1. Chapter 2
A Brief History of
Qualitative Research

2. Classical Ideas
• Employing systematic methods in
conducting social science research dates:
– Back to the late nineteenth century, the same
time as the emergence of classical theories:
• Such as those of Weber, Marx and Engels,
Simmel, and Durkheim.
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. Max Weber
• Gave little attention to quantitative data
– Was one of the founders of qualitative
research
• Verstehen—Understanding
• The Historical-Comparative Method
• The Construction of “Ideal-Types”
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

4. The Chicago School And Its Legacy
• Spatial Mapping and Spatial Analysis
• The Life History Method
• Analysis of Documents
• Observations and Descriptions of
Neighborhood Life
• Occupational Studies
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

5. Ethnographic Research In
Anthropology
• Anthropologists of the Early 1900s
– “British School” of anthropology
• Sociology and Anthropology: An Often
Uneasy Union
– Most “pioneering” qualitative researchers
were keenly interested in:
• Fairly small, often tight-knit “communities”
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

6. The Frankfurt Institute
• The Frankfurt Institute was comprised of a
group of social scientists working in:
– Germany between World War I and World
War II
• Walter Benjamin
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

7. Street Corner Society: Paragon Of
Early Qualitative Research
• Study of a predominantly Italian American
community in Boston in the late 1930s;
– Was similar to Chicago School studies.
• It focused on a specific area, described
the life of the neighborhood primarily:
– Through experiences & actions of young men;
provided accounts of racketeering and politics
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

8. Critical Community Studies
• Throughout the period from the 1930s to
the last decades of the twentieth century:
– Critical community studies were a major area
of qualitative research
• Vidich and Bensman
• Hollingshead
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

9. The Rise Of Microsociologies & The
Great Surge In Qualitative Research
• Foundational Concepts of Early
Qualitative Research
• The Common Denominator: Get Out of
the Office and into the Mix of Real Life!
• Principles of the New Qualitative
Methodology
– Situated Action
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

10. The Rise Of Microsociologies & The
Great Surge In Qualitative Research
– Action And Interaction
– Natural Settings
– Grounded Theory
• Ethnomethodologists and “Breaching”
Experiments
• The Birth of a Contentious Divide
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

11. New Directions At The End Of The
20th Century
• Feminist Research Strategies
• Postmodernism in Qualitative Research
– A similar trend appeared in journalism after a
long 20th -century romance with objectivity;
• Defined by careful attention to “balance” and
“getting both sides of the story.
• Toward More Comprehensive Orientations
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.