Department of Sociology s5

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

AN INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

PREPARED BY

CHRISTINA HUGHES

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

WHAT IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

AN INTRODUCTION

• Qualitative research is empirical research where the data are not in the form of numbers. (Punch, 1998: 4)

Qualitative research is multimethod in focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials - case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts - that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals' lives. Accordingly, qualitative researchers deploy a wide range of interconnected methods, hoping always to get a better fix on the subject matter at hand. (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 2)

Qualitative research is ... grounded in a philosophical position which is broadly `interpretivist' in the sense that it is concerned with how the social world is interpreted, understood, experienced or produced ... based on methods of data generation which are flexible and sensitive to the social context in which data are produced (rather than rigidly standardized or structured, or removed from `real life' or `natural' social context, as in some forms of experimental method) ... based on methods of analysis and explanation building which involve understandings of complexity, detail and context. Qualitative research aims to produce rounded understandings on the basis of rich, contextual and detailed data. There is more emphasis on `holistic' forms of analysis and explanation in this sense, than on charting surface patterns, trends and correlations. Qualitative research usually does use some form of quantification, but statistical forms of analysis are not seen as central. (Mason, 1996: 4)

These quotations convey something of the nature of qualitative research. They indicate that qualitative research is concerned with the study of people in their natural settings. Qualitative researchers use a variety of tools and techniques in order to develop deep understandings of how people perceive their social realities and in consequence, how they act within the social world. They seek to make connections between events, perceptions and actions so that their analyses are holistic and contextual. Beyond these broad assumptions, qualitative researchers are very careful to stress the multiplicity and variety of qualitative approaches. For example, Mason (1996) comments that she does not feel comfortable with going beyond the above general features. This is because there are many different answers to key questions of qualitative methodology. Similarly, Denzin and Lincoln (1994) highlight the multiple nature of qualitative approaches. They also illustrate how these have changed over time. Denzin and Lincoln (1994: 1) indicate that `qualitative research operates in a complex historical field that crosscuts five historical moments ... These five moments simultaneously operate in the present'. Denzin and Lincoln describe these five moments as:

• · The traditional (1900-195): associated with the positivist paradigm where qualitative research aims to reflect the principles of (natural) scientific enquiry;

· The modernist or golden age (1950-1970): where we see the appearance of post-positivist arguments. This is also part of:

· The blurred genres (1970-1986): where a variety of new interpretive, qualitative perspectives come into the foreground: hermeneutics, structuralism, semiotics, phenomenology, cultural studies and feminism. The humanities also became a central resource for critical and interpretive theory. The blurred genres phase gave rise to:

· The crisis of representation (1986-1990): where researchers struggled with how to locate themselves and their subjects in reflexive texts;

· The postmodern or present (1990-): a new sensibility that doubts all previous paradigms.

The key points I would make in respect of this are:

· As Ely et al (1991) point out the field of qualitative research is shot through with a host of labels and a host of proponents of those labels. Different terms are used in roughly synonymous ways (naturalistic inquiry, ethnographic methodologies, qualitative research, interpretive research). This causes confusion and for the new (and also not so new!) student it reinforces a sense that it is they who is at fault as they have failed to get to grips with what exactly qualitative research is. Take heart: Ely et al note that Tesch (1990) compiled a list of 46 terms that social scientists have used to name their versions of qualitative research. No wonder we are all confused!

· As Denzin and Lincoln (1994) point out the nature of the field of qualitative research changes over time. Different perspectives and concerns arise at different points.

· As Denzin and Lincoln (1994) also point out old concerns do not go away. The `five moments' are consecutive but also simultaneous.

· Theories of ontology (what is the form and nature of social reality and, thus, what can be known) and epistemology (what is the nature of the relationship between the knower and would-be knower and what can be known) are central to understanding the forms of knowledge that are produced through qualitative approaches.

I would add the following imperatives, drawn from Mason (1996)

· Qualitative research should be conducted systematically and rigorously. This means that, like all social researchers, qualitative researchers have to use key principles of research design such as linking the research questions to the methodological approaches, considering issues of analysis and data collection as integrated and being clear about the purposes of the research.

· Qualitative research should be conducted in a flexible and contextual way. This means that qualitative researchers make decisions on the basis of their research design and in terms of the changing contexts and situations in which the research takes place. One of the strengths of qualitative approaches is that this flexibility can enhance the research leaded to unanticipated, but significant, issues.

· Qualitative research should be conducted through critical, self- reflexive enquiry. This means that the researcher should be constantly asking questions about her or his role in the research process.

· Qualitative research should produce social explanations to intellectual puzzles. This means being explicit about the logics that have produced these explanations (eg. sampling, selection of events for analysis, researcher's role and so on). · Qualitative research is not a unified body of philosophy and practice. For example, qualitative research should not be viewed as completely distinctive from, or uncomplementary to, quantitative approaches. The `divide' between quantitative and qualitative research is to some extent false. Qualitative research does quantify (look for phrases such as more than, less than). Quantitative research can collect more qualitative data through open ended questions. All researchers should think carefully about how the choices of method and the potential combinations of approach that are appropriate and possible.

· Qualitative research should be conducted as ethical practice.

Whilst the field of qualitative research is complex and riven with internal debates, nonetheless it is important to have a general sense of the key features of qualitative research. To this end I conclude with the following produced by Ely et al (1991: 4):

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

· Events can be understood adequately only if they are seen in context. Therefore, a qualitative researcher immerses her/himself in the setting.

· The contexts of inquiry are not contrived; they are natural. Nothing is predefined or taken for granted.

· Qualitative researchers want those who are studied to speak for themselves, to provide their perspectives in words and other actions. Therefore, qualitative research is an interactive process in which the persons studied teach the researcher about their lives.

· Qualitative researchers attend to the experience as a whole, not as separate variables. The aim of qualitative research is to understand experience as unified.

· Qualitative methods are appropriate to the above statements. There is no one general method.

· For many qualitative researchers, the process entails appraisal about what was studied.

Ely et al add the following from Sherman and Webb (1988) to their definition:

Qualitative implies a direct concern with experience as it is `lived' or `felt' or `undergone' ... Qualitative research, then, has the aim of understanding experience as nearly as possible as its participants feel it or live it.

Further Work

For those of you interested in following up debates and issues within qualitative research in more detail the classic texts are Denzin and Lincoln, 1994 and Denzin and Lincoln, 1998 (a shorter paperback version of the 1994 edition). You might also consult the International Journal of Qualitative Research in Education both for examples of this form of research and for methodological discussions.

IS QUALITATIVE RESEARCH A CREDIBLE METHODOLOGY?

WHICH BEST DESCRIBES QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH?

SOFT HARD

SUBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE

SMALL SCALE LARGE SCALE

IDIOGRAPHIC GENERALIZABLE JOURNALISM SCIENCE

OPINION TRUTH

Ideas that qualitative research is a `second' best approach rest in large part because of the predominance of the `science' model of social research. The central values of such an approach are objectivity and generalizability. Within quantitative approaches, objectivity is maintained in various technical ways. For example, through the distance between the researcher and the researched that is created through the administration of a formal questionnaire; through the possibilities of replication of the research; and through the use of external checks on the methods used. The generalizability of quantitative research is again seen to be possible through technical solutions. The development of sophisticated statistical and sampling techniques are key to this.

In contrast, qualitative approaches emphasise the importance of getting close to the researched. This is because one of the purposes of qualitative approaches is to try to depict the participant's view of social reality. Thus, techniques such as participant observation and unstructured or informal interviews are commonly used. Because of the time and costs involved in such work, qualitative designs do not generally draw samples from large-scale data sets. In addition, because of the central role played by the researcher in the generation of data, it is not possible to replicate qualitative studies.

Ideas of `second' best also rest on the stereotypes that arise when quantitative and qualitative approaches are compared in this way. In practice, researchers use a variety of methods or techniques of data collection under the umbrella terms of `qualitative' and `quantitative' to enhance the generalizability of the account (Bryman, 1988). In addition, as Hammersley (1989) indicates there is much greater variety of theories of social reality within and between the labels `quantitative' and `qualitative' than we might at first imagine. In some ways the concerns that arise about a qualitative/quantitative divide can be resolved by giving greater attention to how these approaches can be combined. For Bryman (1998: 126) this would produce `more complete accounts of social reality'. However, it is perhaps important to remember that the values conveyed by descriptions such as soft/hard, idiosyncratic/generalizable, art/science, small scale/large scale have political import. There is a politics in the choice and use of methods, particularly if you hope that your research will impact on policy or create change in some way. Jayaratne (1993) encourages feminists to use both methods because she believes this is more likely to achieve feminist goals. Thus: `My approach to this issue [of choice of method] is political: that is, I believe the appropriate use of both quantitative and qualitative methods in the social sciences can help the feminist community in achieving its goals more effectively than the use of either qualitative or quantitative methods alone' (p 109, emphasis in original).

In a similar vein, Stanley's (1990) account of a Social Services' referral indicates the politics embedded in the power of `objectivity' in the production of social research knowledge. Stanley delivered a paper that gave an account of an elderly couple's experiences of Social Services' intervention. This account deliberately omitted the fact that the couple were her parents. As she states `I felt that presenting `the case study' as my own still recent experience of caring would disqualify both me and it from `research' and `papers' in the eyes of those present' (p 121).

The key points I would wish to emphasise are:

· There are many stereotypes about qualitative and quantitative approaches.

· Qualitative and quantitative approaches are not as distinctive as the idea of a `divide' suggests. · These stereotypes lead to comparisons that are political in import.

In addition, it is important to be aware of the various strengths and limitations of any methodological approach. I set out below a summary that I have adapted, and added to, from Burns (2000- 13-14) in respect of qualitative research:

Limitations of Qualitative Approaches

· The problem of adequate validity or reliability is a major criticism. Because of the subjective nature of qualitative data and its origin in single contexts, it is difficult to apply conventional standards of reliability and validity.

· Contexts, situations, events, conditions and interactions cannot be replicated to any extent nor can generalisations be made to a wider context than the one studied with any confidence.

· The time required for data collection, analysis and interpretation is lengthy.

· The researcher's presence has a profound effect on the subjects of study.

· Issues of anonymity and confidentiality present problems when selecting findings.

· The viewpoints of both researcher and participants have to be identified and elucidated because of issues of bias.

Strengths

· Because of close researcher involvement, the researcher gains an insider's view of the field. This allows the researcher to find issues that are often missed (such as subtleties and complexities) by the scientific, more positivistic enquiries.

· Qualitative descriptions can play the important role of suggesting possible relationships, causes, effects and dynamic processes.

· Because statistics are not used, but rather qualitative research uses a more descriptive, narrative style, this research might be of particular benefit to the practitioner as she or he could turn to qualitative reports in order to examine forms of knowledge that might otherwise be unavailable, thereby gaining new insight.

· Qualitative research adds flesh and blood to social analysis.

HOW DO YOU DO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH?

THREE POINTS TO NOTE

• The researcher has several methods for collecting empirical materials, ranging from the interview to direct observation, to the analysis of artifacts, documents, and cultural records, to the use of visual materials or personal experience. The researcher may also use a variety of different methods of reading and analyzing interviews or cultural texts, including content, narrative, and semiotic strategies. Faced with large amounts of qualitative materials, the investigator seeks ways of managing and interpreting these documents, and here data management methods and computer-assisted models of analysis may be of use. (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994: 14).

... unstructured interviewing and focus group techniques are qualitative methods of data collection (Bowling, 1997: 311)

Qualitative researchers study spoken and written representations and records of human experience, using multiple methods and multiple sources of data. Several types of data collection might well be used in the one qualitative project. ... the main ways of collecting qualitative data [are] the interview, observation, participant observation and documents. Whatever the design and whatever the perspective, the data in most qualitative research come down to these main types. (Punch, 1988: 174)

Qualitative research mainly works with two sorts of data. Verbal data are collected in semi-structured interviews or as narratives. ... Visual data result from applying the various observational methods, ranging from participant and non- participant observation to ethnography and analysing photos and films ... verbal and visual data are transformed into texts by documenting them and by transcription. (Flick, 1998: 11-12)

As these quotations illustrate, there are many ways to `do' qualitative research. You might undertake an interview study, an observation or collect and analyse documents. You might spend months in the field living with those whom you research. You might undertake a series of unstructured, interviews with a large group of people. You might focus on a single person. The research may be spread over many years or it may be episodic. You might be researching an unfamiliar culture or you might be researching your own organisation. You might combine methods, using statistics to convey generalizability about the case you have selected. You might use a computer for analysis or you might use your living room floor to spread the transcripts out ready for cut and pasting. You might work alone or in a team.

I would like to emphasise that the `doing' of qualitative research comprises of three key aspects. The first two relate to the distinctions that are made between the terms method and methodology. The term method is used when we are referring to the tools or techniques of data collection such as questionnaires, interviews and observations. The term methodology has a more philosophical meaning and usually refers to the approach or paradigm that underpins the research. Punch (1998) suggests that method includes research design, data collection and data analysis. He notes that the noun methodology is more problematic. He states that `Technically, it [methodology] refers to the study of method(s), the overall analysis of how research proceeds ... It is often used more loosely, as in the phrase ` the research methodology of this study'. In such a case, `research method(s) would be a more accurate term' (p29).

The key point about making a distinction between method and methodology is to emphasise that the tools that are used to collect data cannot be separated from the frameworks of analysis, and their underpinning theories, that are used to make sense of this data. We can 'do' qualitative research in a positivistic, an interpretive (the most common), a postmodern and a critical way (also very common).

Given that how we interpret the data cannot be separated from how it is collected, qualitative researchers also stress a third features of this approach. This is that to be a qualitative researcher requires one to be highly reflexive. Alvesson and Skoldberg (2000:5) describe this in terms of drawing:

• ...attention to the complex relationship between processes of knowledge production and the various contexts of such processes as well as the involvement of the knowledge producer. This involves operating on at least two levels in research work and paying much attention to how one thinks about thinking ... [this means] that serious attention is paid to the way different kinds of linquistic, social, political and theoretical elements are woven together in the process of knowledge development, during which empirical material is constructed, interpreted and written. Empirical research in a reflective mode starts from a sceptical approach to what appear at a superficial glance as unproblematic replicas of the way reality functions, while at the same time maintaining the belief that the study of suitable (well thought-out) excerpts from this reality can provide an important basis for a generation of knowledge that opens up rather than closes, and furnishes opportunities for understanding rather than establishes `truths'.

The key point here is that the reflexive social researcher has to recognise their own place and role in generating the knowledge that is in the research report. For example, Scheurich (1997) suggests that the researcher is an imperialist who can marshall the data according to her will. What does this mean, then, for the validity of the research?

WHICH HINTS AND TIPS WORK?

Hint: Think of choosing your research topic in terms of the Goldilocks strategy. You want to select a topic which is not too big, and not too small, but just right (and one which will not break). (p 25)

Hint: If you find very conflicting arguments in your reading around, you may well have identified an issue or debate which would be worth exploring in your research project (p 95)

Hint: Being critical does not mean rubbishing or rejecting someone else's work. As a researcher and thinker you should be able simultaneously to entertain two or more contradictory ideas at one time. (p 105)

Hint: If you carry out a search of the literature using a computer database, and this results in hundreds of references, do not download them all. Narrow your search further, perhaps by limiting it to works published after a certain date, or by adding to or changing your key words. (p 113)

Hint: If you feel traumatized or terrorized by the process of analysing the data you have collected, you might like to think of it as analogous to cooking. What and how you cook depends on your taste, skills and the resources you have available. You may like your food simple and freshly prepared, or carefully blended over a long period, or fast and processed. You may mix the ingredients together using a recipe, or based on previous experience, or you may buy a packet already prepared. You may use a range of tools in your cooking, from a simple knife or spoon to an expensive foodprocessor. You may be preparing food just for yourself or for a banquet. See if you can find further parallels as you cook your data! (p 174)

Hint: Some of the tasks involved in analysing data are very basic and repetitive. Save these for when you are unable to do, or do not feel like doing, anything more demanding. (p 183)

Hint: Try explaining it to a non-specialist again. (p 198)

(All from: Blaxter, Hughes and Tight, 1996)

When teaching a class recently, one student admitted that her focus group interview went badly wrong. She had been researching `Girls' Nights Out' and had invited two groups of friends to her house. They did not get on and sat either end of the room throughout the entire evening. One of the members of the class (very gently) told her that, because this was a common problem, it was normal practice in focus group research to ensure that the people invited did not know each other beforehand. If it was thought desirable to bring people together who did know each other then it was important to ensure that they were one rather than two or more groups.

This `tip', of course, would have been much more useful beforehand but this story is not so much concerned about when, and how, we acquire such advice. It is more concerned to emphasise that it is too easy to dismiss the usefulness of such knowledge!

The hints set out above have arisen from my own research and teaching experiences. They are aimed at students who are undertaking research for the first time. I hope that the following exercise will generate some more hints and tips that are useful in your research.

1. What would you advise?

· You are researching reasons for non-participation in adult learning classes. Some of people you are interviewing are very uncomfortable about talking to a researcher. What tools or techniques would you use to facilitate the interview?

· You want to undertake a participant observation study in a local community. How/where do you begin?

· The person you are interviewing expresses some extreme racist views. What do you say in response?

· You are facilitating a focus group discussion. How do you deal with the following:

· (a) two members of the group begin an argument; (b) one member of the group dominates the conversation; (c) several members of the group get up to help themselves to refreshments and begin a conversation in the corner of the room; (d) the group runs out of steam after fifteen minutes and seems to have exhausted their thoughts on the topic; (e) one member of the group never speaks.

· How do I manage all this data?

· This is the first time you have undertaken field research and you are very nervous and anxious. What will help?

· You have been undertaking some long term participant observation in a local community centre. You have become very passionate about the issues that they are facing. Does this matter?

2. What problems have you encountered in your research that you would welcome some advice about?

3. What is your worst experience of research going wrong?

THE RESEARCH DIARY

Observational Notes These record events experienced principally through watching and listening. They contain as little interpretation as possible and are as reliable as the observer can construct them.

Methodological Notes

These record aspects of reflection on the methodology. For example they might include a critique of one's own tactics. They will note the time, place and technique used.

Theoretical Notes

These are your attempts to derive meaning from your data.

Analytical Notes

These are where you attempt to bring together several aspects of your analysis within a broader, more abstract statement.

UNDERTAKING AN OBSERVATION

· Are the times at which you carry out your observations relevant?

· Do you need to devise an observational schedule or determine pre-coded categories?

· How are you going to organize your data recording?

· Is it important to you to try and record `everything' or will you be much more selective?

· Are your age, sex, ethnicity, dress or other characteristics likely to affect your observations?

· How artificial is the setting? How visible are you as the observer? Does this matter? · Is observation enough or will you need to participate, and/or use other means of data collection?

· Are there any situations to which you cannot get access but where observation may be important? How can you get `backstage'?

· If you are going to participate more directly in the events you will be observing, how are you going to balance the demands of participation and observation?

CAN RESEARCH BE EMPOWERING?

• The terms `power' and `empowerment' crop up a great deal in research related to social justice. This is not surprising. Improvements in justice are related to power: who has it, how it is exercised and where it manifests itself. It sounds as if researchers for social justice would find a lot to agree about here. But this is not the case. ... the very differences invite greater reflexivity and clarity about what researchers think they are doing, and whether it is worthwhile. (Griffiths, 1998: 117)

Using creative genres of writing ... can help mobilize social action or evoke participatory experiences through imagination, performance art, and storytelling. (Ellis and Bochner, 1996: 30)

Readers who identify with an oppressed group may achieve a unique outcome through reading about rhetorical figures who are metaphors for themselves. Self-re-cognition may result in an imaginative naming of one's conditions. (Barone, 1995: 69)

We re-present stories told by subjugated Others, stories that would otherwise be discarded. And we get a hearing. (Fine, 1998: 150).

We might suggest that calls for empowerment, giving voice and dialogue are fairly commonplace these days. We find the idea of empowerment in literatures as far apart as those concerned with organisational competitiveness and those concerned with the eradication of poverty. The extent of usage of such terms, and the impact of what some call the postmodern `malaise', has meant that we are more likely today to find that there are 'calls for serious skepticism of and critical attention to those contemporary education narratives that claim to be emancipatory' (Lather, 1992: 129). All liberatory talk has oppressive potentials.

Gore (1992: 56) usefully delineates the concept of empowerment into three components. Thus, empowerment suggests (1) an agent of empowerment, (2) a notion of power as property, and (3) some kind of vision or desirable end sate). This Foucauldian approach suggests that to empower someone, then, means that you are authorized by yourself or others to give something. Yet what does authority mean. As Weiler (1995: 33) points out for many feminists the practices of authority can be paradoxical:

• ... the issue of institutional authority raises the contradictions of trying to achieve a democratic and collective ideal in a hierarchical institution, but it also raises the question of the meaning of authority for feminist teachers, whose right to speak or to hold power is itself under attack in a patriarchal, (and racist, homophobic, classist, and so on) society.

At times, feminist women may indeed seek to claim their authority `over' precisely because it is already questioned through gendered organizational and social practices. Empowerment also suggests that power is some kind of property that can be given away, handed over, borrowed or shared. Simplified discussions of empowerment encourage perceptions of uni-directional models that do not credit others with power nor allow for the contradictory messiness through which the everyday enactments of power emerge. Finally, what are people being `empowered' for? Empowerment suggests a desirable end state but what might that be? And do we all agree with whatever that is?

These issues are central for those working to `empower' and to work for social justice. As Griffiths (op cit) notes there is no single response to these issues. Yet Griffiths (1998: 95-96 and 102) offers the following ten principles that underpin working for social justice in qualitative educational research. These are:

1. Improvement: A main reason for doing the research is to get improvement in social justice in and from education. Results of research include knowledge (but not only propositional knowledge or information) and improvements)

2. Knowledge and learning: A main reason for doing the research is to get knowledge and to learn from it. This is inclusive of various kinds of knowledge. It implies the best possible of whatever kind is aimed at.

3. Radical change of any of the beliefs and values is possible: Improvements in knowledge are always uncertain, so researchers must be prepared to change their minds radically, and to challenge others during and after doing the research. Research results and processes may surprise and discomfort any or all of the members of the researcher community, and also other educational researchers.

4. Collaboration and consultation with the immediate research community. Researchers need to work collaboratively with people as part of the community carrying out the research. It is difficult to establish hard and fast boundaries to this research community. Creating, establishing and working with such a diverse research community requires that all sectors respect and work with each other in conditions of trust and safety, in the interests of improving education. It is acknowledged that the processes of consultation and change are going to result in conflict and people feeling exposed when putting their views on the line. Waiving trust and safety can be morally justified, but only in extreme conditions.

5. Openness to a wider community: Researchers need to be open to the viewpoints of all concerned with the research. This means not only those in (4) above, but also users of the research and anyone else to whom it is relevant, eg pupils, teachers, support staff, parents, LEA advisors, the neighbourhood, policy- makers and pressure groups. Strategies are needed to listen to quiet, less powerful, voices.

6. Openness to political groupings and perspectives: Researchers need to seek out and be open to the viewpoints of socio-political groups. There are alliances to be made between groups of people on the basis of, for instance, class, race, gender, sexuality. They cross-cut alliances between, for instance, teachers, advisors, children and parents. All these groups need acknowledgement, support and understanding. This is a source of the reflexivity mentioned in (7) and (8).

7. Reflexivity about own position and interests. Reflexivity is needed about the researchers' own socio-political positions and interests. Argument, anger and risk are all part of the process. Some of the feelings of risk come about because such consultation requires researcher(s) to be open to reflexivity about their own position and interests.

8. Reflexivity about own understanding and values. Reflexivity is needed about the researchers' own understanding and values. It is important that the researchers acknowledge their allegiance to beliefs, values and traditions. Their most dearly held knowledge and values may be based in these principles of research for social justice, but these too are revisable.

9. Perfection in research is not to be found: There is no hope of doing perfect research. Utopia does not exist. All research programmes have to be constructed on the run, and against a background of social and educational change. Time constraints and compromises are inevitable. By the time the best possible design, methods and forms of dissemination are found, the situation will most probably have changed. It follows that all research must be subject to critique. Good research still needs to improve. This may mean that there are areas in which a research programme is excellent, but some other things may be out of its control altogether.

10. Taking responsibility as part of the wider educational research community. Researchers must recognize their responsibilities related to being part of the community of educational researchers. Good research also requires researchers to be open to the community of educational and other researchers, in a process of reflexivity related to dangerous knowledge and power. Advances always come as a patchwork or ragbag. There can never be a tidy overarching rationale or masterplan for improving fairness. Danger has to be acknowledged. Vigilance is needed. On the other hand, advances need to be recognised and celebrated.

Griffiths warns that it is important to note that this is not a `pick- and-mix' list. All principles are interlocking.

Does your work embrace these principles or do you think they are valid enough to adopt?

Further Work

Caution does need exercising with the use of concepts such as empowerment and power. Most common assumptions are based on top down, Us and Them, models where power is something that an elite or a boss has. This is not to deny that some groups/individuals do have more power than others but the tendency is to focus in this one direction. Foucauldian analyses of power highlight how power is not simply repressive but productive, that power is everywhere and that alongside power we will find resistance. The Griffiths (op cit) text gives a fuller exploration of this and provides associated examples from research in education.

AN INTRODUCTION TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

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Useful Internet Sites

CAQDAS Networking Project: set up in conjunction with ESRC to disseminate an understanding of the practical skills needed to use software to facilitate qualitative data analysis and to encourage debate about methodological and epistemological issues raised by the use of such software. http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/

Economic and Social Research Council: to keep up to date with developments and potential websites for both qualitative and quantitative methods. http://www.esrc.ac.uk/

Sociological Research Online: an on-line journal. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/