NATURALISTIC, QUALITATIVE
AND ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH
© LOUIS COHEN, LAWRENCE
MANION & KEITH MORRISON
STRUCTURE OF THE CHAPTER
• Foundations of naturalistic, qualitative and
ethnographic inquiry
• Planning naturalistic, qualitative and
ethnographic research
• Features and stages of a qualitative study
• Critical ethnography
• Some problems with ethnographic and
naturalistic approaches
NATURALISTIC METHODS ASK . . .
• What are the characteristics of a social
phenomenon?
• What are the causes of the social
phenomenon?
• What are the consequences of the social
phenomenon?
MAIN KINDS OF
NATURALISTIC ENQUIRY
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Case study
Comparative studies
Retrospective studies
Snapshots
Longitudinal studies
Ethnography
Grounded theory
Biography
Phenomenology
MAIN METHODS OF
NATURALISTIC ENQUIRY
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Participant observation
Interviews and conversations
Documents and field notes
Accounts
Notes and memos
THE QUALITATIVE PARADIGM
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Humans actively construct their own meanings of situations;
Meaning arises out of social situations and is handled through
interpretive processes;
Behaviour and data are socially situated, context-related,
context-dependent and context-rich.
Realities are multiple, constructed, and holistic;
Knower and known are interactive, inseparable;
Only context-bound working hypotheses are possible;
Inquiry is influenced by the choice of the paradigm, theory and
values that guide the investigation into the problem;
Research must include ‘thick descriptions’;
The attribution of meaning is continuous and evolving over
time;
People are deliberate, intentional and creative in their actions;
History and biography intersect;
Social research needs to examine situations through the eyes
of the participants;
Researchers are the instruments of the research;
THE QUALITATIVE PARADIGM
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Researchers generate rather than test hypotheses;
Researchers do not know in advance what they will see;
Humans are anticipatory beings;
Human phenomena seem to require even more conditional
stipulations than do other kinds;
Meanings and understandings replace proof;
Situations are unique;
The processes of research and behaviour are as important as the
outcomes;
People, situations, events and objects have meaning conferred
upon them rather than possessing their own intrinsic meaning;
Social research should be conducted in natural, uncontrived, real
world settings with as little intrusiveness as possible by the
researcher;
Social reality, experiences and social phenomena are capable of
multiple, sometimes contradictory interpretations;
All factors have to be taken into account;
Data are analyzed inductively;
Theory generation is derivative and grounded.
PROCESSES OF QUALITATIVE ENQUIRY
• Studies must take place in their natural settings as context
influences meaning;
• Humans are the research instrument;
• Utilization of tacit knowledge is inescapable;
• Qualitative methods sit more comfortably than quantitative
methods with the notion of the human-as-instrument;
• Purposive sampling can explore the full scope of issues;
• Data analysis is inductive rather than deductive;
• Theory emerges (is grounded) rather than is pre-ordinate.
• Research designs emerge over time;
• Research outcomes are negotiated;
• The natural mode of reporting is the case study;
• Idiographic interpretation replaces nomothetic interpretation;
• Applications are tentative and pragmatic;
• Trustworthiness and its components replace conventional
views of reliability and validity.
TEN ELEMENTS OF SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
• People construct their own actions – they are deliberate
intentional and creative;
• People attribute to, and construct meanings of, their
situations and behaviour; people impose meanings on
situations; situations themselves do not necessarily possess
intrinsic meaning.
• Significance of subjective meanings and the symbols and
symbol systems (e.g. language and communication) by
which they are produced and represented;
• The need to understand individuals’ ‘definitions of the
situation’ in their terms, i.e. in any situation there are many
definitions of the situation – multiple realities; the self is a
social product, constructed through interaction with
‘significant others’ which occurs in relation to multiple
‘reference groups’;
TEN ELEMENTS OF SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
• Significance of negotiation – the process by which meanings
are constructed;
• Significance of the natural, social context/environment/
setting in understanding meaning and meaning construction;
• Situations and people are unique and individual (idiographic);
• The nature of a ‘career’ – the moving perspective in which
people regard their own and others’ lives, based on the
meanings which are being formed; ‘career’ includes notions
of commitment and identity;
• Research must include ‘thick description’ – detailed accounts
of the situation and participants’ meanings and behaviour;
• Analysis is ‘emic’ rather than ‘etic’ – generating meaning
through presenting participants’ subjective accounts rather
than utilizing ‘objective’ research.
ETHNOGRAPHIES CONCERN . . .
• The production of descriptive cultural knowledge of a
group;
• The description of activities in relation to a particular
cultural context from the point of view of the members
of that group themselves;
• The production of a list of features constitutive of
membership in a group or culture;
• The description and analysis of patterns of social
interaction;
• The provision as far as possible of ‘insider accounts’;
• The development of theory.
CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY
• Whereas conventional ethnography is concerned with
what is, critical ethnography concerns itself with what
could be.
• Theoretical basis in critical theory and ideology
critique.
• Concerned to expose oppression and inequality in
society with a view to emancipating individuals and
groups towards collective empowerment.
• Research is an inherently political enterprise:
ethnography with a political intent.
• It has an explicit agenda and ‘ethical responsibility’ to
promote freedom, social justice, equity and well-being.
• It takes power, control and social exploitation as
problematic, and to be changed, rather than simply to
be interrogated and discovered
• Its basis echoes Habermas’s emancipatory interest
CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY
• Research and thinking are mediated by power relations;
• These power relations are socially and historically
located;
• Facts and values are inseparable;
• Relationships between objects and concepts are fluid
and mediated by the social relations of production;
• Language is central to perception;
• Certain groups in society exert more power than others;
• Inequality and oppression are inherent in capitalist
relations of production and consumption;
• Ideological domination is strongest when oppressed
groups see their situation as inevitable, natural or
necessary;
• Forms of oppression mediate each other and must be
considered together (e.g. race, gender, class).
FIVE STAGES IN CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY
Stage 1
Compiling the primary record through the
collection of monological data
Stage 2
Preliminary reconstructive analysis
Stage 3
Dialogical data collection
Stage 4
Discovering system relations
Stage 5
Using system relations to explain findings
PLANNING A QUALITATIVE STUDY
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Locate a field of study.
Decide research questions (where appropriate)
Address ethical issues.
Decide from whom to obtain data (sampling).
Find a role and manage entry into the context.
Find informants:
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reliability;
Importance in giving accounts;
Knowledge/knowledgeability;
Status;
Contacts – gatekeepers;
Representativeness;
Centrality;
Relationships to others.
PLANNING A QUALITATIVE STUDY
7. Develop and maintain relationships in the field:
trust; confidence; rapport; discretion; sensitivity;
empathy;
8. Collect data in situ and in several contexts
(field notes and triangulation);
9. Collect other data (where relevant);
10. Analyze data;
11. Leave the field; decide when, how, how to
close relationships.
12. Write the final report.
REFLEXIVITY
• Researchers are part of the social world that
they are researching
• This social world is an already interpreted
world by the actors
• Researchers bring their own biographies to
the research situation
• Researchers should acknowledge and
disclose their own selves in the research,
seeking to understand their part in, or
influence on, the research.
OBSERVER ROLES
OUTSIDER
INSIDER
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Detached
Observer
Observer
as
participant
Participant
as
observer
Complete
participant
CONCERNS IN CONDUCTING
ETHNOGRAPHIES
• How do you negotiate your way into a situation; how to
minimize threat.
• Timing the point of entry.
• Finding a role for yourself.
• To be a participant observer or non-participant observer?
• How to maintain naturalism and to avoid people playing
to what they perceive are your expectations of them.
• How to retain your distance from those involved.
• How to gain access to certain ‘difficult’ groups.
• Who to regard as key/important informants.
• How to record multiple perspectives and multiple realities.
CONCERNS IN CONDUCTING
ETHNOGRAPHIES
• How to address emic and etic approaches.
• Who owns the data; how much control do
respondents/participants have over the data; when does
ownership pass from the respondents/participants to the
researcher?
• How to write up the report.
• What if the researcher sees what the respondents/
participants do not see?
• Reactivity of participants (Hawthorne effect).
• Halo effect.
• Focusing on the known/familiar only.
• Consider generalizability.
STEPS IN QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
Step 1: Establish units of analysis of the data, indicating how
these units are similar to and different from each other
Step 2: Create a ‘domain analysis’
Step 3: Establish relationships and
linkages between the domains
Step 4: Make speculative inferences
Step 5: Summarize
Step 6: Seek negative and discrepant cases
Step 7: Generate theory
SOME DIFFICULTIES IN
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
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Definition of the situation
Reactivity
Halo effect
Implicit conservatism
Focusing on the familiar
Open-endedness and diversity
Neglect of wider social contexts and
constraints
• Generalizability
• Writing up multiple realities
• Ownership of the data