Edited by Maggi Savin-Baden and Claire Howell Major, New Approaches to Qualitative Research: Wisdom and Uncertainty offers a relevant contribution to the field of qualitative inquiry by highlighting new, emerging approaches to qualitative research. The central guiding concepts of the book are wisdom and uncertainty and the volume is structured accordingly in three parts reflecting on wisdom that underlies uncertainties in stance, approach, and space. The topics addressed range from locating values and truths in qualitative research to questions about responsible ethics, from discussing the benefits of narrative theory and ethnodrama to a qualitative approach to questioning culture through the corporeal and exploring the politics of space. Although the vast majority of contributors come from educational or health research, the explorative approaches tackled here and ethical dilemmas related to a qualitative approach exceed disciplinary borders. This also justifies the editorial claim that the volume is intended for a specialist audience in a broad range of subject areas.
CARIM-East is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union. ; Remittances flowing from Ukrainian migrants working in high-income countries to Ukraine are an increasingly important source of extra income for migrants' families. Given the increasing size of aggregate remittance inflows, they are also expected to be a potential source of funding for the social and economic development of Ukraine as a whole. If remittances enhance investment in physical and human capital and thus boost productivity, they can help mitigate the possible negative economic effects of rapid population decline and the aging of the Ukrainian population. Yet the potential benefits of remittances are likely to be matched by potential costs. Thus, two main issues are of interest with regard to remittances in Ukraine: • what are their benefits and costs for migrants' families, local communities, the Ukrainian economy and society; and • how to harness their development potential while limiting any counterproductive side effects. This paper directly addresses these two questions. It does so by reporting first results from an ongoing effort to assess the potential development and unwanted side effects of remittances in Ukraine. These results come from a survey of the empirical literature in Ukraine and other transition economies and are supported, where possible, by the author's contributions. The purpose of this work is to draw out evidence-based policy implications. ; CARIM-East: Creating an Observatory of Migration East of Europe
Big Data for Qualitative Research covers everything small data researchers need to know about big data, from the potentials of big data analytics to its methodological and ethical challenges. The data that we generate in everyday life is now digitally mediated, stored, and analyzed by web sites, companies, institutions, and governments. Big data is large volume, rapidly generated, digitally encoded information that is often related to other networked data, and can provide valuable evidence for study of phenomena. This book explores the potentials of qualitative methods and analysis for big data, including text mining, sentiment analysis, information and data visualization, netnography, follow-the-thing methods, mobile research methods, multimodal analysis, and rhythmanalysis. It debates new concerns about ethics, privacy, and dataveillance for big data qualitative researchers. This book is essential reading for those who do qualitative and mixed methods research, and are curious, excited, or even skeptical about big data and what it means for future research. Now is the time for researchers to understand, debate, and envisage the new possibilities and challenges of the rapidly developing and dynamic field of big data from the vantage point of the qualitative researcher.
The main point of this essay is straightforward: The distinction between quantitative and qualitative research, when applied to empirical political analysis, is exaggerated and largely artificial. In fact, most political scientists can happily perform valid and useful research without being concerned about where they stand on the quantitative-qualitative divide. Furthermore, qualitative characterizations are often easily converted into quantitative characterizations, and many qualitative characterizations are implicitly quantitative to begin with. Finally, qualitative characterizations of the empirical world are almost always more useful when converted into quantitative ones.
The discipline of political science has been engaged in vibrant debate about research transparency for more than three decades. Over the last ten years, scholars who generate, collect, interpret, and analyze qualitative data have become increasingly involved in these discussions. The debate has played out across conference panels, coordinated efforts such as the Qualitative Transparency Deliberations (Büthe et al. 2021), articles in a range of journals, and symposia in outlets such as PS: Political Science and Politics, Security Studies, the newsletter of the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and, indeed, QMMR. Until recently, much of the dialogue has been conducted in the abstract. Scholars have thoroughly considered the questions of whether political scientists who generate and employ qualitative data and methods can and should seek to make their work more transparent, what information they should share about data generation and analysis, and which (if any) data they should make accessible in pursuit of transparency (see Jacobs et al. 2021).
This article is the result of reflection that emerged while conducting qualitative field research on nationalism and exclusion in Portugal. The problem I confronted was when to stop interviewing. Stated more precisely, I was seeking an answer to the question of when one has collected enough empirical data to support or reject one's hypotheses. This initial problem led me to a rather old discussion on the difference between natural and human sciences that has characterized German academic life for many years–in fact, since the early 19th century–producing some more heated phases of academic dispute, known as the Positivismusstreit in the 1930s and the 1960s.
This article is the result of reflection that emerged while conducting qualitative field research on nationalism and exclusion in Portugal. The problem I confronted was when to stop interviewing. Stated more precisely, I was seeking an answer to the question of when one has collected enough empirical data to support or reject one's hypotheses. This initial problem led me to a rather old discussion on the difference between natural and human sciences that has characterized German academic life for many years–in fact, since the early 19th century–producing some more heated phases of academic dispute, known as the Positivismusstreit in the 1930s and the 1960s.
Throughout history, socio-economic, cultural and political changes and transformations occurred in the structures of societies have also affected the basic institutions as well. As one of the basic institutions, the family and its elements have also been affected as mentioned above too. Undoubtedly, as one of the most basic actors of the family, woman and her roles and responsibilities are worth examining in all periods. Due to the changes which are experienced very fast in the modern world, it is certain that woman tries to position her own place and creates her identity, just like all the individuals in society. The factors for the changes in the structures of the family have been shown in the roles and responsibilities of the woman and her active role in the public sphere. The perception in traditional societies where man is positioned outside the house and woman in the house is now abandoned, specifically in modern societies. On the other hand, as woman entered the work life, the social structure made her part of the social division of labor and also forced her to continue her traditional roles and responsibilities. Especially, the woman who has experience of motherhood has also become an important actor in work life while she is dealing with child care and house work. The phenomenon of motherhood is defined as the practical realities and social importance of being a mother. This idea evaluates that motherhood is a socio-cultural phenomenon apart from a biological experience. In other words, the experience of motherhood is a social and cultural aspect rather than an individual one. Motherhood and maternity experiences are not only individual experiences but also refers to the identity of woman and her social status. The perception of motherhood which has changed in human history is generally defined and shaped as a social role and responsibilities in almost all societies. For this reason, the different motherhood roles emerged in different cultures and periods. This study explores how mothers interpret motherhood, what are the strengths and weaknesses during motherhood cycle, generally accepted motherhood best practices, parental education, resources to which mothers refer during motherhood experiences, generally accepted motherhood model, relationship between mother and child, child care, challenges faced in terms of child care and parenting, how changes in financial income affect motherhood in general, the effects of social media and motherhood models depending on socio-economic status. Main focus throughout the research is on motherhood experiences. The research is a qualitative case study for which Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is adopted utilizing interviews performed with 40 mothers that live in Balikesir. This research reveals the fact that motherhood models change depending on the socioeconomic status; however, there are certain instances in which socioeconomic status does not matter. The study reveals that motherhood experiences do not change according to class difference and every mother has high consciousness and awareness of this experience. Today motherhood experiences are obtained not only from a previous generation or social environment but also virtual environment, knowledge transmitted from masters, scientific information. This situation has reveals that motherhood experience is related with the cultural change and transformation.
Call it a bad equilibrium or a self-reinforcing cycle—APSR has clearly been stuck in one for many years when it comes to qualitative research in political science (with "qualitative" understood to include all branches of methodology associated with the qualitative tradition, broadly defined). We, as the current team of Editors, want to break the cycle. We want to see, and have hoped from the beginning to see, a lot more excellent qualitative work in the Review. We regret that that has not happened, and we hope that this brief missive can be the beginning of a new and more successful effort.
Discussion regarding the introduction and expansion of data access and research transparency (DA-RT) standards in political science has aroused a lively debate (e.g. Büthe et al. 2015). Scholars of various methodological orientations— qualitative researchers, theorists and even some experimentalists—have raised several concerns about the desirability or difficulties of implementing these standards (Fujii 2016; Isaac 2015; Pachirat 2015). Yet, the argument for making qualitative research more accessible and transparent has already been presented in several excellent pieces (see, e.g., Büthe et al. 2015; Büthe and Jacobs 2015; Elman, Kapiszewski, and Vinuela 2010; Elman and Kapiszewski 2014; Gleditsch and Kern 2016; Lupia and Elman 2014; Moravcsik 2014). We have also supported the introduction of these standards, extending the logic of preregistration to qualitative analysis (Piñeiro and Rosenblatt 2016, Piñeiro, Pérez, and Rosenblatt 2016). In this brief note, we add to the literature cited above by highlighting a different perspective on the assessment of the introduction and expansion of DART practices in the discipline, especially in qualitative research with a focus on preregistration. It is important at the outset to stress that our claims are only valid for— and can thus be only applied to—positivist qualitative research, i.e. research that seeks to make descriptive and causal claims regarding a research problem. The interpretivist tradition in political science and other traditions in the social sciences and humanities follow other epistemological rules (Sil, Castro, and Calasanti 2016). Our discussion is not meant to suggest that one tradition is superior to others.
This short commentary reflects upon some of the current debates about qualitative methods within European psychology. It notes that the rebirth of qualitative methods towards the end of the twentieth century often coupled an epistemological challenge to the quantitative orthodoxy within psychology with a political challenge to social injustice. However, more recently there have been tensions imposed by the increasing state and institutional surveillance of research. Qualitative researchers need to reflect upon these wider pressures if they are to retain their original critical impulse.
Presented at The Annual Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) Conference , June 04, 2021, Virtual; in the session Gender and Development: Contextualizing Theory on the Ground.
While the social sciences are experiencing narrative and emotional turns that are largely based on exploratory and theoretical qualitative research, the problematic dismissal of qualitative research approaches continues to loom large outside academia. Frequently described as a collection of "anecdotal stories," qualitative research is dismissed as unscientific and unreliable— comments that limit the perceived usefulness of qualitative findings, especially in terms of policy reform. This article problematizes evaluating qualitative research according to quantitative measures of rigour and explores the richness and value of documenting experiential stories and the process of storying in social science research. Notably, we take up the issues of criminal record suspension (pardons) and the abolition of carceral segregation as two case studies to demonstrate how the qualitative value of experiential research and personal stories are simultaneously mobilized and rejected by key actors such as politicians, government researchers, and judges. Our analysis highlights the power that stories have when it comes to influencing change within the criminal justice system, depending on who takes up/rejects these stories. We conclude with a discussion of why stories matter and how, when "layered," they can contribute to the production of meaningful interventions to the ongoing criminalization and punishment of vulnerable people.
In this special issue, we aim to introduce a mapping of qualitative research in psychology across European settings. Qualitative research in psychology constitutes a complex terrain, with a multiplicity of epistemological and methodological perspectives anchored to a diversity of historical, political, and socio-cultural settings. Despite recent progress toward the institutionalisation of qualitative research in certain countries, the landscape of qualitative research in psychology in Europe remains largely unexplored. Following a brief overview of qualitative research in psychology, we proceed with narrating the story of the "birth" of this special issue. We then briefly introduce the constellation of articles included in this special issue.We conclude with wider implications concerning the venture of establishing qualitative research in psychology in Europe.
Qualitative methods are commonly used within the area of Electronic Government as well as other fields in social science. Among students carrying out qualitative approaches in their thesis work, qualitative studies are very common but unfortunately there is often a lack of rigor when using qualitative approaches. Method books discussing qualitative studies are frequent, but they often lack some firm advices about how to actually carry out a qualitative study. There are lots of good advices about interviews and observations. Grounded theory is often mentioned although in rather general terms. The interpretive part is not very thoroughly discussed though. Below we present an outline that might fill the mentioned gap somewhat. Our aim is to give the student a guide in carrying out the qualitative/interpretive approach. By following the ten steps below, students will not only have to prepare the study, they will also find some solid reference support for the necessary steps in the process of research.
