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Features of Qualitative Data Analysis Qualitative Data Analysis as an Art Qualitative Compared With Quantitative Data Analysis Techniques of Qualitative Data Analysis Documentation Conceptualization, Coding, and Categorizing Examining Relationships and Displaying Data Authenticating Conclusions Reflexivity Alternatives in Qualitative Data Analysis Ethnography Netnography Ethnomethodology Conversation Analysis Narrative Analysis Grounded Theory Qualitative Comparative Analysis Case-Oriented Understanding Visual Sociology Mixed Methods Combining Qualitative Methods Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods Case Study: Juvenile Court Records Case Study: Mental Health System Case Study: Housing Loss in Group Homes Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Ethics in Qualitative Data Analysis Conclusions
C H A P T E R 10
Qualitative Data Analysis
I was at lunch standing in line and he [another male student] came up to my face and started saying stuff and then he pushed me. I said... I’m cool with you, I’m your friend and then he push me again and calling me names. I told him to stop pushing me and then he push me hard and said something about my mom. And then he hit me, and I hit him back. After he fell I started kicking him. —Morrill et al. (2000:521) 320
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 321
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nfortunately, this statement was not made by a soap opera actor but by a real student writing an in-class essay about conflicts in which he had participated. But then you already knew that such conflicts are common in many high schools, so perhaps it will be reassuring to know that this statement was elicited by a team of social scientists who were studying conflicts in high schools to better understand their origins and to inform prevention policies. The first difference between qualitative and quantitative data analysis is that the data to be analyzed are text, rather than numbers, at least when the analysis first begins. Does it trouble you to learn that there are no variables and hypotheses in this qualitative analysis by Morrill et al. (2000)? This, too, is another difference between the typical qualitative and quantitative approaches to analysis, although there are some exceptions. In this chapter, I present the features that most qualitative data analyses share, and I will illustrate these features with research on youth conflict and on being homeless. You will quickly learn that there is no one way to analyze textual data. To quote Michael Quinn Patton (2002), “Qualitative analysis transforms data into findings. No formula exists for that transformation. Guidance, yes. But no recipe. Direction can and will be offered, but the final destination remains unique for each inquirer, known only when—and if—arrived at” (p. 432). I will discuss some of the different types of qualitative data analysis before focusing on computer pro- grams for qualitative data analysis; you will see that these increasingly popular programs are blurring the distinctions between quantitative and qualitative approaches to textual analysis.
22 Features of Qualitative Data Analysis
The distinctive features of qualitative data collection methods that you studied in Chapter 9 are also reflected in the methods used to analyze those data. The focus on text—on qualitative data rather than on numbers—is the most important feature of qualitative analysis. The “text” that qualitative researchers analyze is most often transcripts of interviews or notes from participant observation sessions, but text can also refer to pictures or other images that the researcher examines. What can the qualitative data analyst learn from a text? Here qualitative analysts may have two different goals. Some view analysis of a text as a way to understand what participants “really” thought, felt, or did in some situation or at some point in time. The text becomes a way to get “behind the numbers” that are recorded in a quantitative analysis to see the richness of real social experience. Other qualitative researchers have adopted a hermeneutic perspective on texts—that is, a perspective that views a text as an interpretation that can never be judged true or false. The text is only one possible interpretation among many (Patton 2002:114). The meaning of a text, then, is negotiated among a community of interpreters, and to the extent that some agreement is reached about meaning at a particular time and place, that meaning can only be based on con- sensual community validation. From a hermeneutic perspective, a researcher is constructing a “reality” with his or her interpretations of a text provided by the subjects of research; other researchers, with different backgrounds, could come to markedly different conclusions. You can see in this discussion about text that qualitative and quantitative data analyses also differ in the priority given to the prior views of the researcher and to those of the subjects of the research. Qualitative data analysts seek to describe their textual data in ways that capture the setting or people who produced this text
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 323
- • Be flexible.
- • Exhaust the data. Try to account for all the data in the texts, then publicly acknowledge the unex- plained and remember the next principle.
- • Celebrate anomalies. They are the windows to insight.
- • Get critical feedback. The solo analyst is a great danger to self and others.
- • Be explicit. Share the details with yourself, your team members, and your audiences.
Qualitative Data Analysis as an Art
If you find yourself longing for the certainty of predefined measures and deductively derived hypotheses, you are beginning to understand the difference between setting out to analyze data quantitatively and planning to do so with a qualitative approach in mind. Or, maybe you are now appreciating better the contrast between the positivist and interpretivist research philosophies that I summarized in Chapter 3. When it comes right down to it, the process of qualitative data analysis is even described by some as involving as much “art” as science— as a “dance,” in the words of William Miller and Benjamin Crabtree (1999b) (Exhibit 10.1): Interpretation is a complex and dynamic craft, with as much creative artistry as technical exacti- tude, and it requires an abundance of patient plodding, fortitude, and discipline. There are many changing rhythms; multiple steps; moments of jubilation, revelation, and exasperation.... The dance of interpretation is a dance for two, but those two are often multiple and frequently changing, and there is always an audience, even if it is not always visible. Two dancers are the interpreters and the texts. (pp. 138–139) Exhibit 10.1 Dance of Qualitative Analysis Time Organizing Style Template Editing Immersion/Crystalization I L R L R L R R L I L R L I
324 Investigating the Social World Miller and Crabtree (1999b) identify three different modes of reading the text within the dance of qualita- tive data analysis:
- When the researcher reads the text literally, she is focused on its literal content and form, so the text “leads” the dance.
- When the researcher reads the text reflexively, she focuses on how her own orientation shapes her interpretations and focus. Now, the researcher leads the dance.
- When the researcher reads the text interpretively, she tries to construct her own interpretation of what the text means. Sherry Turkle’s (2011) book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, provides many examples of this analytic dance, although of course in the published book we are no longer able to see that dance in terms of her original notes. She often describes what she observed in class- rooms. Here’s an example of such a literal focus, reflecting her experience in MIT’s Media Lab at the start of the mobile computing revolution: In the summer of 1996, I met with seven young researchers at the MIT Media Lab who carried com- puters and radio transmitters in their backpacks and keyboards in their pockets.... they called themselves “cyborgs” and were always wirelessly connected to the Internet, always online, free from desks and cables. (Turkle 2011:151) Such literal reports are interspersed with interpretive comments about the meaning of her observations: The cyborgs were a new kind of nomad, wandering in and out of the physical real.... The multiplicity of worlds before them set them apart; they could be with you, but they were always somewhere else as well. (Turkle 2011:152) And several times in each chapter, Turkle (2011) makes reflexive comments on her own reactions: I don’t like the feeling of always being on call. But now, with a daughter studying abroad who expects to reach me when she wants to reach me, I am grateful to be tethered to her through the Net.... even these small things allow me to identify with the cyborgs’ claims of an enhanced experience. Tethered to the Internet, the cyborgs felt like more than they could be without it. Like most people, I experience a pint-sized version of such pleasures. (p. 153) In this artful way, the qualitative data analyst reports on her notes from observing or interviewing, inter- prets those notes, and considers how she reacts to the notes. These processes emerge from reading the notes and continue while editing the notes and deciding how to organize them, in an ongoing cycle.
Qualitative Compared With Quantitative Data Analysis
With this process in mind, let’s review the many ways in which qualitative data analysis differs from quantitative analysis (Denzin & Lincoln 2000:8–10; Patton 2002:13–14). Each difference reflects the qualitative data analysts’ orientation to in-depth, comprehensive understanding in which the analyst is an active participant as compared to the quantitative data analysts’ role as a dispassionate investigator of specific relations among discrete variables:
- • A focus on meanings rather than on quantifiable phenomena
- • Collection of many data on a few cases rather than few data on many cases
326 Investigating the Social World This process continues throughout the project and should assist in refining concepts during the report- writing phase, long after data collection has ceased. Let’s examine each of the stages of qualitative research in more detail.
Documentation
The data for a qualitative study most often are notes jotted down in the field or during an interview—from which the original comments, observations, and feelings are reconstructed—or text transcribed from audiotapes. “The basic data are these observations and conversations, the actual words of people repro- duced to the best of my ability from the field notes” (Diamond 1992:7). What to do with all this material? Many field research projects have slowed to a halt because a novice researcher becomes overwhelmed by the quantity of information that has been collected. A 1-hour interview can generate 20 to 25 pages of single- spaced text (Kvale 1996:169). Analysis is less daunting, however, if the researcher maintains a disciplined transcription schedule. Usually, I wrote these notes immediately after spending time in the setting or the next day. Through the exercise of writing up my field notes, with attention to “who” the speakers and actors were, I became aware of the nature of certain social relationships and their positional arrangements within the peer group. (Anderson 2003:235) You can see the analysis already emerging from this simple process of taking notes. The first formal analytical step is documentation. The various contacts, interviews, written documents, and whatever it is that preserves a record of what happened all need to be saved and listed. Documentation is critical to qualitative research for several reasons: It is essential for keeping track of what will be a rapidly growing volume of notes, tapes, and documents; it provides a way of developing and outlining the analytic process; and it encourages ongoing conceptualizing and strategizing about the text. Miles and Huberman (1994:53) provide a good example of a contact summary form that was used to keep track of observational sessions in a qualitative study of a new school curriculum (Exhibit 10.3). Exhibit 10.2 Flow Model of Qualitative Data Analysis Components Data collection period DATA REDUCTION DATA DISPLAYS Anticipatory During During During Post Post Post CONCLUSION DRAWING/VERIFICATION ANALYSIS
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 327 Exhibit 10.3 Example of a Contact Summary Form Contact type: ___________ Site: Tindale Visit _____ X______ Contact date: 11/28-29/ Phone ________________ Today’s date: 12/28/ (with whom) Written by: BLT
- What were the main issues or themes that struck you in this contact? Interplay between highly prescriptive, “teacher-proof” curriculum that is top-down imposed and the actual writing of the curriculum by the teachers themselves. Split between the “watchdogs” (administrators) and the “house masters” (dept. chairs & teachers) vis à vis job foci. District curric, coord’r as decision maker re school’s acceptance of research relationship.
- Summarize the information you got (or failed to get) on each of the target questions you had for this contact. Question Information History of dev. of innov’n teachers Conceptualized by Curric., Coord’r, English Chairman & Assoc. Chairman; written by teachers in summer; revised by following summer with field testing data School’s org’l structure Principal & admin’rs responsible for discipline; dept chairs are educ’l leaders Demographics emphasis Racial conflicts in late 60’s; 60% black stud. pop.; heavy on discipline & on keeping out non-district students slipping in from Chicago Teachers’ response to innov’n Rigid, structured, etc. at first; now, they say they like it/ NEEDS EXPLORATION Research access Very good; only restriction: teachers not required to cooperate
- Anything else that struck you as salient, interesting, illuminating or important in this contact? Thoroughness of the innov’n’s development and training. Its embeddedness in the district’s curriculum, as planned and executed by the district curriculum coordinator. The initial resistance to its high prescriptiveness (as reported by users) as contrasted with their current acceptance and approval of it (again, as reported by users).
- What new (or remaining) target questions do you have in considering the next contact with this site? How do users really perceive the innov’n? If they do indeed embrace it, what accounts for the change from early resistance? Nature and amount of networking among users of innov’n. Information on “stubborn” math teachers whose ideas weren’t heard initially—who are they? Situation particulars? Resolution? Follow-up on English teacher Reilly’s “fall from the chairmanship.” Follow a team through a day of rotation, planning, etc. CONCERN: The consequences of eating school cafeteria food two days per week for the next four or five months... Stop
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 329 Exhibit 10.4 Example of Checklist Matrix Presence of Supporting Conditions Condition For Users For Administrators Commitment Strong —“wanted to make it work.” Weak at building level. Prime movers in central office committed; others not. Understanding “ Basic ” (“felt I could do it, but I just wasn’t sure how.”) for teacher. Absent for aide (“didn’t understand how we were going to get all this.”) Absent at building level and among staff. Basic for 2 prime movers (“got all the help we needed from developer.”) Absent for other central office staff. Materials Inadequate: ordered late, puzzling (“different from anything I ever used”), discarded. NA Front-end training “ Sketchy ” for teacher (“it all happened so quickly”); no demo class. None for aide (“totally unprepared. I had to learn along with the children.”) Prime movers in central office had training at developer site; none for others. Skills Weak-adequate for teacher. “ None ” for aide. One prime mover (Robeson) skilled in substance; others unskilled. Ongoing inservice None , except for monthly committee meeting; no substitute funds. None Planning, coordination time None : both users on other tasks during day; lab tightly scheduled, no free time. None Provisions for debugging None systematized; spontaneous work done by users during summer. None School admin. support Adequate NA Central admin. support Very strong on part of prime movers. Building admin. only acting on basis of central office commitment. Relevant prior experience Strong and useful in both cases: had done individualized instruction, worked with low achievers. But aide had no diagnostic experience. Present and useful in central office, esp. Robeson (specialist). This excerpt shows how the researcher first was alerted to a concept by observations in the field, then refined his understanding of this concept by investigating its meaning. By observing the concept’s frequency of use, he came to realize its importance. Then he incorporated the concept into an explanatory model of student-patient relationships. A well-designed chart, or matrix , can facilitate the coding and categorization process. Exhibit 10.4 shows an example of a coding form designed by Miles and Huberman (1994:93–95) to represent the extent to which
330 Investigating the Social World teachers and teachers’ aides (“users”) and administrators at a school gave evidence of various supporting conditions that indicate preparedness for a new reading pro- gram. The matrix condenses data into simple categories, reflects further analysis of the data to identify degree of support, and provides a multidimensional summary that will facilitate subsequent, more intensive analysis. Direct quotes still impart some of the flavor of the original text.
Examining Relationships and Displaying Data
Examining relationships is the centerpiece of the analytic process, because it allows the researcher to move from simple description of the people and settings to explanations of why things happened as they did with those people in that setting. The process of examining relationships can be captured in a matrix that shows how different concepts are connected, or perhaps what causes are linked with what effects. Exhibit 10.5 displays a matrix used to capture the relationship between the extent to which stakeholders in a new program had something important at stake in the program and the researcher’s estimate of their favorability toward the program. Each cell of the matrix was to be filled in with a summary of an illustrative case study. In other matrix analyses, quotes might be included in the cells to represent the opinions of these different stakeholders, or the number of cases of each type might appear in the cells. The possibilities are almost endless. Keeping this approach in mind will generate many fruitful ideas for structuring a qualitative data analysis. The simple relationships that are identified with a matrix like that shown in Exhibit 10.5 can be examined and then extended to create a more complex causal model. Such a model represents the multiple relationships among the constructs identified in a qualitative analysis as important for explaining some outcome. A great deal of analysis must precede the construction of such a model, with careful attention to identification of important variables and the evidence that suggests connec- tions between them. Exhibit 10.6 provides an example of these connections from a study of the implementa- tion of a school program.
Authenticating Conclusions
No set standards exist for evaluating the validity, or authenticity, of conclusions in a qualitative study, but the need to carefully consider the evidence and methods on which conclusions are based is just as great as with other types of research. Individual items of information can be assessed in terms of at least three criteria (Becker 1958):
- How credible was the informant? Were statements made by someone with whom the researcher had a relationship of trust or by someone the researcher had just met? Did the informant have reason to lie? If the statements do not seem to be trustworthy as indicators of actual events, can they at least be used to help under- stand the informant’s perspective?
- Were statements made in response to the researcher’s questions, or were they spontaneous? Spontaneous statements are more likely to indicate what would have been said had the researcher not been present. Exhibit 10. Coding Form for Relationships: Stakeholders’ Stakes Favorable Neutral or Unknown Antagonistic High Moderate Low Note: Construct illustrative case studies for each cell based on fieldwork. Matrix A form on which can be recorded systematically particular features of multiple cases or instances that a qualitative data analyst needs to examine.
332 Investigating the Social World Comparing conclusions from a qualitative research project to those other researchers obtained while con- ducting similar projects can also increase confidence in their authenticity. Miller’s (1999) study of NPOs found striking parallels in the ways they defined their masculinity to processes reported in research about males in nursing and other traditionally female jobs: In part, male NPOs construct an exaggerated masculinity so that they are not seen as feminine as they carry out the social-work functions of policing. Related to this is the almost defiant expression of heterosexuality, so that the men’s sexual orientation can never truly be doubted even if their gender roles are contested. Male patrol officers’ language—such as their use of terms like “pansy police” to connote neighborhood police officers—served to affirm their own heterosexuality.... In addition, the male officers, but not the women, deliberately wove their heterosexual status into conversations, explicitly mentioning their female domestic partner or spouse and their children. This finding is consistent with research conducted in the occupational field. The studies reveal that men in female- dominated occupations, such as teachers, librarians, and pediatricians, over-reference their hetero- sexual status to ensure that others will not think they are gay. (p. 222)
Reflexivity
Confidence in the conclusions from a field research study is also strengthened by an honest and informative account about how the researcher interacted with subjects in the field, what problems he or she encountered, and how these problems were or were not resolved. Such a “natural history” of the development of the evi- dence enables others to evaluate the findings and reflects the interpretivist philosophy that guides many qualitative researchers (see Chapter 3). Such an account is important first and foremost because of the evolv- ing and variable nature of field research: To an important extent, the researcher “makes up” the method in the context of a particular investigation rather than applying standard procedures that are specified before the investigation begins. Barrie Thorne (1993) provides a good example of this final element of the analysis: Many of my observations concern the workings of gender categories in social life. For example, I trace the evocation of gender in the organization of everyday interactions, and the shift from boys and girls as loose aggregations to “the boys” and “the girls” as self-aware, gender-based groups. In writ- ing about these processes, I discovered that different angles of vision lurk within seemingly simple choices of language. How, for example, should one describe a group of children? A phrase like “six girls and three boys were chasing by the tires” already assumes the relevance of gender. An alterna- tive description of the same event—“nine fourth-graders were chasing by the tires”—emphasizes age and downplays gender. Although I found no tidy solutions, I have tried to be thoughtful about such choices.... After several months of observing at Oceanside, I realized that my field notes were pep- pered with the words “child” and “children,” but that the children themselves rarely used the term. “What do they call themselves?” I badgered in an entry in my field notes. The answer it turned out, is that children use the same practices as adults. They refer to one another by using given names (“Sally,” “Jack”) or language specific to a given context (“that guy on first base”). They rarely have occasion to use age-generic terms. But when pressed to locate themselves in an age-based way, my informants used “kids” rather than “children.” (pp. 8–9) Qualitative data analysts, more often than quantitative researchers, display real sensitivity to how a social situation or process is interpreted from a particular background and set of values and not simply based on the situation itself (Altheide & Johnson 1994). Researchers are only human, after all, and must rely on their own
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 333 senses and process all information through their own minds. By reporting how and why they think they did what they did, they can help others determine whether, or how, the researchers’ perspectives influenced their conclusions. “There should be clear ‘tracks’ indicating the attempt [to show the hand of the ethnographer] has been made” (Altheide & Johnson 1994:493). Anderson’s (2003) memoir about the Jelly’s Bar research illustrates the type of “tracks” that an ethnogra- pher makes as well as how the researcher can describe those tracks. Anderson acknowledges that his tracks began as a child: While growing up in the segregated black community of South Bend, from an early age, I was curious about the goings-on in the neighborhood, particularly the streets and more particularly the corner taverns where my uncles and my dad would go to hang out and drink.... Hence, my selection of a field setting was a matter of my background, intuition, reason, and a little bit of luck. (pp. 217–218) After starting to observe at Jelly’s, Anderson’s (2003) tracks led to Herman: After spending a couple of weeks at Jelly’s, I met Herman. I felt that our meeting marked an important step. We would come to know each other well... something of an informal leader at Jelly’s.... We were becoming friends.... He seemed to genuinely like me, and he was one person I could feel com- fortable with. (pp. 218–219) So we learn that Anderson’s observations were to be shaped, in part, by Herman’s perspective, but we also find out that Anderson maintained some engagement with fellow students. This contact outside the bar helped shape his analysis: “By relating my experiences to my fellow students, I began to develop a coherent perspec- tive, or a ‘story’ of the place that complemented the accounts I had detailed in my accumulating field notes” (Anderson 2003:220). In this way, the outcome of Anderson’s analysis of qualitative data resulted, in part, from the way in which he “played his role” as a researcher and participant, not just from the setting itself.
22 Alternatives in Qualitative Data Analysis
The qualitative data analyst can choose from many interesting alternative approaches. Of course, the research question under investigation should shape the selection of an analytic approach, but the researcher’s prefer- ences and experiences also will inevitably have an important influence on the method chosen. The alterna- tive approaches I present here (ethnography, and its new online cousin, netnography ); ethnomethodology; qualitative comparative analysis; narrative analysis; conversation analysis; case-oriented understanding; and grounded theory) give you a good sense of the different possibilities (Patton 2002).
Ethnography
Ethnography is the study of a culture or cultures that a group of people share (Van Maanen 1995:4). As a method, it is usually meant to refer to the process of participant observation by a single investigator who immerses himself or herself in the group for a long period of time (often one or more years), gradually establishing Ethnography The study of a culture or cultures that some group of people shares, using participant observation over an extended period of time.
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 335 Netnography The use of ethnographic methods to study online communities. Also termed cyberethnography and virtual ethnography. I engaged the denizens of the corner and wrote detailed field notes about my experiences, and from time to time I looked for patterns and relationships in my notes. In this way, an understanding of the setting came to me in time, especially as I participated more fully in the life of the corner and wrote my field notes about my experiences; as my notes accumulated and as I reviewed them occasionally and supplemented them with conceptual memos to myself, their meanings became more clear, while even more questions emerged. (Anderson 2003:224) A good ethnography like Anderson’s is only possible when the ethnographer learns the subtleties of expres- sion used in a group and the multiple meanings that can be given to statements or acts (Armstrong 2008:60–62). Good ethnographies also include some reflection by the researcher on the influence his or her own background has had on research plans, as well as on the impact of the research in the setting (Madden 2010:22–23).
Netnography
Communities can refer not only to people in a common physical location, but also to relationships that develop online. Online communities may be formed by persons with similar interests or backgrounds, perhaps to create new social relationships that location or schedules did not permit, or to supplement relationships that emerge in the course of work or school or other ongoing social activities. Like communities of people who interact face-to- face, online communities can develop a culture and become sources of identification and attachment (Kozinets 2010:14–15). And like physical communities, researchers can study online communities through immersion in the group for an extended period. Netnography, also termed cyberethnography and virtual ethnography (James & Busher 2009:34–35), is the use of ethnographic methods to study online communities. In some respects, netnography is similar to traditional ethnography. The researcher prepares to enter the field by becoming familiar with online communities and their language and customs, formulating an explor- atory research question about social processes or orientations in that setting, selecting an appropriate com- munity to study. Unlike in-person ethnographies, netnographies can focus on communities whose members are physically distant and dispersed. The selected community should be relevant to the research question, involve frequent communication among actively engaged members, and have a number of participants who, as a result, generate a rich body of textual data (Kozinets 2010:89). The netnographer’s self-introduction should be clear and friendly. Robert Kozinets (2010:93) provides the following example written about the online discussion space, alt.coffee: I’ve been lurking here for a while, studying online coffee culture on alt.coffee, learning a lot, and enjoy- ing it very much... I just wanted to pop out of lurker status to let you know I am here... I will be wanting to quote some of the great posts that have appeared here, and I will contact the individuals by personal e-mail who posted them to ask their permission to quote them. I also will be making the document on coffee culture available to any interested members of the newsgroup for their perusal and comments—to make sure I get things right. A netnographer must keep both observational and reflective field notes, but unlike a traditional ethnogra- pher can return to review the original data—the posted test—long after it was produced. The data can then be coded, annotated with the researcher’s interpretations, checked against new data to evaluate the persistence of social patterns, and used to develop a theory that is grounded in the data.
336 Investigating the Social World Ethnomethodology A qualitative research method focused on the way that participants in a social setting create and sustain a sense of reality.
Ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology focuses on the way that participants construct the social world in which they live—how they “create reality”—rather than on describing the social world itself. In fact, ethnomethodologists do not necessarily believe that we can find an objec- tive reality; it is the way that participants come to create and sustain a sense of reality that is of interest. In the words of Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein (1997), in ethnomethodology, as compared with the naturalistic orientation of ethnography, the focus shifts from the scenic features of everyday life onto the ways through which the world comes to be experienced as real, concrete, factual, and “out there.” An interest in members’ methods of con- stituting their world supersedes the naturalistic project of describing members’ worlds as they know them. (p. 41) Unlike the ethnographic analyst, who seeks to describe the social world as the participants see it, the ethnomethodological analyst seeks to maintain some distance from that world. The ethnomethologist views a code of conduct like that described by Anderson (2003) not as a description of a real normative force that constrains social action, but as the way that people in the setting create a sense of order and social structure (Gubrium & Holstein 1997:44–45). The ethnomethodologist focuses on how reality is con- structed, not on what it is. Sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1967) developed ethnomethodology in the 1960s and first applied it to the study of gender. Focusing on a teenage male-to-female transsexual who he termed “Agnes,” he described her “social achievement of gender” as the tasks of securing and guaranteeing for herself the ascribed rights and obligations of an adult female by the acquisition and use of skills and capacities, the efficacious display of female appear- ances and performances, and the mobilizing of appropriate feelings and purposes. (p. 134) In the News Research in the News READERS’ ONLINE FEEDBACK CAN BE VICIOUS After a woman published an article in an online magazine about postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder following a traumatic delivery experience with her baby boy, the nasty com- ments started to pour in to the area reserved for reader responses. She was told not to have any more babies and that she would be a bad mother. In a similar incident, an uninsured woman who had written of her inability to function after a car accident was told to “Get a minnie mouse bandage and go to sleep.” Why do some people get so vicious on the Internet? One social scientist suggested that it is because of the lack of face-to-face interac- tion, which provides constant feedback about others’ feelings through body language and gestures. Source: Brodesser-Akner, Taffy. 2010. “E-Playgrounds Can Get Vicious (Online Feedback From Readers).” The New York Times, April 22:E8.
338 Investigating the Social World Exhibit 10.7 Conversation Analysis, Including Pictures
- UT- 01 N: D’ you reckon she’s an instructor then. 02 N: (0.2) 03 N: Of some sort, 04 B: Is somebody scribing. Who’s writin’ it. = 05 N: =Oh yhe:ah. 06 (0.8) 07 M: Well you can’t [ read my ] = 08 N: [((pointing to K)) She wants to do it.] Barney Neil Kay Mick 09 M: =writin’ once I’ve [wri:tten it.] 10 K: [.hehhhh] 11 N: We:ll secretary an’ female. 12 (0.3) 13 K: .Hh heh heh heh ((nodding, picks up pen and paper)) 14 (0.4) 15 M: It’s uh::, 16 K: Yeah: I’m wearing glasses I must be the secretary.=
Chapter 10 Qualitative Data Analysis 339 Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe (2006:61–62) used a conversation between three friends to illustrate key concepts in conversation analysis. The text is prepared for analysis by numbering the lines, identifying the speakers, and inserting ↑ symbols to indicate inflection and decimal numbers to indicate elapsed time. 104 Marie: ↑ Has ↑ anyone-(0.2) has anyone got any really non: 105 sweaty stuff. 106 Dawn: Dave has, but you’ll smell like a ma:n, 107 (0.9) 108 Kate: Eh [ ↑ huh heh] 109 Marie: [Right has] anyone got any ↑ fe:minine non sweaty stuff. The gap at line 107, despite being less than a second long, is nevertheless quite a long time in conversation, and indicates an interactional glitch or trouble. As Kate starts to laugh, Marie reformulates her request, from “ ↑ has ↑ anyone got any really non: sweaty stuff,” to “right has anyone got any, ↑ fe:minine non sweaty stuff.” The word really is replaced by feminine, and is produced with an audible increase in pitch and emphasis. This replacement, together with the addition of right, displays her understanding of the problem with her previous question. For these speakers, smelling like a man (when one is a woman) is treated as a trouble source, a laugh- able thing and something that needs attending to and fixing. In this way, conversation analysis can uncover meanings in interactions about which the participants are not fully aware (Antaki 2008:438).
Narrative Analysis
Narrative methods use interviews and sometimes documents or observations to “fol- low participants down their trails” (Riessman 2008:24). Unlike conversation analysis, which focuses attention on moment-by-moment interchange, narrative analysis seeks to put together the “big picture” about experiences or events as the participants under- stand them. Narrative analysis focuses on “the story itself” and seeks to preserve the integrity of personal biographies or a series of events that cannot adequately be under- stood in terms of their discrete elements (Riessman 2002:218). Narrative “displays the goals and intentions of human actors; it makes individuals, cultures, societies, and historical epochs comprehensible as wholes” (Richardson 1995:200). The coding for a narrative analysis is typi- cally of the narratives as a whole, rather than of the different elements within them. The coding strategy revolves around reading the stories and classifying them into general patterns. For example, Calvin Morrill and his colleagues (2000:534) read through 254 conflict narratives written by the ninth graders they studied and found four different types of stories:
- Action tales, in which the author represents himself or herself and others as acting within the para- meters of taken-for-granted assumptions about what is expected for particular roles among peers.
- Expressive tales, in which the author focuses on strong, negative emotional responses to someone who has wronged him or her.
- Moral tales, in which the author recounts explicit norms that shaped his or her behavior in the story and influenced the behavior of others.
- Rational tales, in which the author represents himself or herself as a rational decision maker navi- gating through the events of the story. Narrative analysis A form of qualitative analysis in which the analyst focuses on how respondents impose order on the flow of experience in their lives and thus make sense of events and actions in which they have participated.
