work of An Emergency Psychiatric Unit. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Riessman, C.K. (1990). Strategic uses of narrative in the presentation of self and illness. Social Science and Medicine 30 (11): 1195-1200.
Townsend, Elizabeth. Chapters 1,2 and 8. Good Intentions Overruled.
Recommended Articles, Books, Book Chapters
Danermark, B., et al. (2002). Science, reality, concepts. Explaining Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge.
Kvale, Steinar. (1996). InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Riessman, C. K.(1993) Doing narrative analysis. In, Narrative Analysis, by C. K. Riessman. Newbury Park: Sage publication. Pp. 54-71.
Schensul, S.L., Schensul, J.J., and M. D. LeCompte. (1999). Validity and reliability in ethnographic research. In, Essential Ethnographic Methods, edited by S. L. Schensul, J.J. Schensul, and M.D. LeCompte. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Pp. 271-290.
Schensul, S.L., Schensul, J.J., and M. D. LeCompte. (1999). In-Depth, open-ended interviewing. In, Essential Ethnographic Methods, edited by S. L. Schensul, J.J. Schensul, and M.D. LeCompte. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Pp. 121-148.
Schensul, S.L., Schensul, J.J., and M. D. LeCompte. (1999). Semi-structured interviewing. In, Essential Ethnographic Methods, edited by S. L. Schensul, J.J. Schensul, and M.D. LeCompte. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Pp. 149-164.
Schensul, S.L., Schensul, J.J., and M. D. LeCompte. (1999). Ethnographic sampling. In, Essential Ethnographic Methods, edited by S. L. Schensul, J.J. Schensul, and M.D. LeCompte. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. Pp. 231-269.
August 28
Topics
Required Readings
Bryman, A. 1984. The Debate about Quantitative and Qualitative Research: A Question of Method or Epistemology? The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 1., pp. 75-92.
Floersch J. and Longhofer J. (2006). Memo on the Phenomenological Practice Gap and Studying the Open System.
Recommended Readings:
Cheney, T. A. “The realities of group life.” (1991). In, Writing creative nonfiction. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. Pp. 55-73.
Luey, B. (1995). “Journal articles.” In, Handbook for Academic Authors. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. Pp. 8-30.
Murray, D. (2001). The craft of revision. New York: Harcourt College Publishers. [Note: this is a book]
Rabiner, S. & A. Fortunato. (2002). “Using narrative tension.” In, Thinking like your editor. New York: W.W. Norton. Pp. 177-195.
Rhodes, T., Stimson, G.V., Fitch, C., Ball, A., & Renton, A. (1999). “Rapid assessment, injecting drug use, and public health.” Lancet 353: 65-68.
Smith, J.K. (1983). “Quantitative versus interpretive: The problem of conducting social inquiry.” In, Philosophy of evaluation: new directions for program evaluation, no. 19, edited by E. R. House. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pp. 27-51.
September 4
Topics:
Required Readings
Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Towards an interpretive view of culture, in Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books.
Geertz, C. 1972. Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight, in: Myth, symbol, and culture. Daedalus: journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol 101 no. 1, pp. 1-38
Darnton, R. 2007. On Clifford Geertz. Fieldnotes from the Classroom. New York Review of Books, January 11.
September 11
Topics:
Required Readings
Houston, S. (2001). Beyond Social Constructivism: Critical Realism and Social Work. British Journal Social Work, 31: 845-861.
September 18
Topics
Required Readings
Hammersley, M. (1992). Ethnography and realism. In, What’s wrong with ethnography?, edited by M. Hammersley. London: Routledge. Pp.43-56.
Floersch, J. and Longhofer, J. TBA
Townsend, E. Chapters 1,2 and 8. Good Intentions Overruled.
Recommended Reading
Bate, S.P. (1997). Whatever Happened to Organizational Ethnography. Human Relations, 1997.
September 25
Topics
Required Readings
Charmaz, K. (1990). ‘Discovering chronic illness: Using Grounded Theory. Social Science Medicine, 30(11), pp. 1161-1172.
Riessman, C.K. (1990). Strategic uses of narrative in the presentation of self and illness. Social Science and Medicine 30 (11): 1195-1200.
October 2
Topics
Required Readings
Abrams, L. and Curran, L. (2004). Between Women: Gender and Social Work in Historical Perspective. Social Service Review 78(3): 429-446.
Floersch, J. (2000). "Reading the case record: The oral and written narratives of social workers." Social Service Review 74(2): 169-192.
Recommended Readings
Kunzel, Regina. 1993. Fallen women, problem girls: unmarried mothers and the professionalization of social work, 1890-1945. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tice, K. W. (1998). Tales of wayward girls and immoral women: Case records and the professionalization of social work. Urbana, University of Illinois Press.
Lunbeck, Elizabeth. 1994. The psychiatric persuasion: Knowledge, gender, and power in modern america. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Odem, Mary. 1995. Delinquent daughters: Protecting and policing adolescent female sexuality in the united states, 1885-1920. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
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