INTRODUCING QUALITATIVE METHODS provides a series of volumes which introduce qualitative
research to the student and beginning researcher. The approach is interdisciplinary and
international. A distinctive feature of these volumes is the helpful student exercises.
One stream of the series prov1des texts on the key methodologies used in qualitative
research. The other stream contains books on qualitative research for different disciplines or
occupations. Both streams cover the basic literature in a clear and accessible style, but also
cover the 'cutting edge' 1ssues in the area.
SERIES EDITOR
David Silverman (Goldsmiths College)
EDITORIAL BOARD
Michael Bloor (University of Wales, Cardiff)
Barbara Czarniawska (University of Gothenburg)
Norman Denzin (University of Illinois, Champaign)
Barry Glassner (University of Southern California)
Jaber Gubrium (University of Missouri)
Anne Murcott (South Bank University)
Jonathan Potter (Loughborough University)
TITLES IN SERIES
D01ng Conversation Analysts
Paul ten Have
Using Foucault's Methods
Gavin Kendall and Gary Wickham
The Quality of Qualitative Research
Clive Seale
Qualitative Evaluation
ian Shaw
Researching Life Stones and Family Histones
Robert L. Miller
Categories in Text and Talk
Georgia Lepper
Qualitative Research in Social Work
ian Shaw and Nick Gould
Qualitative Research 1n Information Systems
Michael D. Myers and David Avison
Researching the Visual
Michael Emmison and Philip Smith
Qualitative Research in Education
Peter Freebody
Using Documents in Social Research
Lindsay Prior
Domg Research in Cultural Studies
Paula Saukko
Qualitative Research in Sociology: An
Introduction
Focus Groups in Social Research
Michael Bloor, Jane Frankland, Michelle
Thomas. Kate Robson Amir B. Marvasti
Qualitative Research Through
Case Studies
Max Travers
Gender and Qualitative Methods
Helmi Jarviluoma, Pirkko Moisala
and Anni Vilkko
Doing Qualitative Health Research
Judith Green and Nicki Thorogood
Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis
Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer
Narratives 1n Social Science
Barbara Czarniawska
Cnminological Research: Understanding
Qualitative Methods
Lesley Noaks and Emma Wincup
Usmg Dianes in Social Research
Andy Alaszewski
Qualitative Marketing Research: A Cultural
Approach
Johanna Moisander and Anu Valtonen
Constructing Grounded Theory
Kathy Charmaz
(
Constructing
Grounded Theory
A Practical Guide Through
Qualitative Analysis
Kathy Charmaz
($)SAGE Publications
London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi
© Kathy Charmaz 2006
Rrst published 2006
Reprinted 2006
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Summary of contents
1 An Invitation to Grounded Theory 1
2 Gathering Rich Data
I 13
3 Coding in Grounded Theory Practice 42
4 Memo-writing 72
5 Theoretical Sampling, Saturation, and Sorting 96
6 Reconstructing Theory in Grounded Theory Studies 123
7 Writing the Draft 151
8 Reflecting on the Research Process 177
Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xiv
1 An Invitation to Grounded Theory 1
Emergence of Grounded Theory 4
Constructing Grounded Theory 9
Constructing Grounded Theory at a Glance 10
2 Gathering Rich Data 13
Thinking about Methods 14
Grounded Theory in Ethnography 21
Intensive Interviewing 25
Box 2.1 A Sample of Grounded Theory Interview Questions
About a Life Change 30
Textual Analysis 35
Concluding Thoughts 40
3 Coding in Grounded Theory Practice 42
Box 3.1 Grounded Theory Coding Example 44
Grounded Theory Coding 45
Initial Coding 47
Box 3.2 Initial Line-by-line Coding 52
Focused Coding 57
Box 3.3 Focused Coding 58
Axial Coding 60
Theoretical Coding 63
viii CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Reducing Problems in Coding 67
Concluding Thoughts 70
4 Memo-writing 72
Box 4.1 Example of a Memo-Suffering 73
Box 4.2 The Published Version of the Memo on Suffering 77
Methods of Memo-writing 80
Box 4.3 How to Write Memos 80
Box 4.4 Example of Memo-writing 83
Adopting Writers' Strategies: Prewriting Exercises 85
Box4.5 Example of a Focused Freewrite on Codes from
Bonnie Presley's Interview (Excerpt) 90
Using Memos to Raise Focused Codes to
Conceptual Categories 91
Box 4.6 Example of a Memo Prompted by Studying an Earlier MemoThe
Category of 'Existing from Day to Day' 93
Concluding Thoughts 94
5 Theoretical Sampling, Saturation,
and Sorting 96
Theoretical Sampling 99
Saturating Theoretical Categories 113
Theoretical Sorting, Diagramming, and Integrating 115
Concluding Thoughts 121
6 Reconstructing Theory in Grounded
Theory Studies 123
What Is Theory? 125
Constructivist and Objectivist Grounded Theory 129
Theorizing in Grounded Theory 133
Inspecting Grounded Theories 140
Concluding Thoughts 148
CONTENTS
7 Writing the Draft
Regarding Writing
Revising Early Drafts
Box 7.1 Excerpt from an Early Memo on Disclosure
Box 7.2 The Published Version of the Memo on Disclosure
Returning to the Library: Literature Reviews
and Theoretical Frameworks
The Disputed Literature Review
Box 7.3 Writing the Literature Review
Writing the Theoretical Framework
Rendering Through Writing
Concluding Thoughts
8 Reflecting on the Research Process
The Core of Grounded Theory: Contested Versions
and Revisions
The Union of Comparative Methods and Interaction
in Grounded Theory
What Defines a Grounded Theory?
Evaluating Grounded Theory
Criteria for Grounded Theory Studies
Grounded Theory of the Past, Present, and Future
Glossary
References
Index
151
153
154
159
161
163
165
168
168
172
176
177
177
178
180
181
182
183
186
190
202
ix
Preface
This book takes you through a journey of constructing grounded theory by
traversing basic grounded theory steps. The book will provide a path, expand
your vistas, quicken your pace, and point out obstacles and opportunities along
the way. We can share the journey but the adventure is yours. I will clarify
grounded theory strategies and offer guidelines, examples, and suggestions
throughout. Although some authors provide methodological maps to follow, I
raise questions and outline strategies to indicate possible routes to take. At each
phase ofthe research journey, yourreadings ofyour work guide your next moves.
This combination of involvement and interpretation leads you to the next step.
The end-point of your journey emerges from where you start, where you go, and
with whom you interact, what you see and hear, and how you learn and think. In
short, the finished work is a construction-yours.
Writing about methods can take unpredictable turns. In a recent issue of
Symbolic Interaction, Howard Becker (2003) recounts why the master ethnographer
Erving Goffman avoided writing about his methods. Becker tells us that
Goffman believed any methodological advice would go awry and researchers
would blame him for the resulting mess. Offering methodological advice
invites misunderstanding-and constructive critiques. Unlike Goffman, however,
I welcome entering the methodological fray and invite you to join me in
it. Possibilities for methodological misunderstandings may abound but also
openings for methodological clarifications and advances may occur. Bringing
any method beyond a recipe into public purview inevitably invites interpretation
and reconstruction-and misunderstandings. Readers and researchers' perspectives,
purposes, and practices influence how they will make sense of a
method. In the past, researchers have often misunderstood grounded theory
methods. Published qualitative researchers add to the confusion when they cite
grounded theory as their methodological approach but their work bears little
resemblance to it. Numerous researchers have invoked grounded theory as a
methodological rationale to justify conducting qualitative research rather than
adopting its guidelines to inform their studies.
This book represents my interpretation of grounded theory and contains
methodological guidelines, advice, and perspectives. The method has evolved or
changed, depending on your perspective, since its originators, Barney G. Glaser
and Anselm L. Strauss, set forth their classic statement of grounded theory in
1967. Each has shifted his position on certain points and added others. My version
of grounded theory returns to the classic statements of the past century and
reexamines them through a methodological lens of the present century. Researchers
can use grounded theory methods with either quantitative or qualitative data;
however, they have adopted them almost exclusively in qualitative research,
xii CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
which I address here. Throughout the book, I refer to the materials we work with as
'data' rather than as materials or accounts because qualitative research has a place
in scientific inquiry in its own right.
In writing this book I aim to fulfil the following objectives: 1) to offer a set of
guidelines for constructing grounded theory research informed by methodological
developments over the past four decades; 2) to correct some common
misunderstandings about grounded theory; 3) to point out different versions of
the method and shifts in position within these versions; 4) to provide sufficient
explanation of the guidelines that any budding scholar can follow who has a
basic knowledge ofresearch methods; and 5) to inspire beginning and seasoned
researchers to embark on a grounded theory project. As consistent with
the classic grounded theory statements of Glaser and Strauss, I emphasize the
analytic aspects of inquiry while recognizing the importance of having a solid
foundation in data. For the most part, I have used published data and excerpts
so that you can seek the original sources, should you wish to see how excerpted
data fit in their respective narratives.
I hope that you find my construction of grounded theory methods helpful for
your construction of new grounded theories. These methods provide a valuable
set of tools for developing an analytic handle on your work, and taken to their
logical extension, a theory of it. Researchers who move their studies into theory
construction may find Chapters 5 and 6 to be ofparticular interest. I realize, however,
that sometimes our research objectives and audiences do not always include
explicit theory construction, but providing a useful analytic framework makes a
significant contribution. Grounded theory methods foster creating an analytic
edge to your work. Evidence abounds that these methods can inform compelling
description and telling tales. Whether you pursue ethnographic stories, biographical
narratives, or qualitative analyses of interviews, grounded theory methods
can help you make your work more insightful and incisive.
A long evolution precedes my traversing the grounds of this book. My
ideas arose from two separate sources: an early immersion in epistemological
developments in the 1960s and an innovative doctoral program that ignited
my imagination. As for many graduate students of the day, Thomas Kulm's
T7ze Structure ofScientific RevolutioTJS has had a lasting effect on me, but so did
the theoretical physicists who challenged conventional notions of scientific
objectivity, reasoning, and truth.
As a member of the first cohort of doctoral students in sociology at the
University of California, San Francisco, I had the privilege oflearning grounded
theory from Barney Glaser in multiple graduate seminars. Each student had a
class session when all members analyzed his or her material in a free-wheeling
discussion. The seminars sparkled with excitement and enthusiasm. Barney's
brilliance shone as he led us away from describing our material and into conceptualizing
it in analytic frameworks. I am grateful for having had the opportunity
to study with him. Anselm Strauss, my dissertation chair, kept tabs on my
work from the day of our first meeting until his death in 1996. He and Barney
shared a commitment to raising new generations of scholars to become productive
grounded theorists. When I gave Anselm a piece of writing-often just
a fragment-in the morning, he would call me by evening to talk about it.
Although Anselm would disagree with several points in this book, I hope that
PREFACE
much ofit might have caught his interest and have elicited the familiar chuckle
that so many generations of students cherished.
A book may have long antecedents that precede its writing. My journey with
grounded theory began with Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, whose lasting
influence has not only permeated my work, but also my consciousness. So, too,
in less transparent ways, my rendering of grounded theory contains lessons
learned during my doctoral studies from Fred Davis, Virginia Olesen, and
Leonard Schatzman about the quality of data collection and scholarship. Since
then, I have developed the ideas in this book. Varied requests to articulate my
version of grounded theory have enlarged my vision of it. Although none of the
following people were involved in this project, responding to their earlier
requests helped me to clarify my position and advance my understanding of
grounded theory. I thank Paul Atkinson, Alan Bryman, Amarda Coffey, Tom
Cooke, Robert Emerson, Sara Delamont, Norm Denzin, Uta Gerhardt, Jaber
Gubrium, James Holstein, Yvonna Lincoln, John Lofland, Lyn Lofland, and
Jonathan A. Smith.
This book could not have evolved without the support and encouragement
of my editor at Sage, Patrick Brindle, and the series editor, David Silverman.
I thank David Silverman for inviting me to join this series and appreciate his
faith that the book would materialize. Special thanks are due to Patrick Brindle
for his efforts to make it possible. I am grateful to Patrick Brindle, Antony
Bryant, Adele Clarke, Virginia Olesen, and David Silverman for their astute readings
of the manuscript and wonderful comments on it.Jane Hood, Devon Lanin,
and Kristine Snyder each read and made useful comments on a chapter. Several
times, I discussed chapters with members of the Faculty Writing Program at
Sonoma State University and always enjoyed our conversations. Anita Catlin,
Dolly Freidel,Jeanette Koshar, Melinda Milligan, Myrna Goodman, and Craig
Winston raised sound questions. In addition to participating in stimulating discussions,
Julia Allen, Noel Byrne, Diana Grant, Mary Halavais, Kim HesterWilliams,
MattJames, MichelleJolly, Scott Miller, Tom Rosen, Richard Senghas,
and Thaine Stearns also wrote insightful commentaries on chapters in various
stages of development. My conversations about grounded theory with Kath
Melia in the early stages of the project were always stimulating.
On a more technical level, Leslie Hartman managed several nagging clerical
tasks with skill and enthusiasm and Claire Reeve and Vanessa Harwood at Sage
kept me apprised of details. No book comes to fruition without time to think
and write. A sabbatical leave from Sonoma State University during Spring,
2004 greatly expedited my writing. Throughout the book, I draw on some
excerpted or adapted material from my past publications on grounded theory
with Sage Publications and I thank Patrick Brindle for permission to reprint.
xiii
Acknowledgements
The author and publisher thank the following organizations and publishers for
granting permission to reproduce:
The American Occupational Therapy Foundation for excerpts from the article
The self as habit: The reconstruction of self in chronic illness by Charmaz, K
(2002).
Blackwell Publishing for excerpts from Charmaz, K (1995). The body, identity
and self, The Sociological Qy.arterly 36: 657-680.
Rutgers University Press for excerpts from Charmaz, K (1991). Good days, bad
days: The selfin chronic illness and time.
Springer Science and Business Media for an excerpt from Lempert, L.B. (1997)
The other side of help: Negative effects in the help-seeking processes of abused
women, Qualitative Research., 20, 289-309.
The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, University of California
Press for two figures (5.1 and 5.2) from Adele E. Clarke (2003). Situational
analyses: Grounded theory mapping after the postmodem tum, Symbolic
Interaction, 26 (4): 553-576.
An Invitation to
Grounded Theory
A journey begins before the travellers depart. So, too, our grounded
theory adventure begins as we seek information about what a
grounded theory journey entails and what to expect along the way.
We scope the terrain that grounded theory covers and that we expect
to traverse. Before leaving we look back into the history of grounded
theory in the twentieth century and look forward into its yet unrealized
potential for the twenty-first century. Our last step before
embarking is to lay out a map of the method and of this book.
I n this book, I invite you to join a journey through a qualitative research project.
You might ask, what does the journey entail? Where do I start? How do I
proceed? Which obstacles might lie ahead? This book takes a short trip through
data collection then follows a lengthy trail through analysis of qualitative data.
Along the way, numerous guides ease your way through the analytic and writing
processes. Throughout the journey we will climb up analytic levels and
raise the theoretical import ofyour ideas while we keep a taut rope tied to your
data on solid ground.
What might a path between collecting and analyzing data look like? For a
moment, pretend that you have begun conducting interviews for a new research
project exploring the sudden onset of a serious chronic illness. Imagine meeting
Margie Arlen during her senior year in high school. Margie tells you about
her troubles that accompanied a rapid onset of rheumatoid arthritis. You piece
together the following sequence of events from her story:
At age 14, Margie was a star student and athlete. She was clearly slated
for success in college and beyond. Her teachers saw the makings of a
scholar. her coaches marveled at her athletic prowess, and her peers
viewed her as in a class beyond them. Then her health rapidly deteriorated
from arthritis. In a few months, she went from being lightning on the soccer
field to hardly walking. The awe that other students had accorded her shifted
to distance and disdain. Once, her talents and skills had set her apart
from the crowd that clamored around her. Then her neck brace and belabored
movements kept her apart as fellow students silently shunned her. Still.
Margie learned deeper lessons. She said:
2 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
It's [her illness and disability] taught me that the important things-like,
I used to be real introverted and scared to talk with other people in a
way. But now it's like I feel I can take my talents, not the sports and
things like that. but I can take my talents and I go out and talk to people
and become their friend. like, encouraging people and things like that.
and I found that that's, like, more important and that builds more
self-esteem, just being able to do things for other people, like serving
missions and things like that, than, you know, being able to go out and
prove that you are a good athlete. So it's changed me in that I'm a lot
more outgoing now, and it's changed me in that I've realized more
what's Important.
Then, like her interviewer. you gently inquired, 'So what's important?'
to which Margie replied,
I think in a lot of ways it's instead of making myself look good, it's making
others look good. ! was always a perfectionist, and I wanted to do
things fast. If I said I was going to do something, I was going to do it no
matter how late I had to stay up at night ... And those type of things
take a toll on our body, and when I realized it's okay to say, !'m sorry I
can't get this done in time or something, or I just can't do it-say 'no'
in the first place-then I think that's important because otherwise you
totally run yourself into the ground if you have a chronic disease. and
you're going to make yourself worse. So that took a long time to learn.
But I think it's really important, like setting your priorities. Concentrating
on what's important and then doing that first and then letting go of
whatever else. (Charmaz. 2002b: 39s)
Now think about how to study stories like Margie's. How do you make sense
of the events that Margie Arlen describes? What might you see in her statements
that you would like to explore further with her and others who have
experienced physical losses? Imagine that you pursued these questions in a
qualitative study and aimed to develop a conceptual analysis of the materials.
How would you go about conducting your research and creating the analysis?
Groundetj.theory methods will help you get started, stay involved, and finish
your project. The research process will bring surprises, spark ideas, and hone
your analytic skills. Grounded theory methods foster seeing your data in fresh
ways and exploring your ideas about the data through early analytic writing. By
adopting grounded theory methods you can direct, manage, and streamline your
data collection and, moreover, construct an original analysis of your data.
What are grounded theory methods? Stated simply, grounded theory methods
consist of systematic, yet flexible guidelines for collecting and analyzing
qualitative data to construct theories 'grounded' in the data themselves. The
guidelines offer a set of general principles and heuristic devices rather than formulaic
rules (see also Atkinson, Coffey, & Delamont, 2003). Thus, data form the
foundation of our theory and our analysis of these data generates the concepts
we construct. Grounded theorists collect data to develop theoretical analyses
from the beginning of a project. We try to learn what occurs in the research settings
we join and what our research participants' lives are like. We study how
INVITATION TO GROUNDED THEORY
they explain their statements and actions, and ask what analytic sense we can
make of them.
We begin by being open to what is happening in the studied scenes and interview
statements so that we might learn about our research participants' lives.
We would attend to what we hear, see, and sense during Margie Arlen's interview.
Grounded theorists start with data. We construct these data through our
observations, interactions, and materials that we gather about the topic or setting.
We study empirical events and experiences and pursue our hunches and
potential analytic ideas about them. Most qualitative methods allow researchers
to follow up on interesting data in whatever way they devise. Grounded theory
methods have the additional advantage of containing explicit guidelines that
show us how we may proceed.
Margie Arlen's intriguing remarks about learning to attend to other people
and to limit her activities could serve as starting points for analysis as well as
for further data collection. In subsequent interviews, we would listen to the stories
of other young people who have suffered recent physical losses and explore
how they handled their changed lives. If possible, we would add ethnographic
data by joining our research participants while at school, physical therapy, a
support group, or just hanging out with friends. How do young people respond
to serious illness and disability? What contributes to their different responses?
We raise questions emanate from thinking about our collected data and
shape those data we wish to obtain.
All grounded theorists, we study our early data and begin to separate, sort,
and synthesize these data through qualitative coding. Coding means that we
attach labels to segments of data that depict what each segment is about. Coding
distills data, sorts them, and gives us a handle for making comparisons with
other segments of data. Grounded theorists emphasize what is happening in the
scene when they code data.
Several initial codes stood out to me in Margie's interview: 'being changed,'
'concentrating on what's important,' and 'learning limits.' Such codes and our
ideas about them point to areas to explore during subsequent data collection.
We would compare the events and views that Margie talks about-and our
codes with the next person we talk with, and the next person, and the next.
By making and coding numerous comparisons, our analytic grasp of the data
begins to take form. We write preliminary analytic notes called memos about
our codes and comparisons and any other ideas about our data that occur to us.
Through studying data, comparing them, and writing memos, we define ideas
that best fit and interpret the data as tentative analytic categories. When inevitable
questions arise and gaps in our categories appear, we seek data that answer
these questions and may fill the gaps. We may return to Margie and other
research participants to learn more and to strengthen our analytic categories.
All we proceed, our categories not only coalesce as we interpret the collected
data but also the categories become more theoretical because we engage in
successive levels of analysis.
Our analytic categories and the relationships we draw between them provide
a conceptual handle on the studied experience. Thus, we build levels of
abstraction directly from the data and, subsequently, gather additional data to
3
4 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
check and refine our emerging analytic categories. Our work cuhninates in a
'grounded theory,' or an abstract theoretical understanding of the studied experience.
Margie's remarks may start us on a research journey; doing comparative
analysis and developing our categories advances our progress. In short,
grounded theory methods demystify the conduct of qualitative inquiry-and
expedite your research and enhance your excitement about it
Emergence of Grounded Theory
The Historical Context
Grounded theory methods emerged from sociologists Barney G. Glaser and
Anselm L. Strauss's (1965, 1967) successful collaboration during their studies of
dying in hospitals (see Glaser & Strauss, 1965, 1968; Strauss & Glaser, 1970). In
the early 1960s in the United States, hospital staff seldom talked about or even
acknowledged dying and death with seriously ill patients. Glaser and Strauss's
research team observed how dying occurred in a variety of hospital settings;
they looked at how and when professionals and their terminal patients knew
they were dying and how they handled the news. Glaser and Strauss gave their
data explicit analytic treatment and produced theoretical analyses of the social
organization and temporal order of dying. They explored analytic ideas in long
conversations and exchanged preliminary notes analyzing observations in the
field. As they constructed their analyses of dying, they developed systematic
methodological strategies that social scientists could adopt for studying many
other topics. Glaser and Strauss's book The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967)
first articulated these strategies and advocated developing theories from research
grounded in data rather than deducingtestable hypotheses from existing theories.
Glaser and Strauss entered the methodological scene at a propitious time.
Qualitative research in sociology was losing ground. By the mid-1960s, the long
tradition of qualitative research in sociology had waned as sophisticated quantitative
methods gained dominance in the United States and quantitative methodologists
reigned over departments, journal editorial boards, and funding agencies.
Despite the. iJ.We accorded to a few qualitative stars, the presence of several
strong qualitative doctoral programs, and sharp critiques of quantification from
critical theorists, the discipline marched toward defining research in quantitative
terms.
What kinds of methodological assumptions supported the move toward
quantification? Every way ofknowing rests on a theory of how people develop
knowledge. Beliefs in a unitary method of systematic observation, replicable
experiments, operational definitions of concepts, logically deduced hypotheses,
and confirmed evidence-often taken as the scientific method-formed the assumptions
upholding quantitative methods. These assumptions supported positivism,
the dominant paradigm of inquiry in routine natural science.
Mid-century positivist conceptions of scientific method and knowledge stressed
objectivity, generality, replication of research, and falsification of competing
hypotheses and theories. Social researchers who adopted the positivist paradigm
aimed to discover causal explanations and to make predictions about an external,
INVITATION TO GROUNDED THEORY
knowable world. Their beliefs in scientific logic, a unitary method, objectivity, and
truth legitimized reducing qualities of human experience to quantifiable variables.
Thus, positivist methods assumed an unbiased and passive observer who collected
facts but did not participate in creating them, the separation of facts from values,
the existence ofan external world separate from scientific observers and their methods,
and the accumulation ofgeneralizable knowledge about this world. Positivism
led to a quest for valid instruments, technical procedures, replicable research
designs, and verifiable quantitative knowledge.
Only narrowly scientific-that is, quantitative-ways of knowing held validity
for positivists; they rejected other possible ways of knowing, such as through
interpreting meanings or intuitive realizations. Thus, qualitative research that
analyzed and interpreted research participants' meanings sparked disputes
about its scientific value. Quantitative researchers of the 1960s saw qualitative
research as impressionistic, anecdotal, unsystematic, and biased. The priority
they gave to replication and verification resulted in ignoring human problems
and research questions that did not fit positivistic research designs. If proponents
of quantification acknowledged qualitative research at all, they treated it
as a preliminary exercise for refining quantitative instruments. Thus, some
quantitative researchers used interviews or observations to help them design
more precise surveys or more effective experiments.
As positivism gained strength in mid-century, the division between theory
and research simultaneously grew. Growing numbers of quantitative researchers
concentrated on obtaining concrete information. Those quantitative researchers
who connected theory and research tested logically deduced hypotheses from
an existing theory. Although they refined extant theory, their research seldom
led to new theory construction.
Glaser and Strauss's Challenge
In The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Glaser and Strauss countered the ruling
methodological assumptions of mid-century. Their book made a cutting-edge
statement because it contested notions of methodological consensus andoffered
systematic strategies for qualitative research practice. Essentially, Glaser and
Strauss joined epistemological critique with practical guidelines for action.
They proposed that systematic qualitative analysis had its own logic and could
generate theory. In particular, Glaser and Strauss intended to construct abstract
theoretical explanations of social processes.
For Glaser and Strauss (1967; Glaser, 1978; Strauss, 1987), the defining components
of grounded theory practice include:
• Simultaneous involvement in data collection and analysis
• Constructing analytic codes and categories from data, not from preconceived
logically deduced hypotheses
• Using the constant comparative method, which involves making comparisons
during each stage of the analysis
• Advancing theory development during each step of data collection and
analysis
5
6 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
• Memo-writing to elaborate categories, specify their properties, define
relationships between categories, and identify gaps
• Sampling aimed toward theory construction, not for population
representativeness
• Conducting the literature review after developing an independent analysis.
Engaging in these practices helps researchers to control their research process
and to increase the analytic power of their work (see also Bigus, Hadden &
Glaser, 1994; Charmaz, 1983, 1990, 1995b, 2003; Glaser, 1992, 1994; Glaser &
Strauss, 1967; Stern, 1994b; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1994). Glaser
and Strauss aimed to move qualitative inquiry beyond descriptive studies into the
realm of explanatory theoretical frameworks, thereby providing abstract, conceptual
understandings of the studied phenomena They urged novice grounded
theorists to develop fresh theories and thus advocated delaying the literature
review to avoid seeing the world through the lens of extant ideas. Glaser and
Strauss's theorizing contrasted with armchair and logico-deductive theorizing
because they began with data and systematically raised the conceptual level of
their analyses while maintaining the strong foundation in data Consistent with
their reasoning, a completed grounded theory met the following criteria: a close
fit with the data, usefulness, conceptual density, durability over time, modifiability,
and explanatory power (Glaser, 1978, 1992; Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967) provided a powerful argument that
legitimized qualitative research as a credible methodological approach in its
own right rather than simply as a precursor for developing quantitative instruments.
In the book, Glaser and Strauss {1967) challenged:
• Beliefs that qualitative methods were impressionistic and unsystematic
• Separation of data collection and analysis phases of research
• Prevailing views of qualitative research as a precursor to more 'rigorous'
quantitative methods
• The arbitrary division between theory and research
• Assumptions that qualitative research could not generate theory.
Glaser aridStrauss built on earlier qualitative researchers' implicit analytic procedures
and research strategies and made them explicit. During the first half of
the twentieth century, qualitative researchers had taught generations of students
through mentoring and lengthy immersion in field research (Rock, 1979).
Previous guides for conducting field research primarily dealt with data collection
methods and researchers' membership roles in field settings. Authors told
their readers little about how to tackle analyzing the piles of collected data
Glaser and Strauss's written guidelines for conducting qualitative research
changed the oral tradition and made analytic guidelines accessible.
Merging Divergent Disciplinary Traditions
Grounded theory marries two contrasting-and competing-traditions in sociology
as represented by each ofits originators: Columbia University positivism and
INVITATION TO GROUNDED THEORY
Chicago school pragmatism and field research. The epistemological assumptions,
logic, and systematic approach of grounded theory methods reflect Glaser's rigorous
quantitative training at Columbia University with Paul Lazarsfeld. Glaser
intended to codify qualitative research methods as Lazarsfeld had codified quantitative
research (see, for example, Lazarsfeld & Rosenberg, 1955). Codifying
qualitative research methods entailed specifying explicit strategies for conducting
research and therefore demystified the research process.
Glaser also advocated building useful 'middle-range' theories, as the Columbia
University theorist Robert K Merton (1957) had proposed. Middle-range theories
consisted ofabstract renderings ofspecific social phenomena that were grounded
in data. Such middle-range theories contrasted with the 'grand' theories of midcentury
sociology that swept across societies but had no foundation in systematically
analyzed data.
Glaser imbued grounded theory with dispassionate empiricism, rigorous codified
methods, emphasis on emergent discoveries, and its somewhat ambiguous
specialized language that echoes quantitative methods. Although The Discovery
of Grounded Theory transformed methodological debates and inspired generations
of qualitative researchers, Glaser's book Theoretical Sensitivity (1978)
provided the most definitive early statement of the method.
Nonetheless, Strauss's Chicago school heritage also pervades the grounded
theory method. Strauss viewed human beings as active agents in their lives and
in their worlds rather 'than as passive recipients of larger social forces. He
assumed that process, not structure, was fundamental to human existence;
indeed, human beings created structures through engaging in processes. For
Strauss, subjective and social meanings relied on our use of language and
emerged through action. The construction of action was the central problem to
address. In short, Strauss brought notions ofhuman agency, emergent processes,
social and subjective meanings, problem-solving practices, and the open-ended
study of action to grounded theory.
All these ideas reflected the pragmatist philosophical tradition that Strauss
embraced while in his doctoral program at the University of Chicago (Blumer,
1969; Mead, 1934). Pragmatism informed symbolic interactionism, a theoretical
perspective that assumes society, reality, and self are constructed through
interaction and thus rely on language and communication. This perspective
assumes that interaction is inherently dynamic and interpretive and addresses
how people create, enact, and change meanings and actions. Consider how
Margie Arlen told of reinterpreting what had become important to her and of
changing her actions accordingly. Symbolic interactionism assumes that people
can and do think about their actions rather than respond mechanically to stimuli.
Through the influence ofHerbert Blumer and Robert Park, Strauss adopted
both symbolic interactionism and the Chicago legacy of ethnographic research
(Park & Burgess, 1921).
Glaser employed his analytic skills to codify qualitative analysis and thus constructed
specific guidelines for doing it Glaser and Strauss shared a keen interest
in studying fundamental social or social psychological processes within a social
setting or a particular experience such as having a chronic illness. Thus, for them,
a finished grounded theory explains the studied process in new theoretical terms,
7
8 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
explicates the properties of the theoretical categories, and often demonstrates
the causes and conditions under which the process emerges and varies, and
delineates its consequences.
Most grounded theories are substantive theories because they address delimited
problems in specific substantive areas such as a study of how newly disabled
young people reconstruct their identities. The logic of grounded theory can
reach across substantive areas and into the realm offormal theory, which means
generating abstract concepts and specifying relationships between them to
understand problems in multiple substantive areas (see Kearney, 1998}. For
example, if we developed a theory of identity loss and reconstruction among
young people with new disabilities, we could examine our theoretical categories
in other areas oflife in which people have experienced a sudden major loss, such
as occurs with a partuer's sudden death, lay-off from work, or loss of place due
to a natural disaster. Each exploration within a new substantive area can help us
to refine the formal theory. Glaser and Strauss's logic led them to formal theorizing
when they took the theoretical categories that they had developed about
status passage during their studies of dying and examined it as a generic process
that cut across varied substantive areas (see Glaser & Strauss, 1971).
The Discovery book found receptive audiences and became a major force in
igniting the 'qualitative revolution' (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994: ix) that gained
momentum throughout the latter part of the twentieth century. Glaser and
Strauss's explicit strategies and call for developing theories from qualitative data
spread throughout disciplines and professions. Their book inspired new generations
of social scientists and professionals, especially nurses, to pursue qualitative
research. Many doctoral students in nursing at the University of California, San
Francisco learned grounded theory methods from Glaser or Strauss and later
became leaders in their profession and experts in qualitative inquiry (see
Chenitz & Swanson, 1986; Schreiber & Stem, 2001).
Developments in Grounded Theory
Since Glaser and Strauss's classic statements in 1967 (Glaser & Strauss) and 1978
(Glaser), have taken grounded theory in somewhat divergent directions
(Charmaz, 2000). For years, Glaser remained consistent with his earlier exegesis
of the method and thus defined grounded theory as a method of discovery,
treated categories as emergent from the data, relied on direct and, often, narrow
empiricism, and analyzed a basic social process. Strauss (1987) moved the
method toward verification. and his co-authored works with Juliet M. Corbin
(Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998) furthered this direction.
Strauss and Corbin's version of grounded theory also favors their new technical
procedures rather than emphasizing the comparative methods that distinguished
earlier grounded theory strategies. Glaser (1992) contends that Strauss
and Corbin's procedures force data and analysis into preconceived categories
and, thus, contradict fundamental tenets of grounded theory. Despite Glaser's
numerous objections to Strauss and Corbin's version of grounded theory, their
book serves as a powerful statement of the method and has instructed graduate
students throughout the world.
INVITATION TO GROUNDED THEORY
In the 1960s, Glaser and Strauss fought the dominance of positivistic
quantitative research. Ironically, by 1990 grounded theory not only became
known for its rigor and usefulness, but also for itspositivistic assumptions. It has
gained acceptance from quantitative researchers who sometimes adopt it in
projects that use mixed methods. The flexibility and legitimacy of grounded
theory methods continues to appeal to qualitative researchers with varied theoretical
and substantive interests.
Meanwhile, a growing number of scholars have moved grounded theory
away from the positivism in both Glaser's and Strauss and Corbin's versions of
the method {see Bryant, 2002, 2003; Charmaz, 2000, 2002a, 2006a; Clarke,
2003, 2005; Seale, 1999). Like any container into which different content can
be poured, researchers can use basic grounded theory guidelines such as coding,
memo-writing, and sampling for theory development, and comparative
methods are, in many ways, neutral.
Grounded theory guidelines describe the steps of the research process and provide
a path through it. Researchers can adopt and adapt them to conduct diverse
studies. How researchers use these guidelines is not neutral; nor are the assumptions
they bring to their research and enact during the process. Antony Bryant
{2002) and Adele Clarke {2003, 2005) join me in contending that we can use basic
grounded theory guidelines with twenty-first century methodological assumptions
and approaches. This takes on the challenge of how to do that.
Constructing Grounded Theory
In their original statement of the method, Glaser and Strauss (1967) invited
their readers to use grounded theory strategies flexibly in their own way. I
accept their invitation and return to past grounded theory emphases on examining
processes, making the study of action central, and creating abstract interpretive
understandings ofthe data. This book provides away of doing grounded
theory that takes into account the theoretical and methodological developments
of the past four decades.
I view grounded theory methods as a set of principles and practices, not as
prescriptions or packages. In the following chapters, I emphasize flexible guidelines,
not methodological rules, recipes, and requirements. During our journey
through the research process, I aim to clarify what grounded theorists do and
to show you how we do it. Hence, I discuss the guidelines throughout subsequent
chapters with sufficient detail so that you can use them on your own and
give them a sound appraisal.
Grounded theory methods can complement other approaches to qualitative
data analysis, rather than stand in opposition to them. I occasionally draw on
excellent examples from qualitative studies whose authors do not claim grounded
theory allegiance or whose writing only acknowledges specific aspects of the
approach. These authors bring an imaginative eye and an incisive voice to their
studies-and inspire good work. Their works transcend their immediate circles.
The classic grounded theory texts of Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Glaser
{1978) provide an explicit method for analyzing processes. I have talked about
9
:1.0 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
the research process and studying process, but what is a process?1
A process
consists of unfolding temporal sequences that may have identifiable markers
with clear beginnings and endings and benchmarks in between. The temporal
sequences are linked in a process and lead to change. Thus, single events become
linked as part of a larger whole. Even the most regimented process may contain
surprises because the present arises from the past but is never quite the
same. The present emerges with new characteristics (Mead, 1932). Thus the
experience and outcome ofa specific process has some degree ofindeterminacy,
however small it might be.
Throughout the book, I build on my earlier discussions of the grounded theory
method (see esp. Charmaz, 1990, 2000, 2002a, 2003, 2005) and on a symbolic
interactionist theoretical perspective. Grounded theory serves as a way to
learn about the worlds we study and a method for developing theories to
understand them. In the classic grounded theory works, Glaser and Strauss talk
about discovering theory as emerging from data separate from the scientific
observer. Unlike their position, I assume that neither data nor theories are discovered.
Rather, we are part of the world we study and the data we collect. We
C011Struct our grounded theories through our past and present involvements and
interactions with people, perspectives, and research practices.
My approach explicitly assumes that any theoretical rendering offers an interpretiveportrayal
ofthe studied world, not an exact picture ofit. (Charmaz, 1995b,
2000; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Schwandt, 1994). Research participants' implicit
meanings, experiential views-and researchers' finished grounded theories-are
constructions of reality. In keeping with its Chicago school antecedents, I argue
for building on the pragmatist underpinnings in grounded theory and advancing
interpretive analyses that acknowledge these constructions.
Constructing Grounded Theory at a Glance
The organization of this book reproduces the logic ofgrounded theory in linear
form. We start with gathering data and end by writing our analysis and reflecting
on the process. In practice, however, the research process is not so
linear. Grounded theorists stop and write whenever ideas occur to them. Some
of our best ideas may occur to us late in the process and may lure us back to the
field to gain a deeper view. Quite often, we discover that our work suggests pursuing
more than one analytic direction. Thus, we may focus on certain ideas first
and finish one paper or project about them but later return to our data and
unfinished analysis in another area. Throughout this book, I treat grounded
theory methods as constituting a craft that researchers practice. Like any craft,
practitioners vary in their emphasis on one or another aspect but taken together
share commonalities, which I address in the book (see Figure 1.1).
Chapter 2, 'Gathering Rich Data,' considers decisions about getting started
and choosing approaches to data-gathering. Researchers can use grounded
theory strategies with a variety of data collection methods. I treat these
methods as tools to use rather than as recipes to follow. I advocate gathering
INVITATION TO GROUNDED THEORY
Theoretical
memo-writing
and further
refimng of .......__
concepts
Sensitizing concepts
and general
disciplinary
perspectives
Sorting memos
Data collection - - Focused coding
problem and opening
research questions
FIGURE 1.1 The grounded theory process
Adopting
certam
categories as
/ theoretical
concepts
Reexamination
of earlier data
rich-detailed and full-data and placing them in their relevant situational and
social contexts. This chapter introduces several major approaches to data-gathering
and gives guidelines for using data to learn how people make sense of their
situations and act on them.
As we learn how our research participants make sense of their experiences,
we begin to make analytic sense of their meanings and actions. Chapter 3,
'Coding in Grounded Theory Practice,' shows how to do coding and thus label
bits of data according to what they indicate. The chapter focuses on two main
types of grounded theory coding: I) initial line-by-line coding, a strategy which
prompts you to study your data closely-line-by-line-and to begin conceptualizing
your ideas, and 2) focused coding, which permits you to separate, sort,
and synthesize large amounts of data.
Certain codes crystallize meanings and actions in the data. Writing extended
notes called memos on telling codes helps you to develop your ideas. In
Chapter 4, 'Memo-writing,' I show how grounded theorists take these codes
apart and analyze them in memos. You write memos throughout your research.
:1.2 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Memos provide ways to compare data, to explore ideas about the codes, and
to direct further data-gathering. AB you work with your data and codes, you
become progressively more analytic in how you treat them and thus you raise
certain codes to conceptual categories.
Chapter 5, 'Theoretical Sampling, Saturation, and Sorting,' explains theoretical
sampling, the grounded theory strategy of obtaining further selective data to
refine and fill out your major categories. In this chapter, I also question the meaning
of theoretical saturation as indicating that no new properties of the category
emerge during data collection. I next discuss sorting memos to fit the theoretical
categories and show relationships that integrate the work. I introduce diagramming
because increasing numbers of grounded theorists use it as an alternative
way to integrate their ideas and to establish the logic of their ordering.
Chapter 6, 'Reconstructing Theory in Grounded Theory Studies,' asks you
to reassess what theory means. I explore meanings of theory in the social sciences
and conceptions of theorizing in grounded theory. I juxtapose positivist
and interpretive kinds of grounded theory to clarify how contrasting forms of
analysis flow from different starting points. The chapter ends with a discussion
of three examples of theorizing in grounded theory and a reconstruction of
their respective theoretical logic. Each example differs in theoretical emphasis,
scope, and reach but taken together they show the versatility and usefulness of
grounded theory methods.
Chapter 7, 'Writing the Draft,' explains differences between writing to develop
an analysis and writing for an audience. Grounded theory strategies lead you to
concentrate on your analysis rather than on arguments about it, to delay the
literature review, and to construct an original theory that interprets your data.
These strategies contradict traditional requirements for reporting research. The
chapter reconciles tensions between grounded theory methods and traditional
forms of social scientific reportage by offering guidelines for constructing arguments,
writing the literature review, and developing a theoretical framework. The
chapter ends by addressing ways to render our ideas through writing.
Last, Chapter 8, 'Reflecting on the Process,' discusses criteria for assessing
grounded theories as products of research and ends the book with questions
about our-quest for knowledge and a call for action.
And now our journey through the research process begins ...
NOTE
1 My defuunon of process draws heavily on pragmatist concepnons of emergence and
pardy concurs With aspects of vaned VIews expressed by Russell Kelley, Dan E. Miller,
Dennis Wask:ul, Angus Vail, and Phillip Vanrum during a listserv discussion on SSSITalk,
January 25, 2005. (www.socr.niu.edu/-arcluves/SSSITALK)
Gathering Rich Data
Our grounded theory adventure starts as we enter the field where we
gather data. We step forward from our disciplinary perspectives with
a few tools and provisional concepts. A grounded theory journey may
take several varied routes, depending on where we want to go and
where our analysis takes us. Ethnographic methods, intensive interviewing,
and textual analysis provide tools for gathering data as we
traverse these routes. A brief excursion in this chapter explores the
benefits each tool promises and the limits it imposes.
hat do you want'to study? Which research problem might you pursue?
Which tools will help you proceed? How do you use methods to gather
rich data? Rich data get beneath the surface of social and subjective life. An
inquiring mind, persistence, and innovative data-gathering approaches can
bring a researcher into new worlds and in touch with rich data. Consider how
Patrick L. Biernacki {1986) began his grounded theory research for his book
Pathwaysfrom Heroin Addiction: Recovery without Treatment:
The idea for this research originated several years ago during a study I was
conducting of people who had stopped smoking marijuana (Biernacki & Davis,
1970). Although the reasons some people gave for finding it necessary to
stop using marijuana might today seem insignificant. it was of interest at that
time. Regardless of the relative importance of the research, it did bring me
into contact with people who had been addicted to opiates along with marijuana,
and who had stopped using the opiate drugs. This chance discovery of
a few 'naturally' recovered addicts opened the door to a slew of questions
about the ultimate fate of opiate addicts. Were the cases I found unusual?
Were most addicts destined to remain addicted for their entire lives? Was
some form of therapeutic intervention always necessary to break an opiate
addiction? Or was it possible, at least for some people, to break the addiction
and recover through their own resolve and effort? (p. 200)
The intriguing topic piqued Biernacki's curiosity. But how could he find data to
study it? He states:
Locating and interviewing ex-addicts who had undergone some form of treatment
would have presented few difficulties.... Ferreting out respondents
14 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
who met the research criteria for natural recovery was another
matter.... In fact. because of the widely held belief that 'once an addict,
always an addict,' many clinicians and researchers in the field thought that
naturally recovering addicts. the focus of the proposed study, did not exist
or if they did, it was not with any great frequency. (p. 203)
Like Biernacki's quest to find suitable study participants, your research
adventure begins with finding data.1
Discover how exciting empirical research
can be through gathering rich data. Let the world appear anew through your
data. Gathering rich data will give you solid material for building a significant
analysis. Rich data are detailed, focused, and full. They reveal participants'
views, feelings, intentions, and actions as well as the contexts and structures of
their lives. Obtaining rich data means seeking 'thick' description {Geertz, 1973),
such as writing extensive :fieldnotes of observations, collecting respondents'
written personal accounts, and/or compiling detailed narratives {such as from
transcribed tapes of interviews).
Researchers generate strong grounded theories with rich data. Grounded theories
may be built with diverse kinds of data-:fieldnotes, interviews, and information
in records and reports. The kind of data the researcher pursues depends
on the topic and access. Often, researchers gather several types of data in
grounded theory studies and may invoke varied data-gathering strategies. What
do we need to think about to gain rich data for an emerging grounded theory?
How might we construct rich data with our methodological tools?
Thinking about Methods
Seeing through Methods
Methods extend and magnify our view of studied life and, thus, broaden and
deepen what we learn of it and know about it. Through our methods, we first
aim to see this world as our research participants do-from the inside. Although
we cannot claim to replicate their views, we can try to enter their settings and
situations J9 the extent possible. Seeing research participants' lives from the
inside often gives a researcher otherwise unobtainable views. You might learn
that what outsiders assume about the world you study may be limited, imprecise,
mistaken, or egregiously wrong.
Qualitative researchers have one great advantage over our quantitative colleagues.
We can add new pieces to the research puzzle or conjure entire new
puzzles-while we gather data-and that can even occur late in the analysis. The
flexibility of qualitative research permits you to follow leads that emerge.
Grounded theory methods increase this flexibility and simultaneously give you
more focus than many methods. Used well, grounded theory quickens the
speed of gaining a clear focus on what is happening in your data without sacrificing
the detail of enacted scenes. Like a camera with many lenses, first you
view a broad sweep of the landscape. Subsequently, you change your lens
several times to bring scenes closer and closer into view.
GATHERING RICH DATA
With grounded theory methods, you shape and reshape your data collection
and, therefore, refine your collected data. Nonetheless, methods wield no
magic. A method provides a tool to enhance seeing but does not provide automatic
insight. We must see through the armament of methodological techniques
and the reliance on mechanical procedures. Methods alone-whatever they
might be-do not generate good research or astute analyses. How researchers
use methods matters. Mechanistic applications of methods yield mundane data
and routine reports. A keen eye, open mind, discerning ear, and steady hand
can bring you close to what you study and are more important than developing
methodological tools (Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996).
Methods are merely tools. However, some tools are more useful than others.
When combined with insight and industry, grounded theory methods offer
sharp tools for generating, mining, and making sense of data. Grounded theory
can give you flexible guidelines rather than rigid prescriptions. With flexible
guidelines, you direct your study but let your imagination flow.
Although methods are merely tools, they do have consequences. Choose
methods that help you answer your research questions with ingenuity and incisiveness.
How you collect data affects which phenomena you will see, how, where,
and when you will view them, and what sense you will make of them.
Just as the methods we choose influence what we see, what we bring to the
study also influences what we can see. Qualitative research of all sorts relies on
those who conduct it. We are not passive receptacles into which data are poured
(Charmaz, 1990, 1998; cf. Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978). We are not scientific
observers who can dismiss scrutiny of our values by claiming scientific
neutrality and authority. Neither observer nor observed come to a scene
untouched by the world Researchers and research participants make assumptions
about what is real, possess stocks of knowledge, occupy social statuses, and
pursue purposes that influence their respective views and actions in the presence
of each other. Nevertheless, researchers, not participants, are obligated to be
reflexive about what we bring to the scene, what we see, and how we see it.
Let your research problem shape the methods you choose. Your research problem
may point to one method of data collection. If, for example, you wanted to
learn how people conceal a history of illegal drug use, then you need to think of
ways you can reach these individuals, gain their trust, and obtain solid data from
them. Ifthey want to keep their pasts secret, they may refuse to fill out questionnaires
or to participate in focus groups. However, people who define themselves
as recovering addicts might agree to talk with you. Once you have established
trust, someone who uses drugs might invite you to hang out in the scene.
Certain research problems indicate using several combined or sequential
approaches. Ifyou aim to explore experiences of living with cancer, you might
be able to join a local support or volunteer group, conduct interviews, engage
in Internet discussion groups, and distribute questionnaires. In any study, questions
may occur to you during the research that lead you to construct new datagathering
methods and to revise earlier ones. Once you begin collecting data,
your research participants may give you materials that you had not anticipated
collecting but help to further your ideas. Some participants might invite you to
l.S
16 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
read their personal journals; others might tell you about organizational records
that would give you information.
The logic of grounded theory guides your methods ofdata-gathering as well as
of theoretical development. Aim to create or adopt methods that hold a
promise of advancing your emerging ideas. Such innovation can occur at any
point during the research. You will learn things during your research that you
would have liked to have explored earlier. Think about what kind of approach
would enable you to gain this needed data and in which type of setting you will
find it. For one project, it might mean framing certain questions to allow participants
to make disclosures, such as this question, 'Some people have mentioned
having - experience. Have you experienced something like that?' Ethnographers
and interviewers might return to research participants with whom they have
already talked and ask this type of question. Numerous interviewers, however,
face constraints of time, funding, or institutional access that permit only one
interview per participant. These interviewers might ask subsequent participants
such questions toward the end of the conversation in their interviews. For other
projects and purposes, the researcher might find constructing an open-ended
questionnaire helpful.
Barney G. Glaser (2002) says that 'All is data.' Yes, everything you learn in
the research setting(s) or about your research topic can serve as data. However,
data vary in quality, relevance for your emerging interests, and usefulness for
interpretation. Researchers also vary in their ability to discern useful data and
in their skill and thoroughness in recording them. Moreover, people construct
data-whether researchers construct first-hand data through interviews or fieldnotes
or gather texts and information from other sources such as historical documents,
government records, or organizational information compiled for private
discussion or public dissemination. We may treat such documents, records, and
census data as facts; however, individuals constructed them. Whatever stands
as data flows from some purpose to realize a particular objective. In turn, purposes
and objectives arise under particular historical, social, and situational
conditions.
Grounded theorists' background assumptions
and perspectives alert them to look
for certain possibilities and processes in their
data. These assumptions and perspectives often
differ among disciplines but nonetheless shape
research topics and conceptual emphases.
Blumer's (1969) notion of sensitizing concepts is
useful at this juncture. These concepts give you
initial ideas to pursue and sensitize you to ask
particular kinds of questions about your topic.
Grounded theorists often begin their studies
with certain guiding empirical interests to study
and, consistent with Blumer, general concepts
................................
/ Consistent with Blumer's \':.
(1969) depiction of
sensitizing concepts,
grounded theorists often
begin their studies with
certain research interests
and a set of general
concepts. These concepts
give you ideas to pursue
and sensitize you to ask
particular kinds of
questions about your
topic.
that give a loose frame to these interests. For ···· ··· ·· ·· ··· ··· · ··· ·· ··· .....
example, I began my studies of people with chronic illnesses with an interest in
how they experienced time and how their experiences of illness affected them.
GATHERING RICH DATA
My guiding interests led to bringing concepts such as self-concept, identity, and
duration into the study. But that was only the start. I used those concepts as points
ofdeparture to form interview questions, to look at data, to listen to interviewees,
and to think analytically about the data. Guiding interests, sensitizing concepts,
and disciplinary perspectives often provide us with such points of departure for
developing, rather than limiting, our ideas. Then we develop specific concepts by
studying the data and examining our ideas through successive levels of analysis.
Professional researchers and many graduate students already have a sound
footing in their disciplines before they begin a research project and often have
an intimate familiarity with the research topic and the literature about it. All
provide vantage points that can intensify looking at certain aspects of the
empirical world but may ignore others. We may begin our studies from these
vantage points but need to remain as open as possible to whatever we see and
sense in the early stages of the research.
In short, sensitizing concepts and disciplinary perspectives provide a place to
start, not to end. Grounded theorists use sensitizing concepts as tentative tools
for developing their ideas about processes that they define in their data. If
particular sensitizing concepts prove to be irrelevant, then we dispense with
them. In contrast, the logico-deductive model of traditional quantitative research
necessitates operationalizing established concepts in a theory as accurately as
possible and deducing testable hypotheses about the relationships between these
concepts. In this model; the research is locked into the original concepts.
What happens if your qualitative data do not illuminate your initial research
interests? Pertti Alasuutari (1995) shows how his research team tackled this
problem:
This process, in which we chewed over the main problems of our project
and made false starts and rethought it all over again, is hardly an exceptional
beginning for a research project. It's just that researchers rarely
report on all of this. However, an early failure to choose the right road does
not have to mean you are ultimately trapped in a dead-end.... Revise your
strategy on the basis of that result and you might be able to move on to
another result.
In our case the false starts we made and the research ideas we had to
discard as unrealistic in view of existing resources led to a better plan and
clearer view of how the project should be carried out. (p. 161)
Grounded theorists evaluate the fit between their initial research interests
and their emerging data. We do not force preconceived ideas and theories
directly upon our data. Rather, we follow leads that we define in the data, or
design another way of collecting data to pursue our initial interests. Thus, I
started with research interests in time and self-concept but also pursued other
topics that my respondents defined as crucial. For example, I felt compelled to
explore their concerns about disclosing illness, something I had not anticipated.
Their dilemmas about disclosing and feelings about doing so emerged as a
recurrent theme.2
Subsequently, I studied how, when, why, and with whom ill
people talk about their conditions. More recently, I began to explore when and
why chronically ill people remain silent about their illnesses (Charmaz, 2002b).
17
:1.8 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Tensions between data collection strategies and what constitutes 'forcing' are
unresolved in grounded theory. What might stand as a viable means of gathering
data to one grounded theorist could be defined as forcing the data into a
preconceived framework by another. Glaser (1998) cautions against preconceiving
'interview guides, units for data collection, samples, received codes, following
diagrams, rules for proper memoing and so forth' (p. 94). However, an
open-ended interview guide to explore a topic is hardly of the same order as
imposing received codes on collected data. Simply thinking through how to
word open-ended questions helps novices to avoid blurting out loaded questions
and to avert forcing responses into narrow categories. Researchers' inattention
to methods of data collection results in forcing data in unwitting ways
and likely is repeated over and over.
Reaching for Quality
The quality-and credibility-of your study starts with the data. The depth and
scope of the data make a difference. A study based upon rich, substantial, and
relevant data stands out Thus, in addition to their usefulness for developing
core categories, two other criteria for data are their suitability and sufficiency
for depicting empirical events.
Whatever methods you choose, plan to gather sufficient data to fit your task
and to give you as full a picture of the topic as possible within the parameters of
this task. Readers and reviewers will see your study as a serious effort and you
will have a strong foundation from which to speak. A novice may mistake good,
but limited, data for an adequate study. Consider the design of the study as a
whole. For example, an ethnographer who engages in detailed sustained observation
and concludes the study with ten intensive interviews of key informants
has far more to draw on than someone who has simply conducted ten rich interviews.
What fits the requirements for an undergraduate project seldom suffices
for a doctoral dissertation. Skimpy data may give you a wonderful start but do
not add up to a detailed study or a nuanced grounded theory. A researcher can
rarely make persuasive, much less definitive, statements from limited data.
Some theorists (Glaser, 1998; Stern, 1994a) argue against attending
to the amount of data. Numerous other researchers have embraced a similar
stance to legitimize small studies with skimpy data. For both Glaser and Stern,
small samples and limited data do not pose problems because grounded theory
methods aim to develop conceptual categories and thus data collection is directed
to illuminate properties of a category and relations between categories. Their
reasoning can help you streamline data collection. It can also lead to what Dey
(1999: 119) calls a 'smash and grab' data collection strategy and to superficial
analyses.
What kind of data stands as rich and sufficient? Asking yourself the following
questions may help you evaluate your data:
• Have I collected enough background data about persons, processes, and settings
to have ready recall and to understand and portray the full range of
contexts of the study?
GATHERING RICH DATA
" Have I gained detailed descriptions of a range of participants' views and
actions?
" Do the data reveal what lies beneath the surface?
" Are the data sufficient to reveal changes over time?
• Have I gained multiple views of the participants' range of actions?
" Have I gathered data that enable me to develop analytic categories?
" What kinds of comparisons can I make between data? How do these comparisons
generate and inform my ideas?
Interpretive qualitative methods mean entering research participants' worlds.
Blumer's (1969) dictum to 'Respect your subjects' reminds us to preserve our
participants' human dignity even if we question their perspectives or practices.
One way of respecting our research participants is through trying to establish
rapport with them. Dey (1999) points out that Glaser and Strauss's (1967} smash
and grab data collection strategy dispenses with rapport, which for many projects
is a prerequisite to gaining solid data. If researchers do not establish rapport,
they risk losing access to conduct subsequent interviews or observations.
Our respect for our research participants pervades how we collect data and
shapes the content of our data. We demonstrate our respect by making concerted
efforts to learn about their views and actions and to try to understand their lives
from their perspectives. This approach means we must test our assumptions
about the worlds we study, not unwittingly reproduce these assumptions. It
means discovering what our research participants take for granted or do not state
as well as what they say and do. As we try to look at their world through their
eyes, we offer our participants respect and, to our best ability, understanding,
although we may not agree with them. We try to understand but do not necessarily
adopt or reproduce their views as our own; rather we interpret them. We
attempt to learn but we cannot know what occurs in people's heads (see also
Murphy & Dingwall, 2003}. Nonetheless, a careful interpretive understanding
often marks classic qualitative studies and represents a stunning achievement
(see, for example, Clark, 1997; Fine, 1986, 1998; Mitchell, 2002). Kristin Luker's
(1984) book Abortion and the Politics ofMotherhood exemplifies this type of interpretive
understanding. She studied the views of pro-life and pro-choice women
and offered respect and interest to members of both groups. She portrayed their
contrasting views and provided an even-handed analysis of both groups' positions.
See how Luker presents the logic of pro-life activists:
Because they were not on the whole exposed during childhood and youth
to the idea that embryos belong to a different moral category than persons
already born. the abortion reform movement strikes them as a sudden
and capricious rejection of centuries of 'respect for unborn life.' ... For
people who really do believe that embryos have always been treated with
respect-and our data suggest that most all pro-life people believe thisthe
wide acceptance of abortion in American society is truly frightening
because it seems to represent a willingness of society to strip the rights
of personhood from 'persons' who have always enjoyed them. If the rights
of personhood can be so easily taken away from babies (embryos), who
among us will be next? (p. 156)
i9
20 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Gathering Grounded Theory Data
Classic grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978) emphasizes creating
analyses of action and process. The grounded theory approach of simultaneous
data collection and analysis helps us to keep pursuing these emphases
as we shape our data collection to inform our emerging analysis. Thus, the first
grounded theory question to ask follows:
• What's happening here? (Glaser, 1978)
This question spawns looking at what is happening at either of two levels:
• What are the basic social processes?
• What are the basic social psychological processes?
Such questions get you started. The answers may not be as straightforward as
the questions suggest. What you define as basic is always an interpretation,
even when major participants concur. Glaser and Strauss (1967; Glaser, 1978)
emphasize the basic social process that the researcher discovers in the field.
Although the classic texts present the analysis of basic social processes as fundamental
to the grounded theory method, Glaser's (2002) revision disavows the
pursuit of a basic social process, stating that doing so forces the data.
You may find many things happening in the setting. Everything may seem
significant-or trivial. Reflect on what you are seeing and hearing. Depending
on your assessment, such questions as the following may help.
• From whose point of view is a given process fundamental? From whose
view is it marginal?
• How do the observed social processes emerge? How do participants' actions
construct them?
• Who exerts control over these processes? Under what conditions?
• What meanings do different participants attribute to the process? How do
they talk about it? What do they emphasize? What do they leave out?
• How and when do their meanings and actions concerning the process change?
These questions may be deceptive. The easy answer may slice no deeper
than a paper cut-and not pierce fundamental social processes. These processes
may remain unseen and unstated but shape participants' actions and understandings
within the setting. Might definitions of 'the' basic social process in the
setting differ according to various participants' positions and resulting vantage
points? On which information and experiences do participants define the
processes in which they are engaged? Do they provide an idealized picture
wrapped in public relations rhetoric rather than one reflecting the realities
people struggle with? When does a basic social process become visible or
change? A community agency, for example, may purport to do good works for
clients. Yet a close examination may reveal that the most basic process is keeping
the agency solvent. Consider the following ways to construct data:
GATHERiNG RICH DATA
• Attending to actions and processes as well as to words
• Delineating the context, scenes, and situations of action carefully
• Recording who did what, when it occurred, why it happened (if you can
ascertain the reasons), and how it occurred
• Identifying the conditions under which specific actions, intentions, and
processes emerge or are muted
• Looking for ways to interpret these data
• Focusing on specific words and phrases to which participants seem to
attribute particular meaning
• Finding taken-for-granted and hidden assumptions of various participants;
showing how they are revealed through and affect actions.
Grounded Theory in Ethnography
Ethnography means recording the life ofa particular group and thus entails sustained
participation and observation in their milieu, community, or social
world. It means more than participant observation alone because an ethnographic
study covers the round of life occurring within the given milieu(x) and
often includes supplementary data from documents, diagrams, maps, photographs,
and, formal interviews and questionnaires.
Participant observers may limit their focus to one aspect of daily life. In contrast,
ethnographers seek detailed knowledge of the multiple dimensions of life
within the studied milieu and aim to understand members' taken-for-granted
assumptions and rules (Ashworth, 1995; Charmaz & Olesen, 1997).
What should an ethnographer study in the field? Whatever is happening
there. By remaining open to the setting and the actions and people in it, ethnographers
have the opportunity to work from the ground up and to pursue whatever
they find to be of the greatest interest.
Research participants allow ethnographers to see their worlds and their actions
within them. The goal of much ethnography is to gain an insider's depiction of
the studied world. Nonetheless, like other researchers, ethnographers bring
their theoretical training and methodological tools to their work. From the research
participants' standpoint, the ironic outcome may be an outsider's report
(Pollner & Emerson, 2001).
Although standard textbooks call for an open mind and accepting demeanor
in the field, ethnographers bring divergent styles to their studies. The research
problems they address, the participants they meet, and the constraints they
encounter all shape their involvement. In one setting, an ethnographer may find
participants eager to tell their personal and collective stories. In another, the
ethnographer may remain welcome only if he or she provides a novel presence
in the setting. The extent to which ethnographers move from passive observation
to full participation depends on the specific study, including its objectives, agreements
about access, involvement, reciprocities, and emergent relationships with
members. Quite possibly, an ethnographer may become more involved in the
scene than anticipated. Similarly, he or she may find this involvement to be of a
2:1.
22 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
different order than expected. As a naYve ethnographer in an institutional care
facility, I thought I would be able to slip back to my room and write notes at times
during the day. The administrator who had given me permission to live there
held quite a different view: institutional life trumped research roles. He insisted
that I spend the days-and most evenings-participating in the residents' activities.
He informed me, 'Everyone is a therapist here.'
What's basic in a setting depends on participants' positions, actions, and
intentions. Actions may defy stated intentions. Different participants have different
vantage points-and, sometimes, competing agendas. Do they realize
when they hold competing agendas? How do they act on them? When, if ever,
does conflict emerge?
Ifyou happened to read fieldnotes of observations in a grounded theory project,
you might find that these notes:
• Record individual and collective actions
• Contain full, detailed notes with anecdotes and observations
• Emphasize significant processes occurring in the setting
• Address what participants define as interesting and!or problematic
• Attend to participants' language use
• Place actors and actions in scenes and contexts
• Become progressively focused on key analytic ideas.
From the start, a grounded theory study takes a different form than other
types of ethnographies. Grounded theory ethnography gives priority to the
studied phenomenon or process-rather than to a
description of a setting. Thus, from the beginnings ••••.\
of their fieldwork, grounded theory ethnographers ethnography gives
study what is happening in the setting and make a priority to the studied
conceptual rendering of these actions. A grounded phenomenon or
theory ethnographer likely moves across settings to process-rather than
gain more knowledge of the studied process. Other • the setting itself. ,•
ethnographic approaches often focus on topics such ···· ··"" ·· · · · "· · · ••· .......
as kinship Jietworks, religious practices, and the organization of work in a specific
community. Subsequently, these ethnographers provide full descriptions
of these topics in the studied setting and usually take a more structural than
processual approach.
To the extent that ethnographers treat their topics as separate segments of the
studied world or as structures but not processes, completing a grounded theory
analysis poses difficulties. Their fieldnotes may describe the topic as a thing, an
object, without showing the actions and process that construct it. The ethnographer
as well as the participants may take the processes for granted that construct
the studied topic or structure.
On another level, consider the relative congruence between your overall
research goals and the data you gather and record. Be open to what you have
and where it takes you (Atkinson, 1990). Exciting new horizons may appear.
Sometimes, however, you may need to expand your access within a setting. If
you wish to write about how an organization processes people, you will need
GATHERING RICH DATA
to show how people move through the organization-or are moved through it.
Organizational spatial allocations and arrangements may provide telling data.
For example, if you want to know when, how, and why staff in a retirement
facility assign and reassign residents to spatial areas with different levels ofcare,
you need to do more than discover how residents use social areas such as the
television lounge. Certainly residents' use ofthe lounge may yield telling observations
about certain constraints due to the physical setting but provides no
information on staff decisions about levels of care.
A potential problem with ethnographic studies is seeing data everywhere and
nowhere, gathering everything and nothing. The studied world seems so interesting
(and probably is) that the ethnographer tries to master knowing it all.
Mountains of unconnected data grow (see also Coffey & Atkinson, 1996) but
they do not say much. What follows? Low level description and, if a bit more
sophisticated, lists of unintegrated categories. Ethnographers who leave data
undigested seldom produce fresh insights and, sometimes, may not even complete
their projects, despite years of toil.
Enter grounded theory. Paradoxically, concentrating on a basic social
process can help you to gain a more complete picture of the whole setting than
the former approach common in earlier ethnographic work. Ethnographers
can make connections between events by using grounded theory to study
processes. A grounded theory emphasis on comparative method leads ethnographers
1) to compare data with data from the beginning of the research, not
after all the data are collected, 2) to compare data with emerging categories,
and 3) to demonstrate relations between concepts and categories. Grounded
theory strategies can increase ethnographers' involvement in their research
inquiry, despite pressures they might face to be full participants in their research
settings. In this sense, grounded theory dispels the positivist notion of passive
observers who merely absorb their surrounding scenes. Grounded theorists
select the scenes they observe and direct their gaze within them. If used with
care and thoroughness, grounded theory methods provide systematic guidelines
for probing beneath the surface and digging into the scene. These methods
help in maintaining control over the research process because they assist
the ethnographer in focusing, structuring, and organizing it.
Grounded theory methods move ethnographic research toward theoretical
development by raising description to abstract categories and theoretical interpretation.
In the past, ethnography suffered from a rigid and artificial separation
of data collection and analysis. Grounded theory methods preserve an openended
approach to studying the empirical world yet add rigor to ethnographic
research by building systematic checks into both data collection and analysis.
The logic ofgrounded theory entails going back to data and forward into analysis.
Subsequently you return to the field to gather further data and to refine the
emerging theoretical framework. This logic aids you in overcoming several
ethnographic problems: 1) accusations of uncritically adopting research participants'
views, 2) lengthy unfocused forays into the field setting, 3) superficial,
random data collection, and 4) reliance on stock disciplinary categories.
Thin, unfocused data may tempt ethnographers to fall back on lifting stock
concepts from their disciplinary shelves. Grounded theory prompts taking a
23
24 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
fresh look and creating novel categories and concepts. That is the strength and
the core of the method. Moving back and forth between data and analysis
also helps you from feeling overwhelmed and to avoid procrastinating (see
also, Coffey & Atkinson, 1996). Both can happen when researchers collect data
without direction.
Current trends toward limited data and 'instant' theorizing' have long been
associated with grounded theory and now permeate other methods, including
ethnography. A competent ethnographic study demands time and commitment.
Grounded theory can help you trim excess work but the core tasks still
need to be done. Gathering rich ethnographic data means starting by engaging
the studied phenomena-get involved!
You can make the most ofwhat you bring to the setting. Novices often bring
energy and openness. Some experienced ethnographers may be so imbued
with disciplinary ideas and procedures that they have difficulty moving beyond
them. Other experienced ethnographers sense areas to pursue without articulating
them and, moreover, without being wedded to them. Novices may flounder.
A few guidelines can turn floundering into flourishing. Mitchell (in
Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001) has found that student ethnographers flourish with
a little help. He asks students to study actions and actors and provides the questions
below to spark their thinking. You may find several questions that help
you to view the events in your research setting. If so, adopt them, but follow
what you observe in the setting first We can use Mitchell's questions to initiate
inquiry, not to substitute a formula for it.
• What is the setting of action? When and how does action take place?
• What is going on? What is the overall activity being studied, the relatively
long-term behavior about which participants organize themselves? What
specific acts comprise this activity?
• What is the distribution of participants over space and time in these locales?
• How are actors [research participants] organized? What organizations effect,
oversee, regulate or promote this activity?
• How are members stratified? Who is ostensibly in charge? Does being in
chargevary by activity? How is membership achieved and maintained?
• What do actors pay attention to? What is important, preoccupying, critical?
• What do they pointedly ignore that other persons might pay attention to?
• What symbols do actors invoke to understand their worlds, the participants
and processes within them, and the objects and events they encounter? What
names do they attach to objects, events, persons, roles, settings, equipment?
• What practices, skills, strategems, methods of operation do actors employ?
• Which theories, motives, excuses, justifications or other explanations do
actors use in accounting for their participation? How do they explain to
each other, not to outside investigators, what they do and why they do it?
• What goals do actors seek? When, from their perspective, is an act well or
poorly done? How do they judge action-by what standards, developed and
applied by whom?
• What rewards do various actors gain from their participation?4
(Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001, p. 163)
GATHERING RICH DATA
An ethnographer may invoke such questions when learning about context
and content, meaning and action, structures and actors. Grounded theory can
expedite ethnographers' delving into problematic topics that emerge in the
field. A grounded theory strategy: Seek data, describe observed events, answer
fundamental questions about what is happening, then develop theoretical categories
to understand it. This approach also remedies weaknesses in grounded
theory studies, especially those that rely on single accounts given to field investigators.
How people explain their actions to each other may not resemble their
statements to an interviewer. Moreover, participants' most important explanations
may consist of tacit understandings. If so, then participants seldom articulate
them out loud among themselves, let alone to non-members.
Understanding derives most directly from the immediacy of our participation
in social actors' shared worlds (Prus, 1996). In practical terms, this means
the researcher needs to share some experiences, but not necessarily all viewpoints,
with those being studied. Bergson states, 'Philosophers agree in making
a deep distinction between two ways ofknowing a thing. The first implies going
all around it, the second entering into it' (Bergson, 1903: 1). The ethnographer's
job is to explore the second way. Grounded theory studies often move around
an object; these methods generate a map of the object of study from the outside,
but may not enter it. Such studies may look at phenomena from a variety
of locations and standP,oints (see, for example, Glaser & Strauss, 1965, 1968).
Yet grounded theory ethnographers can go deep into experience to make an
interpretive rendering (see, for example, Baszanger, 1998; Casper, 1998;
Timmermans, 1999).
Intensive Interviewing
The Interview Conversation
Intensive interviewing has long been a useful data-gathering method in various
types of qualitative research. Most essentially, an interview is a directed conversation
(Lofland & Lofland, 1984, 1995); intensive interviewing permits an
in-depth exploration of a particular topic or
experience and, thus, is a useful method for
interpretive inquiry. Other forms of interviewing,
such as informational interviewing,
might be indicated for certain grounded
theory projects, particularly those with an
objectivist cast (but see Hermes, 1995).
The in-depth nature of an intensive interview
fosters eliciting each participant's interpretation
of his or her experience. The
.....,....................., ................
/ An interview is a directed \
: conversation (Lofland & :
Lofland, 1984, 1995); an
intensive interview permits
an in-depth exploration of a
particular topic with a
person who has had the
relevant experiences.
....." ...." ..........." ...." .. " .." .......
interviewer seeks to understand the topic and the interview participant has the
relevant experiences to shed light on it (see Fontana & Frey, 1994; Seidman,
1997). Thus, the interviewer's questions ask the participant to describe and
reflect upon his or her experiences in ways that seldom occur in everyday life.
The interviewer is there to listen, to observe with sensitivity, and to encourage
25
26 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
the person to respond. Hence, in this conversation, the participant does most
of the talking.
For a grounded theory study, devise a few broad, open-ended questions. Then
you can focus your interview questions to invite detailed discussion of topic. By
creating open-ended, non-judgmental questions, you encourage unanticipated
statements and stories to emerge. The combination of how you construct the questions
and conduct the interview shapes how well you achieve a balance between
making the interview open-ended and focusing on significant statements.
The structure of an intensive interview may range from a loosely guided
exploration of topics to semi-structured focused questions. Although the intensive
interview may be conversational, it follows a different etiquette. The
researcher should express interest and want to know more. What might be rude
to ask or be glossed over in friendly agreement in ordinary conversation-even
with intimates-becomes grist for exploration. Research participants often
expect their interviewers to ask questions that invite reflections about the topic.
Rather than uttering 'uh huhs' orjust nodding as if meanings are automatically
shared, an interviewer might say, 'That's interesting, tell me more about it.' In
your role as an interviewer, your comments and questions help the research
participant to articulate his or her intentions and meanings. As the interview
proceeds, you may request clarifying details to obtain accurate information and
to learn about the research participant's experiences and reflections. Unlike
ordinary conversation, an interviewer can shift the conversation and follow
hunches. An interview goes beneath the surface of ordinary conversation and
examines earlier events, views, and feelings afresh.
Intensive interviews allow an interviewer to:
• Go beneath the surface of the described experience(s)
• Stop to explore a statement or topic
• Request more detail or explanation
• Ask about the participant's thoughts, feelings, and actions
• Keep the participant on the subject
• Come back to an earlier point
• Restate .the participant's point to check for accuracy
• Slow or quicken the pace
• Shift the immediate topic
• Validate the participant's humanity, perspective, or action
• Use observational and social skills to further the discussion
• Respect the participant and express appreciation for participating.
Now compare these interviewing entitlements to disclosures in ordinary life.
Conversational rules may dictate that you listen, not ask for clarification, agree
with the speaker-at least tacitly-but not question, let the speaker direct conversational
flow, rather than stop it to explore an earlier point, and hear a story but
not repeat it in your words to recapture the other person's. Think about what
ensues after a friend has shared a long story with you. Can you imagine saying
to her, 'Let's see ifI have grasped these events correctly,' followed by your portrayal
of each twist and turn in her story.
GATHERING RICH DATA
A research participant also has conversational prerogatives in the interview.
Intensive interviews allow research participants to:
" Break silences and express their views
" Tell their stories and to give them a coherent frame
" Reflect on earlier events
• Be experts
" Choose what to tell and how to tell it
• Share significant experiences and teach the interviewer how to interpret them
• Express thoughts and feelings disallowed in other relationships and settings
• Receive affirmation and understanding.
Negotiations During the Interview
An interview is contextual and negotiated. Whether participants recount their
concerns without interruption or researchers request specific information, the
result is a construction-or reconstruction-of a reality. Interview stories do not
reproduce prior realities (Murphy & Dingwall, 2003; Silverman, 2000). Rather
these stories provide accounts from particular points of view that serve specific
purposes, including assumptions that one should follow tacit conversational
rules during the interview.
Neutral questions do not mean a neutral interview. Instead an interview
reflects what interviewers and participants bring to the interview, impressions
during it, and the relationship constructed through it. Interviewers must remain
attuned to how participants perceive them, and how both participants' and
interviewers' past and immediate identities may influence the character and
content ofinteraction. The past as well as the present informs participants' tacit
questions and negotiations about the interview process and discussion during it.
Research participants appraise the interviewer, assess the situation, and act on
their present assessments and prior knowledge, often in taken-for-granted ways.
People who have experienced crises may seek direction from their interviewer
about what to say and how deep to go. Interviewers learn how deep to go and
when to explore a point further with probes as they become sensitive to their
participants' concerns and vulnerabilities.
Relative differences in power and status may be acted on and played out during
an interview. Powerful people may take charge, turn the interview questions to
address topics on their own terms, and control the timing, pacing and length of the
interview. Both powerful and disempowered individuals may distrust their interviewers,
the sponsoring institutions, and the stated purpose of the research, as well
as how the findings might be used. During interviews, professionals may recite
public relations rhetoric rather than reveal personal views, much less a full account
oftheir experiences. Clients may raise silent or overt questions about whether the
interviewer represents officials or advocates-and test his or her loyalties.
In addition to the dynamics ofpower and professional status, gender, race, and
age may affect the direction and content of interviews. Men may view intensive
interviews as threatening because they occur within a one-to one relationship,
render control ofinteraction ambiguous, foster self-disclosure and, therefore, risk
loss of public persona {Schwalbe & Wolkomir, 2002). Men's potential discomfort
27
28 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
may heighten, should the topic of the interview such as disability or divorce
challenge their masculinity claims. While studying divorced fathers, Terry
Arendell (1997) observed a subtle shift in emphasis from the focus on divorce
during certain interviews. When these fathers revealed a major concern with their
identities as men, their interview statements took on a meta-discourse about masculinity.
Men who hide their emotions behind a thick wall of impression management
may not agree to be interviewed; others may weave around questions
rather than address them directly. As Arendell discovered, some men enact and
dramatize gendered relations during the interview.
Interviewing women poses other dilemmas. When the interviewer is a man,
gender dynamics may enter the interview. When the interviewer and participant
are both women, class, age, and/or race and ethnic differences may still
influence how the interview proceeds. Nonetheless, women from diverse backgrounds
often volunteer to be interviewed for a variety of sensitive topics. The
quality of women's responses may range widely when other people had
silenced them about the interview topic. Their responses to the interview may
range from illuminating, cathartic, or revelatory to uncomfortable, painful, or
overwhelming. The topic, its meaning, and the circumstances of the participant's
life, as well as the interviewer's skills, affect how women experience their
respective interviews (see also Reinharz & Chase, 2001).
As implied above, differences between interviewer and research respondent
in race, class, gender, age, and ideologies may affect what happens during the
interview. These status attributes should be seen in relation to the interview
topic. Male participants often prefer to talk with a woman about private experiences
but may enjoy teaching a younger male interviewer about their work lives.
Similarly, elderly participants might be quite willing to discuss sexuality in late
life with a middle-aged or older interviewer but not with a young person.
Consider how you can best use the flexibility of interviewing. Grounded
theory methods encourage using both ethnographic and interviewing approaches.
You may start observing to study a topic and as your analysis proceeds return
to participants with more focused queries.
Fitting Intensive Interviewing with Grounded Theory
Intensive qualitative interviewing fits grounded theory methods particularly
well. Both grounded theory methods and intensive interviewing are open-ended
yet directed, shaped yet emergent, and paced yet
unrestricted. Although researchers often choose
intensive interviewing as a single method, it complements
other methods such as observations, surveys,
and research participants' written accounts.
An interviewer assumes more direct control
over the construction ofdata than most other methods
such as ethnography or textual analysis.
Grounded theory methods require that researchers
...\
methods and intensive
interviewing are
open-ended but
directed, shaped yet
emergent, and paced
yet flexible approaches.
. ................................
take control of their data collection and analysis, and in turn these methods give
researchers more analytic control over their material. Qualitative interviewing
GATHERING RICH DATA
provides an open-ended, in-depth exploration of an aspect oflife about which the
interviewee has substantial experience, often combined with considerable insight
The interview can elicit views of this person's subjective world. Interviewers
sketch the outline of these views by delineating the topics and drafting the questions.
Interviewing is a flexible, emergent technique; ideas and issues emerge
during the interview and interviewers can immediately pursue these leads.
Grounded theory methods depend upon a similar type offlexibility as in-depth
interviewing. AB grounded theorists we aim to learn what is happening from the
beginning of our research. Our attempts to learn help us to correct tendencies to
follow preconceived notions about what is happening in the field. In addition to
picking up and pursuing themes in interviews, we look for ideas through studying
our data and then return to the field and gather focused data to answer analytic
questions and to fill conceptual gaps. Thus, the combination of flexibility
and control inherent in in-depth interviewing techniques fit grounded theory
strategies for increasing the analytic incisiveness of the resultant analysis.
Grounded theory interviewing differs from much in-depth interviewing because
we narrow the range ofinterview topics to gather specific data for developing our
theoretical frameworks as we proceed with conducting the interviews.
Conducting Interviews
How might you go about doing an interview for a grounded theory study? Your
first question may suffice for the whole interview if stories tumble out.
Receptive 'uh huhs,' a few clarifying questions or comments may keep a story
coming when a participant can and wants to tell it. I choose questions carefully
and ask them slowly to foster the participant's reflections. Interviewers use
in-depth interviewing to explore, not to interrogate (Charmaz, 1991b). Framing
questions takes skill and practice. Questions must explore the interviewer's
topic and fit the participant's experience. AB evident below, these kinds of questions
are sufficiently general to cover a wide range of experiences and narrow
enough to elicit and elaborate the participant's specific experience.
I include sample questions below to give you ideas about how to frame questions
to study process. These questions also reflect a symbolic interactionist
emphasis on learning about participants' views, experienced events, and
actions. The sample questions are intended to study individual experience. For
a project concerning organizational or social processes, I direct questions to the
collective practices first and, later, attend to the individual's participation in
them and views of them.
These sample questions are merely examples to consider. Think about them
and write some open-ended questions. Trim your list of questions to as few as
possible. I have never asked all the questions below and often don't get beyond
an initial set of questions in one session. I seldom take an interview guide with
me into the interview. I prefer to keep the interview informal and conversational;
however, novices need more structure. Having an interview guide with
well-planned open-ended questions and ready probes can increase your confidence
and permit you to concentrate on what the person is saying. Otherwise
you may miss obvious points to explore because you become distracted by
29
30 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
what to ask next and how to ask it. Subsequently, you may ask a series of 'do
you' questions that cut off exploring the topic. At worst, your line of questioning
can slip into an interrogation. Both defeat the purpose of conducting an
intensive interview. Interviewing takes skill, but you can learn how to do it.
Just as you may need to give special consideration to interviewing certain
participants, many topics require special attention. Studying life disruptions or
stigmatized behaviors may raise questions ofbeing intrusive. Participants sometimes
tell painful stories during the interview that they never imagined telling
that may or may not pertain to your study. I follow several principles in such
cases that may help you. First, I assume that participants' comfort level has
higher priority than obtaining juicy data. Second, I pay close attention as to
when to probe. Often, I just listen, particularly when the participant appears to
be reexperiencing feelings in the described incident. Third, I try to understand
the experience from the participant's view and to validate its significance to this
person. Fourth, I slant ending questions toward positive responses to bring the
interview to closure at a positive level. No interview should end abruptly after
an interviewer has asked the most searching questions or when the participant
is distressed. The rhythm and pace of the interview should bring the participant
back to a normal conversational level before ending. The following sample
interview questions illustrate the above points.
Increasingly, institutional review boards (IR.Bs) and human subjects committees
demand that researchers submit detailed descriptions of their research plans
and complete instruments for review. Such detail is inconsistent with the emergent
nature of qualitative research in general and grounded theory methods in
particular. Interview questions pose special problems in seeking approval from
IR.Bs and human subjects committees. Proposed interview questions must be
sufficiently detailed to convince evaluators that no harm will befall research participants
yet open enough to allow unanticipated material to emerge during the
interview. A well-thought-out list of open-ended questions helps.
Initial Open-ended Questions
1. Tell me about what happened [or how you came to--].
2. When, if at all. did you first experience-- [or notice--]?
3. [If so,] what was it like? What did you think then? How did you happen to --?
Who, if anyone, influenced your actions? Tell me about how he/she or they influenced
you.
4. Could you describe the events that led up to --[or preceded--]?
5. What contributed to --?
6. What was going on in your life then? How would you describe how you viewed
--before-- happened? How. if at all, has your view of-- changed?
7. How would you describe the person you were then?
(Continued}
GATHERING RICH DATA
(Continued)
Intermediate Questions
1. What, if anything, did you know about --?
2. Tell me about your thoughts and feelings when you learned about--.
3. What happened next?
4. Who, if anyone, was involved? When was that? How were they involved?
5. Tell me about how you learned to handle --.
6. How, if at all, have your thoughts and feelings about-- changed since --?
7. What positive changes have occurred in your life [or--] since--?
8. What negative changes. if any, have occurred in your life [or--] since --?
9. Tell me how you go about --. What do you do?
10. Could you describe a typical day for you when you are --? [Probe for
different times.] Now tell me about a typical day when you are--.
11. Tell me how you would describe the person you are now. What most contributed
to this change [or continuity]?
12. As you look back on --. are there any other events that stand out in
your mind? Could you describe [each one] it? How did this event affect
what happened? How did you respond to -- [the event; the resulting
situations]?
13. Could you describe the most important lessons you learned through
experiencing--?
14. Where do you see yourself in two years [five years, ten years as appropriate]?
Describe the person you hope to be then. How would you compare the person
you hope to be and the person you see yourself as now?
15. What helps you to manage --? What problems might you encounter? Tell me
the sources of these problems.
16. Who has been the most helpful to you during this time? How has he/she been
helpful?
17. Has any organization been helpful? What did -- help you with? How has it
been helpful?
Ending Questions
1. What do you think are the most important ways to --? How did you discover
[or create] them? How has your experience before-- affected how you
handled--?
2. Tell me about how your views [and/or actions depending on topic and preceding
responses] may have changed since you have--.
3. How have you grown as a person since --? Tell me about your strengths that
you discovered or developed through --. [If appropriate] What do you most
value about yourself now? What do others most value in you?
4. After having these experiences, what advice would you give to someone who has
just discovered that he or she --?
5. Is there anything that you might not have thought about before that occurred to
you during this interview?
6. Is there anything else you think I should know to understand -- better?
7. Is there anything you would like to ask me?
31
32 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
The questions in Box 2.1 overlap-intentionally so. They permit you to go back
to an earlier thread to gain more information, or to winnow unnecessary or
potentially uncomfortable questions. Using a tape recorder allows you to give full
attention to your research participant with steady eye contact and gives you
detailed data. Taking notes on key points during the interview helps as long as
jotting notes does not distract you or your participant. Your notes remind you to
return to earlier points and suggest how to frame your follow-up questions.
We must guard against forcing interview data into preconceived categories
(Glaser, 1978). Interviewing challenges us to create a balance between asking significant
questions and forcing responses-more so than other forms of qualitative
data collection. An interviewer's questions and interviewing style shape the context,
frame, and content of the study. Subsequently, a naive researcher may inadvertently
force interview data into preconceived categories. Not only can asking
the wrong questions result in forcing the data, but also how interviewers pose,
emphasize, and pace their questions can force the data. The wrong questions fail
to explore pivotal issues or to elicit participants' experiences in their own language.
Such questions may also impose the researcher's concepts, concerns, and
discourse upon the research participant's reality-from the start. 'Il:anscribed,
tape-recorded interviews make it easy to see when your questions don't work or
force the data. When irrelevant, superficial, or forced questions shape the data
collection, the subsequent analysis suffers. Thus, researchers need to be constantly
reflexive about the nature of their questions and whether they work for
the specific participants and the nascent grounded theory.
The focus of the interview and the specific questions asked likely differs
depending on whether the interviewer adopts a more constructivist, or more
objectivist approach. A constructivist would emphasize eliciting the participant's
definitions of terms, situations, and events and try to tap his or her
assumptions, implicit meanings, and tacit rules. An objectivist would be concerned
with obtaining information about chronology, events, settings, and
behaviors. Then, too, Glaser's (1978) version of grounded theory would produce
different questions than Strauss and Corbin's (1990, 1998) approach.
On a more general level, we all need to be aware of the assumptions and perspectives
tl].at we import into our interview questions. Consider the following
questions:
• 'Tell me about the stressors in your situation.'
• 'What coping techniques do you use to handle these stressors?'
These questions might work with a sample of research participants, such as
nurses, for whom the terms 'stressors' and 'coping techniques' are common parlance,
as long as the interviewer asked participants to define these terms at
some point. However, the term 'stressors' might be alien to other participants,
such as elderly nursing home patients, much less the thought of identifying
sources of stress and having explicit techniques for dealing with them. Paying
attention to participants' language, meanings, and lives is crucial here.
Like other skilled interviewers, grounded theory interviewers must remain
active in the interview and alert to interesting leads (see Gorden, 1987;
GATHERING RICH DATA
Gubrium & Holstein, 2001; Holstein & Gubrium, 1995; Rubin & Rubin, 1995;
Seidman, 1998 for suggestions). Sound interview strategies help the researcher go
beyond common sense tales and subsequent obvious, low-level categories that add
nothing new. Any competent interviewer shapes questions to obtain rich material
and, simultaneously, avoids imposing preconceived concepts on it Keeping the
questions open-ended helps enormously. When participants use terms from the
lexicon oftheir experience, such as 'good days' and 'bad days,' the interviewer can
ask for more detail. Contrast the difference between these questions:
• 'Tell me what a good day is like for you.'
• 'Do you feel better about yourself on a good day?'
The first question leaves the response open to the participant's .::xperience and
conceptions. This question invites the participant to frame and explore his or
her views of a good day. The second closes down the discussion and relegates
the answer to a 'yes' or 'no.' This question also assumes both the definitional
frame and that participant and interviewer share it
Interview questions that allow the participant to reflect anew on phenomena
elicit rich data. 'Tell me about,' 'how,' 'what,' and 'when' questions yield rich data,
particularly when you buttress them with queries to elaborate or to specify such
as 'Could you describe-further' (see Charmaz, 2002a). Look for the 'ums' and
'you know's' and then explore what they indicate. What do long pauses indicate?
How might they reflect a struggle to find words? When might a 'you know' signal
taken-for-granted meanings? When might 'you know' seek the interviewer's concurrence
or suggest that the respondent is struggling to articulate an experience?
In my research, however, respondents' stories about illness often spilled out
non-stop. For example, one participant who had multiple sclerosis said,
There's always the bladder infection. It seems like, you know, there forin
the nursing home there wasn't [a bladder infection]. There were two or
three years [without them]. When I came out [from the nursing home] it
seems like that's all I deal with-bladder infections ... So I just cleared
bladder infection. It was stressful and it's been a year of that bladder
infection, and I probably have another one and this has just been a week
and a half. So I could always tell with my back pain and the way I sleep
and-and with every bladder infection, the medicines. they kill the good
bacteria too. So you get a yeast infection and it's like you just live roundthe-clock
[with illness and care] and it's-and that's-if all I have to deal
with that's one thing, but I have the stress of my-my family. And that's
taken a real toll. And then my bowels don't work. This bladder medicine
gives you diarrhea. (Charmaz, 1991a: 73)
A researcher has topics to pursue. Research participants have problems to
solve, goals to pursue, and actions to perform, and they hold assumptions,
ideas, and feelings about all these concerns. Your research questions and mode
of inquiry shape your subsequent data and analysis. Thus, becoming self-aware
about why and how you gather data enables you to assess your effectiveness.
You learn to sense when you are gathering rich, useful data that do not undermine
33
34 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
or demean your respondent(s}. Not surprisingly then, grounded theory methods
work best when the grounded theorist engages in data collection as well as data
analysis. This way, you can explore nuances of meaning and process that hired
hands might easily miss.
Respondents' stories may tumble out or the major process in which people
are engaged may jump out at you. However, respondents may not be so forthcoming
nor may major processes be so obvious. Even if they are, it usually
takes considerable work to discover the subtlety and complexity of respondents'
intentions and actions. The researcher may
have entered the implicit world of meaning, but not
of explicit words. For example, some of my partici- have entered the
pants spoke of incidents in which they told other implicit world of
people about their illnesses. They described these meaning, but not of
people as being initially sympathetic, but later they •. explicit words. ••
sensed that they were being treated with insincerity, ·••• · · •••••••••••· •·•••
and felt their social and personal worth was undermined. Often the meaning of
such incidents showed in the emotions they expressed when retelling the
events, more than in the words they chose.
For some topics, closer study and direct questioning may suffice. For other topics,
you may need to redirect inquiry. For example, our language contains few
words with which to talk about time. Thus, many ofmy research participants' attitudes
toward and actions concerning time remained unspoken and taken for
granted. Yet their stories about illness often depended on conceptions of time and
referred to implicit qualities of experienced time. For example, the woman's statement
above about bladder infections referred to the speed and unevenness of her
days. When you plan to explore such areas, then you try to devise ways to make
relevant observations or to construct questions that will foster pertinent responses.
To illustrate, I asked my respondents questions like, 'As you look back on your illness,
which events stand out in your mind?' 'What is a typical weekday like for
you?' Glaser (1992) might say I force the data here by asking preconceived questions
of it Instead, I generate data by investigating taken-for-granted aspects of life.
At whatever level you attend to your participants' meanings, intentions, and actions,
you can create a coherent analysis by using grounded
theory Hence, the method is useful for factfinding
descriptive studies as well as more conceptually prompts you to
developed theoretical statements. learn nuances
Studying your data prompts you to learn nuances of your research
of your research participants' language and mean- participants'
ings. Subsequently, you learn to define the directions language and
where your data can take you. Through studying inter- •• meanings.
view audiotapes, for example, you attend closely to ............. ""••• 010
oo•".
your respondents' feelings and views. They will live in your mind as you listen
carefully over and over to what they were saying. For example, one student in
my class remarked:
What an impact the words had on me when I sat horne alone transcribing
the tapes. I was more able to hear and feel what these women were
GATHERING RICH DATA
saying to me. I realized how, at times, I was preoccupied with thoughts of
what my next question was, how my eye contact was, or hoping we were
speaking loud enough for the tape-recorder. (Charmaz. 1991b: 393)
If you attend to respondents' language, you can bridge their experience
with your research questions. Then you can learn about their meanings rather
than make assumptions about what they mean. For example, when my
respondents with chronic illnesses talked about having 'good days' and 'bad
days,' I probed further and asked more questions around their taken-forgranted
meanings of good and bad days. I asked questions such as: 'What is
a good day like?' 'Could you describe what a bad day is?' 'What kinds of
things do you do on a good day?' 'How do these activities compare with those
on a bad day?' I discovered that good days mean 'minimal intrusiveness of
illness, maximal control over mind, body, and actions, and greater choice of
activities' (Charmaz, 199la: 50). The meaning of good days also extends to
increased temporal and spatial horizons, to the quality of the day and to realizing
the self one wishes to be. But had I not followed up and asked respondents
about the meanings of these terms, their specific properties would have
remained implicit Thus, I gained a more textured, dense understanding of
how time and self were related.
Textual Analysis
All qualitative research entails analyzing texts; however, some researchers
study texts that they only partially shape or that they obtain from other sources.
Elicited texts involve research participants in producing written data in
response to a researcher's request and thus offer a means of generating data.
Extant texts consist of varied documents that the researcher had no hand in
shaping. Researchers treat extant texts as data to address their research questions
although these texts were produced for other-often very differentpurposes.
Archival data such as letters from a historical figure or era are a major
source of extant texts. We may use elicited and extant texts as either primary
or supplementary sources of data.
Texts do not stand as objective facts although they often represent what their
authors assumed were objective facts (Prior, 2003). People construct texts for
specific purposes and they do so within social, economic, historical, cultural,
and situational contexts. Texts draw on particular discourses and provide
accounts that record, explore, explain, justify, or foretell actions, whether the
specific texts are elicited or extant For example, police officers may record and
give traffic tickets for certain violations but not those that they deem to be
trivial. Their recordings are aimed to fulfill their official roles, not to serve as
research data. AB a discourse, a text follows certain conventions and assumes
embedded meanings. Researchers can compare the style, contents, direction,
and presentation of material to a larger discourse of which the text is a part
AB accounts, texts tell something of intent and have intended-and perhaps
unintended-audiences.
35
36 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Elicited Texts
Elicited texts involve research participants in writing the data. A mailed questionnaire
or, increasingly, Internet surveys containing open-ended questions
are common sources of these texts. In addition, ethnographers and interviewers
may ask their participants to write texts. Asking participants to record
family or work histories, keep personal diaries, write daily logs, or answer written
questions all generate elicited texts. These texts, like published autobiographies,
may elicit thoughts, feelings, and concerns of the thinking, acting subject
as well as give researchers ideas about what structures and cultural values influence
the person. Researchers' guidelines for elicited texts may range from
detailed instructions to minimal suggestions.
On a social psychological level, contrasts between elicited written documents
and direct observations may tell a poignant tale. For example, when conducting
an ethnographic study of a residential care setting, I asked members to log
what they did on a Wednesday and on a Sunday to gain more knowledge of
their views of typical days in the institution. After I collected the residents' logs
of their typical days, I discovered that one woman had recorded a packed
schedule of her reading and writing pursuits. Yet I had seen that she had slept
during most of these periods. While engaged in a conversation with a staff
nurse, I discovered that this woman had recorded her typical day of three years
before (Calkins, 1970). Once a published writer, she wished to be identified by
her past, not her present. If I had not collected the logs, I might have missed
learning how some elders and ill people construct fictional identities in the present
that they reconstruct from actual identities in the past. These identities
reflect meanings and preferred images ofself, not outright lies. In a similar way,
interview respondents may wish to appear affable, intelligent, or politically correct
and thus shape their responses accordingly. However, interviews pose possibilities
for checking a story that a text does not.
In the example above, my sustained presence in the setting allowed me to
search for reasons for disparities between observed realities and written
responses. When elicited texts are written by anonymous authors, the researcher
has no means of comparing them with other data about the same people.
Elicited texts such as logs, journals, diaries or written responses to specific
questions 'share some of the advantages and disadvantages of conventional surveys
and interviews. Like questionnaires, anonymous elicited texts can foster
frank disclosures that a person might not wish to make to an interviewer.
Revealing secrets that risk shame, disgrace, or failure are among these disclosures.
Research participants may not wish to discuss their genetic histories, sex
lives, financial situations, troubles at work, personal failures, feelings, or unfulfilled
hopes and dreams but might be willing to write about them anonymously.
Participants can tell as much or little about themselves as they wish. Still, this
approach relies on participants' prior writing skills and practices. Not all participants
possess the skill, comfort, and confidence to write full accounts.
Murphy and Dingwall (2003) state that elicited texts generate data that resemble
interview data. True-they do when the questions posed resemble interview
questions and the participants respond to them as such, rather than as bureaucratic
forms, quick surveys, management ploys, or trivial inquiries. Thus,
GATHERING RICH DATA
elicited texts work best when participants have a stake in the addressed topics,
experience in the relevant areas, and view the questions as significant.
As in questionnaire construction, researchers who use elicited texts cannot
modify or reword a question once they ask it. Nor do they have any immediate
possibility of following up on a statement, encouraging a response, or raising
a question even when they may be able to interview research participants
later. If consistent with earlier entry and access agreements, researchers might
talk with known participants further about their written responses. Although having
access to multiple forms of data strengthens a study, qualitative researchers
increasingly use personal accounts, letters, responses to open-ended questionnaires,
and media resources without other forms of data collection and without
the possibility of pursuing such data collection.
Extant Texts
Extant texts contrast with elicited texts in that the researcher does not affect
their construction. Among those we might use are public records, government
reports, organizational documents, mass media, literature, autobiographies,
personal correspondence, Internet discussions, and earlier qualitative materials
from data banks. In the past, researchers have valued extant texts because of
their relative availability, typically unobtrusive method of data collection, and
seeming objectivity.5
·
When researchers use extant texts, their readers may believe such texts
mirror reality. A corporate annual report, data on the distribution of homelessness
in your hometown, US census data on race may all look like reports of
'facts.' Yet they reflect shared definitions concerning each topic and the power
to enforce these definitions. Report writers may adopt definitions that alter or
contradict their readers' meanings of seemingly concrete categories such as
profits and losses.
Extant texts such as medical charts, police records, or school policy statements
may all provide useful information and all have serious limitations. For
example, health care workers who foresee possible litigation may limit their
notes in medical charts. While working as a nursing assistant during his ethnographic
study of a nursing home, Timothy Diamond (1992} examined patients'
medical charts. He discovered that staff notes not only erased prior uncharted
events but also that the caring work of nursing assistants remained invisible.
Through his field research, Diamond learned what staff charted, how they used
charts, and what they left out.
Exploring the purposes and objectives of records allows placing them into
perspective and perhaps seeking more data from other sources. Extant texts
can complement ethnographic and interview methods. Answering questions
about information in these texts can serve as valuable data:
• What are the parameters of the information?
• On what and whose facts does this information rest?
• What does the information mean to various participants or actors in the scene?
• What does the information leave out?
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38 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
• Who has access to the facts, records, or sources of the information?
• Who is the intended audience for the information?
• Who benefits from shaping and!or interpreting this information in a particular
way?
• How, if at all, does the information affect actions?
Pretend that you had collected all the reports in an organization you were
studying. You might find sharp differences between organizational reports
and the field observations that you made. For example, you might discover
that managers redefine their failed projects and tout them as successes
in their yearly reports. Such important data could direct your analysis in
pivotal ways.
For some projects, extant texts provide an independent source of data from
the researcher's collected first-hand materials (Reinharz, 1992). Many qualitative
researchers make use of demographic data as a backdrop for their topics.
Some explore the weaknesses of such data to frame their arguments. Others
look for earlier materials that can inform their research questions. I drew upon
written personal accounts, primarily published autobiographies, of their respective
authors' experience with chronic illness. Rather than assuming such texts
are objective sources of data, uncontaminated by the researcher, you can treat
them analytically as another source of data. These texts may also spark your
ideas and provide evidence for your hunches. Occasionally, you may come
across a text that provides strong evidence for an analytic point long after you
have drafted it. After I had developed my category 'recapturing the past' I happened
to read Kathleen Lewis's (1985) poignant account of having lupus erythematosus.
Her statement supported my category:
My family and I kept taking the 'old me' off the shelf. hoping one day she
might return and we could go back to our past lives. We'd sigh and put her
back on the shelf, but she lingered in our memories and hopes. thwarting
any attempts of accepting and living in the present as it was. It was
always. 'Tomorrow we'll ...'or 'Remember yesterday, when ...?' (p. 45)
Qualitative researchers often use texts as supplementary sources of data.
Ethnographers rely most heavily on their fieldnotes but make use of newsletters,
records, and reports when they can obtain them. Comparisons between fieldnotes
and written documents can spark insights about the relative congruenceor
lack of it-between words and deeds. Ethnographers observe what is
happening in the setting and learn about the local culture. Both organizational
rhetoric and reports may pale in the face of observed worlds. These texts may
fulfill intriguing organizational purposes, but researchers cannot assume that
they mirror organizational processes. Thus, such texts may provide useful statements
about an organization's professed images and claimed objectives-the
front stage view aimed to shape its public reputation. When significant audiences
accept these statements, the organization can shield backstage realities
and often more fundamental objectives from scrutiny, such as recruitment of
new members or organizational survival or dominance.
GATHERING RICH DATA
Studying Texts
To the extent possible, we need to situate texts in their contexts. Now Internet
research offers endless opportunities for textual analysis-and poses enormous
methodological issues. Texts without contexts are major among them. Where do
the data come from? Who participated in shaping them? What did the authors
intend? Have participants provided sufficient information for us to make a plausible
interpretation? And do we have sufficient lmowledge of the relevant worlds
to read their words with any understanding? On the Internet, participants may
alter what we define as basic information-age, gender, race, ethnicity, and social
class origins-as well as the specific content of their responses.
Much textual analysis is without context, or worse, out of context. How do
you place texts into context? Providing description of the times, actors, and
issues gives you a start. Multiple methods help, such as interviewing key participants,
and using several types of documents also helps. Texts that tell the
story behind other texts at least suggest the social context for the analysis. Both
the detail of the texts themselves and the thoroughness of the analysis figure
here. Cynthia Bogard (2001) drew upon the New York Times and the Washington
Post stories about local homelessness as well as archival data, television reports,
and scholarly publications to reconstruct a view of the context surrounding
homelessness in New York and Washington and the kind of claims-making
about homelessness that occurred in each city. Rather than treating newspaper
reports as objective historical records, she viewed them as 'dominant and elite
voices in the public conversation about a social problem ... [and thus] important
sites of reality construction' (2001: 431). Bogard not only emphasized advocates
and adversaries' claims but also developed an analysis of the emergent
contexts in which these claims occurred. The depth and comprehensiveness of
Bogard's scrutiny of these texts furthers our understanding of homelessness and
of how people make claims about reality.
A major way of using texts is as objects for analytic scrutiny themselves
rather than for corroborating evidence. Archival records and written narratives,
video and photographic images, Internet posts and graphics may give you
insights into perspectives, practices, and events not easily obtained through
other qualitative methods. Nonetheless, all these texts are products. The processes
that shape them may be ambiguous, invisible, and, perhaps, unlmowable. A
close investigation of the text helps you to study it. Among the possible ways
to approach a text, these questions may arise:
• How was the text produced? By whom?
• What is the ostensible purpose of the text? Might the text serve other
unstated or assumed purposes? Which ones?
• How does the text represent what its author(s) assumed to exist? Which
meanings are embedded within it? How do those meanings reflect a particular
social, historical, and perhaps organizational context?
• What is the structure of the text?
• How does its structure shape what is said? Which categories can you discern
in its structure? What can you glean from these categories? Do the categories
change in sequential texts over time? How so?
39
40 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
• Which contextual meanings does the text imply?
• How does its content construct images of reality?
• Which realities does the text claim to represent? How does it represent
them?
• What, if any, unintended information and meanings might you see in the
text?
• How is language used?
• Which rules govern the construction of the text? How can you discern them
in the narrative? How do these rules reflect both tacit assumptions and explicit
meanings? How might they be related to other data on the same topic?
• When and how do telling points emerge in the text?
• What kinds of comparisons can you make between texts? Between different
texts on the same topic? Similar texts at different times such as organizational
annual reports? Between different authors who address the same
questions?
• Who benefits from the text? Why?
Most grounded theorists would start with the content of the texts. I also
address their structure and relationships between structure and content.
Grounded theories of textual material can address form as well as content, audiences
as well as authors, and production of the text as well as presentation of it.
Concluding Thoughts
With any data-gathering approach, consider how participants invoke ideas,
practices, and accounts from both the larger and local cultures of which they
are a part. Keep in mind that they may not simply borrow from these cultures
or reproduce them; rather, they may make innovations as they adapt them to
serve their immediate purposes. Similarly, as researchers, we adapt language
and meanings as we record data; data are never entirely raw. Recording data
alone confers interpretations of them because we place a conceptual frame on
them through our use of language and understandings about the world.
Scrutinizing how you collect data and which data you obtain helps to locate
them. Such scrutiny also helps you when coding and categorizing because you
will be able to place your emerging analysis in its social context. Then you can
make more precise comparisons when coding data. By studying your methods,
you will improve both your methodological skills and the quality of your data.
Subsequently, your scrutiny may lead you to realize later that collecting another
kind of data with a different method may answer questions in your emerging
analysis. For large projects such as theses, you might use two or more datagathering
approaches. For a major funded research project, multi-method and
multi-site approaches often prove to be useful. If you construct a research proposal
that builds in possibilities for pursuing data in several settings, you have the
flexibility later on to use or develop methods that address emergent questions.
In the interim, we next move on to begin the analytic phase of our grounded
theory journey, through coding our early data.
GATHERING RICH DATA
NOTES
Biernacki (1986) devised a sophisticated form of snowball sampling with referral chams
to find Ins sample of naturally recovered addicts. His project was eventually funded and
he and his staff conducted 101 lengthy intemews Wlth these former addicts as well as
comparatiVe intemews with recovered addicts who had undergone treatment.
2 Matthew ].James remmded me that all research has emergent themes (Personal commurucao.on,
September 17, 2004). True, but the degree to winch various methodological
approaches encourage or mhibit them differs. Grounded theory methods are founded on
facilitao.ng emergence.
3 Grounded theory studies have long been accused of building analyses on haphazard,
skimpy data (Lofland & Lofland, 1984). Creswell (1998) views grounded theory as primarily
based upon a limited number of intemews (20-30), but he does not challenge
usmg a small sample. Depending on the purpose and the quality of data and analysis, a
limited sample nught be sufficient.A dissertao.on or maJor study requrres more intemews
when they are the sole source of data.
Now the tendency to shortcut data colleco.on permeates all kinds of methods, mcludmg
ethnography. As Schneider (1997) argues, the rush to theorizing reflects polio.cal and
career decisions beyond specific research problems to the detrrrnent of both theory and
research.
4 These ethnographic questions are adapted from Mitchell's (1991) longer list.
5 Not all telling texts may be so straightforward.The most significant extant texts may be
relatively unavailable and require obtrusive methods to find. Obtaining these texts may
contradict informed cons,ent rules and institutional review board policies that serve to
protect the powerful. Dalton's Men Who Manage (1959) offers a classic example. Dalton
received the confidential documents confirrrung the status characteristics of managers
from a secretary who believed m the value ofDalton's project.
4:1.
Coding in Grounded
Theory Practice
The first analytic turn in our grounded theory journey brings us to
coding. Grounded theory coding requires us to stop and ask analytic
questions of the data we have gathered. These questions not only further
our understanding of studied life but also help us direct subsequent
data-gathering toward the analytic issues we are defining.
Grounded theory coding consists of at least two phases: initial and
focused coding. During initial coding we study fragments of datawords,
lines, segments, and incidents-closely for their analytic
import. From time to time, we may adopt our participants' telling
terms as in vivo codes. While engaging in focused coding, we select
what seem to be the most useful initial codes and test them against
extensive data. Throughout the process, we compare data with data
and then data with codes. We may follow special procedures to elaborate
our codes or move to extant theoretical codes but only if indicated
by our emerging analysis. Signposts and guides make our
sojourn with coding accessible and ease our way around obstacles.
Consider the following interview excerpt from Bonnie Presley, who had long
known she had systemic lupus erythematosus and had recently learned
that she also had discoid lupus erythematosus. At the time of this interview,
Bonnie was 48 years old and divorced from her second husband. After leaving
a partner with whom she had lived for several years, she lived alone with her
three cats. During the past year, she had had several immobilizing episodes of
illness; the first one had been life-threatening. Currently, she was attempting to
regain her strength after being ill for almost three months. Bonnie's good friend
and neighbor, Linda, was keeping a watchful eye on her. Linda was bringing
Bonnie food and made her tea since Bonnie felt too weak to care for herself.
Although Bonnie's adult daughter, Amy, now lived in the area, their calls
and Amy's visits remained sporadic. Years before, Amy could not understand
how the mother she had known as a fitness buff could have become so sedentary.
Bonnie's youthful physical appearance belied her health status because
her symptoms remained invisible to an untrained eye. In the early years ofher
illness, Bonnie had found it difficult to tell Amy about her illness and its
seriousness.1
Amy had moved away before Bonnie first became ill and Bonnie
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
had either understated what was happening or avoided telling Amy. Bonnie
recounted her realization about how she had told Amy the news about her
recent crisis:
She found out from Linda that I was, had been in bed for days and she
called me up, 'You never tell me, and I have to find out from Linda,' and
'Why don't you tell me who you are and what's going on and ...' Well. I
don't know how long after that. but that Saturday the pain started right
here and it, throughout the day it got worse and worse and worse. And
she-1 kept thinking that, well, I can deal with this, so I took some kind
of a pain pill and nothing helped. And that was about one in the afternoon.
Well, it got worse and worse so that every time I took a breath the
pain was horrible. so by seven. eight o'clock that night, I was scared
because I knew that if it got any worse I wasn't going to be able to
breathe. So I called her and then I told her what was going on, that I was
going to be driven to the doctor because they were going to try giving me
shots of zylocain or something to try to locate a point to where maybe it
would go in there and numb the pain for me so that I could breathe. Well,
I called her and told her this. And I have a car phone. She says, 'Well.
Mom I'll call you later or you call me.' Well. I didn't call her; she didn't
call me. That was Saturday night. She didn't call me until-she called
me about noon on ·Monday, and I finally said, 'Well look, this is why
I don't tell you, because when I told you Saturday night, you never called,
you didn't care or anything and it really hurt my feelings. So that's why
I don't tell you when I have this going on.' And she said to me, 'Well,
Mom, you sounded perfectly fine.' And I said, 'Well, what do you expect
me to do, become an emotional wreck or something?' I said, 'I have to
keep everything still and quiet in me in order to control, because if I went
into emotional frenzy, I would have not been able to breathe.' you know.
So she started really trying to understand that just because I was scared
to death. I was in horrible pain. but when I called her. I guess I was just
a normal mom.
What sense might we make of stories like Bonnie's? How do we synthesize
hundreds of pages of interviews, fieldnotes, documents, and other texts to
develop a grounded theory? Whether we
have collected stories, scenes, or written
statements, we study and define these
materials to analyze what happened and
what they might mean.
Qualitative coding, the process of defining
what the data are about, is our first
analytic step. Coding means naming segments
of data with a label that simultaneously
categorizes, summarizes, and accounts
.....\
segments of data with a short
name that simultaneously
summarizes and accounts for
each piece of data. Your codes
show how you select, separate,
and sort data to begin an
analytic accounting of them.
·............................................·
for each piece of data.2
Coding is the first step in moving beyond concrete statements
in the data to making analytic interpretations. We aim to make an interpretative
rendering that begins with coding and illuminates studied life.
43
44 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
BOX 3.1.· GROUNDEDTHEORY CODING EXAMPLE
:..· . :. .. :.:· .. .. .. ·.
Receiving second-hand news
Being left out; Accusing mother of
repeated not telling; (questioning
ethical stance?) Being confronted
Facing self and identi1y questions;
Demanding self-disclosure and
information
Experiencing escalating pain
Expecting to manage pain
Inability to control pain
Rapid worsening of pain
Having excruciating pain
Becoming fiightened; Foreseeing
breathing crisis
Breaking the news; Informing
daughter of plan
Explaining projected treatment
Having access for making contact
Leaving follow-up contact
open-ended
No follow-up
Ascertaining the time between
contacts
Explaining lack of disclosure
Accusing daughter of not caring
Expressing hurt; Assuming lack of
caring; Making negative
inferences (of a moral lapse?)
Accounting for not telling
Sounding fine
Questioning daughter's expectations
Explaining need for emotional control
Seeing life-threatening risk of
losing control
Teaching that mode of telling
does not reflect state of being
Sounding like a 'normal' mom
She found out from Linda that I was. had been in
bed for days and she called me up, 'You never
tell me. and ! have to find out from Linda.· and
'Why don't you tell me who you are and what's
going on and ...' Well. I don't know how long
after that, but that Saturday the pam started
right here and it. throughout the day it got worse
and worse and worse. And she-1 kept thinking
that. well, I can deal with this. so I took some
kind of a pain pill and nothing helped. And that
was about one in the afternoon. Well, it got
worse and worse so that every time I took a
breath the pain was horrible, so by seven. eight
o'clock that night, I was scared because I knew
that if it got any worse I wasn't going to be able
to breathe. So I called her and then I told her
what was going on. that I was going to be driven
to the doctor because they were going to try giving
me shots of zylocain or something to try to
locate a point to where maybe it would go in
there and numb the pain for me so that I could
breathe. Well. I called her and told her this. And
I have a car phone. She says, 'Well. Mom I'll call
you later or you call me.' Well. I didn't call her;
she didn't call me. That was Saturday night. She
didn't call me until-she called me about noon
on Monday, and I finally said. 'Well look, this is
why I don't tell you, because when I told you
Saturday night, you never called, you didn't care
or anything and it really hurt my feelings. So
that's why I don't tell you when I have this going
on.' And she said to me, 'Well, Mom. you
sounded perfectly fine.' And I said, 'Well, what
do you expect me to do, become an emotional
wreck or something?' I said, 'I have to keep
everything still and quiet in me in order to control,
because if I went into emotional frenzy, I
would have not been able to breathe,' you know.
So she started really trying to understand that
JUSt because I was scared to death, I was in horrible
pain. but when I called her. I guess I was
just a normal mom.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
Our codes show how we select, separate, and sort data to begin an analytic
accounting of them. Qualitative codes take segments of data apart, name them
in concise terms, and propose an analytic handle to develop abstract ideas
for interpreting each segment of data. AB we code, we ask: which theoretical
categories might these statements indicate?
You might have wondered what qualitative codes look like and how
researchers construct them. A quick look at my codes of Bonnie Presley's story
will give you an idea (see Box 3.1).
The codes in Box 3.1 attempt to portray meanings and actions in Bonnie's story.
We gain a sense of both Bonnie's and Amy's concerns, as Bonnie presents them.
Her story shows how telling news can be fraught with problems. Misunderstandings
and dilemmas arise. Hesitancies occur. Accusations ensue. Explanations follow.
Telling the news can open the self to view, risk emotional costs, and force questions
about relationships. Not telling or delayed telling can also rent or rupture
bonds. Familial failures, ethical slights, and moral claims accrue, from one or
another person's view. Rhetorical styles may be meant-or misunderstood-as
delivering fundamental judgments. For both Bonnie and Amy, disclosing illness
became a contested area in which charged questions ignited about whom each
was to the other. Events may force disclosure, as Bonnie's story indicates. What
people tell, when they tell it, and how they tell it all matter. How Bonnie told
her daughter affected how her daughter understood and acted on the news.
Bonnie had concentrated on not risking loss of emotional control but later realized
that her straightforward way of informing Amy may have understated the
seriousness of the episode and fueled misunderstandings. By maintaining emotional
control when informing her daughter, Bonnie's daughter thought she
'sounded perfectly fine,' like 1ust a normal mom.'
Note that the codes stick closely to the data, show actions, and indicate how
dilemmas surrounding disclosure arise. Certain codes, such as 'being left out,'
'facing self and identity questions,' 'demanding self-disclosure and information,'
are central to analyzing Bonnie's story, as are those about accounting, explaining,
and providing reasons. Other codes preserve events, suggest contexts, and
portray viewpoints, such as 'receiving second-hand news,' 'expecting to manage
pain,' and 'sounding like a "normal" mom.' Many of the codes are short They
also imply crucial relationships between telling and self, as defined by both self
and other. Hence, the codes suggest building categories concerned with telling,
disclosing, self, and identity. I placed two codes in parentheses because they are
less firmly apparent here than others and represent ideas to look for in further
data. Consistent with a grounded theory emphasis on emergence, questions
about these codes arise from my reading of the data rather than emanating from
an earlier frame applied to them.
Grounded Theory Coding
Grounded theory coding generates the bones of your analysis. Theoretical integration
will assemble these bones into a working skeleton. Thus, coding is more
than a beginning; it shapes an analytic frame from which you build the analysis.
45
46 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
I lay out coding strategies for developing the •••••·••••
frame. 'fry them. See how they work for you.
Grounded theory coding fosters studying between collecting data and
developing an emergent
action and processes, as you can see in the theory to explain these
codes of Bonnie Presley's story. data. Through coding, you
Coding is the pivotal link between collect- define what is happening
ing data and developing an emergent theory in the data and begin to
to explain these data. Through coding, you •• grapple with what it means. ••
definewhatis happening in the data and begin •••• •••••·••••••••••••• •••·••••
to grapple with what it means. The codes take form together as elements of a
nascent theory that explains these data and directs further data-gathering. By
careful attending to coding, you begin weaving two major threads in the fabric
ofgrounded theory: generalizable theoretical statements that transcend specific
times and places and contextual analyses of actions and events.
Grounded theory coding consists of at least two main phases: 1) an initial
phase involving naming each word, line, or segment of data followed by 2) a
focused, selective phase that uses the most significant or frequent initial codes
to sort, synthesize, integrate, and organize large amounts of data. While
engaged in initial coding, you mine early data for analytic ideas to pursue in
further data collection and analysis. Initial coding entails a close reading of the
data as indicated by my codes of Bonnie Presley's story. During initial coding,
the goal is to remain open to all possible theoretical directions indicated by
your readings of the data. Later, you use focused coding to pinpoint and
develop the most salient categories in large batches of data. Theoretical integration
begins with focused coding and proceeds through all your subsequent
analytic steps.
The actual research you conduct through analyzing your data likely differsat
least somewhat-from what you may have plauned earlier in a research or
grant proposal. We learn through studying our data. Qualitative coding guides
our learning. Through it, we begin to make sense of our data. How we make
sense of it shapes the eusuing analysis. Careful attention to coding furthers
our attempts to understand acts and accounts, scenes and sentiments, stories
and from our research participants' view. We want to know what is
happening in the setting, in people's lives, and in lines of our recorded data.
Hence, we try to understand our participants' standpoints and situations, as
well as their actions within the setting.
The logic of grounded theory coding differs from quantitative logic that
applies preconceived categories or codes to the data. As the example above illustrates,
we create our codes by defining what we see in the data. Codes emerge
as you scrutinize your data and define meanings within it Through this active
coding, you interact with your data again and again and ask many different questions
of them. As a result, coding may take you into unforeseen areas and new
research questions.
Language plays a crucial role in how and what we code. Most fundamentally,
the empirical world does not appear to us in some natural state apart from
human experience. Rather we know the empirical world through language and
the actions we take toward it. In this sense, no researcher is neutral because
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
language confers form and meaning on observed realities. Specific use of
language reflects views and values. We share one language with colleagues and
perhaps another with friends; we attribute meanings to specific terms and hold
perspectives. Our codes arise from the languages, meanings, and perspectives
through which we learn about the empirical world, including those of our participants
as well as our own. Coding impels us to make our participants' language
problematic to render an analysis of it. Coding should inspire us to examine
hidden assumptions in our own use oflanguage as well as that ofour participants.
We comtruct our codes because we are actively naming data-even when we
believe our codes form a perfect fit with actions and events in the studied
world. We may think our codes capture the empirical reality. Yet it is our view:
we choose the words that constitute our codes. Thus we define what we see as
significant in the data and describe what we think is happening. Coding consists
of this initial, shorthand defining and labeling; it results from a grounded theorist's
actions and understandings. Nonetheless, the process is interactive. We interact
with our participants and subsequently interact with them again many times
over through studying their statements and observed actions and re-envisioning
the scenes in which we know them. AI; we define our codes and perhaps later
refine them, we try to understand participants' views and actions from their
perspectives. These perspectives usually assume much more than what is immediately
apparent. We must dig into our data to interpret participants' tacit meanings.
Close attention to 'coding helps us to do that.
Close attention to coding follows the first grounded theory mandate: Study
your emerging data (Glaser, 1978).
From the beginning, you may sense that the process of coding produces
certatn tensions-between analytic insights and described events, whether spoken
accounts or written observations, between static topics and dynamic processes,
and between participants' worlds and professionals' meanings.
Initial Coding
The Logic of Initial Coding
When grounded theorists conduct initial coding, we remain open to exploring
whatever theoretical possibilities we can discern in the data. This initial step in
coding moves us toward later decisions about defining our core conceptual categories.
Through comparing data with data, we learn what our research participants
view as problematic and begin to treat it analytically. During initial
coding, we ask:
• 'What is this data a study of?' (Glaser, 1978: 57; Glaser & Strauss, 1967)
• What does the data suggest? Pronounce?
• From whose point of view?
• What theoretical category does this specific datum indicate? (Glaser, 1978)
Initial coding should stick closely to the data. 'fry to see actions in each segment
of data rather than applying preexisting categories to the data. Attempt to code
47
48 CONSTRUCTiNG GROUNDED THEORY
with words that reflect action. At first, invoking a language ofaction rather than of
topics may feel strange. Look closely at actions and, to the degree possible, code
data as actions. This method of coding curbs our tendencies to make conceptual
leaps and to adopt extant theories beforewe have done the necessary analytic work.
Students often believe that they must rely on earlier concepts and invoke
them before they begin coding to make their qualitative research legitimate.
They make statements like, 'I'm going to use Max Weber's concept of
routinization,' or 'My advisor wants me to use Anselm Strauss's concept of
"negotiations".' Such approaches preclude ideas from emerging as you code
events. The openness of initial coding should spark your thinking and allow
new ideas to emerge. Earlier grounded theory rules prescribed conducting initial
coding without having preconceived concepts in mind {Glaser, 1978, 1992).
I agree with Glaser's approach of keeping initial coding open-ended yet
acknowledge that researchers hold prior ideas and skills. As Dey {1999: 251)
states, 'There is a difference between an open mind and an empty head.' Try to
remain open to seeing what you can learn while coding and where it can take
you. In team research, several individuals may code data separately and then
compare and combine their different codings.
Initial codes are provisional, comparative, and grounded in the data. They
are provisional because you aim to remain open to other analytic possibilities
and create codes that best fit the data you have. You progressively follow up on
codes that indicate that they fit the data. Then you gather data to explore and
fill out these codes.
Initial grounded theory coding can prompt you to see areas in which you
lack needed data. Realizing that your data have gaps-or holes-is part of the
analytic process. It is inevitable when you adopt an emergent method of conducting
research.3
After all, making 'discoveries' about the worlds you study
and pursuing these discoveries to construct an analysis is what grounded theory
is about. Such discoveries reflect what you learn and how you conceptualize it.
The advantage of grounded theory strategies is that you may learn about gaps
and holes in your data from the earliest stages ofresearch. Then you can locate
sources of needed data and gather them. Hence, simultaneous data collection
and can help you go further and deeper into the research problem as
well as engage in developing categories.
Codes are also provisional in the sense that you may reword them to
improve the fit. Part of the fit is the degree to which they capture and condense
meanings and actions. Compelling codes capture the phenomenon and grab
the reader.
Initial Coding Practices
Speed and spontaneity help in initial coding. Working quickly can spark your
thinking and spawn a fresh view of the data. Some codes fit the data and grab
the reader immediately. You can revise others to improve the fit. My original
code of the first line of Bonnie Presley's story above was 'receiving news indirectly.'
It condensed the statement but the neutral wording drained the incident
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
of its intensity and importance. Changing the code to 'receiving second-hand
news' suggested the reduced value of the news, implied the receiver's diminished
status, and alluded to her angry response.
Comparing incidents of the same order between data spurs you to think analytically
about them. Bonnie Presley revealed a reluctance to tell her daughter,
delayed in telling her, and imparted difficult news in a matter-of-fact manner.
Yet, from time to time, she and Amy talked about their problems in giving and
getting news about Bonnie's illness. Because Bonnie no longer had much contact
with her own mother, dilemmas ofdisclosure did not arise with her. No disclosures
occurred. Bonnie's grandmother, of whom she was very fond, had
partly raised her. Bonnie protected her grandmother from worry by treating
her situation lightly and by minimizing the implications of her symptoms. My
data included other cases of inter-generational tensions. Several other single
women I studied who had no children and few close family ties had conflicted
relationships with their aging mothers. As geographical and emotional distance
increased, these women correspondingly curtailed sharing their news. From the
data and brief descriptions above, avoiding disclosure, delaying disclosure, and
controlling information all emerged as salient codes.
Glaser (1978) shows how coding with gerunds helps you detect processes and
stick to the data. Think of the difference in imagery between the following
gerunds and their noun forms: describing versus description, stating versus
statement, and leading' versus leader. We gain a strong sense of action and
sequence with gerunds. The nouns turn these actions into topics. Staying close
to the data and, when possible, starting from the words and actions of your
respondents, preserves the fluidity of their experience and gives you new ways
of looking at it These steps encourage you to begin analysis from their perspective.
That is the point. If you ignore, gloss over, or leap beyond participants'
meanings and actions, your grounded theory will likely reflect an outsider's,
rather than an insider's view. Outsiders often import an alien professional language
to describe the phenomenon. If your data are thin and if you don't push
hard in coding, you may mistake routine rationales for analytic insights. Thus,
accepting participants' orchestrated impressions at face value can lead to outsider
analyses.
Picking up general terms from an interview such as 'experience' or 'event'
and calling them codes tells you little about the participant's meaning or action.
If general terms seem significant, qualify them. Make your codes fit the data
you have rather than forcing the data to fit them.
A code for coding:
• Remain open
• Stay close to the data
• Keep your codes simple and precise
• Construct short codes
• Preserve actions
• Compare data with data
• Move quickly through the data.
49
50 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
In short, remain open to what the material suggests and stay close to it Keep your
codes short, simple, active and analytic. The first two guidelines above reflect
your stance toward coding. The remaining guidelines suggest how to do coding.
Word-by-Word Coding
The size of the unit of data to code matters. Some grounded theorists conduct
nuanced coding and move through their data word by word. This approach
may be particularly helpful when working with documents or certain types of
ephemera, such as Internet data. Word-by-word analysis forces you to attend to
images and meanings. You may attend to the structure and flow of words, and
how both affect the sense you make of them, as well as their specific content.
Line-by-Line Coding
For many grounded theorists, line-by-line coding is the first step in coding
(see Box 3.2). Line-by-line coding means naming each line of your written data
(Glaser, 1978). Coding every line may seem like an arbitrary exercise because
not every line contains a complete sentence and not every sentence may
appear to be important.4
Nevertheless, it can be an enormously useful tool.
Ideas will occur to you that had escaped your attention when reading data for
a general thematic analysis.5
Line-by-line coding works particularly well with detailed data about fundamental
empirical problems or processes whether these data consist of interviews,
observations, documents, or ethnographies and autobiographies. For
example, ifyou plan to study how older women who have been full-time homemakers
handle divorce, you have identified an area to explore about which you
may hear stories in interviews, support groups, and job training programs that
take on vivid meanings when studied line by line.
Detailed observations of people, actions, and settings that reveal visibly
telling and consequential scenes and actions lend themselves to line-by-line
coding. Generalized observations such as 'the meeting droned on' give you
little to code.
Fresh data and line-by-line coding prompt you to remain open to the data
and to see nuances in it When you code early in-depth interview data, you gain
a close look at what participants say and, likely, struggle with. This type of coding
can help you to identify implicit concerns as well as explicit statements.
Engaging in line-by-line coding helps you to refocus later interviews. The
following flexible strategies help you code:
• Breaking the data up into their component parts or properties
• Defining the actions on which they rest
• Looking for tacit assumptions
• Explicating implicit actions and meanings
• Crystallizing the significance of the points
• Comparing data with data
• Identifying gaps in the data.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
By using these strategies flexibly and following leads in your data, coding
leads to developing theoretical categories, some of which you may define in
your initial codes. Stick with what you define in your data. Build your analysis
step-by-step from the ground up without taking off on theoretical flights of
fancy. Having a credible amount of data that speaks to your research topic
further strengthens the foundation of your study.
Your research participants' actions and statements teach you about their
worlds, albeit sometimes in ways they may not anticipate. Studying your data
through line-by-line coding sparks new ideas for you to pursue. Hence, the
grounded theory method itself contains correctives that reduce the likelihood
that researchers merely superimpose their preconceived notions on the data.
Line-by-line coding provides an early corrective of this type.
In the examples of line-by-line coding in Box 3.2, my interest in time and selfconcept
comes through in the first two codes in Excerpt 1. Note how I kept the
codes active and close to the data. Initial codes often range widely across a variety
of topics. Because even a short statement or excerpt may address several points, it
could illustrate several different categories. I could use the excerpt in Box 3.2 to
show how avoiding disclosure serves to control identity. I could also use it either to
show how a respondent learns that other people see his or her illness as inexplicable
or how each day is unpredictable. Having multiple interviews ofthe same individuals
allows me to see how social and emotional isolation begins and progresses.
The logic of 'discovery' becomes evident as you begin to code data. Line-byline
coding forces you to look at the data anew. Compare what you see when
you read a set offieldnotes or an interview as an entire narrative with what you
gain when you do word-by-word, line-by-line, or incident-by-incident coding
on the same document. Entire narratives may net several major themes. Wordby-word,
line-by-line, segment-by-segment, and incident-by-incident coding
may generate a range of ideas and information. Therefore, you 'discover' ideas
on which you can build.
Initial codes help you to separate data into categories and to see processes.
Line-by-line coding frees you from becoming so immersed in your respondents'
worldviews that you accept them without question. Then you fail to look
at your data critically and analytically. Being critical about your data does not
necessarily mean being critical of your research participants. Instead, being
critical forces asking yourselfquestions about your data. These questions help
you to see actions and to identify significant processes. Such questions include:
• What process(es) is at issue here? How can I define it?
• How does this process develop?
• How does the research participant(s) act while involved in this process?
" What does the research participant(s) profess to think and feel while
involved in this process? What might his or her observed behavior indicate?
• When, why, and how does the process change?
• What are the consequences of the process?
Through coding each line of data, you gain insights about what kinds of data
to collect next. Thus, you distill data and direct further inquiry early in the
5i
52 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Shifting symptoms, havmg
inconsistent days
Interpreting images of self
given by others
Avoiding disclosure
Predicting rejection
Keeping others unaware
Seeing symptoms as connected
Having others unaware
Anticipating disbelief
Controlling others' views
Avoiding stigma
Assessing potential losses and
risks of disclosing
Meaning of the CVA
Feeling forced to one day at a time
Having a worried past
Earlier losses
Difficulty in living one day at a
time; concentrating on today
Givmg up future orientation
Managmg emotions through
living one day at a time
Reducmg life-threatening risk
Excerpt 1 Christine Danforth, age 37, lupus
erythematosus, Sjogren's syndrome, back injuries
Lupus erythematosus is a systemic, inflammatory
autoimmune disease of the connective tissue that
affects vital organs as well as joints, muscles, and
nerves. Sjogren's syndrome is a related autoimmune
inflammatory disease characterized by dry
mucous membranes of the eyes and mouth.
If you have lupus, I mean one day it's my liver. one
day it's my joints; one day it's my head, and it's like
people really think you're a hypochondriac ifyou keep
complaining about different ailments ... It's like you
don't want to say anything because people are going
to start thinking, you know, 'God, don't go near her,
all she is-is complaining about this.' And I think
that's why I never say anything because I feel like
everything I have is related one way or another to the
lupus butmostofthe people don't know I have lupus,
and even those that do are not going to believe that
ten different ailments are the same thing. And I don't
want anybody saying, you know, [that] they don't want
to come around me because I complain.
Excerpt 2 Joyce Marshall, age 60. minor heart
condition, recent small CVA (stroke)
In her case, the stroke left her with weakness,
fatigue, and slowed responses when tired.
I have to see it [her CVA] as a warning.
I can't Jet myself get so anxious. I have to Jive one
day at a time.
I've been so worried about John [her husband who
had had life-threatening heart attacks and lost his
job three years before retirement] and preparing
to get a job [her first in 38 years] ... It's just so
hard with all this stress ... to concentrate on what
I can do today. I always used to look to the future.
I can't now; it upsets me too much. I have to live
one day at a time now or else there may not be
any me.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
data collection. Line-by-line coding gives you leads to pursue. If, for example,
you identify an important process in your fifteenth interview, then you can
return to earlier respondents and see if that process explains events and experiences
in their lives. Ifnot, you can seek new respondents who can illuminate
this process. Hence, your data collection becomes more focused, as does your
coding.
Coding Incident to Incident
Whether or not you conduct line-by-line coding depends on the type of data
you have collected, their level of abstraction, the stage of the research process,
and your purpose for collecting these data. Grounded theorists often conduct a
close cousin of line-by-line coding through a comparative study of incidents.
Here you compare incident with incident, then as your ideas take hold, compare
incidents to your conceptualization of incidents coded earlier. That way
you can identify properties of your emerging concept.
A similar logic applies to observational data. Making comparisons
between incidents likely works better than word-by-word or line-by-line
coding, in part because the fieldnotes already consist of your own words
{see, for example, Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001). Compare incident to incident.
Concrete, behavioristi.c descriptions of people's mundane actions may not
be amenable to line-by-line coding, particularly when you observed a scene
but do not have a sense of its context, its participants, and did not interact
with them. Students often think observing behavior in public places is the
easiest type of qualitative research to conduct. Not so. Both the researcher's
data and analytic approach make a difference. Few novices have the eye and
ear to record nuances of action and interaction. More likely, they record
concrete behaviors in a general way and gradually learn to make more acute
observations.
Still, detailed observations alone do not guarantee creating an insightful
theoretical analysis although they may generate excellent description. The
mode of analysis matters. Comparative methods help you to see and make
sense of observations in new, analytic ways. Conducting a line-by-line coding
of one observation after another of people's actions in a public place may not
spark fresh ideas. Instead, making comparisons between observations gives you
clues to follow if not immediate ideas. If the people you study bring you into
their world, for example, you may record all kinds of incidents in anecdotes,
conversations, and observations in your fieldnotes that abound with meaning.
You may see first-hand how your participants manage daily life without them
telling you-and you may learn much more.
The more unproblematic-that is, routine, familiar, and ordinary-observed
events seem to you, the more problematic creating an original conceptual
analysis of them will be. Breaking through the ordinariness of routine events
takes effort. To gain analytic insights from observations of routine actions in
ordinary settings, first compare and code similar events. Then you may define
subtle patterns and significant processes. Later, comparing dissimilar events
may give you further insights.
53
54 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Using Comparative Methods
Whatever unit of data you begin coding in grounded theory, you use 'constant
comparative methods' (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to establish analytic distinctionsand
thus make comparisons at each level of analytic work. At first, you compare
data with data to find similarities and differences. For example, compare interview
statements and incidents within the same interview and compare statements
and incidents in different interviews. Making sequential comparisons
helps. Compare data in earlier and later interviews of the same individual{s) or
compare observations of events at different times and places. When you conduct
observations of a routine activity, compare what happens on one day with
the same activity on subsequent days.
If your codes define another view of a process, action or belief than your
respondent{s) hold, note that. Your observations and ideas do matter. Do not
dismiss your own ideas if they do not mirror the data. Your ideas may rest on
covert meanings and actions that have not entirely surfaced yet. Such intuitions
form another set of ideas to check. Our task is to make analytic sense of the
material, which may challenge taken-for-granted understandings.
What you see in your data relies in part upon your prior perspectives. Rather
than seeing your perspectives as truth, try to see them as representing one view
among many. That way, you may gain more awareness of the concepts that you
employ and might impose on your data. To illustrate, you might already possess
a repertoire of psychological concepts that you ordinarily invoke to understand
behavior. Invoking these concepts in your codes can lead you to prejudge what
is happening. 'fry to avoid assuming that respondents, for example, repress or
deny significant 'facts' about their lives. Instead, look for how they understand
their situations before you judge their attitudes and actions through your own
assumptions. Seeing the world through their eyes and understanding the logic of
their experience brings you fresh insights. Afterwards, if you still enlist disciplinary
terms as codes, you will use them more consciously rather than automatically.
Thus, you can elect to use only those terms that fit your data.
Advantages of Initial Coding
From the start, careful word-by-word, line-by-line, incident-by-incident coding
moves you toward fulfilling two criteria for completing a grounded theory
analysis: fit and relevance. Your study fits the empirical world when you have
constructed codes and developed them into categories that crystallize participants'
experience. It has- relevance when you offer an incisive analytic framework
that interprets what is happening and makes relationships between
implicit processes and structures visible.
Careful coding also helps you to refrain from imputing your motives, fears,
or unresolved personal issues to your respondents and to your collected data.
Some years ago, a young man in my seminar conducted research on adaptation
to disability. He had become paraplegic himself when he was hit by a car while
bicycling. Stories of courage, hope, and innovation filled his ten in-depth interviews.
Narratives of grief, anger, and loss permeated his analysis of them. After
I noted that his analysis did not reflect his collected material, he realized how
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
his feelings had colored his perceptions of other people's disabilities. His was
an important realization. However, he might have arrived at it before he
handed in his paper had he done more assiduous coding. Line-by-line coding
might have changed his ideas about his date early in the analysis.
Coding forces you to think about the material in new ways that may differ
from your research participants' interpretations. Your analytic eye and disciplinary
background lead you to look at their statements and actions in ways
that may not have occurred to them. By studying the data, you may make fundamental
processes explicit, render hidden assumptions visible, and give participants
new insights. Thomas (1993) says that a researcher must take the
familiar, routine, and mundane and make it unfamiliar and new. Think of
seeing a once-familiar landscape with a fresh eye after a long absence. You see
familiar landmarks with acuity unlike days past when they blurred together.
Word-by-word and line-by-line coding help you to see the familiar in new
light. Incident coding aids you in discovering patterns and contrasts. You may
gain surprising insights about how people's actions fit together or come into
conflict. You also gain distance from your preconceptions and your participants'
taken-for-granted assumptions about the material so that you can see it
in new light.
In Vivo Codes
Grounded theorists generally refer to codes of participants' special terms as
in vivo codes. Their specialized terms provide a useful analytic point of departure.
In vivo codes help us to preserve participants' meanings of their views and
actions in the coding itself. Pay attention to language while you are coding. In vivo
codes serve as symbolic markers ofparticipants' speech and meanings. Whether
or not they provide useful codes in the later more integrated analysis depends
on how you treat them analytically. Like any other code, they need to be
subjected to comparative and analytic treatment. Although the terms may be
catchy, in vivo codes do not stand on their own in a robust grounded theory;
these codes need to be integrated into the theory. When you scrutinize them
carefully, three kinds of in vivo codes prove to be useful:
" Those general terms everyone 'knows' that flag condensed but significant
meanings
o A participant's innovative term that captures meanings or experience
• Insider shorthand terms specific to a particular group that reflect their
perspective.
In vivo codes that condense meanings consist of widely used terms that participants
assume everyone shares. In contrast, take participants' usage as problematic
rather than reproducing it. Hence, we look for their implicit meanings and
attend to how they construct and act upon these meanings. In doing so, we can
ask, what analytic category(ies) does this code suggest? Unpacking such terms not
only gives you a great opportunity to understand implicit meanings and actions
but also to make comparisons between data and with your emerging categories.
55
56 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Today, everyone knows what the general term 'battered woman' means;
however, certain groups assume specific meanings when they use the term.
Donileen Loseke (1992) discovered that claims-makers' use of the term depicted
a particular set of characteristics that did not fit all women who suffered physical
abuse. For claims-makers, a battered woman meant an economically and
emotionally dependent mother who suffered repeated, escalating physical
abuse, had low self-esteem and poor coping skills, could not rely on informal
help or formal services, and had no place to go. These claims-makers then
acted on their meanings when deciding who would receive services and what
these services should include. An older, affluent woman without children would
not fit their definition, despite having been beaten.
Some in vivo codes simultaneously reflect condensed meanings of a general
term and reveal an individual's fresh perspective. After suffering a sudden onset
of a serious chronic condition, one man said he intended to pursue 'making a
comeback' (Charmaz, 1973). By borrowing a term from once-successful celebrities,
he defined his stance toward dealing with chronic illness. Other participants'
actions and statements indicated that they shared this stance, although
they did not invoke this vivid term.
In vivo codes are characteristic of social worlds and organizational settings.
For example, Calvin Morrill's (1995: 263-268) glossary of executives' terms in
one corporation included both general terms and specific labels that no doubt
furthered his understanding of how they dealt with conflict. Executives imbued
some terms, such as 'bozo,' 'roadblock,' or 'jumping ship,' with meanings that
echoed ordinary parlance, although many terms assumed specific meanings
within the organization and evoked metaphors of combat, violence, and violation.
Morrill includes among them:
BLACK KNIGHT An executive who often engages in covert action
against opponents, does not support his intradepartmental
colleagues in disputes ... : (in takeover
imagery, black knight refers to an unfriendly
acquirer from the perspective of an acquired
firm). (p. 263)
FLYING LOW Not confronting an offender with longstanding
grievances against their behavior. (p. 265)
RAPE An executive's allowing himself or herself to be
publicly criticized by another without calling out
the challenger. (p. 266)
SMALL BURSTS OF FIRE Short public criticisms of a colleague delivered
in rapid succession. (p. 267)
VAPORIZING Terminating an executive from the company or
creating the conditions under which an executive
resigns from the corporation. (p. 267)
At organizational or collective levels of analysis, in vivo codes reflect assumptions,
actions, and imperatives that frame action. Studying these codes and
exploring leads in them allows you to develop a deeper understanding of what is
CODING lN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
happening and what it means. Such codes anchor your analysis in your research
participants' worlds. They offer clues about the relative congruence between your
interpretation of participants' meanings and actions and their overt statements
and actions. In vivo codes can provide a crucial check on whether you have
grasped what is significant Elijah Anderson (2003) speaks to this point in his
ethnographic memoir ofhis study (1976) ofAfrican-American men who hung out
on a Chicago street comer. Anderson discovered three groups: 'respectables,'
'non-respectables,' and 'near-respectables.' He related these categories to his
teacher, Howard Becker, who asked him what the men called themselves.
Anderson reviewed his data and realized that the men's terms of 'regular,' 'hoodlum,'
and 'winehead,' stood out. After invoking their terms and clarifying what
the men meant by them, Anderson stated that he experienced a dramatic
increase in his understanding of their worlds. From a grounded theory standpoint,
for example, it would be fascinating to explicate the process of how men
become defined as belonging to one category or another, who designates and
enforces the categories, and how these categories make actions predictable.
In each study you conduct, participants will word or write things in ways that
crystallize and condense meanings. Hearing and seeing their words anew allows
you to explore their meanings and to understand their actions through coding and
subsequent data collection. Pursue telling terms. One young doctor with severe
diabetes explained himself as being 'supernormal' (Charmaz, 1973, 1987). AB our
conversation unfolded, his meaning ofsupernormal became clear. Not only did he
intend to manage being a physician without his condition deterring him, he also
aimed to excel beyond his peers. His hopes and plans symbolized identity goals
in social life that transcended psychological predilections. Once I grasped the idea
of pursuing supernormal identity goals, I saw this process reflected in other participants'
actions and stated intentions. Similarly, other in vivo codes emerged as I
heard many people advocate 'taking one day at a time,' and listened to their stories
of having 'good days' and 'bad days.' Subsequently, I sought the condensed
meanings and actions that these terms covered and coded for them.
Focused Coding
Focused coding is the second major phase in coding. These codes are more
directed, selective, and conceptual than word-by-word, line-by-line, and incidentby-incident
coding (Glaser, 1978). After you .................................
have established some strong analytic / Focused coding means using \
directions through your initial line-by-line the most significant and/or
coding, you can begin focused coding to frequent earlier codes to sift
synthesize and explain larger segments of through large amounts of
data. Focused coding means using the most data. Focused coding requires
significant and!or frequent earlier codes to decisions about which initial
sift through large amounts of data. One codes make the most analytic
sense to categorize your data
goal is to determine the adequacy of those incisively and completely.
codes. Focused coding requires decisions ..••.•.•••...••••••••.•••.••••.•.
57
58 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
about which initial codes make the most analytic sense to categorize your data
incisively and completely.
But moving to focused coding is not entirely a linear process. Some respondents
or events will make explicit what was implicit in earlier statements or
events. An 'Aha! Now I understand,' experience may prompt you to study your
earlier data afresh. Then you may return to earlier respondents and explore topics
that had been glossed over, or that may have been too implicit to discern initially
or unstated.
· BOX 3.3
Avoiding disclosure
Assessing potential losses
and risks of disclosing
Feeling forced to live one day
at a time
Concentrating on today
Giving up future orientation
Managing emotions
Reducing life-threatening risk
Excerpt 1 Christine Danforth, age 37, lupus erythematosus,
Sjogren's syndrome, back injuries
If you have lupus, I mean one day it's my liver;
one day it's my joints: one day it's my head. and
it's like people really think you're a hypochondriac
if you keep complaining about different ailments
... It's like you don't want to say anything
because people are going to start thinking, you
know, 'God, don't go near her, all she is-is complaining
about this.' And I think that's why I
never say anything because I feel like everything
I have is related one way or another to the lupus
but most of the people don't know I have lupus,
and even those that do are not going to believe
that ten different ailments are the same thing.
And I don't want anybody saying, you know, [that]
they don't want to come around me because I
complain.
Excerpt 2 Joyce Marshall, age 60, mmor
heart condition, recent small CVA (stroke)
I have to see it [her CVA] as a warning. I can't
let myself get so anxious. I have to live one day
at a time.
I've been so worried aboutJohn [her husband
who had had life-threatening heart attacks and
lost his job three years before retirement] and
preparing to get ajob [her first in 38 years] ... It's
just so hard with all this stress ... to concentrate
on what I can do today. I always used to look to
the Mure. I can't now; it upsets me too much.
I have to live one day at a time now or else there
may not be any me.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
The strength ofgrounded theory coding derives from this concentrated, active
involvement in the process. You act upon your data rather than passively read
them. Through your actions, new threads for analysis become apparent Events,
interactions, and perspectives come into analytic purview that you had not
thought of before. Focused coding checks your preconceptions about the topic.
In the first excerpt in Box 3.3, I selected the codes 'avoiding disclosure' and
'assessing potential losses and risks of disclosing' to capture, synthesize, and
understand the main themes in the statement. In the second, the following
codes were most useful: 'feeling forced to live one day at a time,' 'concentrating
on today,' 'giving up future orientation,' 'managing emotions,' and 'reducing
life-threatening risk.' Again, I tried to keep the codes active and close to the
data. Through focused coding, you can move across interviews and observations
and compare people's experiences, actions, and interpretations. Note how
the codes condense data and provide a handle on them.
Consistent with the logic of grounded theory, coding is an emergent process.
Unexpected ideas emerge. They can keep emerging. After you code a body
of data, compare your codes and data with each other. A telling code that
you constructed to fit one incident or statement might illuminate another. An
earlier incident may alert you to see a subsequent one with incisiveness. I had
witnessed several tense moments with couples during which spouses declared
that their partner's disabilities robbed him or her of former competencies.
Consider the following fieldnotes from an early interview with Andrei, a retired
college professor, and his wife, Natasha, both of whom had chronic illnesses:
I asked [Andrei], 'Did you keep up with professional work after you
retired?' He said: 'I used to teach extension courses but due to the
budget and that governor. there isn't any money for extension courses.'
She [Natasha] cut in [to me], 'Andrei used to be an extremely successful
speaker; partly his enthusiasm. partly his articulateness. but with the
speech problems. he can't do it ...' [He said, slowly and painfully] 'The
schools don't have any money ... i can't speak very well.'
I felt desperately sorry for him at this point. Whether or not both factors
were at play at the point when they stopped calling him for extension
teaching, this was a terrible moment for him when she said it. Regardless
of the real reason. at this precise moment knowing what she thought of
his deteriorating competence was critical to him. Participating in this short
sequence was like watching someone who was observing his own identity
crumbling away- it was painful both for him and for me, although I got the
impression that she was so caught up in her perceptions of accuracy that
she didn't actually see how it defaced him.... Acknowledging that he can't
speak very well was said like an admission of guilt or inferiority that was
previously hidden from view. (Charmaz, 1983: 119-120)
From such early observations, I developed the code of 'identifying moment'
In each case, the judgment imparted a shocking image of whom the ill person
had become. Such disquieting views proclaimed negative changes and underscored
their permanence. The code 'identifying moment' alerted me to other
briefinteractions in which someone conferred a significant identity on a person
with chronic illness. One example occurred some years later when I entered a
59
60 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
care home that primarily served impoverished elders. The assistant at the desk
said that her supervisor had not informed her that I was coming to talk with
residents (as had been arranged). Six elders in wheelchairs were lined up
against the wall and one middle-aged woman was walking toward the desk. The
people in wheelchairs perked up and regarded me with interest, as is common
in institutions where few residents have visitors. Without looking up, the assistant
nodded toward the middle-aged woman and said, 'You can talk to Mary
there; p!:;.e's one of the smart ones and there aren't many of them.' At this pronouncement,
six heads in wheelchairs drooped in unison. Mary looked proud
to be chosen. I realized that I had just witnessed another identifying momenta
positive one for Mary but a negative one for the other residents.
Through comparing data to data, we develop the focused code. Then we
compare data to these codes, which helps to refine them. In the first example,
I compared situations in which participants had freely discussed the disability
in question before, with those in which they had not. Before the incident when
Andrei acknowledged his speech difficulties, his physician had told me that
Andrei's impaired speech was never openly discussed. I also compared these
incidents for their intensity and impact. At first, the code only represented
negative identifying moments. As I obtained more data, I found and defined
positive identifying moments. 'Identifying moments' began as a code, which I
developed as a category (Charmaz, 1991a). Because the notion of identifying
moments resonates with many experiences, Will van den Hoonaard (1997)
treats it as a sensitizing concept for other researchers to use as a starting point.
Axial Coding
Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998; Strauss, 1987) present a third type of coding,
axial coding, to relate categories to subcategories. Axial coding specifies the
properties and dimensions of a category.
Strauss (1987: 64) views axial coding as
building 'a dense texture of relationships
around .the "axis" of a category.' Thus,
axial coding follows the development of a
major category, although it may be in an
early stage of development The purposes
of axial coding are to sort, synthesize, and
organize large amounts ofdata and reassemble
them in new ways after open coding
(Creswell, 1998).
••••• '., ••••\
categories to subcategories,
specifies the properties and
dimensions of a category,
and reassembles the data you
have fractured during initial
coding to give coherence to
the emerging analysis.
·......................................
Initial coding fractures data into separate prices and distinct codes. Axial
coding is Strauss and Corbin's (1998) strategy for bringing data back together
again in a coherent whole. According to Strauss and Corbin (p. 125), axial
coding answers questions such as 'when, where, why, who, how, and with what
consequences.' With these questions, a researcher can describe the studied
experience more fully, although Corbin and Strauss contend that linking
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
relationships between categories occurs on a conceptual rather than descriptive
level. For them, analyzing data means converting text into concepts, which
seems to be the intent of Strauss's and Corbin's use of axial coding. These concepts
specify the dimensions of a larger category. Axial coding aims to link categories
with subcategories, and asks how they are related. Clarke views axial
coding as elaborating a category and uses diagramming to integrate relevant categories.6
For her, an integrative diagram aims to link categories with categories
to form a substantive theory of action.
While engaged in axial coding, Strauss and Corbin apply a set of scientific
terms to make links between categories visible. They group participants' statements
into components ofan organizing scheme to answer their questions above.
In one such organizing scheme, Strauss and Corbin include: 1) conditions, the
circumstances or situations that form the structure of the studied phenomena;
2) actions/interactions, participants' routine or strategic responses to issues, events,
or problems; and 3) consequences, outcomes of actions/interactions. Strauss and
Corbin use conditions to answer the why, where, how come, and when questions
(p. 128). Actions/interactions answer by whom and how questions. Consequences
answer questions of 'what happens' because of these actions/interactions.
Axial coding provides a frame for researchers to apply. The frame may
extend or limit your vision, depending on your subject matter and ability to tolerate
ambiguity. Students who prefer to work with a preset structure will welcome
having a frame. Those who prefer simple, flexible guidelines-and can
tolerate ambiguity-do not need to do axial coding. They can follow the leads
that they define in their empirical materials.
Although I have not used axial coding according to Strauss and Corbin's
formal procedures, I have developed subcategories of a category and showed
the links between them as I learned about the experiences the categories represent
The subsequent categories, subcategories, and links reflect how I made
sense of the data.
The earlier coding examples of Bonnie Presley and Christine Danforth's
interviews indicate that telling other people about having a chronic illness
poses emotional and interactional dilemmas. Such dilemmas arose in many
interviews; I had not planned to study them. Not surprisingly, the first two
categories that I saw in early interviews were disclosing illness and avoiding disclosure.
I outlined their respective properties through comparing data with data
of the same kind of experience or event. The apparent pain in participants'
stories led me to view 'disclosing' as revealing and often risky. Bonnie Presley's
risks included exacerbating a medical crisis. Many other people risked making
themselves emotionally vulnerable and having uncontrollable feelings. Disclosing
was not a neutral form of talking.
Next, I reexamined the data I had coded during initial coding. Participants
dealt with information about themselves both by avoiding disclosure of illness
and by telling people about it; however, some forms of telling lacked control
and sometimes not telling at all occurred when participants felt overwhelmed.
When participants' lacked control in telling, they exposed themselves by blurting
out their concerns instead of managing and metering self-revelations.
6l.
62 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Subjectivity
Disclosing
FIGURE 3.:1. Forms of telling
Subsequently, I coded for the range between spontaneous statements and
staged pronouncements. I linked forms of telling explicitly to the relative
absence or presence of participants' control in relaying information and the
extent to which they invoked explicit strategies. After discovering that people
invoked different forms of telling, I then looked more closely at the following:
• Biographical and interactional contexts of their telling
• Social and experiential conditions affecting whom various participants told
• Participants' stated intentions for telling
• What participants told these individuals
• How participants told them.
I coded for if, when, how, and why participants changed their earlier forms
of telling. These strategies may lead to charting causes and conditions of the
observed phenomenon. In my analysis of forms of telling (see Figure 3.1),
studying these data led to seeing that the participant's subjective stake in telling
exceeded what a researcher could plot along a simple continuum. Rather, subjectivity
and objectivity meet when participants flaunt illness. It became apparent
that some individuals flaunt illness when it has caused them unresolved
problems of self-acceptance and acceptance by others.
No explicit frame guided my analytic constructions ofparticipants' accounts and
experiences or elicited the emphasis. Although axial coding may help researchers
to explore their data, it encourages them to apply an analytic frame to the data. In
that sense, relying on axial coding may limit what and how researchers learn about
their studied worlds and, thus, restricts the codes they construct.
Whether axial coding helps or hinders remains a question (see Kelle, 2005).
Whether and to what extent it offers a more effective technique than careful
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
comparisons remains debatable. At best, axial coding helps to clarify and to
extend the analytic power of your emerging ideas. At worst, it casts a technological
overlay on the data-and perhaps on your final analysis. Although
intended to obtain a more complete grasp of the studied phenomena, axial coding
can make grounded theory cumbersome (Robrecht, 1995).
Theoretical Coding
Theoretical coding is a sophisticated level of coding that follows the codes you
have selected during focused coding. Glaser (1978: 72) introduced theoretical
codes as conceptualizing 'how the substantive codes may relate to each other
as hypotheses to be integrated into a theory.' In short, theoretical codes specify
possible relationships between categories you have developed in your focused
coding. Glaser (1992) argues that these codes preclude a need for axial coding
because they 'weave the fractured story back together' (Glaser, 1978: 72).
Theoretical codes are integrative; they lend form to the focused codes you have
collected. These codes may help you tell an analytic story that has coherence.
Hence, these codes not only conceptualize how your substantive codes are
related, but also move your analytic story in a theoretical direction.
Glaser (1978} presents a series of 18 theoretical coding families that include analytic
categories dtch as hiS 'Six Cs: Causes, Contexts, Contingencies, Consequences,
Covariances, and Conditions' (p. 74), 'degree,' 'dimension,' 'interactive,' 'theoretical,'
and 'type' coding families as well as ones that derive from major concepts
such as 'identity-self,' 'means-goals,' 'cultural,' and 'consensus' families. Several
of Glaser's coding families indicate a specific analytic category but merge
conceptual distinctions. For example, the 'unit' family includes the following
structural units: group, family organizational, aggregate, territorial, societal,
status and role units. Glaser also includes situations, social worlds and social
contexts, which certainly may serve as units of analysis but connote emergent,
rather than structural properties. In Doing Grounded Theory (1998), Glaser
enlarges on several earlier coding families and extends the list to include more
coding families such as: the 'paired opposite,' 'representation,' 'scale,' 'random
walk,' 'structural-functional,' and 'unit identity' families.
IT you use them skillfully, theoretical codes may hone your work with a sharp
analytic edge. They can add precision and clarity-as long as they fit your data
and substantive analysis. They can aid in making your analysis coherent and
comprehensible. Depending on the data you have and on what you learn about
them, you may find that your analysis takes into account several coding families.
For example, you may clarify the general context and specific conditions
in which a particular phenomenon is evident. You may be able to specify the
conditions under which it changes and to outline its consequences. You might
learn its temporal and structural orderings and discover participants' strategies
for dealing with them. IT you understand the temporal ordering, you likely
include an analysis of process. Thus, despite not delving into substance, this
short example alone brings in the following analytic coding families: the 'Six Cs,'
'temporal ordering,' 'ordering' (Glaser includes structural ordering here, see
63
64 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
p. 78), 'strategy,' and 'process.' The links provided by the codes may also point
to areas that you can strengthen.
Strauss's (1978a, 1993) work on social worlds and social arenas influenced
Adele E. Clarke (1998), who subsequently developed the concepts. In the following
passage, she offers an explicit rationale for the theoretical concepts that
emerged early in her research as an integrating coding family:
Social worlds and arenas analysis offers a number of analytic advantages
in studies of disciplinary formation. Rrst. and of special import in historical
research. social worlds analysis bridges internal and external concerns by
encompassing the involvement and contributions of all the salient social
worlds. Both internal and external topics may be relevant. Social worlds are
genuinely social units of analysis, elastic and plastic enough to allow very
diverse applications. One can avoid misrepresenting collective social actors
as monolithic by examining diversity within worlds, while still tracking and
tracing their overall collective perspectives, ideologies. thrusts, and goals.
One can comfortably analyze the work of particular individuals as important
to the arena, without being limited to an individual approach. Perhaps most
important, in the very framing of an arena. one is analytically led to examine
the negotiations within and between worlds that are most consequential for
the development of the arena over time. (p. 265)
Your earlier substantive analysis should indicate the kind of theoretical codes
that you invoke. In short, like any other extant concept, theoretical codes must
earn their way into your grounded theory (Glaser, 1978}. When we look at how
analytic styles and conceptual toolkits take hold in a discipline, we discover
fads and trends among them. Such fads and trends limit ways of seeing as well
as perhaps forcing data into old boxes. Glaser points out that over-reliance on
the strategy coding family leads scholars to impute conscious intentions when
participants may not hold them (p. 76). Similar problems arise with other theoretical
codes. Glaser proposes, 'Perhaps the most frequent implicit rubric in studies is
a problem of social order [usually disorder]' (p. 78}. Yet counter-arguments proclaim
that enlisting the concept of 'disorder' prevents researchers from seeing
alternative social structural forms. Marxists have long argued that the consensus
model precludes seeing conflict and domination. Some symbolic interactionists
have applied such concepts as 'career,' 'work,' 'negotiation,' and 'strategy' wholesale
to their studies (Charmaz, 2005).
For example, Goffman's (1959, 1967, 1969) analyses assume a strategic
model of interaction and· a social actor who strategizes about how to control
encounters:
Regardless of the particular [interactional] objective which the individual
has in mind and of his motive for having this objective, it will be in his interests
to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment
of him. This control is achieved largely by influencing the definition
of the situation which the others come to formulate. and he can influence
this definition by expressing himself in such a way as to give them the kind
of impression that will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
own plan. Thus. when an individual appears in the presence of others.
there will usually be some reasons for him to mobilize his activity so that
it will convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey.
(1959: 3-4)
In the passage above, you see Goffman's explicit concern with strategy and
control.
Often the theoretical integration provided by theoretical codes remains implicit
in the analysis. For example, symbolic interactionism informs my study of people
with chronic illness, Good Days, Bad Days: The Self in Chronic Illness and Time
(1991a), but remains in the background. The substantive analysis of how people
experience illness takes the foreground in the book and, thus, comes across
most strongly. The codes that arose from symbolic interactionist sensibilities
give a theoretical foundation or conceptual infrastructure that integrates the
narrative. Readers from other disciplines may remain unaware of the implicit
theoretical frame that organizes a given piece of work. For example, the connections
between time and self are clear in the following example although not
every reader will see their links to symbolic interactionism.
A desire to recapture the past reflects yearning for a lost self. That yearning
results from grieving for accumulated losses from illness. Here, the person
defines losses and acknowledges illness. Though she writes that she learned
to live moment by moment after her stroke, poet May Sarton simultaneously
longed for her past self: 'Now I am frightfully lonely because I am
not my self. I can't see a friend for over a half-hour without feeling as
though my mind were draining away like air rushing from a balloon'. (1988,
p. 18)
The sorrow for a past self increases when people believe that they
might not reclaim it. Even after trying to wait out illness or treatment,
regaining the past self and recapturing the past may remain elusive.
Sarton suggests this elusiveness when she writes that 'to manage such a
passive waiting life for so many months I have had to bury my real selfand
now realize that bringing back that real self is going to be even more
difficult than it was to bury it'. (1988, p. 78) (Charmaz, 1991a: 194)
Sarton's lament reflects the idea that one's self-concept has boundaries and
content, as a symbolic interactionist would argue. Our self-concepts provide a
way of knowing ourselves, a way of separating what is ours and what is distinct
from us. Sarton shows us that her self-concept remains in the past and now is
at odds with the images of self given in her current predicament
What stands as a theoretical coding family? Glaser (1978) offers no criteria
for establishing what we should accept as a coding family or reasons why we
should accept his depiction of them. He states that his list of coding families
contains overlapping categories and points out that a new coding family can
arise from a preexisting one. Social scientists often draw from several coding
families simultaneously. As Glaser acknowledges, the coding families are neither
exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. Nor are they reflective ofthe same level and
type of abstraction. Some coding families refer to recognizable analytic terms
65
66 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
and some draw on sociological concepts. The names of several coding families,
such as 'interactive,' 'reading,' 'mainline,' seem arbitrary and vague. Their
meanings as well as those of others remain embedded in the narrative (see
p. 76-81). 'Interactive' refers to 'mutual effects,' 'reciprocity,' 'mutual dependency,'
and the like rather than to interaction, per se. The 'reading family'
includes 'concepts,' 'problems,' and 'hypotheses.' The 'mainline family' includes
a sweeping array of structural concepts and concerns such as 'social institutions,'
and 'social order,' along with 'socialization,' 'social interaction,' and 'social
worlds,' which Glaser also lists in the unit family.
Several conceptual families are noticeably absent in Glaser's list, including
those that focus on agency and action, power, networks, and narrative and biography.
Others such as inequality remain buried in a larger unit Conflict is relegated
to the larger family of consensus, indicating a subordination that conflict
theorists would rightfully and vigorously contest7
More recently, theoretical currents
such as feminist theory and postmodern concepts form other families.
Glaser acknowledges that new coding families may emerge from earlier ones.
Many of his (1998) recent additions hearken back to positivist concepts.
How might ordinary grounded theory coding compare with axial coding and
using theoretical codes? Think about the preceding discussion and diagram
titled 'Forms of Telling.' (Figure 3.1) The types of telling themselves might be
seen as dimensions of the larger category of telling. Each type has particular
properties and reflects views of self and identity as well as immediate interactional
circumstances. In one sense, the types reflect a range from subjectivity to
objectivity along a continuum. The types differed by degrees in the following
areas: felt emotional intensity, difficulty in telling, emotional and informational
control in the telling, amount and kind of planning, and intended audience
effect. A number of participants found that their forms of telling differed at various
points in their illness. When people felt shocked by a diagnosis or first
episode of illness, they blurted the news without control. If they felt demeaned
or devalued for having told their news, then they became more measured in
their telling and may move from spontaneous disclosing to strategized informing.
When episodes accrue and people discover costs of telling, they may resort
to occasiqn.al strategic announcing. Although many people may become strategic
about how, when, where, and to whom they disclose, relatively few engage
in flaunting. From this brief discussion, you can see how studying processes can
shape an analysis. Note that a consequence of one type of telling can set the
conditions for a person to engage in another.
The kinds of links in the preceding example emerged as I studied my data
about imparting illness news. Quite possibly further in-depth data or additional
comprehensive data about forms of telling would lead to more links.
Now a word of caution. These theoretical codes may lend an aura of objectivity
to an analysis, but the codes themselves do not stand as some objective criteria
about which scholars would agree or that they could uncritically apply.
When your analysis indicates, use theoretical codes to help you clarify and
sharpen your analysis but avoid imposing a forced framework on it with them.
It helps to interrogate yourself about whether these theoretical codes interpret
all the data.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
Reducing Problems in Coding
Wrestling with Preconceptions
Throughout the grounded theory literature, researchers are enjoined to avoid
forcing their data into preconceived codes and categories. Foremost among
these are extant theories. We also must guard against forcing our preconceptions
on the data we code. The student above who forced his own view of disability
on his interview data, imposed what sociologists call 'common sense
theorizing' on his analysis (Schutz, 1967). His reasoning arose from his notions
of how the world works and from his own experience as a disabled man.
Grounded theorists, like other researchers, may unwittingly start from their
own preconceptions about what a particular experience means and entails.
Preconceptions that emanate from such standpoints as class, race, gender,
age, embodiment, and historical era may permeate an analysis without the
researcher's awareness. If so, these invisible standpoints linger outside the
frame for discussing the analysis and remain fundamentally unproblematic for
researchers who hold them. These researchers may deny their existence.8
Every researcher holds preconceptions that influence, but may not determine,
what we attend to and how we make sense of it. Shadows of capitalism,
competition, and individualism may enter Western social scientists' analyses
without our realizing it they frame the way we know the world. Erving
Goffman's detailed fieldwork, keen observations, and compelling categories
made him one of the most astute social scientists of the twentieth century.
Nonetheless, particularly in his early works, Goffman invoked an individualistic,
competitive, strategic, and hierarchical model of human nature that fits
1950s North American cultural conceptions of white, upwardly mobile, middleclass
men (Charmaz, 2004). Such taken-for-granted assumptions influence what
we attend to and how we make sense of it. In the statement below, Goffman
provides trenchant advice for conducting excellent ethnographic work. As incisive
as his advice is, we also gain a glimpse of his preconceptions.
As graduate students. we're only interested in being smart, and raising our
hands. and being defensive-as people usually are-and forming the right
associations. and all that. And if you're going to do good fieldwork it
seems to me that's got to go by the board....
You have to open yourself up in ways you're not in ordinary life. You
have to open yourself up to being snubbed. You have to stop making points
to show how 'smart-assed' you are. And that is extremely difficult for graduate
students (especially on the East Coast). Then you have to be willing
to be a horse's ass. (Goffman, 2004: 127-128)
Our preconceptions may only become apparent when our taken-for-granted
standpoints are challenged. Rosanna Hertz (2003) faced such challenges long
after her ethnographic study of a kibbutz, conducted 20 years before. Recently,
the son of a couple in the kibbutz asked to live with her. Through his presence,
she discovered that this family had defined her relationship to them as 'family'
and she had seen it as a 'transaction' bounded by her now long-past stay in the
67
68 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
kibbutz. Hertz states that she realized 'how tricky perception is and how deeply
rooted assumptions and ideological preferences can challenge even the most
ardent efforts at openness' (p. 474).
Several strategies foster revealing such preconceptions. Achieving intimate
familiarity with the studiedphenomenon is a prerequisite. Such familiarity not only
includes an in-depth knowledge of people who contend with the phenomenon,
but also a level of understanding that pierces their experience. This level moves
you beyond taking the same things for granted that your respondents assume.
Initial coding can move you in this direction by inducing you to wrestle with
your participants' interpretive frames ofreference, which may not be your own.
Taking a reflexive stance toward challenges, as Hertz does above, may result in
questioning one's perspectives and practices.
From the standpoint ofgrounded theory, each preconceived idea should earn
its way into your analysis-including your own ideas from previous studies
(Glaser, 1978). That means you do fresh heavy analytic work first. I have
argued that preconceived theoretical concepts may provide starting points for
looking at your data but they do not offer automatic codes for analyzing these
data. Ask, for example, have class, race, gender, or age issues emerged that
need analytic attention? If you apply theoretical concepts from your discipline
at all, you must ensure that these concepts work. Several safeguards against
imposing them may help. Consider these questions:
• Do these concepts help you understand what the data indicate?
• If so, how do they help?
• Can you explicate what is happening in this line or segment of data with
these concepts?
• Can you adequately interpret this segment of data without these concepts?
What do they add?
If extant concepts are not integral for understanding your data, they do not
have a place in your codes or your later analysis. The best approach is for you
to define what is happening in your data first.
Precollj:_eptions work their way into how we think and write. Researchers
who believe themselves to be objective social scientists often assume that their
judgments of participants are correct. This stance can lead to treating one's
unexamined assumptions as fact. Be careful about applying a language ofintention,
motivation, or strategies unless the data support your assertions. You cannot assume
what is in someone's mind-particularly ifhe or she does not tell you.9
Ifpeople
tell you what they 'think,' remember that they provide enacted accounts reflecting
social context, time, place, biography, and audience. Participants' unstated
purposes in telling you what they 'think' may be more significant than their
stated thoughts. If you reframe participants' statements to fit a language of
intention, you are forcing the data into preconceived categories-yours, not theirs.
Making comparisons between data about what people say and do, however,
strengthens your assertions about implicit meanings.
A fine line exists between interpreting data and imposing a preexisting frame
on it.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
While coding, problems may arise by:
• Coding at too general a level
• Identifying topics instead of actions and processes
• Overlooking how people construct actions and processes
• Attending to disciplinary or personal concerns rather than participants'
concerns
• Coding out of context
• Using codes to summarize but not to analyze.
During a grounded theory workshop, the participants engaged in a coding
exercise with the same data about professionals in a clinical setting. One participant
coded almost every statement and described incident in the data as
'stress'-undifferentiated, unexamined stress, at that. Her reasons for seeing
stress as significant were understandable; however, she was coding at too general
a level with a topic that consumed her but did not take into account actions
and processes in the fieldnotes. Other workshop participants whose codes stuck
more closely to the data created a nuanced set of codes that synthesized what
they saw happening in the data.
Take an examined stance about whose point of view your codes reflect, which
categories they indicate, and when you bring in abstractideas. Such a stance toward
coding fosters treating your ideas as problematic as well as those of your research
participants. Consider using the following questions to check how you code:
• How does my coding reflect the incident or described experience?
• Do my analytic constructions begin from this point?
• Have I created clear, evident connections between the data and my codes?
• Have I guarded against rewriting-and therefore recasting-the studied experience
into a lifeless language that better fits our academic and bureaucratic
worlds than those of our participants?
Granted, we bring different views to the data we witness. We see things that our
participants may not. As our codes become more abstract, we couch them in analytic
terms that our participants do not share but may resonate with such as the
idea of an 'identifying moment' discussed above. Through illuminating experience,
codes forge a bridge between described data and our emerging analysis.
Transforming Data into Codes
Coding relies on having solid data. How and what you record affects what you
have to code. Increasingly, qualitative research draws on in-depth and focus
group interviews. A few qualitative researchers advocate coding from notes
rather than transcribed interviews. Presumably, you grasp the important points
and eliminate clutter. This approach assumes an objective transparency of what
participants say and do. It also assumes that any keen interviewer will record the
most telling material and record it well. This approach may further assume that
researchers' notes and codes have 'captured' their participants' views and actions.
None of these assumptions may be true-even for experienced researchers.
69
70 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Coding full interview transcriptions gives you ideas and understandings that
you otherwise miss. Thus, the method of data collection not only forms your
materials, but also frames your codes. Coding full transcriptions can bring you
to a deeper level of understanding. In contrast, coding from and across notes
might give you a wider view. It also can, however, contribute to grounded theorists
going around the studied phenomenon rather than into it. An emphasis
on plausibility rather than thoroughness and systematic study risks constructing
superficial analyses.
Transcribing entire interviews and fieldnotes also has some hidden benefits.
Your first reading and coding of the data need not be the final one. Rich, thorough
data can generate many research questions. Such data contain the makings
of several analyses, whether or not you realize it early in your research. You can
save a set of related codes to develop later. You can return and recode a set ofold
data. In both cases, your codes spark new ideas. In the meantime, the full recordings
preserve details for these ideas to ignite later. You may be amazed at the
diverse ideas you can gain from the data for one project. Thus, coding and receding
not only leads you in new directions but also directly to theoretical sampling
of your new categories as well. The early theoretical sampling gives you the
added bonus of being able to move across substantive fields with greater ease.10
Any method of data collection frames what you can code. Ethnographers rely
more on what they hear than what they see and interviewers often rely on only
what they hear. Record what you see as well as what you hear. An interviewer sees
a scene and at least one person. Notes about these observations are data to code.
In one of Abdi Kusow's (2003) interviews of Somali immigrants, his observations
constituted most of his data. Kusow had already found that many potential participants
declined to be interviewed because of the volatile political climate in
Somalia One participant referred him to a young woman who consented to the
interview. When Kusow arrived, the TV was blaring and she and several small
children were watching it. She did not suggest leaving the room, kept the TV on,
and answered his questions in monosyllables. Kusow saw her responses as 'basically
her way of giving me no information at all' (p. 596}. Kusow's anecdote
suggests a dictum for interviewers: Code your observations ofthe setting, scene, and
particip<Jl!t.as well as your interviews. Revealing data resides in such observations.
Concluding Thoughts
Coding routes your work in an analytic direction while you are in the early
stages of research. You can make grounded theory coding familiar through
practice, then evaluate how it works for you. By remaining open to the data as
you had been open to statements and events in the research setting, you will
discover subtle meanings and have new insights. I recommend completing a
close initial coding at the level that best fits your data and task.
Coding is part work but it is also part play. We play with the ideas we gain
from the data. We become involved with our data and learn from them. Coding
gives us a focused way of viewing data. Through coding we make discoveries
and gain a deeper understanding of the empirical world.
CODING IN GROUNDED THEORY PRACTICE
Theoretical playfulness allows us to try out ideas and to see where they may
lead. Coding gives us a preliminary set of ideas that we can explore and examine
analytically by writing about them. Grounded theory coding is flexible; if
we wish, we can return to the data and make a fresh coding. We can go forward
to writing about our codes and weighing their significance.
Coding is that first part of the adventure that enables you to make the leap
from concrete events and descriptions of them to theoretical insight and theoretical
possibilities. Grounded theory coding is more than a way of sifting, sorting,
and synthesizing data, as is the usual purpose of qualitative coding. Instead
grounded theory coding begins to unify ideas analytically because you kept in
mind what the possible theoretical meanings of your data and codes might be.
Now that you have some codes, it's time to proceed to memo-writing to
develop them. The next chapter offers ideas for writing your memos.
NOTES
For earlier stones of Bonnie Presley's dilemmas in telling her daughter, see Charmaz
(1991a: 132-133).
2 For an innovative discussion on categonzmg see Bowker & Star, 1999.
3 Discovering that the data have holes is not lirruted to qualiraave research. Survey
researchers who conduct standardized intemews sometimes discover when conversmg
with respondents afterwards that therr questions do not tap significant areas. Quanataave
researchers must stick to the same mstrurnent but qualitaave researchers can remedy
such problems while gathenng data.
4 By 1992, Glaser seems to disavow line-by-line coding as he adVlSes agamst takmg apart
a smg!e modent. He states that line-by-line coding produces a 'helter skelter' of overconceptualizmg
the incident and generates too many categones and properties (p. 40) without
yielding an analysJS. Nonetheless, a researcher can select the most telling codes gained
through line-by-line coding ofan inodent and make compansons between mcidents.
5 Take a set of data and test the value of line-by-line coding by comparmg the general
type of thematic analysis that most qualitaave researchers conduct With grounded
theory coding. First, read the data and then identifY and record themes m them. Next
conduct line-by-line coding. List the most significant codes and compare them With
your list of themes.
6 Personal commurucat10n, September 20, 2004.
7 This point pertams to the 1970s, when Glaser wrote Tizeoretical Sensitivity, as well as
today. For almost forty years, most sociologtcal theorists have treated conflict as an oppositional
concept to consensus, not as a subcategory ofit.
8 Feminist standpoint theorists such as Dorothy Smith (1987), Nancy Hartsock (1998), and
Patrioa Hill Collins (1990) have made powerful argtrrnents about hidden assumpaons.
9 The relative truth of an account IS situated and constructed. Our renderings of these
accounts are further constructions.
10 Increasingly msututional review comrmttees cause stumbling blocks and losses of time.
The logtc ofmovmg across settings--and getting the perffilSsions to access each setrmgcan
thwart a researcher's plariS to conduct theoretical sampling. Thus, beginning with a
collected set of re-coded data and proposmg to engage in further study in another
setting is an efficrent way to lirrut and pace proposals to move through these comrmttees.
71.
Memo-writing
Our journey through the research process takes an analytic break
at this point as we stop and write informal analytic notes, commonly
called memos. Memos chart, record, and detail a major analytic
phase of our journey. We start by writing about our codes and data
and move upward to theoretical categories and keep writing memos
throughout the research process. Writing memos expedites your analytic
work and accelerates your productivity. I offer ideas about how
to go about writing memos and add two writers' strategies that can
make writing them easier. Then I present ways to use memos to raise
focused codes to conceptual categories.
1\ iferne-writing is the pivotal intermediate step between data collection and
JLV..lwriting drafts ofpapers. When you write memos, you stop and analyze your
ideas about the codes in any-and every-way that occurs to you during the moment
(see also Glaser, 1998). Memo-writing constitutes a crucial method in grounded
theory because it prompts you to analyze your data and codes early in the research
process. Writing successive memos throughout
the research process keeps you involved in the
analysis and helps you to increase the level of
abstraction of your ideas. Certain codes stand
out and form as theoretical categories as
you write successive memos.
Memos catch your thoughts, capture the
comparisons and connections you make, and
crystallize questions and directions for you
to pursue. 1brough conversing with yourself
while memo-writing, new ideas and insights
arise during the act of writing. Putting things
/................................\
• Memo-writing is the pivotal •
• intermediate step between •
data collection and writing
drafts of papers....
Memo-writing constitutes a
crucial method in grounded
theory because it prompts
you to analyze your data
and codes early in the
research process.
··.....................................··
down on paper makes the work concrete and manageable-and exciting. Once
you have written a memo, you can use it now or store it for later retrieval. In
short, memo-writing provides a space to become actively engaged in your materials,
to develop your ideas, and to fine-tune your subsequent data-gathering.
1brough writing memos, you construct analytic notes to explicate and fill out
categories. Start by developing your focused codes. Memos give you a space
and place for making comparisons between data and data, data and codes,
codes of data and other codes, codes and category, and category and concept
MEMO-WRITING
and for articulating conjectures about these comparisons. Use memos to help
you think about the data and to discover your ideas about them.
The quick memo below explores relationships between suffering and moral
status. From time to time, I had pondered Erving Goffrnan's {1963) powerful
analysis of stigma His concept has inundated social scientific and nursing literatures
on chronic illness and disability. My research participants talked about situations
in which they felt stigmatized but somehow the concept of stigma did not
quite represent all that I saw and heard. The pain and sorrow on their faces and
in their voices cast deep shadows on their tales. Few people mentioned the term
'suffering' in reference to themselves; but their stories were replete with it Nor did
participants use the term 'moral status,' although it made sense oftheir experience.
My earlier interviews contained codes such as 'being stigmatized,' 'loss of self,'
'losing credibility,' 'feeling devalued', although I did not anchor them in an analysis
of injustice, legitimacy, and suffering. That came later when certain incidents
spoke to these concerns directly. I had discerned relationships between stigma,
loss of self, and suffering much earlier {Charmaz, 1983) and realized that much
suffering derived from how other people treated those with chronic illnesses but
I focused on loss of self rather than developing an explicit analysis of suffering.
Nor did I engage ideas about moral status, although a later perusal of the data
revealed numerous indications of it Having a reservoir of earlier transcribed
interviews and tapes helped enormously. Had I not had them, I would have
missed liminal cues and nuanced statements. By treating 'suffering as a moral
status' as a category, I raised a code to a conceptual level to treat analytically. I treat
it as distinctive and constituted by properties that I discern in the data and
synthesize by scrutinizing and compiling initial codes. Thus, I constructed this
category, and developed an abstract analysis of it that stays close to my data
Suffering as a Moral Status
Suffering is a profoundly moral status as well as a physical experience. Stories of
suffering reflect and redefine that moral status.
With suffering come moral rights and entitlements as well as moral definitionswhen
suffering is deemed legitimate. Thus, the person can make certain moral
claims and have certain moral judgments conferred upon him or her.
Deserving
Dependent
In need
Suffering can bring a person an elevated moral status. Here, suffering takes on a
sacred status. This is a person who has been in sacred places, who has seen. known
what ordinary people have not. Their stories are greeted with awe and wonder. The
self also has elevated status. This person is special; the compelling story casts an
aura of compelling qualities on the story-teller.
(Continued)
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74 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
(Continued)
Ex. Bessie and her daughter. Bessie sat bent over in her wheelchair at the kitchen
table and tells me of her rapid descent into life-threatening illness. When she began
her tale of her risky surgery, her middle-aged daughter, Thelma, who had been tidying
kitchen counters in the adjoining room. stops and joins us. Bessie tells of her neardeath
experience when her heart stopped. Thelma listened with rapt attention and awe.
Though she had heard the tale many times before, it transformed the moment anew.
Bessie told of being in the long dark tunnel. then seeing a beautiful bright light. Bessie
believed that the light emanated from the face of God. As Thelma heard her mother's
tale again, she gazed upon her with reverence. Afterwards, Thelma emphasized how this
event had lifted Bessie's spirits and improved her attitude toward her illness.
Suffering also may present opportunities to play out the myth of the hero who emerges
victorious against all odds. Thus again, suffering elevates status and sets the person
apart when viewed as a hero who has emerged from battle. This person has defied death
and, perhaps, doctors through resolving to act despite taking risks. Heroic status often
follows facing illness and death earlier than one's peers. Such stories then become tales
that entice and proclaim. They entice an audience and they proclaim a changed identity.
Both person and circumstance are transformed through the heroic struggle.
Although suffering may first confer an elevated moral status, views change. The
moral claims from suffering typically narrow in scope and in power. The circles of significance
shrink. Stories of self within these moral claims may entrance and entertain
for a while. but grow thin over time-unless someone has considerable influence or
power. The circles narrow to most significant others.
The moral claims of suffering may only supercede those of the healthy and whole
in crisis and its immediate aftermath. Otherwise, the person is less. WORTH LESS.
Two words-now separate may change as illness and aging take their toll. They may
end up as 'worthless.'
The moral status of suffering brings standards of decorum and dignity. One has to
live up to these standards or suffer the consequences. However, the standards are usually
taken-for-granted and relative to group and prior experience. Invoking the standards
of one group can alienate another.
Christine went from silence to outburst. Silence doesn't work in some contexts; it's
the only stra1:egy in others. An outburst does attract attention. but can alienate.
The ill person may also take for granted standards that are or are not shared.
One's moral status may emerge in private with spouse. parent. or adult child. It may
occur in public as degradation. A groundskeeper had worked as part of a maintenance
team for years with the same men. They had shared an esprit de corps. But
now his work-mates refused to-help him on the very tasks that they had always been
defined as two- or three-men jobs. A professor in an understaffed department suffered
a rapid decline that resulted in his colleagues taking over his classes. Though they
said they did so willingly, he sensed how burdened they were and felt that he had let
them down. Meanwhile his colleagues banged at the Dean's door, saying 'How can
we get him out of here?'
Christine makes moral claims, not only befitting those of suffering, but of
PERSONHOOD. She is a person who has a right to be heard, a right to just and fair
treatment in both the medical arena and the workplace. (memo 1-04--98)
MEMO-WRITING
The memo in Box 4.1 outlines ideas and initiates discussion between them.
I tried to jot down quickly everything that came to mind about the category, codes,
and data Ideas for the category came to me when I was coding data while traversing
the continent by plane, so I stopped to write them. k; I was scribbling, the links
between suffering and moral status became clearer. I said to myself, Ofcourse, this
is what I've been trying to grapple with; why didn't I think of it sooner? I jotted
down the short memo and typed it when I returned home. I copied my earlier
capital letters and spacing and used boldface in lieu of my yellow felt-tip marker.
(I use visual strategies to emphasize ideas from the start.) That way I gave myself
some prompts and flagged leads to pursue. A few additions clarified points.
In the memo, I first established 'suffering as a moral status' as a category
I aimed to analyze. I claimed that we need to think beyond physical pain and
agony and look into moral life and moral worth. Hence, I formed a working
definition of suffering as making a person's moral status problematic. Research
participants dwelled on moral tales of loss and its stigmatizing consequences.
The tone and body language of their telling expressed suffering and meaning,
sometimes more than their words. Still, participants' tales also contained tacit
claims for moral rights and legitimate moral status.
Which codes did the category 'suffering as a moral status' subsume? How did
these codes fit together under the category? I saw that the category subsumed a
number ofinitial codes that implied devaluation and the participant's response to
experiences in which they felt demeaned, disbelieved, or discriminated against.
I began to connect conceptions of rights, claims, and injustice with both suffering
and moral status. Writing the memo helped me to clarify how moral status
changes in suffering. It prompted me to look further at the conditions under
which moral status rises as well as those when it plummets. I began to lay out a
moral hierarchy of suffering and to ferret out how implicit rules affect someone's
status in this moral hierarchy. The memo encouraged me to go back and forth
between data and my emerging analysis and to relate it to other categories.
The memo contains ideas and several stories but its purpose needed fleshing
out. I had been comparing situations between various research participants for
some years. Recall Christine Danforth's story in Chapter 3. The line-by-line
coding in Box 3.2 (p. 52) generated several potential categories, 'suffering as a moral
status,' 'making a moral claim,' and 'having a devalued moral status' (Charmaz,
1999, 2001). Over the years, Christine had told stark stories of her struggles to
remain independent, to manage her illness, and to have a place in the world.
Several major incidents inflamed Christine's sense of moral outrage about her
treatment and ignited growing concern about her moral rights. These incidents
not only aroused her sense of injustice but also undermined her sense of self.
I used the memo to begin defining relationships between suffering and
moral status. Hence, I first claim an expanded definition of suffering that
includes social responses and I assert the relationship of this definition to self.
Many people I talked with realized that other people-including professionals
and family members-denied or doubted the presence and!or extent of their
symptoms. These participants told stories of their attempts to be treated as
persons with legitimate concerns. As you could see in Bonnie Presley's story
of delaying disclosure in Chapter 3, whether and when someone discloses
75
76 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
illness affects how other people view and treat them. Suffering can take a
further twist. Receiving second-hand news can hurt loved ones and cause
them to suffer. Thus, legitimacy, disclosure, fairness, and suffering become
intertwined.
To which kind of theoretical analysis does the category of 'suffering as a
moral status' belong? What types of conceptual connections does the memo
suggest? It certainly speaks to structure, process, and experience. The notion of
status assumes structure. In this case it assumes a hierarchical stratifying of
social value. Structure remains implicit in the memo but I assert its presenceand
its implications. Note how holding high moral status compares with low.
I point out the tenuousness of high moral status and imply how it deteriorates.
This process holds profound implications for self and identity. It stirs people's
emotions, affects their identities, redefines their situations, and changes relationships.
The category integrates disparate, as well as similar experiences,
implies temporal ordering and turning points, fosters certain behavior, fits into
and emerges under certain conditions, and has consequences.
The memo hints at how sensitizing concepts, long left silent, may murmur
during coding and analysis. Faint echoes of Talcott Parsons (1953), Erving
Goffman (1959, 1961, 1963, 1967) and Emile Durkheim (1893/1964, 1912/1965,
1925/1961), who inspired Goffman, reverberate through the memo. Parsons's
conception of the sick role lingers in the background but affects the moral position
from which moral expectations and edicts flow. No doubt Goffman's treatment
of moral life and moral meanings throughout his opus informed and
furthered my connections between moral hierarchies, moral status within them,
and suffering. I had not reviewed either theorist in anticipation of writing the
memo, nor thought about them when doing it. We can, however, discern how
the memo complements several of their ideas. Both Goffman and Durkheim
wrestle with moral rules, moral rights, and moral responsibilities. Goffman
dealt extensively with how people presented themselves to others, managed
impressions that others might have, and played roles during interactions. For
Goffman, situations have their own moral rules and people aim to establish
themselves as moral beings within them. Durkheirn's analysis of the moral
force of niles and ofmeanings of the sacred and profane illuminates the hidden
strength of social bonds and shared values.
With a few additions, this memo served as the analytic core of a keynote
address that would be published after the conference. Several months elapsed
before I could return to the material and revise the address. Like many writers,
I had misjudged the completeness of the category. Its sketchiness struck me.
It needed filling out. I clarified the category a little for the article and later
returned to the field to gain more ideas. Note that the published version below
smoothes and tightens the memo but employs most of my original language.
Because I chose this memo for a spoken address, I wanted the audience to hear
the links between my ideas and the stories that gave rise to them. I also wanted
them to envision the suffering that follows loss of moral status. By the time I
presented the material five weeks after drafting the memo, I had articulated an
explicit moral hierarchy. The chart depicts this moral hierarchy as a structure
and shows movement down it & moral status plummets, worthlessness enshrouds
many people with debilitating chronic illnesses.
MEMO-WRITING
Suffering as a Moral Status
Hierarchy of Moral Status
Suffering is a profoundly moral status as well as a physical experience. A moral
status confers relative human worth and, thus, measures deserved value or devaluation.
Stories of suffering reflect, redefine. or resist such moral status. The stories
form moral parables of right and wrong, of moral virtue and moral flaw, of reason and
rationalization. Kleinman. Brodwin, Good. and Good (1991) argue that the current collective
and professional language describing suffering takes a rationalized. routinized
form rather than expressing moral and religious meaning. Granted. moral meanings
of suffering may neither be directly evident nor expressed; however. they still shape
thought and action.
With suffering come moral rights and entitlements as well as moral definitions-if
suffering is deemed legitimate. Thus, a sick person can make certain moral claims
and have certain moral judgments conferred upon him or her such as:
• deserving
• dependent
• in need
Suffering can award an individual an elevated. even sacred. moral status. This is
someone who has been in sacred places, who has seen and known what ordinary
mortals have not. His or her stories are greeted with awe and wonder. The self also
has elevated status. This person is special; the compelling story casts an aura of
compelling qualities on the storyteller.
Bessie Harris's experience transformed her moral status and her view of her suffering.
Earlier she had plummeted into total disability from emphysema and heart disease.
When I visited Bessie, I found her bent over in her electric wheelchair at the kitchen
table. She proceeded to tell me of her rapid descent into life-threatening illness. As she
began her tale of her riSkY surgery, her middle-aged daughter. Thelma, who had been
tidying kitchen counters in the adjoining room, stopped and joined us. Bessie told of
her near-death experience when her heart stopped. Thelma listened with rapt attention
and awe. Though she had heard the tale many times before. it transformed the moment
anew. Bessie told of being in the long dark tunnel. then seeing a beautiful bright light.
Bessie believed that the light emanated from the face of God. As Thelma heard her
mother's tale again, she gazed on her with reverence. Afterwards. Thelma declared that
this experience had lifted Bessie's spirits and improved her attitude toward her illness.
Suffering also may present opportunities to play out the myth of the hero who
emerges victorious against all odds. Thus. again, suffering elevates status and sets
the person apart when viewed as a hero who has emerged from battle. This person
has defied death and. perhaps, doctors through resolving to act despite taking
risks. Heroic status often follows facing illness and death earlier than one's peers.
Such stories then become tales that attract an audience and proclaim a changed
identity. A heroic struggle transforms both the person and his or her situation.
(Continued)
77
78 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
(Continued)
A 50-year-old woman had a difficult surgical procedure for a condition seldom found
among her age peers. She said, 'You go into battle and you come out wounded.' Her
partner marveled with admiration, 'Whew, I could never go through all that.'
An elevated moral status changes. Time. toil. and trouble erode high moral status.
Then, moral claims from suffering narrow in scope and power. Stories of self within
these moral claims may entrance and entertain for a while. but they grow thin over
time-unless someone has considerable influence or power. Social circles narrow to
the person's most significant others. Love. power. money, or special knowledge
sustain moral status. Loss of the crucial element decreases a person's moral status.
There is an implicit hierarchy of moral status in suffering (see Rgure 1).
HIGH MORAL STATUs-VAUDATED MORAL CLAIMS
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
INVOLUNTARY ONSET
BLAMELESSNESS FOR CONDITION
SuSTAINED MoRAL STATUs-AccEPTED MoRAL CLAIMS
CHRONIC ILLNESS
NEGOTIATED DEMANDS
PRESENT OR PAST POWER & RECIPROCITIES
DIMINISHED MORAL STATUS-QUESTIONABLE MORAL CLAIMS
PERSONAL VALUE
worth less
worth less
Worth Less
WORTHLESS
FIGURE 1 Hierarchy of Moral Status in Suffering
A crisis and its immediate aftermath allow the moral claims of suffering to supersede
those of the healthy and whole. Otherwise, a person is less-worth less.
WORTH LESS. Two words-first separate-can change as illness and aging take their
toll. These words may join and with them. the person ends up as worthless.
The moral status of suffering brings standards of decorum and dignity that reflect a hierarchical
position. One has to fulfill these standards or suffer the consequences. However,
such standards are usually taken for granted and relative to specific groups and prior
understandings. Invoking the standards of one group can alienate another. Christine
Danforth went from silence to outburst. Silence does not work in some contexts; it is the
only strategy in others. An outburst does demand attention, but it can alienate.
(Continued)
MEMO-WRITING
(Continued)
An ill person may also take for granted standards that are or are not shared.
One's moral status may emerge in private with spouse, parent, or adult child. It may
occur in public settings or at work. A person may gradually feel subtle devaluation
or experience obvious degradation. A groundskeeper had worked as part of a maintenance
team for years with the same men. They had shared an esprit de corps. But
now his work-mates refused to help him on the very tasks that everyone agreed
were two- or three-man jobs. A professor in an understaffed department suffered a
rapid decline that resulted in his colleagues taking over his classes. Though they
said they did so willingly, he sensed how burdened they were and felt that he had
let them down. Meanwhile his colleagues banged at the Dean's door, saying 'How
can we get him out of here?' Moral claims of suffering seldom long preserve a person's
public status.
Moral claims and moral status become contested. Almost every aspect of
Christine Danforth's life is problematic-living arrangements, family, medical care,
income level, work relations. After being on a disability leave. she went back to work.
She said,
And so I went back to work on March first, even though I wasn't supposed to. And
then when I got there, they had a long meeting and they said I could no longer rest
during the day. The only time I rested was at lunchtime, which was my time; we were
closed. And she said, my supervisor, said I couldn't do that anymore. and I said, 'It's
my time, you can't tell me. I can't lay down.' And they said, 'Well. you're not laying
down on the couch that's in there, it bothers the rest of the staff.' So I went around
and I talked to the rest of the staff. and they all said. 'No, we didn't say that; it was
never brought up.' So I went back and I said, 'You know. ! just was talking to the rest
of the staff, and it seems that nobody has a problem with it but you,' and I said. 'You
aren't even here at lunchtime.' And they still put it down that I couldn't do that any
longer. And then a couple of months later one of the other staff started laying down
at lunchtime, and I said, you know, 'This isn't fair, she doesn't even have a disability
and she's laying down,' so I just started doing it.
Christine made moral claims, not only befitting those of suffering, but of personhood.
She claimed a right to be heard, a right to just and fair treatment in both the
medical arena and the workplace.
The paradox? Christine worked at a non-profit agency that provided advocacy services
for people with disabilities. (Charmaz, 1999: 367-370)
The life of an initial memo can outlast its publication. Further analysis and
development of the ideas can generate additional works. One memo can spark
numerous ideas and serve varied purposes. The journal articles in which memos
appear can presage books. Since publication of the address, I have refined
some of my ideas about suffering to reflect how definitions of clifference in my
data accelerated individuals' descent down the hierarchy. As I compared incidents
in my data, I learned more about how class and age clifferences played
out in interaction and appeared in the hierarchy (see Charmaz, 2005).
79
80 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Methods of Memo-writing
Methods for producing memos rely on making them spontaneous, not mechanical.
Before learning about grounded theory, you may have thought of memos as
formal business communications that state policies, procedures, and proposals
in official, frequently opaque, bureaucratic terms. In contrast, grounded theorists
write memos to serve analytic purposes, as you can see in the example above.
We write our memos in informal, unofficial language for personal use. I wrote
the memo above to catch my fleeting ideas about the code and to probe data,
not to share with you.
The methods of memo-writing are few; do what works for you. Memos may
be free and flowing; they may be short and stilted-especially as you enter new
analytical terrain. What's important is to get things down on paper and stored
in your computer files. Keep writing memos however you write and in whatever
way advances your thinking.1
Prerequisite: Study your emerging data!
Identify what you're talking about-title your memo as specifically as possible.
You may sense that the words you choose do not quite capture the meaning.
Flag them. Think about them. Refine them later. Write now!
Early Memos
Record what you see happening in the data. Use early memos to explore and fill out
your qualitative codes. Use them to direct and focus further data collection. Some
basic questions may help:
• What is going on in the field setting or withm the interview accounts? Can you
turn it into a pithy category? Examples: 'avoiding disclosure,' 'living one day
at a time,· 'surrendering to illness'
• What are people doing?
• What is the person saying?
• What do research participants' actions and statements take for granted?
• How do structure and context serve to support, maintain, impede or change
their actions and statements?
• What connections can you make? Which ones do you need to check?
A grounded theory study allows you to look for processes. The following questions
help to maintain a focus on process:
(Continued}
MEMO-WRITING
(Continued)
• What process is at issue here?
• Under which conditions does this process develop?
• How do(es) the research participant(s) think. feel, and act while involved In
this process?
• When, why, and how does the process change?
• What are the consequences of the process?
Structure memos to chart observed and predicted relationships in your data and
between your emerging categories.
Advanced Memos
• Trace and categorize data subsumed by your topic
• Describe how your category emerges and changes
• Identify the beliefs and assumptions that support it
• Tell what the topic looks and feels like from various vantage points
• Place it within an argument
• Make comparisons:
o Compare different people (such as their beliefs. situations, actions,
accounts, or experiences)
o Compare data from the same individuals with themselves at different
points in time
o Compare categories in the data with other categories-example: How does
'"accepting" illness' compare with 'reconciling oneself to illness?' Which categories
should become major sections? Which should be relegated minor status?
a Compare subcategories with general categories for fit-example: Where
does '"accepting" Illness· go? At what point does it become an issue? Where
does it fit into the course of illness?
o Compare sub-categories within a general category-example: What is the
difference between an 'identifying moment' and a 'Significant event?'
o Compare concepts or conceptual categories-example: Demonstrate the
differences between the 'self In the past' and the 'self in the present,'
compare experiencing 'intrusive illness' with 'immersion in Illness'
o Compare the entire analysis with existing literature or the ruling ideas in a field
o Refine the consequences of your analysis
Adapted from Kathy Charmaz (1995). 'Grounded Theory,' pp. 27-49 in Jonathan A.
Smith, Rom Harre, & Luk Van Langenhove (eds), Rethinking Methods in Psychology.
London: Sage
Memo-writing forces you to stop other activities; engage a category, let your
mind rove freely in, around, under, and from the category; and write whatever
comes to you. That's why memo-writing forms a space and place for exploration
81
82 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
and discovery. You take the time to discover your ideas about what you have
seen, heard, sensed, and coded.
Memo-writing forms the next logical step after you define categories;
however, write memos from the beginning ofyour research. Memos spur you to
develop your ideas in narrative form and fullness early in the analytic process.
Your memos will help you clarify and direct your subsequent coding. Writing
memos prompts you to elaborate processes, assumptions, and actions covered
by your codes or categories. They encourage you to take your emergent categories
apart and break them into their components. Memos also help you to
identify which codes to treat as analytic categories, if you have not already
defined them. (Then you can further develop these categories through more
memo-writing.)
No single mechanical procedure defines a useful memo. Do what is possible
with the material you have. Memos vary, but you may do any of the following
in a memo:
• Define each code or category by its analytic properties
• Spell out and detail processes subsumed by the codes or categories
• Make comparisons between data and data, data and codes, codes and codes,
codes and categories, categories and categories
• Bring raw data into the memo
• Provide sufficient empirical evidence to support your definitions of the
category and analytic claims about it
• Offer conjectures to check in the field setting(s)
• Identify gaps in the analysis
• Interrogate a code or category by asking questions of it.
Grounded theorists look for patterns, even when focusing on a single case
(see Strauss & Glaser, 1970). Because we stress identifying patterns, grounded
theorists typically invoke respondents' stories to illustrate points-rather than
provide complete portrayals of their lives or even a full narrative of an experience.2
When you bring raw data right into your memo, you preserve telling evidence
Jqr your analytic ideas from the start. Providing ample verbatim material
'grounds' your abstract analysis and lays a foundation for making claims about
it. Including verbatim material from different
sources permits you to make precise comparisons
right in the memo. These comparisons enable you
to define patterns in the empirical world. Thus,
memo-writing moves your work beyond individual
cases.
Begin your memo by titling it. That's easy
because your codes give you titles to analyze;
hence, you already have direction and focus. Define
the category you intend to treat Note how I tried to
..................................
::" ....!
• Forming the definition •
from your codes and
data forces you to
pierce the surface ...
Your definition of the
category starts by
explicating its properties
or characteristics.
. .·............................, .......
define why and how suffering is a moral status. Take your definition as far as you
can. Forming the definition from your codes and data forces you to pierce the
MEMO-WRITING
surface. Although you may establish a preliminary, working definition to get a
handle on the phenomena, grappling with your material moves the definition
beyond description into analysis. Thus, your definition of the category starts by
explicating its properties or characteristics.
Next, think about where both the category and the data it subsumes lead you.
Follow these leads, whatever they might be. I look for the underlying andusually-unstated
assumptions embedded in the category. In addition, I try to
show how and when the category develops and changes and why and for
whom it has relevance in the field setting. I found that people frequently
referred to living one day at a time when they suffered a medical crisis or faced
continued uncertainty. Subsequently, I began to ask questions about what
living one day at a time was like for them. I began to define the category and
its characteristics from their responses and from published autobiographical
accounts. The term 'living one day at a time' condenses a series of implicit
meanings and assumptions. It becomes a strategy for handling unruly feelings,
for exerting some control over a now uncontrollable life, for facing uncertainty,
and for handling a conceivably foreshortened future.
Memo-writing encourages you to dig into implicit, unstated, and condensed
meanings. Look for codes that subsume condensed meanings. These codes give
you analytic mileage and carry conceptual weight. See how I tried to get at
these meanings in the section of a longer memo shown in Box 4.4.
.··BOX 4.4.. eXAMPLE
-.
Living One Day at a Time
Living one day at a time means dealing with illness on a day-to-day basis, holding
future plans and even ordinary activities, in abeyance while the person and, often,
others deal with illness. When living one day at a time, the person feels that his or
her future remains unsettled, that he or she cannot foresee the future or if there will
be a future. Living one day at a time allows the person to focus on illness, treatment
and regimen without becoming entirely immobilized by fear or future implications. By
concentrating on the present, the person can avoid or minimize thinking about death
and the possibility of dying.
Relation to Time Perspective
The felt need to live one day at a time often drastically alters a person's time
perspective. Living one day at a time pulls the person into the present and pushes
back past futures (the futures the person projected before illness or before this
round of illness) so that they recede without mournmg [their loss]. These past futures
can slip away, perhaps almost unnoticed. [I then go and compare three respondents'
situations, statements, and time perspectives.]
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84 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
........................................
/ Memo-writing frees you to \
explore your ideas about your
categories. Treat memos as
partial, preliminary, and
provisional. They are imminently
correctable. Just note where you
are on firm ground and where
you are making conjectures.
Then go back to the field to
check your conjectures.
Begin writing memos as soon as
you have some ideas and categories to
pursue. If at a loss about what to write,
elaborate on your most frequent codes.
Keep collecting data, keep coding, and
keep refining your ideas through writing
more and further developed memos.
Some researchers who use grounded theory
methods discover a few interesting
findings early in their data collection and
then truncate their research. T'neir work •••••• ••••••· ·•••••••••••••••••••·•···
lacks the 'intimate familiarity' with the setting or experience that Lofland and
Lofland (1995) avow meets the standards for good qualitative research. Barney
G. Glaser (2001) rightly applauds MartinJankowski's (1991) concept of 'defiant
individualism' among gang members, because Jankowski has compared
hundreds of incidents.3
Cover your topic in depth by exploring sufficient cases
and by elaborating your categories fully.
Memo-writing frees you to explore your ideas about your categories. Treat
memos as partial, preliminary, and provisional. They are imminently correctable.
Just note where you stand on firm ground and where you make conjectures.
Then go back to the field and check your conjectures.
Memos can remain private and unshared. At this point, just get your ideas
down as quickly and clearly as you can. Do not worry about verb tense, overuse
of prepositional phrases, or lengthy sentences at this point You write memos
to render the data, not to communicate to an audience. Use memo-writing to
discover and explore ideas. You can revise the memo later.
Writing memos quickly without editing them fosters developing and preserving
your natural voice. Then your memo reads as though written by a living,
thinking, feeling human being rather than a pedantic social scientist You can
write memos at different levels of abstraction-from the concrete to the highly
theoretical. Some ofyour memos will find their way directly into your first draft
of your analysis. Set aside others with a different focus and develop them later.
of your memo-writing will be concerned with making comparisons, in
keeping with Glaser and Strauss's constant comparative methods. In your
successive memos, you can compare incidents indicated by each category, integrate
categories by comparing them and delineating their relationships, delimit
the scope and range of the emerging theory by comparing categories with
concepts and write the theory, which you may compare with other theories in
the same area of study. Hence, you may begin by elaborating the codes in
which you compared one respondent's beliefs, stance, and actions with another
respondent's, or one experience with another. If you have longitudinal data,
you can compare a participant's response, experience, or situation at one point
in time with that at another time. Then as you become more analytic and have
some tentative analytic categories, compare new data with them. This step will
help you delimit your categories and to define their properties.
As you develop categories, write further memos to detail comparisons
between them. These memos help you to tease out distinctions that sharpen
MEMO-WRITING
your treatment of the material. Such memos also aid you to weigh and locate
your categories in relation to each other. Through memo-writing, you distinguish
between major and minor categories and delineate how they are related.
Thus, you begin to frame them into a theoretical statement. You direct the
shape and form of your emergent analysis through your memos.
At each more analytic and abstract level of memo-writing, bring your data
right into your analysis. Show how you build your analysis on your data in each
memo. Bringing your data into successive levels of memo-writing ultimately
saves time; you do not have to dig through stacks of material to illustrate your
points. In the section of a memo provided above, note that I first defined the
category, 'living one day at a time,' and outlined its main properties. Then I
developed aspects of living one day at a time such as its relationship to time
perspective, which I show in the excerpt, and to managing emotions. The
memo also covered how people lived one day at a time, the problems it posed
as well as those it solved, and the consequences of doing so.
Memo-writing helps you to:4
• Stop and think about your data
• Treat qualitative codes as categories to analyze
• Develop your writer's voice and writing rhythm. (Let your memos read like
letters to a close friend; no need for stodgy academic prose)
• Spark ideas to checkout in the field setting
• Avoid forcing your data into extant concepts and theories
• Develop fresh ideas, create new concepts, and find novel relationships
• Demonstrate connections between categories (e.g. empirical events and social
structures, larger groups and the individual, espoused beliefs and actions)
• Discover gaps in your data collection
• Link data-gathering with data analysis and report-writing
• Build whole sections of papers and chapters
• Keep involved in research and writing
• Increase your confidence and competence.
Adopting Writers' Strategies: Prewriting Exercises
Delving into memo-writing can be liberating. Memo-writing can release you
from the strictures of academic writing, the constraints of traditional research
procedures, and the controls of teachers and supervisors. But does it? Not
always. Some problems arise from within the researcher, others from without.
Some researchers find that the freedom of memo-writing poses a disquieting
leap of faith and practice. Memo-writing requires us to tolerate ambiguity.
Researchers who write from an outline with a predictable beginning, middle,
and end may move right into reporting and miss the discovery, exploratory
phase of writing. Memo-writing exemplifies this discovery phase. Subsequently,
these researchers cannot write until they have the whole picture in mind. They
wait-and wait. Other people view writing as tedious drudgery. They dawdle
and dread it.5
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86 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Ifeither dawdling or dreading sounds like you, try building prewriting exercises
into your analytic practices to help you learn to tolerate ambiguity-and to enjoy
writing. Prewriting exercises consist of strategies that writers use; they are not part
of the methods associated with grounded theory. These exercises can, however,
help you delve into writing your grounded theory memos. You may use them as
unrelated warm-up exercises or as tools to help you begin memo-writing.
Teachers and research supervisors often treat grounded theory memos as
interim, but sharable reports, rather than as private analytic explorations. Thus,
another scenario can stifle your efforts to write memos: that is, being evaluated
on their quality. How can you write spontaneous memos subject to scrutiny
when their purpose is for personal analytic building blocks? Likely, your
memos lose spontaneity and their creative edge. When a watchful eye staresor
glares-over your shoulder, it may take you forever to draft a memo.
From their perspectives, teachers and research supervisors have good
reasons for evaluating your memos. Many students can handle a large, unwieldy
project when their teachers have divided it into steps. This pedagogical strategy
fits traditional quantitative research design and much of qualitative research,
but not memo-writing.
The problem now extends to the professional realm. Increasingly, research
teams on large funded projects choose grounded theory methods. Collaborative
research projects depend on sharing tasks and ideas. Principal investigators
expect team members to prove their merit. What better way to see how team
members demonstrate merit than through their memos? How can team members
collaborate if they do not share their emerging analyses? Yet this kind of
situation poses other pressing questions for you. How can you avoid being stifled,
complete tasks on time, and preserve your analytic autonomy?
Again, consider starting with prewriting exercises. They can get you started
and make memo-writing easier. You can revise your memos later for clarity and
organization. For the past decade, I have introduced two prewriting exercises,
clustering and freewriting, in grounded theory workshops.6
Both blocked and
fluent workshop participants have found them useful ways to get started and to
rethink ideas and their organization. Peter Elbow's (1981) guidelines for
freewri.t!ng resemble aspects of memo-writing but do not limit you to the data.
Both clustering and freewriting are non-linear and thus liberate you from linear
logic and organization.
Clustering
Clustering is a shorthand prewriting technique for getting started. As Rico
(1983) explains, clustering gives you a non-linear, visual, and flexible technique
to understand and organize your material. Adopt this technique to produce a
tentative and alterable chart or map of your work. Like freewriting, a major
objective of clustering is to liberate your creativity. You write your central idea,
category, or process; then circle it and draw spokes from it to smaller circles to
show its defining properties, and their relationships and relative significance.
Because it offers a diagram of relationships, clustering shares some similarities
with conceptual or situational mapping in grounded theory (see Clarke,
MEMO-WRITING
2003, 2005; Soulliere, Britt & Maines, 2003). The configurations of clusters
provide an image of how your topic fits together and relates to other phenomena.
Clustering is active, quick, and changeable. You can remain uncommitted
to a cluster. 'fry several different clusters to see how the pieces ofyour puzzle
fit together in a variety of ways. This form of prewriting gives you a fast selfcorrecting
way to work with ideas. Clustering makes writing less onerous for
those who dread it and speeds up the process for those who enjoy it Novices
find that clustering expedites laying out the form and content of their memos.
Through clustering you gain control because you create an image of the piece
before delving into writing about it Putting together a sensible cluster can give
a novice confidence to start elaborating the various sections ofit. Clustering can
give you a preliminary sketch of the memo you need to write. Later, you can use
clustering to work out how sections of your paper fit together.
You can use clustering for all kinds ofwriting tasks at varied levels of analytic
work. The general approach to clustering includes the directions below. You
might follow a few of these directions when you first explore your codes.
" Start with the main topic or idea at the center
• Work quickly
• Move out from the nucleus into smaller subclusters
• Keep all related material in the same subcluster
• Make the connections clear between each idea, code, and/or category
" Keep branching out until you have exhausted your knowledge
• Try several different clusters on the same topic
• Use clustering to play with your material.
A nucleus word, such as a code, forms the most basic cluster. 'fry to construct the
cluster and see where it takes you. Clustering around processes moves you further
into studying actions rather than only structures. 'fry to draw connections between
parts ofyour emerging pattern. When you finish, you have a plan for proceeding.
Whether or not you follow your plan, you have created a way of moving in and
through the material. For practice, try clustering topics unrelated to your research
or writing. Explore your thoughts about an event, a film, or a book.
lieat clustering as inconsequential to lessen the seriousness of writing. If it
helps you play with your material, so much the better. Writers use clustering to
combat writing blocks. Clustering can get you started and keep you moving.
The spontaneity and imagery in clustering can foster developing feeling,
imagery, and rhythm when you begin to write.
Clustering can enable you to define essentials. It allows for chaos and prompts
you to create paths through it You gain a way of sifting and sorting your material
while you create a pattern about, around, and through your category(ies). Clustering
lets you make what lurks in the background jump into the foreground. Use clustering
to make things explicit and order your topic. A cluster provides a direct visual,
as contrasted with a solelymental, image. Hence, you can assess relative importance
of the points within your cluster and relationships between them.
Clustering techniques are fast, fluid, fruitful-and fun. If they help you, adopt
them. I have adapted these techniques to use with grounded theory methods. You
87
88 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
may wish to start clustering with one code and then move on to clustering
relationships between codes and then codes and categories. In any case, try the
general approach to clustering as outlined above or my adaptation below. After
working on a cluster for eight to ten minutes, you will sense how to begin writing
about the category. Then you can begin writing a focused freewrite, or a memo.
The following are guidelines for clustering, and Figure 4.1 offers an example.
• Draw a circle around a main code large enough to include what it indicates
• Make the circled code the center of this cluster
• Divide the inside of the circle to show the defining properties of the code
• Draw spokes from your code to any codes it subsumes to signify relationships
• Use configurations of clusters to construct an image of how your main codes
fit together and relate to other categories
• Make the size of your circled codes reflect their relative empirical strength
• Indicate the relative strength of the relationships between codes by the
width of your lines
• Allow your clusters to be non-linear
• Work quickly and keep involved in the process
• Take a cluster as far as you can
• Treat clustering as flexible, mutable, and open-ended
• Keep clustering. Try several on the same codes. Compare them.
Freewriting
Freewriting means putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and writing
for eight minutes to begin, longer with practice. Freewriting encourages you to:
1) compose fresh material and 2) unlearn past immobilizing habits, and 3) write
in a natural voice. Freewriting liberates your thoughts and feelings. It provides an
effective warm-up exercise and produces results, a freewrite. A quick ten-minute
freewrite may save you hours of staring at a blank screen.
Writing teachers often urge students to use freewriting for free associationwrite
whatever comes to consciousness. This type of freewriting opens our
minds !l?d releases our imaginations. Such freewriting can increase our receptivity
to the world and our ease in writing. It releases immobilizing constraints
that others place on you and you may have internalized. Regular sessions of
this freewriting can help your writing flow and heighten your awareness offeeling
and imagery.
How do you do freewrites? Try following these guidelines:
• Get your ideas down on paper as quickly and fully as you can
• Write to and for yourself
• Permit yourself to write freely and badly
• Don't attend to grammar, organization, logic, evidence, and audience
• Write as though you are talking.
Be receptive when freewriting. Accept anything that comes to mind. Keep
writing-putting one thing down on paper leads to another. Let the process
MEMO-WRITING
Present
crisis
FIGURE 4.i 'Example of Clustering'
emerge. Follow those glimpses of ideas and bursts of inchoate thoughts-right
now. You can assess them later.Just concentrate on what you learn or sense now.
Correct grammar doesn't matter. Neither does perfect spelling, logical organization,
and clear arguments. What does matter is that you become accustomed
89
90 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
to getting your ideas on paper, however they emerge. A freewrite is for your
eyes only like a secret journal you create and share with yourself.
Once you are comfortable with freewriting, try a focused freewrite that
addresses your data and categories. To help you remain open, follow the guidelines
above. Doing focused freewrites can keep you from becoming immobilized
and may serve as a direct precursor to memo-writing. Study these freewrites
because they may contain seeds of a great memo. By adding a step or two to the
writing process, you may soon be writing fluent memos for your research project
Work in whatever way suits your style-with pad and pencil or your computer.
I started to do a focused freewrite for a review essay with my (trained) voiceactivated
program. What medium could be faster or more spontaneous?
Having a constant stream of recording errors distracted me more than the
speed of talking helped. The following errors were among them:
'well-intentioned methods' for 'qualitative methods'
'the death ofthe analysis' for 'the depth of the analysis'
'the fragment-this tradition' for 'the pragmatist tradition'
In Box 4.5, 'Example of a Focused Freewrite,' I took the clustering that
I made from Bonnie Presley's interview excerpt and wrote about it for about
12 minutes. Note that I brought other data right into the freewrite; the act of
writing about the codes sparked comparisons with other research participants.
This focused freewrite is considerably more coherent than my freewrites often
are, in part because I completed the clustering first and in part because I find
writing from data easier than other forms of writing. The clustering helped me
to draw relationships between several intriguing codes and Bonnie's situation.
Clustering is particularly helpful to those of us who gravitate to images. Many
writers freewrite first or use both techniques. Experiment with freewriting and
clustering and see what works for you.
. --.·-.c .;-- -.:·-··- ..• -7
BOX4.5. ,1
EXAMPLE OF AFOCUSED FREEWRITE ON .CODES FROM BONNIE PRESLEY'S
'l:.,,:':ltqERVIEW(EXCERPT) ..·..
The crisis sets off the chain of events and dilemmas about disclosure. Yet the past
history of relationships and issues around disclosure echo in the current crisis. Lack
of disclosure may be an explicit choice or a consequence of other actions or inactions.
Various participants will make assumptions about the person's lack of disclosure,
how long it prevailed and what it 'really' meant. In Bonnie's case, her lack of
disclosure coincided with escalating pain and her increased efforts to manage, to
cope, to control what was happening. If so. then disclosing implied risks of losing
control if all the past conflict. disappointments, and lack of emotional support arise
again. In other situations such as Bob's, disclosing meant possibly reinvoking all the
past issues about obtaining help and his embarrassment-and mortification for
asking for it. Such issues in disclosure raise all kinds of sticky intimacy issues and
(Continued)
MEMO-WRITING
(Continued)
relationship obligations anew. Bob defines not asking for help unless absolutely
necessary as his relationship obligation; Bonnie sees avoiding emotional upheavals
with her daughter as hers.
In some sense then, Bob only has partial and tentative access for help and partial
access for contact. It is not a given. Bonnie has access for contact although she has
to be proactive to realize it. Amy comes by or calls sporadically; she is not a regular
part of Bonnie's day, as Linda has become. This incident with Bonnie shows how feeling
hurt goes two ways. Misunderstandings build on each other.
From the family or friend's view. receiving second-hand news informs one of his or
her place and significance. Being left out stings. It elicits unwelcome images of self
and the relationship. It may reaffirm family hierarchies and past family feuds as in
Ann's case. Identity questions emerge.
Using Memos to Raise Focused
Codes to Conceptual Categories
Writing memos on your· codes from the start helps to clarify what is happening
in the field. In grounded theory, memo-writing relies on treating some codes as
conceptual categories to analyze. Glaser and Strauss (1967: 37) define a category
as a 'conceptual element in a theory.' Yet what stands as a category? But
what does that mean? No need to worry; you already have your focused codes,
as I note above.
Through engaging in focused coding, you begin to sketch the content and
form of your budding analysis. Attempting to treat focused codes as categories
prompts you to develop and scrutinize them. Then you can evaluate these
tentative categories and decide whether they are categories. If you accept these
codes as categories, clarify what they consist of and specify the relationships
between them.
First, assess which codes best represent what you see happening in your data.
In a memo, raise them to conceptual categories for your developing analytic
framework-give them conceptual definition and analytical treatment in narrative
form in your memo. Thus, you go beyond using a code as a descriptive tool
to view and synthesize data.
What do categories do? Categories explicate ideas, events, or processes in
your data-and do so in telling words. A category may subsume common themes
and patterns in several codes. For example, my category of 'keeping illness contained'
included 'packaging illness,' that is, treating it 'as if it is controlled,
delimited, and confined to specific realms, such as private life,' and 'passing,'
which means, 'concealing illness, maintaining a conventional self-presentation,
and performing like unimpaired peers' (Charmaz, 199la: 66-68).
Again, make your categories as conceptual as possible-with abstract power,
general reach, analytic direction, and precise wording. Simultaneously, remain
consistent with your data. By having made your focused codes active, incisive
9:1.
92 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
(to reflect what people are doing or what is happening), and brief, you have
the material to treat them as potential categories. During coding you asked
what category does this piece of data indicate? Now ask: what category does
this code indicate? A little time and distance from collecting data and initial
coding may help you to move another conceptual step. Processes gain visibility
when you keep codes active. Succinct, focused codes lead to sharp, clear
categories. That way, you can establish criteria for your categories to make further
comparisons.
Grounded theorists look for substantive processes that they develop from their
codes. 'Keeping illness contained,' 'packaging illness,' and 'living one day at a
time' above are three such processes. As grounded theorists create conceptual
handles to explain what is happening in the setting, they may move toward
defining generic processes (Prus, 1987). A generic process cuts across different
empirical settings and problems; it can be applied to varied substantive areas.
Two codes in Chapter 3, 'avoiding disclosure' and 'assessing potential losses
and risks of disclosing,' reflect fundamental, generic processes ofpersonal information
control. Although these processes describe choices people with illness
make in disclosing information, people with other problems may treat information
control similarly. For sociologists, generic processes are basic to social
life; for psychologists, generic processes are fundamental for psychological existence;
for anthropologists, these processes support local cultures. Because they
are fundamental, generic processes can apply in varied professions and fields.
A grounded theorist can elaborate and refine the generic process by gathering
more data from diverse arenas where this process is evident. For example, personal
information control and choices in disclosing are often problematic for
homosexuals, sexual abuse survivors, drug-users, recovering alcoholics, and
ex-convicts as well as for people with chronic conditions. Concentrate on analyzing
a generic process that you define in your codes; then you can raise relevant
codes to theoretical categories that lead to explanations of the process and
predictions concerning these categories.7
As you raise a code to a category, you
begin to write narrative statements in memos that:
• the category
• Explicate the properties of the category
• Specify the conditions under which the category arises, is maintained, and
changes
• Describe its consequences
• Show how this category relates to other categories.
Categories may consist of in vivo codes that you take directly from your
respondents' discourse or they may represent your theoretical or substantive
definition of what is happening in the data. Recall that my terms 'good days
and bad days' and 'living one day at a time' came directly from my respondents'
voices. In contrast, my categories 'recapturing the past' and 'time in
immersion and immersion in time' reflect theoretical definitions of actions and
events. Further, categories such as 'pulling in,' 'facing dependency,' and 'making
trade-offs' address my respondents' substantive realities of grappling with a
MEMO-WRITING
serious illness. I created these codes and used them as categories but they
reflect my research participants' concerns and actions. Novice researchers may
find that they rely most on in vivo and substantive codes. What often results is
a grounded description more than a theory. Nonetheless, studying how these
codes fit together in categories can help you treat them more theoretically.
By writing memos on your focused codes, you build and clarify your category
by examining all the data it covers and by identifying variations within it
and between other categories. You also become aware of gaps in your analysis.
For example, I developed my category 'existing from day to day' when I realized
that my category 'living one day at a time' did not cover impoverished
people's ievei of desperation. In short, I had data about a daily struggle to
survive that the first category, 'living one day at a time,' did not subsume. Box 4.6
provides the first paragraph of the finished narrative:
'aox4:6 EXAMPLEhF 8Y
<THE CATEGORYOF"EXISTINGFROM iJAYTO :· .· .
··.:.::-.,·.· '< ·.' .;. ·,. ·:.. > ·"··'\.:•-: ··, ;,::( '-'.::.;:·::: ';· ,,
Existing from day to day occurs when a person plummets into continued crises that
rip life apart. It reflects a loss of control of health and the wherewithal to keep life
together.
Existing from day to day means constant struggle for daily survival. Poverty and
lack of support contribute to and complicate that struggle. Hence, poor and isolated
people usually plummet further and faster than affluent individuals with concerned
families. Loss of control extends to being unable to obtain necessities-food, shelter.
heat. medical care.
The struggle to exist keeps people in the present. especially if they have continued
problems in getting the basic necessities that middle-class adults take for granted.
Yet other problems can assume much greater significance for these people than their
illness-a violent husband, a runaway child, an alcoholic spouse, the overdue rent.
Living one day at a time differs from existing from day to day. Living one day at a
time provides a strategy for controlling emotions, managing iife. dimming the future.
and getting through a troublesome period. It involves managing stress, illness, or regimen.
and dealing with these things each day to control them as best as one can. It
means concentrating on the here and now and relinquishing other goals. pursuits.
and obligations. (Charmaz. 1991a: 185)
Note the comparisons between the two categories above. To generate categories
through focused coding, you need to compare data, incidents, contexts,
and categories. Try making such comparisons as suggested in the section on
'Writing Advanced Memos' in Box 4.3-How To Write Memos.
Some exampies might help. Carolyn Wiener (2000) compares how professional
providers, health care managers, and industry regulators define quality
care and accountability for it. I compare individuals' depictions of events and
their responses to them at different times (an advantage of comparing material
93
94 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
from sequential interviews is that you can compile respondents' stories about
their recent events rather than ones reconstructed from long-past incidents). In
addition to comparing events and incidents, I also compared how people experience
different phases of their illnesses.
AB I compared different people's experiences, I realized that some people's
situations forced them into the present. I then looked at how my rendering of
living one day at a time did not apply to them. I reviewed earlier interviews and
began to seek published accounts of illness narratives that might clarify the
comparison. AB is evident in the distinctions between these two categories above,
focused coding prompts you to begin to see the relationships and patterns
between categories.
Concluding Thoughts
Your I!le,mos will form the core of your grounded theory. Following up on ideas
and questions that carne up while you wrote them will push your work forward.
Now you can set aside those memos that you deem to be finished and work on
those that still raise nagging questions. Memos provide a record of your
research and of your analytic progress. Do keep file copies of each one so that
you have the chronological set and can retrieve an earlier idea that you had
discarded. You can revisit, review, and revise your memos with a critical eye as
you proceed. Like me, you may find that a little time and distance allows gaps
and holes in your memos to appear. On returning to them you may identify
your next step in an instant and, moreover, take your ideas to a more abstract
analytic level.
Perhaps more often than solving our analytic problems, studying our memosparticularly
early memos-points to gaps we need to fill. Our ideas are tentative
and the memos reveal that we need to do more work to strengthen our categories.
When we realize that our categories are weak or incomplete, we can
seek more data, but how do we do that? Which data should we seek? How will
this new material solve our analytic problems? The next chapter will show you
how grounded theorists grapple with these problems and often solve them.
Plan to return to the empirical world. In the meantime, keep writing memos.
NOTES
1 For memos that make qmck preliminary comments and converse wrth a co-author. see
Anselm Strauss"s (1987: 111-112) memo.
2 In tlus sense, grounded theonsts include fewer field anecdotes and less descripnon than
other qualitative approaches.We often fragment actions, events, and participants' stories in
service to our developrng analyses. Glaser (1998) lauds such fragmentanon as necessary to
move the theory forward. Narrative analysts, phenomenologists, and some postrnodernists
object to fracturing partiopants' stories into fragments because they believe the story
needs to be preserved (although often rn condensed form) in its wholeness and that the
form the story takes as well as the content, provide significant insight into its meanrng.
3 Glaser (2001) clarifies Ius stance on comparing incident to rncident in tlus volume but
argues that small sample siZe does not mean limited inodents because people can talk at
MEMO-WRITING
length and be re-interviewed.Whether and how well his logtc works ill actual practice is
an empincal question.Telling incidents become evident durillg data-gathering and analysiS
and may not affect all participants, thereby lirruting the source of comparuons. Many,
if not most, grounded theory studies rely on one-shot illtemews (see also, CreswelL
1998). Thus, researchers may not discover participants· other incidents that might offer
sources ofcomparison.A researcher also loses the chance to ask more questions about the
illCident of ongtnal interest. Grounded theory studies with small samples seldom match
the 1nsight ofdetailed case studies such as EdwardJ. Speedling's (1982) study ofeight men
and therr families during and after the men's hospitalizations for heart artacks. Speedling
was a participant observer at the hospital for several months before choosing men for his
study. After selectmg the men. he visited and illtemewed them and therr families mulnple
times from their arrival m intensive care through their convalescence and reconstrucnon
of life at home.
4 Adapted from Kathy Charrnaz (1999) Stones of suffering: subjects' stories and research
narratives. Qualitative Health Researdt 9: 362-382.
5 Don't castigate yoursel£ Some good writers procrasonate, then illch along, word by word.
You may be absorbing the matenal at a preconscious level and need that time to have
your ideas come together. Just try to flow With the process, recogruze your patterns, and,
ifneed be, build in some steps and sttategtes that help you move forward.
6 Those of us who have taught courses on writmg routmely illdude these techiuques. For
more ideas and excellent advice, see Eide (1995) and Flowers (1993).
7 Dey (1999) is correct ill argtung that categonzanon ill grounded theory 1S more complex
and problemanc than its origtnators suggest. I agree With Dey that categonzanon illvolves
mferences as well as classificanon.
95
Theoretical Sampling,
Saturation, and Sorting
Turns and twists in your research journey leave you with questions
about directions to take, how quickly to proceed, and what you will
have when you arrive. Theoretical sampling prompts you to retrace
your steps or take a new path when you have some tentative categories
and emerging, but incomplete ideas. By going back into the
empirical world and collecting more data about the properties of your
category, you can saturate its properties with data and write more
memos, making them more analytic as you proceed. Afterwards, you
are ready to sort and integrate memos on your theoretical categories.
You may find it helpful to chart the course with diagrams and
maps that explain what you have and where you are going.
Suppose that you have arrived at some preliminary-and perhaps tentativecategories.
While making earlier comparisons between data, you selected
some focused codes and wrote memos on them. Now several categories look
like promising abstract tools for rendering your data analytically. Yet one quick
reading of these memos tells you: These categories are intriguing but thin. You
have not yet defined your categories and their
properties clearly. Too much still remains
assumed, unknown, or questionable. Instead
you want robust categories that stand on
firm, not shaky grounds. What do you do?
How can grounded theory strategies advance
your analytic thinking at this stage of the
·································..
/ Theoretical sampling means \
seeking pertinent data to
develop your emerging
theory. The main purpose of
theoretical sampling is to
elaborate and refine the
research? categories constituting your
The answer is to gather more data that theory. You conduct theoretical
focus on the category and its properties. This sampling by sampling to
strategy is theoretical sampling, which means develop the properties of
your category(ies) until no
seeking and collecting pertinent data to
new properties emerge.
elaborate and refine categories in your •·•••.•••••••••••••••.•.•.••••••••••·
emerging theory.
You conduct theoretical sampling by sampling to develop the properties
of your category(ies} until no new properties emerge. Thus, you saturateyour categories
with data and subsequently sort and/or diagram them to integrate your
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
emerging theory.1
Conducting theoretical sampling can keep you from becoming
stuck in unfocused analyses. Glaser and Strauss (1967; Glaser, 1978, 1998, 2001;
Strauss, 1987) created the strategies of theoretical sampling, saturation, and sorting.
Despite Glaser's continued efforts to explicate what theoretical sampling and
saturation entail and Strauss and Corbin's (1990, 1998) explanations, researchers
commonly misunderstand how grounded theorists use these strategies.
This chapter consists of guidelines for conducting theoretical sampling, saturating
your categories and sorting them into an integrated theoretical statement.
I draw upon an interview with jane Hood2
and her book Becoming a Two-job
Family (1983), as well as on other published materials to illustrate theoretical
sampling. Hood is one of the very few authors whose grounded theory analysis
and methodological decisions are both explicit. Because qualitative researchers
routinely adopt the term 'saturation,' I qualify its meaning in grounded theory,
show how it differs from standard understandings and suggest where some
grounded theorists themselves have taken it amiss. The chapter ends with ideas
about how to do theoretical sorting.
In the interview excerpt below,Jane Hood recounts how she used grounded
theory strategies in her study. In her book, she specifies that these were not
dual-career families. Rather they were working and lower-middle-class parents
both of whom had full-time jobs or were one-career-one-job families. The
thrust of Hood's shifted as she studied her initial data. Originally, she
had planned to study married women's self-concepts and friendship networks
when they returned to work after having children. Early in Hood's fieldwork,
however, she discovered an intriguing family issue: how couples negotiated
childcare and housework when women returned to the workforce. AB a result,
she shifted her data collection to address this issue. Hood's data include 1)
material from a small pilot study, 2) in-depth first interviews of 16 wives, 3) indepth
second interviews of these wives, 4) interviews with their husbands, 5) a
follow-up questionnaire six years later, 6) telephone interviews she conducted
six to seven years after the second round of interviews, and 7) fi.eldnotes about
each interview and its setting, phone call, and informal meeting.
When I talked with her, Hood described how she adopted grounded theory
strategies from the beginning of her research:
It looks like I have something going on here [in her data]. Let's say, in my
case it was with women who were working because they really wanted to.
Women who were working because they wanted to weren't getting much
help from their husbands with housework in my two-job family study. I
began to wonder whether women who were working because they had to
and whose income was really valued by their husbands might get more
help but the way Ihad done my [initial] sampling I had asked for volunteers
to be interviewed about the experience of going back to work after having
been home full-time. So the volunteers tended to be people who wanted
to tell me how wonderful it was to work. i wasn't getting people who were
going to work more reluctantly because they had to. But since Iwas really
interested in how women who returned to work kind of bargained with their
spouses about getting help with childcare and housework, it was critical
that I look at people with a little more bargaining power. who went to work
97
98 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
because their husbands really needed them to work. So then I went out
and looked for those women and lo and behold it made a big difference.
i did have already one or two women in my original collection of seven
or eight interviews who were working because they had to and that gave
me a clue that that was an important distinction. Then I expanded on that
category and that was theoretical sampling. Because I had a category of
women who went back to work because they wanted to-for self-fulfillmentand
another category who went back to work because their family really
needed the money.
[The categories] came out of analyzing the data ... I would ask them,
'Why did you go back to work?' Some of the women would say 'Well I went
back to work because I was bored at home," 'I went back to work because
I was getting eczema and I went to the doctor and the doctor told me that
I had to get out of the house.· or 'I went back to work because I really
needed more than just staying at home'... -for self-fulfillment reasons.
I coded reasons for going back to work. I was also coding the kind of
help they were getting from their husbands and the kinds of things their
husbands were saying about their income. When they went back to work
because they wanted to, their husbands were more likely to be saying, 'Well
we don't really need you to work. If you can't handle the housework, then
you can just quit," etc. They didn't have much bargaining power because
their husbands weren't recognizing their income as necessary. They had
gone back to work for self-fulfillment.
Then i realized that when husbands would say-because I would ask
husbands, 'What would happen if she quit?' and they would say 'Well, I'd
have to take a second job' or 'I don't know what we'd do if she quit.' In
those cases, husbands couldn't say, 'Well. you know, she just can quit
whenever she wants.'
'Quit whenever she wants' became a really important analytical code as
far as reasons for going back to work: self-fulfillment vs. economic necessity---
a few people did both. But what was really important is that the husband
recognized and was willing to say that they couldn't easily get along without
her income. And that they would have to make major changes-maybe sell
their house, cut back on lots of things or-major changes in their lifestyle
would be required if the wife quit work. If she could quit whenever she
wanted, if that's what the husband basically said, then they described her
income as 'icing on the cake.' That was another category that developed
from the work. It's funny how many guys referred to it that way, 'icing on the
cake.· 'It's a little extra.· When they thought of it that way, they didn't see
her as a coprovider-that was part of the definition of a secondary provider,
they described her income as 'icing on the cake' ... Even when a woman's
salary was paying the whole mortgage payment, this guy said, well he was
really putting the bread on the table; he wouldn't recognize her as a
coprovider. She made the same amount of income as many women who
were recognized as making a necessary contribution. He wouldn't let go of
the provider role.
This is what's different [about grounded theory], I suppose. when we're
developing these categories and developing an analysis as we go along,
we are really looking at the data as we code and developing a grounded
concept. We call them categories but it's really grounded in the data.
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION. SORTING
Hood's coding and sampling methods shaped her substantive study from its
beginnings.3
Because she had initially expected to study changes in women's
self-concepts and friendship networks, she only interviewed wives during her
first round ofinterviews. Yet her early analysis revealed that she needed to interview
husbands as well as focus more on women who had financial pressures to
return to work Her in vivo codes such as 'quit whenever she wants' and 'icing
on the cake' provide vivid indicators of certain husbands' stances toward having
their wives' work Such codes also gave Hood strong clues about how these
husbands' views played out in interaction.
Note how Hood traced the conditions under which women gained bargaining
power. Through following what she defined in her data, she linked bargaining
power to marital roles. In Hood's book, role analysis in marriage
emerges as a dominant theme. Her work fits into the family of theoretical codes
on roles and extends knowledge of how couples enact roles. Granted, other
researchers might construct the study differently, according to what they saw in
the data. Another researcher, for example, might also identify the bargaining
issues but pursue a different line of analysis with them, such as the partuers'
emotions about bargaining. Still another researcher might interview lesbian or
gay couples who take neither the concept of gender nor conventional gender
roles for granted. Rich data can spark multiple directions of inquiry.
Hood built on her in marital roles and developed a theoretical framework
and proposed testable hypotheses that locate bargaining power within the
context of the marriage. She showed how these wives' bargaining power varied
in relation to each spouse's commitment to and investment in the marital relationship,
work and family priorities, the extent of the wife's role overload, and
the couple's style of resolving conflicts. Hood's work reveals how a researcher
acts on her theoretical and substantive interests and engages her data as she
constructs a grounded theory through making comparisons at each analytic
level. Consider several of Hood's concluding remarks in her book:
None of the couples in this book decided to become coproviders in order to
adopt a more equal division of labour. Instead they became twojob couples
either because the wife needed to get out of the house or the family needed
money, or both. In the process of becoming a twojob family, some couples also
developed a more equal balance of power in their marriages and a more equal
division of labour in the household. This move towards equality was. however.
an unforeseen and unintended consequence of becoming coproviders.
... Couples who purposefully decide to share roles are like couples who
began to share roles 'without really thinking about it' in at least one important
respect. however. Most find that the new common ground created by
role sharing and the increased communication necessary to maintain rolesharing
relationships brings them closer together. (1983: 197-198)
Theoretical Sampling
Distinguishing Theoretical Sampling from Other Types of Sampling
To understand and to use theoretical sampling, we must relinquish our preconceptions
about what sampling means. Sampling to develop a researcher's
99
:100 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
emerging theoretical categories distinguishes theoretical sampling from other
forms of sampling. Sometimes qualitative researchers claim to use theoretical
sampling but do not follow the logic of grounded theory. They mistake theoretical
sampling for the following types of sampling:
• Sampling to address initial research questions
• Sampling to reflect population distributions
• Sampling to find negative cases
• Sampling until no new data emerge.
Tnese sampling strategies mistake theoretical sampling for conventional
qualitative research approaches. Of course anyone who writes a research proposal
seeks data to address his or her research questions-but this sampling is of
an initial type. Initial sampling provides a point of departure, not of theoretical
elaboration and refinement. We cannot assume to know our categories in
advance, much less have them contained in our beginning research questions.
Grounded theory logic presupposes that we will construct categories through
the comparative methods of analyzing data.
Remember that criteria for initial sampling differ from those you invoke
while theoretical sampling. Initial sampling in grounded theory is where you
start whereas theoretical sampling directs you where to go. For initial sampling,
you establish sampling criteria for people, cases, sit- :•.••••
1
.n.it.ia·l·s·a··m·p··lin··g·i·n·······.•
uations, and!or settings before you enter the field.
You need to find relevant materials for your study grounded theory is
whether that leads you to sampling people, settings, where you start,
or larger structures such as government agencies or whereas theoretical
organizations. sampling directs you
If, for example, you plan to study customer service • where to go. ••
relationships, gaining access to observe actual •··• ••••••••••· ••·•••·••
encounters is a prerequisite. What you will see and hear depends, of course, on
your position in the organization and how you negotiate it You will have access
to some things but not others.4
Ifyou obtain permission to interview customer service
agents but not to observe them, then your study shifts in another direction.
Seemingly straightforward topics may soon become complex. If you wish to
explore drinking among people with disabilities, then you must start with at
least a provisional definition stating what the term 'disability' will cover. Then
you need to find out what drinking-and disability-mean to your participants
and find out if you need to talk with their families or friends. You must decide
whether you will include people with disabilities who view themselves as recovering
alcoholics. Topics that prompt you to contact certain people but not others
already circumscribe what you address. You should explicate and, not least
among your tasks, examine your own preconceptions about drinking.
Theoretical sampling also follows a different logic than sampling techniques
for traditional quantitative research design. The purpose of theoretical sampling
is to obtain data to help you explicate your categories. When your categories
are full, they reflect qualities of your respondents' experiences and
provide a useful analytic handle for understanding them. In short, theoretical
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
sampling pertains only to conceptual and theoretical development; it is not
about representing a population or increasing the statistical generalizability of
your results. Many quantitative studies require random samples of people
whose characteristics are representative ofthe population under study. Whereas
quantitative researchers want to use their data to make statistical inferences about
their target populations, grounded theorists aim to fit their emerging theories with
their data. Quantitative researchers test preconceived hypotheses; grounded theorists
sometimes offer the grist for emergent hypotheses that other researchers
might pursue.
Colleagues and teachers who invoke the logic of quantitative research often
mistakenly advise qualitative researchers to make their samples represent distributions
of larger populations. The error of this advice lies in assuming that qualitative
research aims for generalizability. Although this strategy may be useful for
initial sampling, it does not fit the logic of grounded theory and can result in the
researcher collecting unnecessary and conceptually thin data.5
During our talk,
Jane Hood commented on understanding theoretical sampling:
Very few people do [understand it]. I really think it's a craft ... You need
somebody to give you feed-back as you're trying to learn how to do this
because there is a subtle difference between theoretical sampling and
other kinds of purposeful sampling. Theoretical sampling is purposeful
sampling but it's purposeful sampling according to categories that one
develops from one's analysis and these categories are not based upon
quotas: they're based on theoretical concerns. And-the authors of textbooks
don't get it. The authors of textbooks typically say [something like],
'Oh, you don't have enough women; go get more.' No, that's not theoretical
sampling. That's basically quota sampling or sampling on demographic
characteristics. There's nothing wrong with starting out that way but that's
your first step. Theoretical sampling really makes grounded theory special
and is the major strength of grounded theory because theoretical sampling
allows you to tighten what I call the corkscrew or the hermeneutic spiral
so that you end up with a theory that perfectly matches your data.
Because you choose the next people to talk to or the next cases to find
based upon the [theoretical] analysis and you don't waste your time with
all sorts of things that have nothing to do with your developing theory.6
As Hood states, many researchers sample different settings or individuals to
reflect empirical distributions or situations but they are not conducting theoretical
sampling. For example, a specialist in organizations may plan to sample different
businesses with both strict and loose systems of authority. This plan may
produce interesting contrasts in data but it does not constitute theoretical sampling.
Again, until researchers construct conceptual categories from the data and
sample to develop these categories, they are not conducting theoretical sampling.
The search for negative cases raises more ambiguous questions. Whether or
not sampling negative cases complements or contradicts grounded theory
depends on the situation. Qualitative researchers often use negative cases to find
new variables or to provide alternative explanations from their developing theory.
The logic of negative cases assumes asking whether the data include individuals,
:1.01
l.02 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
situations, or themes that do not fit your analysis. Virginia Olesen asks a further
question: Did you try to find those cases? (Personal communication, June 5, 2005}.
The source of the negative cases and how the researcher uses these cases
shapes their relative fit with grounded theory. Did these cases arise in the data
or did the researcher import them into the research process as though they furthered
theoretical sampling? If the researcher does not define negative cases in
the comparative analysis of his or her data, a search for them may result in
importing them. Ifnegative cases emerge in the data, however, these cases may
indicate the need to refine one's emerging theory. Examining negative cases
comes close to the emphasis on variation in a category or process and analytic
density in grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990}. Becker (1998} points out
that some researchers consider hypothetical negative cases or draw on fiction
for possibilities. To the extent that such practices cause the researcher to stray
from their studied empirical world, they remain inconsistent with the grounded
theory emphasis on building one's analysis from it.7
Perhaps the most common error occurs when researchers confuse theoretical
sampling with gathering data until they find the same patterns reoccurring. This
strategy differs from theoretical sampling because these researchers have not
aimed their data-gathering toward explicit development of theoreticalcategories
derived from analyses of their studied worlds. Instead, the patterns describe
empirical themes in their studied worlds.
Some forms of sampling come much closer to theoretical sampling than
others. Pertti Alasuutari's (1996} sampling strategies share similarities with theoretical
sampling. He notes that his strategic selection of case study examples
resembled theoretical sampling; however, his objective differed. Alasuutari's
ethnographic study of a local Finnish tavern focused on the lives of regular
male patrons who were heavy drinkers. Through his studies of alcohol use
(1992, 1995), he aimed to gain a 'unified picture of different cultural logics
within which the same historical structural conditions are viewed in people's
lived experience,' not to develop a general theory (1996, p. 376}. Nevertheless,
his focus on cultural logics led to a sophisticated cultural theory of alcoholism
(1992). When discussing the research process involved in this project,
Alasuutari states:
In ethnographic research the testing of hypotheses may have to do with
more than just the kinds of thing you're making observations about or the
kinds of subjects that you raise with the informants. On the basis of your
results you may decide to move on and collect a new data set, as I did in
the AA group project. When I learned that A-Guilds in Finland had their own
journal. it seemed a good idea to go through all its back volumes to determine
whether the 'treatment philosophy' I had discovered in Tampere was
a local or a more national phenomenon. (1995: 172)
The Logic of Theoretical Sampling
Theoretical sampling involves starting with data, constructing tentative ideas
about the data, and then examining these ideas through further empirical inquiry.
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION. SORTING
Consider how Hood (1983) kept moving back and forth between data collection
and data analysis throughout her research. Codes became categories. Early categories
were suggestive but not yet definitive. Further data collection strengthened
them but Hood then saw new gaps in her nascent analysis. She returned to the
field and asked further questions-and kept writing and analyzing.
Memo-writing leads directly to theoretical sampling. Theoretical sampling is
strategic, specific, and systematic. Because you intend to use it to elaborate and
refine your theoretical categories, conducting theoretical sampling depends on
having already identified a category(ies). This pivotal grounded theory strategy
helps you to delineate and develop the properties of your category and its
range of variation.
Writing memos has already enabled you to flag incomplete categories and
gaps in your analysis. Engaging in theoretical sampling prompts you to predict
where and how you can find needed data to fill gaps and to saturate categories.
Like Hood's hunches, your predictions arise from your immediate analytic
work. They are not off-hand conjectures. Rather, they emerge from your
grounded comparative analysis of earlier data. Follow hunches about where to
find data that will illuminate these categories and then go collect these data.
Next, code them and compare your codes with each other, earlier codes, and
your emerging categories. Write increasingly more abstract and conceptual
memos as you proceed to record your new comparisons-and all those flashes
of insight you have while filling out your categories. Theoretical sampling
ensures that you construct full and robust categories and leads you to clarify
relationships between categories.
Theoretical sampling not only helps you fill out the properties of your major
categories, you can learn more about how a basic process develops and changes.
When you engage in theoretical sampling, you seek statements, events, or cases
that will illuminate your categories. Like Hood, you may add new participants or
observe in new settings. Quite possibly, you may ask earlier participants further
questions or inquire about experiences that you had not covered before.
How does theoretical sampling benefit your analysis from the start? From early
in the research process, you check emerging questions as you compare data with
data. Note how Hood's comparisons between data led her to make conjectures
about her categories that she subsequently checked out through further data collection.
Her story about how she used theoretical sampling reveals how she
formed analytic questions and used deductive logic. For example, Hood predicted
that married women's bargaining power increased with their husbands'
awareness and open acknowledgment of the wives' vital financial contribution to
the household. Then Hood checked her hunches and found them confirmed in
subsequent data collection. In this sense, theoretical sampling entails both ofwhat
we commonly refer to as inductive and deductive reasoning.
The particular form of reasoning invoked in grounded theory makes it an
abductive method, because grounded theory includes reasoning about experience
for making theoretical conjectures and then checking them through further
experience.8
Abductive reasoning about the data starts with the data and
subsequently moves toward hypothesis formation (Deely, 1990; Fann, 1970;
Rosenthal, 2004). In brief, abductive inference entails considering all possible
:103
104 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
theoretical explanations for the data, forming ·b· ·. •"·\.
hypotheses for each possible explanation,
checking them empirically by exam- · entails considering all possible ·
theoretical explanations for the
ining data, and pursuing the most plausible d t 1
. h th f
a a, orm1ng ypo eses or
explanation. each possible explanation,
At this point, researchers take their ideas checking them empirically by
emanatingfrom experience, form a follow-up examining data, and pursuing
hypothesis, and then move back to check the most plausible explanation.
this hypothesis in experience (Peirce, 1958). ••..•••••.••••••••••.•••••••••••••.•••
Thus after you examine cases, you make a logical inference that offers a theoretical
interpretation of the relationships between these cases, and then you
return to the field to check and evaluate your inference. These processes are
central to theoretical sampling and are apparent in Hood's reflections during the
interview about how she did theoretical sampling.
You ... go back and forth between data collection and analysis and as your
theory develops through the constant comparative method, you know with
each step which data you need to collect in order to refine your theory. So
in a way I see grounded theory as a combination of inductive and, to some
extent. deductive work. You're inductively developing theory and then
you're at least trying out your hunches here continuously ... We can call it
an abductive method.... I wouldn't say we are exactly testing theory,
depending what you mean by testing, but we are testing our hunches.
As Hood's remarks imply, conducting theoretical sampling advances your
analysis. Simultaneously it keeps you from getting stuck in either unfocused
data collection or foiled analyses. Use theoretical sampling to keep you moving
toward such emergent objectives such as:
• To delineate the properties of a category
• To check hunches about categories
• To saturate the properties of a category
• To distinguish between categories
• To cl'a:rify relationships between emerging categories
• To identify variation in a process.
Theoretical sampling is emergent. It follows constructing tentative categories.
You cannot know which ideas you will need to sample before you begin analysis.
The specific reason why you conduct theoretical sampling depends on the
analytic problems you are grappling with and what ideas, gaps, ambiguities,
and questions subsequently arise.9
Identifying problems and seeking solutions for them takes a certain amount
of candor and distance. Are your categories analytically thin? Insufficiently
supported? Are your ideas about the relationships between categories hazy?
Are they indistinct but perhaps suggestive? Good researchers learn to recognize
such analytic problems-and work to resolve them. Theoretical sampling
in grounded theory provides a valuable tool for developing your analysis and
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
correcting trouble spots. Grappling with analytic problems is part of the
research process. Feeling confused and uncertain-but learning to tolerate the
ambiguity-shows your growth as a researcher. Researchers who treat the analytic
process as transparent often have superficial analyses.
Conducting theoretical sampling encourages you to follow up on analytic
leads. As a result, you improve your study through:
• Specifying the relevant properties of your categories
• Increasing the precision of your categories
• Providing the substance to move your material from description to analysis
• Making your analysis more abstract and generalizable
• Grounding your conjectures in data
• Explicating the analytic links between or among categories
• Increasing the parsimony of your theoretical statements.
Theoretical sampling gives you the data to delineate the properties of a category.
When I was trying to sort through how people experienced a serious
chronic illness, their accounts abounded with tales ofuneven days, troublesome
symptoms, and lost time. When comparing these accounts, I devised the category,
'experiencing intrusive illness.no Certainly the category itself is mundane
and specific to illness as stated, but what does it include? How might I conceptualize
it? For what types of experiences beyond illness might experiencing
unwanted intrusions have relevance?
After gathering more data through theoretical sampling, I defined the category
of intrusive illness by its analytic properties as demanding continued
attention, allotted time, and forced accommodation. Note how these properties
fit the following account:
There's a lot of things I can't do.... When Igo to night school ... I have to
go straight home to lay down before I do, or I can't go, where years ago I
wouldn't have had to do that.
And I have really had problems with lights. Ican't be in a room that has
fluorescent lighting without wearing special glasses. So if I go to class at
night, I have to sit there with sunglasses on. Then that makes me even
more tired. It makes my eyes swell shut ... And I've also missed three
classes and before I've never missed class. (Charmaz, 1991a: 43)
As I examined many cases and incidents, I aimed to make the properties of the
category of intrusive illness reflect the actions people took toward their illness
and reveal meanings they attributed to it In their view, the intrusiveness of their
illness imposed special demands on them if they were to maintain some semblance
of their earlier lives. The properties of this category seem straightforward
although they provide grist for making abstract statements about time and self.
When conducting theoretical sampling about experiencing an intrusive illness, I
gathered more data on how people defined their uneven days, what allotting
time to illness-related tasks to get through the day meant to them, when they felt
forced to accommodate to illness, which accommodations they made, and how
l.OS
:106 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
they saw themselves. For example, one woman wanted to minimize her co-workers'
knowledge of her condition. She felt forced to complete her work assignments
early in the day before fatigue overtook her and tried to camouflage her symptoms
in the afternoon. As her problems with getting through the workday
increased, she realized that she could no longer hope to hold on until retirement
eight years hence. When asking about such accommodations, few questions
elicited many stories. Moreover, I witnessed events that illuminated how intrusive
illness affected my research participants and was able to piece their implicit
views and actions together as I developed the analysis.
Note that theoretical sampling gives you the material to compare theoretical
category with category. Think about whether you have lumped properties
under one category that might call for constructing separate, distinctive categories.
Experiencing intrusive illness differs from the other two ways of experiencing
illness, as an interruption or immersion in it. By defining each category
by its properties, I raise the analytic level of the category and sharpen the
definitions of each.
Delineating links between views and actions is one way of sharpening your
ideas. Subsequently, an analysis of mundane experiences in a field setting
became more analytic, abstract and potentially generalizable. Theoretical sampling
gives your work analytic depth and precision. As you engage in theoretical
sampling, your work gains clarity and generality that transcends the immediate
topic. By focusing on your theoretical categories rather than on a single empirical
topic, theoretical sampling leads you to sample across substantive areas. Thus,
engaging in theoretical sampling can encourage you to raise your theory to a
forinal, more abstract level that cuts across different substantive areas.
If we moved the analysis of having an intrusive experience across substantive
fields, where would we take it? Certainly some types of caregiving demand
continued attention, allotted time and forced accommodation-and may be
unwelcome, similar to having a serious illness. A few weeks ago, a caregiver
whose father was dying of cancer read portions of my book. She commented
on how my analysis of time applied to her caregiving experience as well as to
her father's situation. People who find themselves mired in unexpected,
unpleasa.Q.t legal or bureaucratic battles might offer insights on how an intrusive
experience encroaches on their lives. Experiencing identity theft or obtaining
special services at school for a child with learning disabilities are two examples.
In each situation, we could explore how properties ofexperiencing an unwanted
and persistent situation shape qualities of time-and subsequent selves and situations.
We might compare what began as an unwelcome, sometimes shocking
disruption with situations that began as inconvenient and became intrusive. We
could look at how and when the intrusive experience takes over people's lives.
Depending on how encompassing it is, life changes may occur that have consequences
for these individuals' development of self. Had I taken my analysis
of self and time beyond the experience of illness, I could have constructed a
formal theory of them.
Anchoring your categories in a solid substantive base first gives you leads
about where and how to proceed in other areas. Jane Hood's book provides a
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
substantive grounded theory ofmarital bargaining about family work.11
Through
her analysis, she builds a foundation from which further research across fields
could generate a formal theory of both silent and strategic bargaining. She might
establish, for example, a theoretical continuum between gradual accommodation
and explicit negotiations. In any case, she has the initial material to seek new individuals
and groups involved in bargaining. Then she could check how participants'
relative equal or unequal power and different stakes in the outcome of
bargaining affect how it proceeds and what happens as a result of it
Using Theoretical Sampling
You can use theoretical sampling in both early and later stages of your
research-ifyou have categories to direct your sampling. Use theoretical sampling
as a strategy to narrow your focus on emerging categories and as a technique
to develop and refine them. Begin theoretical sampling when you have
some preliminary categories to develop. Theoretical sampling helps you to
check, qualify, and elaborate the boundaries of your categories and to specify
the relations among categories. Initially, theoretical sampling helps you to fill
out the properties of a category so that you can create an analytic definition and
explication of it. Later, theoretical sampling may help you demonstrate links
among categories.
Some attempts to theoretical sampling may not be particularly theoretical.
In this case, researchers pursue an interesting finding but they may not
theorize its significance. They fail to push the boundaries of a substantive finding
and answer the 'So what?' question. Of what larger, more abstract theoretical
category or problem is this finding a part? Theoretical sampling means
more than following up on intriguing earlier codes, which good researchers
routinely do. Conduct theoretical sampling after you have already defined and
tentatively conceptualized relevant ideas that indicate areas to probe with more
data. Otherwise, early theoretical sampling may result in one or more of the
common grounded theory pitfalls:
• Premature closure of analytic categories
• Trite or redundant categories
• Over-reliance on overt statements for elaborating and checking categories
• Unfocused or unspecified categories.
Textbook authors often treat theoretical sampling as a procedure that
researchers conduct through interviews. Theoretical sampling is less of an
explicit procedure than a strategy that you invoke and fit to your specific study.
Methods for conducting theoretical sampling vary accordingly. Theoretical
sampling can entail studying documents, conducting observations, or participating
in new social worlds as well as interviewing or reinterviewing with a
focus on your theoretical categories.
What you look for through theoretical sampling and how you conduct it
depends on your purposes in doing it. Consistent with the logic of grounded
:1.07
:108 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
theory, theoretical sampling is emergent. ./···INi··'h·a·t. ·y·o·u· '
10
'
0
' ·k·:o·r·t·h·r·o·u·g·h.··'·····\.
Your developing ideas shape what you do, ,,
areas you tap and questions you pose ; theoretical sampling and how ;
while theoretical sampling. : you conduct it depends on your :
When I was trying to figure out how purposes in doing it. Consistent
with the logic of grounded
people with chronic illnesses defined the theory, theoretical sampling is
passage of time, I went back to several par- emergent. Your developing
ticipants whom I had interviewed before to ideas shape what you do and
ask them more focused questions about the questions you pose while
how they perceived times of earlier crisis theoretical sampling.
·. .·and when time seemed to slow, quicken, ··•• ........................ ·.. ·•••
drift, or drag. Because such topics resonated with their experiences, they
responded to esoteric questions and offered numerous insights about meanings of
temporal duration. For example, when I studied their stories, I realized that chronically
ill adults implicitly located their self-concepts in the past, present, or future.12
These timeframes reflected the form and content of self and mirrored hopes and
dreams for selfas well as beliefs and understandings about self. Hence, I made 'the
selfin time' a major category. Thereafter, I asked more people how they saw themselves
in relation to the past, present, or future. An elderly working-class woman
said without hesitation:
I see myself in the future now. If you'd asked where I saw myself eight
months ago, I would have said, 'the past.' I was so angry then because I
had been so active. And to go downhill as fast as Idid-1 felt life had been
.awfully cruel to me. Now I see myself in the future because there's something
the Lord wants me to do. Here I sit all crumpled in this chair not
being able to do anything for myself and still there's a purpose for me to
be here. [Laughs.]l wonder what it could be. (Charmaz, 1991a: 256)
Through theoretical sampling you can elaborate the meaning of your categories,
discover variation within them, and define gaps among categories. By gaps
between categories, I mean that your current categories do not account for the
full range of relevant experience. Theoretical sampling relies on comparative
methodSTor discovering these gaps and finding ways to fill them. These methods
are particularly helpful when you attempt to analyze liminal experience and tacit
views. For example, as I talked with people about their experiences ofillness and
time and wrote memos about the properties of locating one's self in time, I realized
that meanings of the past differed (Charmaz, 199la). For some people, the
past was a tangled web in which they felt ensnared. They sought to explain and
account for past events that had brought them to the present Other people
located themselves in a familiar past because the present seem so alien and inexplicable.
Still others located themselves in a reconstructed past that shone bright
with happiness, fullness, and vibrancy when juxtaposed against a lived present
with which they did not identify. AB I analyzed differences in how people located
themselves in the past, my subcategories depicting their pasts, 'the past as a tangled
web,' 'the familiar past and the inexplicable present,' and 'the reconstructed
past,' refined the larger category of the self in the past and showed how living in
the past varied.
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
Discovering Variation
Variation within a process usually becomes apparent while you are conducting
theoretical sampling. For example, when living with physical impairment, people
show considerable variation in how they act and feel about it They may ignore
impairment, minimize it, struggle against it, reconcile themselves to it, embrace it,
or adapt to it13
Not only may these ways of living with impairment differ among
people, but also they may differ over time with the same individual. I wanted to see
what changes occurred over time, so I talked with a subset of my interview participants
for a number ofyears. Being selective about which data you seek and where
you seek them aids you to see variation in the studied process. You focus on certain
actions, experiences, events, or issues, not on individuals per se, to understand how,
when, and why your theoretical categories vary. However, you will likely gain
more knowledge about those experiences, events, or issues that you seek to treat
theoretically through observing or talking with certain individuals. For example,
one of my main categories was 'immersion in illness' (Charmaz, 199la). Major
properties of immersion include recasting life around illness, slipping into illness
routines, pulling into one's inner circle, facing dependency, and experiencing an
altered (slowed) time perspective. Activities of all sorts took longer but not everyone's
time perspective changed, despite being immersed in illness.
How could I account for this phenomenon? What supported maintaining the
time perspective of a former workaday world? By going back through my data,
I gained some leads. Then I talked with more people about specific experiences
and events that influenced their time perspective. Theoretical sampling helped
me to refine the analysis and make it more complex. I then added a category
'variations in immersion' to highlight and account for different experiences of
immersion in illness.
My earlier interviews contained hints that immersion in illness varied and
affected experiencing time but the significance of this variation only occurred to
me after I developed the larger category of immersion in illness. I had begun to
see variations in what being immersed in illness was like when I compared telling
events and specific experiences of people with different illnesses, with different
life situations, and different ages. Subsequently, theoretical sampling helped me
to define more specific forms of variation. For example, I sampled to learn how
illness and time differed for people who spent months in darkened rooms and
how both varied when people anticipated later improvement or defined their situations
as facing continued uncertainty. Demarcations of time stretched when
people had few activities, little companionship, and minimal responsibilities.
Making comparisons explicit through successive memos enabled me to draw
connections that I did not initially discern. The memo became a short section of
a chapter that begins as follows and then goes on to detail each remaining point:
Variations in Immersion
A lengthy immersion in illness shapes daily life and affects how one experiences
time. Conversely, ways of experiencing time dialectically affect the
qualities of immersion in illness. The picture above of immersion and time
has sharp outlines. What sources of variation soften or alter the picture
:1.09
llO CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
of immersion and time? The picture may vary according to the person's
1) type of illness, 2) kind of medication, 3) earlier time perspective, 4) life
situation, and 5) goals.
The type of illness shapes the experience and way of relating to time.
Clearly trying to manage diabetes necessitates gaining a heightened
awareness of timing the daily routines. But the effects of the illness may
remain much more subtle. People with Sjogren's syndrome, for example,
may have periods of confusion when they feel wholly out of synchrony with
the world around them. For them, things happen too quickly, precisely
when their bodies and minds function too slowly. Subsequently, they may
retreat into routines to protect themselves. Lupus patients usually must
retreat because they cannot tolerate the sun. Sara Shaw covered her windows
with black blankets when she was extremely ill. Thus, her sense of
chronological time became further distorted as day and night merged
together into an endless flow of illness. (Charmaz, 1991a: 93)
Theoretical sampling focuses further data collection to refine key categories
in your research. You can then define these categories quite explicitly and identify
their properties and parameters. Your subsequent memo-writing becomes
more precise, analytic, and incisive. Theoretical sampling keeps you moving
between targeted data collection and analytic memo-writing. You follow leads,
check out hunches, and refine your ideas in successive memos. Because theoretical
sampling forces you to check your ideas against direct empirical realities,
you have solid materials and sound ideas with which to work. You gain confidence
in your perceptions of your data and in your theorizing about them.
The logic of theoretical sampling implies a quick, focused method of gathering
pinpointed data. Some grounded theorists present it as an unproblematic
step in refining theory. Yet conducting theoretical sampling entails more than
technical and analytic procedures. It brings you back into empirical worlds with
all their ambiguities and tensions.
Empirical worlds have their own rules and traditions. Theoretical sampling
may not fit them. Textbook explanations of theoretical sampling seldom take
into account interactional reciprocities and situational demands. These technical
expl<J.llations ignore relationships and reciprocities in the field and all the
actual work it takes to gain ready access to information. You may not be able
to dash in, grab the needed data, and dart back to your desk. The lines between
involvement and distance in field research often blur and may require continual
renegotiation. Remember that human beings are unlikely to relish being
treated as objects from which you extract data. Reciprocities are important, and
listening and being there are among them. Some researchers may command
access on the basis of their authority and the prestige of their projects. Many
other researchers cannot Instead we gain access through the trust that emerges
through establishing on-going relationships and reciprocities. Ignoring such
reciprocities not only weakens your chances of obtaining telling data but, moreover,
dehumanizes your research participants-and yourself.
The logistics oflegitimacy, formal access, and entry also pose problems. During
a recent presentation on grounded theory, one researcher asked me, 'How do you
do theoretical sampling when you have to have approval of IREs (institutional
THEORETICAL SAMPLING. SATURATION, SORTING
review boards)?'14
An excellent question. Depending on the situation of your
participants and your situation, conducting theoretical sampling may require
further clearance with institutional committees. Biomedical models of experimentation
may well guide these committees. Through their decisions, they
attempt to enact principles of doing no harm to research subjects, anticipating
potential harm, and articulating strategies for minimizing and handling whatever
harm arises. Funded research proposals receive careful scrutiny before their principal
investigators can gather any data. Most researchers and students who pursue
unfunded research also must receive approval from institutional committees
before proceeding with their studies. How can they reconcile the emergent
process of doing grounded theory with institutional constraints on research?15
Given the current practices of institutional review committees, many qualitative
researchers try to anticipate all possible contingencies and account for them
in their research proposals. Taken literally, theoretical sampling poses obstacles
because you carmot anticipate what your core categories will be beforehand. You
can, however, create a rationale to justify using theoretical sampling later without
explaining the logic of theoretical sampling or specifying core categories in
advance.Just seek approval for a possible second and perhaps third set of interviews
and observations from the start It helps to include participant observation
at interview and field sites as part of your methodological approach. Multiple
interviews and observations give you access. A discourse ofclarification and confirmation
should then suffice to gain approval of your proposal. By delineating
key grounded theory steps, you show how you plan to increase the conceptual
precision of your emerging ideas and to focus your data-gathering to achieve this
precision as you proceed. Thus, your later observations, interviews, cases, or
other data are pinpointed to address conceptual issues. In short, building plans to
return to the field settings and key 'irlformants' irlto your original proposal gives
you some leeway to gather further data to develop properties of categories.
Similarly, when you design an interview study, plans to conduct follow-up interviews
on the major ideas will allow for theoretical sampling.
Adopting the language of member-checking irl your research proposal may
also help, as a large literature on member-checking has made it an acceptedand
sometimes expected-practice. Although member-checking generally refers
to taking ideas back to research participants for their confirmation, you can use
return visits to gather material to elaborate your categories. Cheryl Albas and
Dan Albas16
devised a clever method of checking and refining their categories
late in their research. They explain their major categories to certain participants
they have studied and then irlquire whether and to what extent these categories
fit each participant's experience. Albas and Albas observe the participant's
expressions given irl the conversation and those unwittingly given off. When
a participant offers bland agreement with their analysis, Albas and Albas conclude
that their categories have not penetrated the core of the participant's
experience. Subsequently, Albas and Albas engage the participant in a discussion
to generate new properties of a category or a range of categories. They
report that they have gained some of their best data from this technique.
Alasuutari (1992, 1996) irlvokes a similar strategy but turns it inside out Instead
of aiming to discover what he might have overlooked or under-analyzed, as
ii1
:1:12 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Albas and Albas did, he confronts his research participants with their tacit
actions. Thus, Alasuutari aims for what they have overlooked or understated.
He speaks from the standpoint of the researcher when he points out that informants
typically provide meaningful but partial interpretations. The researcher
must dig deeper to develop a more complete explanation. Alasuutari's strategies
for constructing this explanation resemble theoretical sampling. See how
he brought his observations back to his informants:
In one particular conversation ! raised the issue of why members were
always so eager to compete for the title of heaviest drinker and at the
same time to belittle the drinking of other members:
PA: Somehow I feel there's this feeling in this group that there's someone
here who hasn't drunk as much as the others or who's been
down and out for a shorter while than others. that you tend to belittle
that person's drinking, that. you know that's nothing really, I drank
a lot more than he did.
A: Where've you heard that?
PA: I have you know.
8: I see.
PA: Even during these sessions right here.
C: It's always better the sooner you have the sense to go and get help
isn't it.
A: That's right.
C: The longer you drink the more stupid you are, there's no doubt about
that.
PA: But do you brag about being more stupid?
C: You tend to color things a bit, like I've been drinking longer than you
have. You've only been drinking for a year but I've been there two
years. So the one who's been drinking a year realizes that this is the
point where i need to go and get help for myself. I'm so stupid that I
didn't have the sense to come and get help, I had to carry on. So this
is how I describe the situation so that there you are, I'm a bit better,
I know these things, a bit better.
When I raised this question, the members of the group first wanted to
deny my interpretation. even though I had clear examples of these sorts
of situations in my field notes. When at long last it is admitted that the
phenomenon really exists, member C (in the italicized section of his
speech) renders further support to my interpretation that the emphasis on
the seriousness of one's earlier alcohol problems is associated with the
respect that members show for practical experience. (1995: 170-171)
In this instance, Alasuutari offered his interpretation and pushed for a dialogue
about it.17
He gained confirmation of his view then pushed further later in the
same conversation. In my view, Alasuutari's effectiveness relied on dual sources:
strong bonds with group members and solid data from which to speak. Strong
bonds build trust and foster open conversations with research participants about
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
areas ordinarily ieft unspoken. Solid data ground the questions-despite their
provocative nature. What might be a preconceived leading question by an
unskilled observer can become an incisive strategy by a practiced ethnographer.
Interestingly, Alasuutari did not take the men's support for his interpretation at
face value. Rather he took it a few analytic steps further. He located his confirmed
interpretation in the context of the group culture and concluded that it
also reflected the group members' contradictory relationships with staff and lack
of trust in professionals.
Saturating Theoretical Categories
When do you stop gathering data? What criteria do you use? The standard
short grounded theory answer to the criteria question dictates: stop when your
categories are 'saturated.' The longer answer is ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
that categories are 'saturated' when gathering ( Categories are 'saturated' \
fresh data no longer sparks new theoretical : when gathering fresh :
insights, nor reveals new properties of your data no longer sparks
core theoretical categories. new theoretical insights,
As implied above, grounded theory saturation nor reveals new properties
is not the same as witnessing repetition of the of these core theoretical
same events or stories, although many qualita- • categories. .•
ti.ve researchers confuse saturation with repeti- ···· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ····
tion of described events, actions, and/or statements. The common use of the term
saturation refers to nothing new happening. 'I kept finding the same patterns.'
In contrast, Glaser (2001) takes a more sophisticated view of saturation than
implied by common research parlance.
Saturation is not seeing the same pattern over and over again. It is the
conceptualization of comparisons of these incidents which yield different
properties of the pattern, until no new properties of the pattern emerge.
This yields the conceptual density that when integrated into hypotheses
make up the body of the generated grounded theory with theoretical
completeness. (p. 191)
Glaser's perspective on saturation forms the foundation for treating theoretical
concepts in grounded theory. When you treat categories theoretically, you
raise them to an abstract and general level while preserving their specific connections
to the data from which you constructed these categories. When assessing
whether you have saturated your categories, consider asking such questions
as the following:
• Which comparisons do you make between data within and between
categories?
• What sense do you make of these comparisons?
• Where do they lead you?
• How do your comparisons illuminate your theoretical categories?
:1.1.3
------------------------
1.1.4 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
• In what other directions, if any, do they take you?
• What new conceptual relationships, if any, might you see?
Grounded theory logic invokes saturation as the criterion to apply to your
categories. As such, some grounded theorists (Glaser, 1992, 1998, 2001; Stem,
2001) argue that you keep sampling until your categories are saturated and that
this logic supercedes sample size-which may be very small.
Other considerations may supercede sample size. Think about how your claims
of saturation affect the credibility of your study. A small study with modest
claims might allow proclaiming saturation early. Researchers who make hefty
claims should be circumspect about the thoroughness oftheir data and the rigor
of their analyses. A study of25 interviews may suffice for certain small projects
but invites skepticism when the author's claims are about, say, human nature
or contradict established research.
I7zeoretical saturation is what grounded theorists aim for-or should aim for,
according to the canons. Yet grounded theorists often invoke the term, 'saturation'
uncritically. Disagreements arise about the meaning of saturation. As
Janice Morse (1995) observes, researchers often proclaim saturation rather than
prove that they have achieved it. Thus, like other qualitative approaches, the
grounded theory approach shares the hazard of assuming that categories are
saturated when they may not be.
The kinds of initial research questions and the analytic level of the subsequent
categories matter. Mundane research questions may rapidly produce saturated
but common or trivial categories. For example, a researcher who asks
whether obese women experience stigma may find that all of her interviews
indicate that they do and claim that her category of 'experiencing stigma' is saturated
without beginning to analyze what stigma means and how it is enacted.
Uncritical or limited analytic treatment may also result in early saturation of
categories. Novel questions may demand more complex categories and more
sustained inquiry.
Dey (1999) challenges the notion of saturation on two counts: the meaning of
saturation and its consequences. First, he points out that grounded theorists produce
categories through partial-not exhaustive-coding. Dey views the term 'saturation''
as 'another unfortunate metaphor' (p. 257) because ofits imprecise usage.
For him, the term saturation is incongruent with a procedure that 'stops short of
coding all of the data' (p. 257) and relies on the researcher's conjecture that the
properties of the category are saturated. In short, you cannot produce evidence
to support this conjecture without doing the work. Rather than establishing categories
saturated by data, Dey contends that we have categories suggestedby data.
Instead of claims of achieving saturation, Dey's preferred term, 'theoretical sufficiencj
(p. 257), better fits how researchers conduct grounded theory.
Second, Dey implies that following grounded theory methods may lead to
unanticipated consequences for saturating categories. He wonders if saturation
of categories itself is an artifact of how grounded theorists focus and manage
data collection. Such concerns spark further questions. Are our claims to having
saturated categories legitimate? If so, when? Is the method a teleological
closed system? When researchers treat grounded theory guidelines like recipes,
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
they do foreclose possibilities for innovation without having explored their
data. Strauss and Corbin's (1990, 1998) axial coding matrix may force data into
preconceived frameworks, as any set of Glaser's theoretical codes may also.
Adopting and applying these frameworks takes the focusing inherent in
grounded theory and renders it directive and prescriptive. Subsequently,
researchers undermine the value and legitimacy of their analyses.
By extension, Dey's argument complements my concerns about foreclosing
analytic possibilities and about constructing superficial analyses. My solution?
Be open to what is happening in the field and be willing to grapple with it.
When you get stuck, go back and recode earlier data and see if you define new
leads. Use grounded theory guidelines to give you a handle on the material, not
a machine that does the work for you.
Theoretical Sorting, Diagramming,
and Integrating
Sorting, diagramming, and integrating your memos are inter-related processes.
Your sorting may integrate the analysis and a diagram may simultaneously sort
and integrate it. The visual image ofa diagram may suggest the content and direction
ofthe analysis as well as its form. All qualitative researchers use such methodological
strategies as sorting, diagramming, and integrating their materials;
however, grounded theorists use these strategies in service of the theoretical development
of their analysis. I treat sorting, diagramming, and integrating separately
below for clarity although they are intertwined in grounded theory practice.
Theoretical Sorting
Analytic memos provide the substance for creating first drafts of papers or
chapters. Writing memos during each analytic phase prompts you to make the
analysis progressively stronger, clearer, and more theoretical. You already have
developed categories in your written memos and have titled them in as concrete,
specific, and analytic terms as possible. Now you are ready to sort them.
In grounded theory, sorting goes beyond the first step in organizing a paper,
chapter, or book: sorting serves your emerging
theory. It gives you a means of creating and
refining theoretical links. Through sorting, you
work on the theoretical integration of your categories.
Thus, sorting prompts you to compare
categories at an abstract level.
Think of the logic of your emerging theory.
It became apparent in my research on the
experience of chronic illness that certain events
reverberated in people's consciousness long
....................................
/ Grounded theory sorting \
gives you a logic for
organizing your analysis
and a way of creating and
refining theoretical links
that prompts you to make
comparisons between
categories.
••••• 0 0 II. 0" 0 0 "" "o-" 0 0 0 .. 0 " .. e ......,.
after their occurrence and became turning points. I called them 'significant
events' and treated them as a major category because they shaped meanings of
time and self. My treatrnent18
of the category reads:
:1.:1.5
ll6 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Significant Events as Turning Points
Relived moments. Retold stories ... recurring feelings. Significant events
echo in memory. Whether validating or wholly disrupting, a significant
event reveals images of present or possible self and evokes feelings.
Thus. these events mark time and become turning points.
A significant event stands out in memory because it has boundaries,
intensity, and emotional force. Furthermore, a significant event captures,
demarks, and intensifies feelings. Frequently, those feelings are unhappy
ones such as bewilderment. humiliation, shame, betrayal, or loss. The
event flames and frames these feelings. The emotional reverberations of
a single event echo through the present and future and therefore. however
subtly, shade thoughts and feelings about self and alter meanings of time
(cf. Denzin, 1984).
Significant events transcend the actors within them and the stage on
which they occur. These events are emergent realities, events sui generis;
they cannot be reduced to component parts (Durkheim, 1951). Thus. a
significant event reflects more than a relationship or another's actions.
When. where, and how the event occurs. and who participates in it. contribute
to the force of the event and affect subsequent interpretations of
it. Sorting what the event means and the 'correct' feelings to hold about
it shapes self-images and self-worth.
A significant event freezes and enlarges a moment in time. Because of
inherent or potential meanings of self within the event, people grant obdurate
qualities to it. They reify it. To them, the event supercedes past meanings
and foretells future selves. (Charmaz. 1991a: 210)
In the narrative above, I spelled out the properties of the category. Then I
addressed two processes subsumed by it: finding positive events and reliving
negative events. When research participants defined specific positive or negative
events as turning points that held meaning for self, I treated them as significant
events. Next I considered how a person's present emotions were tied
to a past self. In this case, sorting proceeded from a straightforward logic but
became more complex as I brought the analysis from past to present with
memos' about subcategories of 'experiencing present emotions and a past self'
and 'transcending past emotions.'
Researchers construct how they sort and compile memos. The closer your
sorting reflects your depiction ofthe flow ofempirical experience, the smoother
it will seem to you and likely to your readers. When you have a logic that
makes sense, sorting and integrating memos falls into place. When you include
several processes or pursue multiple categories, how to sort and integrate your
memos may not always be so clear-cut. Try several different sortings and think
through how each portrays your analysis. When you are working out the implications
of each way of sorting, it may help to diagram them.
Sorting, comparing, and integrating memos seem like simple steps. Each memo
on a category may become a section or subsection of the draft. If so, integrating
memos may merely reproduce the theoretical logic of the analysis, or stages of
a process. However, sorting, comparing, and integrating memos may be more
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
complicated. Take a memo from your pile and compare it with another, then
another (see also Glaser, 1998). How do the memos compare? Does your comparison
spark new ideas? Ifso write another memo. Do you discern new relationships
between memos? What leads do you gain by sorting the memos? Ifit helps, take
your related memos and form quick clusters with them. How do they fit together?
What makes most sense? Some sets of memos fit together so well that the answers
seem obvious. But for many analyses, you must create the order and make the connections
for your readers. The first draft of your paper represents how you sort,
compare, and integrate a set of memos into some kind of coherent order.
How does one go about sorting, comparing, and integrating memos?
• Sort memos by the title of each category
• Compare categories
• Use your categories-carefully
• Consider how their order reflects the studied experience
• Now think how their order fits the logic of the categories
• Create the best possible balance between the studied experience, your categories,
and your theoretical statements about them.
Some practical advice may help. Sort your memos by hand in an area where
you can see and shuffle them. Turn the computer off for now. A large table
works well; the floor can too if you have no cats or children to disrupt your
sorted designs. I once plastered my dining room walls with cards containing the
titles of my memos. Be willing to experiment with different arrangements of
your memos. Treat these arrangements as tentative and play with them. Lay out
your memos in several different ways. Draw a few diagrams to connect them.
When you create a sorting that looks promising, jot it down and diagram it
Continue to compare categories while you sort memos. Sorting fosters your
efforts to refine comparisons between categories. As a result ofsorting, you can see
relationships between your categories more clearly. For example, sorting memos
about time and self, clarified a major shift in how people with serious chronic illnesses
viewed themselves. I saw how easily they went from trying to live in the
present to situating their selves in the past as the present became more problematic.
Relationships between categories form an outline of what you cover and how
you cover it They give your future readers important information. And studying
and sorting these categories helps you learn when and where you go astray.
Diagramming
Diagrams can offer concrete images of our ideas. The advantage of diagrams is
that they provide a visual representation of categories and their relationships.
Many grounded theorists, particularly those influenced by Clarke (2003, 2005),
Strauss (1987) and Strauss and Corbin (1998), treat creating visual images of
their emerging theories as an intrinsic part of grounded theory methods. They
use various types of diagrams-including maps, charts, and figures-to tease out
relationships while constructing their analyses and to demonstrate these relationships
in their completed works.
:U7
:us CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Diagrams can enable you to see the relative power, scope, and direction of the
categories in your analysis as well as the connections among them. You may find
that diagrams can serve useful and diverse purposes at all stages of analysis. You
might revise an early quick clustering about a category into a more exacting form
as a diagram illustrating the properties of a category. You might develop a conceptual
map that locates your concepts and directs movement between them.
Maps show positions and processes {Clarke, 2003, 2005). Conceptual maps can
plot the relative strength or weakness of relationships. Adele Clarke {2003, 2005)
uses maps to create sophisticated situational analyses that offer a fresh alternative
to the earlier gronnded theory emphasis on basic social processes. She argues that
we already know much about our research sites and problems before officially collecting
data and that maps are one way to make fruitful use of this knowledge.
Through mapping situations, social worlds and their arenas, and positions in
discourses, Clarke intends to develop grounded theory methods in ways that
preserve empirical realities and complexities without resorting to reductionist
analyses or wholly relying on the basic social process model that Glaser {1978)
long argued was essential to grounded theory. Consider Clarke's techniques
{see Figures 5.1 and 5.2) for sorting conventional grounded theory memos in
addition to explicating the social arenas and social worlds' levels of analysis for
which she devised them.
Clarke's situational maps take Glaser's {1998) dictum 'All is data' seriously
because she builds structural properties right into her maps and positions them
in social worlds and arenas. The structural elements that shape and condition
the situation being studied can be plotted on the map. Her strategy allows us to
move from micro to organizational levels of analysis and to render invisible
structural relationships and processes visible. Similarly, this approach fosters
making relationships and processes between different social worlds and arenas
visible that ordinarily might be hidden from view. The situational analysis that
follows provides provisional, flexible, interpretive theorizing about the construction
of the studied social worlds.
Strauss and Corbin {1990, 1998} introduce the conditional/consequential
matrix as a way of providing a visual representation of the observed transactions
in. the empirical world and their interactions and inter-relationships. In
they offer this matrix as an analytic device for thinking about macro
and micro relationships that might shape the situations the researcher studies.
They provide a depiction of the conditional/consequential matrix as concentric
but connected circles that place the individual at the core in their 1998 edition
{as contrasted with placing action at the core in the 1990 edition). The concentric
circles represent increasingly larger social units.
A major purpose of the conditional/consequential matrix is to help researchers
to think beyond micro social structures and immediate interactions to larger social
conditions and consequences. Strauss and Corbin propose that the conditional/
consequential matrix can aid researchers in making theoretical sampling decisions
as well as in locating the contexts in which the conditions occur and the
paths between them. They present this matrix as offering a means for developing
theory that advances the researcher's work beyond describing phenomena. The
conditional/consequential matrix is a technique to apply; therefore, it may force
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
NON HUMAN
ACTANT
A
DISCOURSE
ON'N'
NONHUMAN
ELEMENTz
INFRASTRUCTURAL
ELEMENT#1
FIGURE 5.:1. Abstract Situational Map, Messy Working Version
Source: Clarke, 2003: 564. © 2003 by the Society for the Study of
Symbolic Interaction. Used with permission.
INDIVIDUAL
A
INDIVIDUAL
R
moving your data and analysis in a pre-established direction. If, however, your
emerging analysis indicates that mapping conditions, contexts, and consequences
in this way fits your data, you might wish to use this matrix.
Integrating Memos
How do you integrate the memos? Ordering for process is one obvious solution
to integrate the piece. Ifyou build your paper on a major category, then you must
decide how the memos about it best fit together. Processural analyses have a
l.l.9
l.20 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
HUMAN ELEMENTS/ACTORS
e.g., individuals
collective actors
specific organizations
POLITICAL/ECONOMIC ASPECTS
e.g.. the state
particular industry/ies
locaVregionaVglobal orders
political parties
TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS
e.g.. historic aspects
seasonal aspects
crisis aspects
DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION(S)
OF NON HUMAN ACTANTS
As found in the situation
MAJOR ISSUES/DEBATES
[USUALLY CONTESTED]
As found in the situation, and
see positional map
OTHER KINDS OF ELEMENTS
As found in the situation
NON HUMAN ELEMENTS
e.g., technologies
material infrastructure
specialized knowledges
material 'things'
SOCIO-CULTURAL ASPECTS
e.g., mass media
religion
ethnicity
race
SPATIAL DIMENSIONS
e.g., geography
DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION
OF HUMAN ACTORS
As found in the situation
MORE SYMBOLIC
DIMENSIONS
e.g.. aesthetic elements
affective/sentimental elements
moraVethical elements
DISCOURSES
e.g.. normative expectations of actors, actants,
and/or other particular elements; popular cultural
discourses; situation-specific discourses
FIGURE 5.2 Abstract Situational Map, Ordered Working Version
Source: Clarke, 2003: 564. © 2003 by the Society for the Study of
Symbolic Interaction. Used with permission.
built-in logical order, but analytic categories may have a subtle one that will make
sense to your readers. For example, in my analysis of disclosure, it made sense to
talk fiisf about avoiding disclosure of illness followed by assessing the risks and
then disclosing illness. Taking this example into another realm, avoiding and risking
disclosures-personal, professional, and organizational disclosures-occur in
work settings of all kinds. A corporate manager who knows that downsizing lies
on the horizon may first avoid disclosure, and then risk it with trusted staff, and
later make strategic general announcements. In this case, disclosure dilemmas
relate to the type and extent of public release of information or potential discoveries
of hidden information, and other conditions that affect disclosure.
Much of the grounded theory literature emphasizes writing about a single
category. You may, however, need to juggle several categories. If so, then your
sorting attends to how these categories fit-or do not fit-together. The subsequent
integration may reflect what you found in the empirical world. The integration
makes relationships intelligible. Early grounded theory studies stressed
causal relationships but now many scholars aim for interpretive understandings.
Such understandings remain contingent on contextual conditions.
THEORETICAL SAMPLING, SATURATION, SORTING
'Through sorting and integrating memos, you may explicate implicit theoretical
codes which you may have adopted without realizing it In addition, these strategies
may force you to think through theoretical links among categories that may
have been left implicit Diagramming sharpens the relationships among your theoretical
categories. All three strategies can spark ideas for constructing your written
report and shaping the introduction and writing the theoretical framework.
Concluding Thoughts
Like coding and memo-writing, theoretical sampling occupies a crucial place in
grounded theory. It articulates a practice that the best qualitative researchers
may follow but may not define. The movement back and forth between category
and data in theoretical sampling fosters raising the conceptual level of
your categories and extending their reach. AB you develop your categories, you
can see which ones to treat as major concepts in your analysis.
By engaging in theoretical sampling, saturation, and sorting, you create
robust categories and penetrating analyses. Capturing what you have gained in
successively more abstract memos gives you the grist for the first draft of your
finished piece. Sorting and diagramming gives you its initial analytic frame.
Now you are ready to write the first draft of your report but first you may wish
to think a bit more about theorizing in grounded theory.
NOTES
Strauss (see Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbm, 1990, 1998) emphasized diagramnung as a way
oflaymg out conceptual relanonslnps. Since then, tlns approach IS most developed m Adele
Clarke's (2003, 2005) works.As a graduate student, I wrote a paper, 'Conceptual Mappmg'
(1969), that addressed ways to mtegrate theorencal analyses by showmg relanonslnps
between concepts and by offermg a VJSual representation of their relative significance.
2 lntemew Wlthjane Hood, November 12,2004.
3 Hood's use of theoretical sampling built directly on grounded theory gmdelines; however,
her coding strateg:tes diverged. She began coding Wlth open-ended codes and qmckly went
to a formal procedure Wlth code sheets to sort and organize the material into more general
categones (see 1983: 20Q-202). Hood stated that she rmght have done somethmg different
had she had access to sometlnng like The Ethnograph, a computer-assiSted program. She
satd that she used the code sheet approach as a way of 'intemewmg' her data and holding
herself accountable for patteDJS in the data as well as to check propernes of categones.
Although the code sheets may look like survey coding, she said that she was not using
survey coding because the point was not to count but to establish category boundanes. Soaal
sciennsts frequently draw on several methodolog:tcal approaches smmltaneously, depending
on the research problem and/or the researcher's procliVIties. Some nurse researchers disdatn
such methodolog:tcal ecurnerucalism as method slurrmg (see Baker,Wuest, & Stern, 1992).
4 Should customer semce representatives define your presence as a management plant, they
will likely conceal therr concerns and perhaps therr usual practices. Moreover, they may see
you and your research as an extens1on of orgaruzatJ.onal fonns of domirlation consiStent
Wlth Dorothy E. Srmth's (1999) warnmgs about researchers reproducing dormnatJ.on that
part:iapants already expenence in the settmg. If they see you as an ally; then you may gatn
a different p1cture, and gain still another VIew on the scene ifyou talk Wlth CliStomers about
therr expenences.
:1.21
:122 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
5 Doctoral students might negotiate With therr adVISors by building several stages of data
collect1on mto their research proposals. That way; they could begin by takmg population
distribuuons into account but plan to follow the leads in their emergmg analyses thereafter.
6 Jane Hood edited this passage for clarity.
7 Fiction can proVIde great data for all kinds of projects when researchers treat them as
texts to analyze, rather than as subsntute realities. For example, we could look at how
authors represent women and men, collective values, or indiVIdual quests durmg specific
time penods. Hypothetical neganve cases are tnckier. The extent ofresearchers' knowledge
about their studied worlds and how they use these cases matters here. Superficial
knowledge and scant further mqurry can derail a grounded theory analysis. Researchers
who rely on hypothencal negauve cases nsk slippmg into armchair theonzing.
8 Charles Sanders PeJICe (1878 [1958]) developed abductive reasonmg. It underlies the pragrnanst
tradition of problem-solVIng and supports the notion that the borders between scientific
discovery andJustification are indisnnct. Strauss was heavily influenced by Peirce and
John Dewey as well as George Herbert Mead.The creauve, cogrutive dimenstons ofabductive
reasoinng in grounded theory may be most emphasized by Strauss and his followers.
9 As I pointed out m earlier chapters, you can reviSlt and recode earlier data from the vantage
point of a new idea, which expedites theoretical sampling ofyour new category.
10 I chose to make experiencmg illness the focus of the book because it would speak to
broader audiences than a book on nme. This focus did, however, allow developing the
analyses of time and self.
11 For a study in which married women m middle-class dual-earner families took the lead
in time negotiations and indirectly mamtained control over family tasks, see Kerry Daly
(2002). The couples worked in managerial or professwnal positions for fifty hours a
week or more. Daly found that by controlling the family schedule, these women
obtained therr husbands' partictpatwn m childcare and househo.Jd work.
12 Gubrium (1993) has observed that nursmg home residents similarly locate themselves m
nme.While some saw therr lives as in the past, others were rooted in their nursing-home
expenence, and still others looked over their current situations to the future.
13 I developed these subcategories from depictions of my partiopants' statements and
actions. Hence they rmport fewer rmplied JUdgments than the psycho!ogtcal concepts of
acceptance and denial that pervade professionals' discourse about illness and impairment.
14 Her question arose durmg a presentauon ntled, 'Construcung Qualitative Research
through Grounded Theory,' at the Center for AIDS Prevenuon Studies (CAPS),
Univemry of Califorrua, San Francl5co, September 7;-2004.
15 Quali_tauve researchers m a number of disciplines' and professions are challengrog narrow
irl5ututional direcuves that hinder therr research.They are engaged m educating colleagues
who adltere to a biomedical model about Its linutations for qualitauve research.
Changes in ethics polictes and 1I15t1tut1onal reviews should result.
16 Personal commurucauon, March 29, 2004. Albas and Albas found that they obtained
some of their most compelling data With this method and, srmultaneously, they expedited
and strengthened their analyses. See also, D.Albas & C.Albas (1988, 1993) and C.
Albas & D. Albas (1988).
17 Alasuutari's strategy IS retuml5cent ofadvtce that Ansehn Strauss once gave me about not
taking textbook prescripnons of conducnng neutral mterviews too seriously. He found
that somenmes provocanve questions worked and field researchers could ask them, as
long as they did not get kicked out of the settmg.
18 The copy editor changed my final wording about relived moments and re=rmg feelings
Without consulung me. My origtnal rendenng is included here.
Reconstructing Theory in
Grounded Theory Studies
Grounded theorists talk much about theory and about constructing
theory, but what do they mean? In this chapter, we stop for a sojourn
to contemplate what theory means and how grounded theorists
engage in theorizing as a practice. I begin with an excerpt of theorizing
in grounded theory research and then step back and ask: What
is theory? By viewing general definitions of theory as two distinct
traditions, we clarify how the antecedents of constructivist and objectivist
grounded theory reflect these traditions. Reconsidering critiques
of grounded theory helps to refresh our thinking and reaffirm
our theoretical tasks. To encourage your development of theoretical
sensitivity, I suggest ways you might plumb the depth of your ideas
while expanding the reach of your theory. We close by inspecting how
three different grounded theories demonstrate theorizing in practice
and end by reflecting on how grounded theorists are part of their
theorizing.
'1' AThat stands as theory in grounded theory? How do researchers make their
YY grounded theory analyses theoretical; that is, how do they move from
the process of analysis to production of a grounded theory? Which directions
do grounded theories typically take? To assess if, how, why, and when
grounded theory studies offer 'bona fide' theories, requires taking a step back
and asking: What is theory? The term theory remains slippery in grounded theory
discourse. Many grounded theorists talk about theory but few define it A number
of grounded theorists claim they construct theory, but do they? A closer look
may help. By taking several grounded theories apart, I will reconstruct their
logic with you.
To begin thinking about reconstructing theory in grounded theory research,
consider the excerpt below from my study of the experience of chronic illness.
It is part of a paper that contains an explicit theoretical logic. In the analysis, I
focused on how people with serious chronic illnesses struggled to have a valued
self.1
They struggled with both how they defined themselves and how other
people identified them. I realized that people who suffered physical losses
developed identity goals for their future, particularly when their losses occurred
during a short period of time. I grappled with these sometimes overt, but often
1.24 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
covert, meanings and implications of identity goals to develop a theoretical
rendering. A number of people planned to struggle against illness and to compete
in conventional worlds. They espoused these goals when illness and disability
were new. As time elapsed, they usually scaled down their identity goals.
The short excerpt below captures the logic of my substantive theory of relationships
between identity goals and the emerging identity hierarchy.
An identity hierarchy becomes visible as ill people, over time, choose different
types of preferred identities, reflecting relative difficulty in achieving
specific aspirations and objectives. The types of preferred identities constitute
particular identity levels in the identity hierarchy. These identity
levels include: (1) the supernormal social identity, an identity demanding
extraordinary achievement in conventional worlds; (2) the restored self, a
reconstruction of previous identities before illness; (3) contingent personal
identity, a hypothetically possible, though uncertain. identity because of
further illness; and (4) the salvaged self, retaining a past identity based
on a valued activity or attribute while becoming physically dependent.
Experiencing progressive illness often means reducing identity goals and
aiming for a lower level in the identity hierarchy. In short, reducing identity
goals means aiming for a less preferred identity. (Charmaz, 1987: 285)
In the narrative, I point out that my research participants struggled for a valued
self because they did not want to be invalids. For them, being an invalid meant
being an invalid person. This assumption informed the identity goals they
made and the actions they took. An important property of the identity hierarchy
concerns movement in it. People do not always plummet down the identity
hierarchy; some climb up identity levels. I observed a few people with
serious illnesses without much hope, move from being immersed in illness to
realizing extraordinary accomplishments. They may start from different points,
depending on how they define their situations, and they may move up and
down the identity hierarchy through the course of their illness.
Part of my task involved accounting for these chronically ill people's identity
goals and the actions they took, if any, to realize them. Hence, I aimed to fu1fill
the folloWing objectives: 1) to develop the properties ofeach category in the identity
hierarchy and demonstrate how they fit together; 2) to specify conditions
under which my research participants selected a preferred identity; 3) to take into
account the resources they could pull together to realize their identity goals; 4) to
define when they moved up or down the identity hierarchy; 5) to delineate social
contexts in which they attempted to negotiate and establish their preferred and
potential identities; and 6) to suggest how different identity levels presuppose different
selves. These analytic objectives contributed to the theoretical level and
density of the analysis. See how I began to weave them into the paper:
The person's expectations of and for self are significant sources of his or
her definitions of preferred identities for the future. People maintain self
consistency and continuity through their expectations as well as their
actions. Age alone affects such expectations. Younger adults confront all
the usual identity issues of their age cohorts clustering around career,
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
intimacy, and lifestyle. These young adults typically made valiant efforts to
realize their preferred identities. Profoundly disturbed by the threat of a life
of invalidism. they also thought it unsuitable for persons their age. Many
others echo this woman's remark: 'I expected to have a chronic illness
which interfered with my life at seventy-five, but at twenty-nine? Who would
have guessed it?' (p. 292)
My analysis of movement up and down the identity hierarchy takes a neutral,
objective tone in presenting the ideas and their relationships. These excerpts
obscure the constructivism in my analysis, which since then has become more
visible in my work. My neutral writing style above separates my ideas about the
identity hierarchy from their analytic construction but links them as theoretical
conceptions. The neutral tones of analytic discourse in much qualitative
research erase the interpretive acts that produced them and, moreover, eradicate
ambiguities in both the studied scenes and their analytic treatment
(Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996).
Now we need to interrogate the excerpts above and ask what makes the line
of analysis in them theory-or theoretical. What kind of presuppositions about
theory does this type of analysis assume? How can we reconcile the creative
process of developing grounded theories with their objectivist presentations in
theoretical reports? How might we take grounded theory in a constructionist
direction? To make theorizing transparent, we need to see how grounded
theorists construct their theories.
What Is Theory?
What does 'theory' mean in social scientific thinking? Whatshould stand as a bona
fide theory exemplifying a grounded theory? Disagreements about how to do
grounded theory and what a completed theory should look like often arise from
unsettled notions about what theory means. These disagreements resonate with
grumblings-and ideological clashes-throughout the social sciences that grounded
theorists echo without necessarily realizing their epistemological underpinnings.
Such disagreements may be played out and intensified in discussions and directions
about how to construct grounded theory. When we look beneath the surface,
we can discern different meanings of theory among grounded theorists. Some of
these definitions of theory remain firm, some are elastic.
When thinking about concepts of theory in grounded theory, it helps to look
at broader definitions of theory in the social sciences. I touch upon theoretical
perspectives in classical sociological theory and cultural studies to exemplify
these broader definitions and to identify major themes in them.
Positivist Definitions of Theory
Perhaps the most prevalent definitions of theory derive from positivism. Positivist
definitions of theory treat it as a statement of relationships between abstract
concepts that cover a wide range of empirical observations. Positivists view their
theoretical concepts as variables and construct operational definitions of their
:1.25
126 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
concepts for hypothesis testing through accurate, replicable empirical measurement
These definitions exert considerable influence for two reasons: 1) they reach
across fields and 2) authors of research textbooks
widely adopt and promulgate them.
In this view, the objectives of theory are explanation
and prediction. Positivist theory aims for
parsimony, generality, and universality and simultaneously
reduces empirical objects and events to
that which can be subsumed by the concepts.
Positivist theory seeks causes, favors deterministic
.............................
{ Positivist theory .\
seeks causes, favors
deterministic
explanations, and
emphasizes generality
and universality.
·························
explanations, and emphasizes generality and universality. In short, positivist
theories consist of a set of inter-related propositions aimed to:
• Treat concepts as variables
• Specify relationships between concepts
• Explain and predict these relationships
• Systematize knowledge
• Verify theoretical relationships through hypothesis-testing
• Generate hypotheses for research.
With their emphasis on parsimony, these theories are elegant in form and direct
in their statements; however, these theories can result in narrow, reductionist
explanations with simplistic models of action.
Interpretive Definitions of Theory
An alternative definition of theory emphasizes understanding rather than explanation.
Proponents of this definition view theoretical understanding as abstract
and interpretive; the very understanding gained from the theory rests on
the theorist's interpretation of the studied phenomenon. Interpretive theories
allow for indeterminacy rather than seek causality and give priority to showing
patterns and connections rather than to linear reasoning. George Ritzer and
Douglas]. Goodman's (2004) discussion of criteria for classical sociological theory
(which assumes abstract, general concepts) illustrates this view. For Ritzer
and Goodman, theory has a far-ranging scope, offers wide applications, and
deals with fundamental issues in social life.
Given their focus on classical theory, it has
also withstood the test of time. They declare
that their definition contrasts with theories
that aim for explanation and prediction.
Ritzer and Goodman's definition of theory
has strong interpretive elements in its emphasis
on understanding and scope.
Interpretive theory calls for the imaginative
understanding of the studied phenomenon.
This type oftheory assumes emergent, multiple
realities; indeterminacy; facts and values as
..................................
l'" Interpretive theory calls
for the imaginative
understanding of the
studied phenomenon. This
type of theory assumes
emergent, multiple realities;
indeterminacy; facts and
values as linked; truth as
provisional; and social life
as processual.
...................................·
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
inextricably linked; truth as provisional; and social life as processual. Thus
interpretive theory is fully compatible with George Herbert Mead's symbolic
interactionism, which shares these assumptions. Mead takes a sophisticated view
of action as the starting place for analysis that includes the person's imagined
understanding of the other person's role and response during interaction.
We interpret our participants' meanings and actions and they interpret ours.
The interpretive turn in theory has gained attention as social constructionist
principles gained advocates among diverse scholars, particularly since the
1960s. This theoretical approach emphasizes practices and actions. Rather than
explaining reality, social constructionists see multiple realities and therefore ask:
What do people assume is real? How do they construct and act on their view of
reality? Thus knowledge-and theories-are situated and located in particular
positions, perspectives, and experiences. In brief, interpretive theory aims to:
• Conceptualize the studied phenomenon to understand it in abstract terms
• Articulate theoretical claims pertaining to scope. depth. power. and
relevance
• Acknowledge subjectivity in theorizing and hence the role of negotiation.
dialogue, understanding
• Offer an imaginative interpretation.
Interpretive theories are oftenjuxtaposed against positivist theories, which I do
below in my discussion of constructivist and objectivist grounded theory. For
now, consider that grounded theory as theory contains both positivist and interpretivist
inclinations. Glaser's (1978, 1992, 1998, 2003) treatment of theory contains
strong positivist leanings. He emphasizes the development of theoretical
categories that serve as variables, assumes an indicator-concept approach, seeks
context-free but modifiable theoretical statements, and aims for 'the achievement
of parsimony and scope in explanatory power' (1992: 116). Glaser stresses
the work of using comparative methods and attributes the analytic development
of theory to emergence from this comparative work; however, he treats emergent
categories almost as its automatic result The place of interpretive understanding
remains less clear in his position than the positivist elements.
Strauss and Corbin's (1998) view of theory has some positivist leanings but
emphasizes relationships among concepts. For them, theory means 'a set of
well-developed concepts related through statements of relationship, which
together constitute an integrated framework that can be used to explain or predict
phenomena' (p. 15). Their stance toward constructing theories, however,
also acknowledges interpretivist views. Corbin (1998) recognizes that analysis
means that researchers interpret data but implies that such interpretation is an
unavoidable limitation. She writes, 'How can one remove who and what one is
from the comparative process? An analyst can only compare based on how
slhe reads the data. One would hope that by 'sticking to the data' the analyst is
left out of the interpretive process, but this is highly unlikely' (p. 123). Strauss
and Corbin draw clear distinctions between theory and description, which they
see as a person's use of words to invoke mental images of objects, events, and
experiences. For them, theory is much more abstract and explanatory.
:1.27
:128 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
If we turn to cultural theory, Alasuutari (1996) further distinguishes between
how lay people ordinarily make sense of their worlds and what the concept of
theory means. By adopting a sophisticated view of theory consistent with
Schutz (1967), Alasuutari argues that theoreticians examine lay persons' rules of
interpretation and therefore move beyond lay persons' conceptions.
One takes a one-step distance from the members' perspective, not by
arguing that it is narrower or incorrect. but by studying how it works in constituting
social realities. Theories are thus deconstructions of the way in
which we construct realities and social conditions and ourselves as subjects
in those realities. They cannot compete with lay thinking, because
their very objective is to make sense of it in its various forms and in different
instances. (1996: 382)
Alasuutari explicitly departs from definitions of theory as generalized statements
about universals from which researchers deduce hypotheses to explain
local, specific phenomena. Instead, to him theories provide interpretive frames
from which to view realities. Although Alasuutari's comment recognizes that
lay persons and researchers hold different interpretive frames, we might note
that both make sense of lay persons' ideas and actions.
Alasuutari's careful explication of the local scenes and specific incidents combined
with his theorizing of them gives his work theoretical reach and depth.
His work combines the sensibilities of a skilled ethnographer with the kind of
theoretical sensitivity possessed by the best grounded theorists.
The Rhetoric, Reach, and Practice of Theorizing
Whether positivist or interpretive, theories are rhetorical-although interpretive
theorists more likely acknowledge this point than their positivist counterparts.
A theorist attempts to convince readers that certain conclusions flow from a
set of premises (Markovsky, 2004). Thus, theories present arguments about
the world and relationships within it, despite sometimes being cleansed of context
and reduced to seemingly neutral statements. For those who espouse positivist
m>tions of objectivity, such cleansing and neutrality only adds to their
persuasiveness.
When we consider either positivist or interpretive theory, we need to think of
its theoretical reach and power within, beyond, and between disciplines.
Randall Collins says, 'Theory is what you remember' (2004a; see also Davis,
1971). Theories flash illmninating insights and make sense of murky musings
and knotty problems. The ideas fit Phenomena and relationships between them
you only sensed beforehand become visible. Still, theories can do more. A theory
can alter your viewpoint and change your consciousness. Through it, you
can see the world from a different vantage point and create new meanings of it
Theories have an internal logic and more or less coalesce into coherent forms.
My preference for theorizing-and it is for theorizing, not theory-is
unabashedly interpretive. Theorizing is a practice. It entails the practical activity
of engaging the world and of constructing abstract understandings about and
within it. The fundamental contribution ofgrounded theory methods resides in
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
offering a guide to interpretive theoretical practice not in providing a blueprint
for theoretical products.
Interpretive theorizing arises from social constructionist assumptions that
inform symbolic interaction, ethnomethodology, cultural studies and phenomenological
discourse, and narrative analysis. Such theorizing is not limited to
individual actors or micro situations. Nor should it be. Rather, interpretive theorizing
can move beyond individual situations and immediate interactions.
Maines (2001) makes this argument about symbolic interactionism and
Alasuutari's (1995, 1996, 2004) vantage point irt cultural studies points a way.
Speaking from the theorists' camp, Collins (2004b) argues for situations rather
than individuals as starting points for theorizing continuities between classical
nineteenth-century theory and contemporary theoretical questions. He views
the social in the individual and explores how the varied intensity of rituals
shape forms of social participation and ideas at local levels that collectively
involve larger social structures. Strauss's analyses of negotiated orders (1978;
Strauss, Schatzman, Bucher, Ehrlich, & Sabshin, 1963) and social worlds (1978a)
initiate interpretive inquiry at organizational and collective levels. Rather than
studying the structure of the hospital as static, Strauss and his colleagues (1963)
revealed its dynamic, processual nature by analyzing negotiations within and
between people and departments at varied organizational levels in the hospital.
Their interpretation of hospital as a negotiated order and analysis of this
order assumed considerable significance because Strauss et al. showed how
researchers could study the construction ofindividual and collective action and
the intersections between them.
Interpretive theorizing can infuse network analysis with the tools to bring
meanings into view. Both Collins (2004b) and Clarke (2003, 2005) suggest
methodological strategies for studying meso and macro levels of analysis.
Collins endorses using network analysis to study situations, although grounded
theorists would find that Clarke's methods give them more access to specific
contexts and types of interactions. When researchers use both methods, they
may find that Clarke's situational analysis and positional mapping can broaden
network analysis and make it more interpretive.
Constructivist and Objectivist Grounded Theory
Throughout this book, I have treated using grounded theory methods and theorizing
as social actions that researchers construct in concert with others in particular
places and times. In addition to our research participants, colleagues,
teachers, students, institutional committees and untold others may live in our
minds and influence how we conduct our studies long after our immediate contact
with them. We interact with data and create theories about it. But we do
not exist in a social vacuum.
How might our conceptions of theory and research influence what we do
and the allegiances we hold? As I have implied, a number of the disputes
among grounded theorists and critiques by other colleagues result from
where various authors stand between interpretive and positivist traditions.
:1.29
:1.30 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
I have explicated those differences by
arguing that grounded theory has taken
somewhat different forms since its creation:
constructivist and objectivist
grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000,
2001). Constructivist grounded theory
is part of the interpretive tradition and
objectivist grounded theory derives
from positivism. I juxtapose these forms
here for clarity; however, whether you
..·······:• objectivist forms of grounded •
theory here for clarity; however,
whether you judge a specific
study to be constructivist or
objectivist depends on the extent
to which its key characteristics
conform to one tradition or
the other.
.........................................
judge a specific study to be constructivist or objectivist depends on the extent
to which its key characteristics conform to one tradition or the other.
Constructivist Grounded Theory
As consistent with my stance in earlier chapters, a constructivist approach
places priority on the phenomena of study and sees both data and analysis
as created from shared experiences and
relationships with participants and other
sources of data (see Charmaz, 1990, 1995b,
2000, 2001; Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996).
Constructivist grounded theory lies squarely
in the interpretive tradition.
Constructivists study how-and sometimes
why-participants construct meanings and
actions in specific situations. As I explained
in Chapter 2, we do so from as close to the
inside of the experience as we can get but
realize that we cannot replicate the experi-
•••••\
places priority on the
phenomena of study and
sees both data and analysis
as created from shared
experiences and relationships
with participants (see
Charmaz, 1990, 1995b,
2000, 2001; Charmaz &
Mitchell, 1996).
'"•.,,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.o••••o••••"•••'"'"
ences of our research participants. A constructivist approach means more than
looking at how individuals view their situations. It not only theorizes the interpretive
work that research participants do, but also acknowledges that the
resulting.theory is an interpretation (Bryant, 2002; Charmaz, 2000, 2002a). The
theory depends on the researcher's view; it does not and cannot stand outside of
it Granted, different researchers may come up with similar ideas, although how
they render them theoretically may differ.
Grounded theorists may borrow an insight from Silverman's (2004) observation
of conversational analysis. He contends that only after establishing how
people construct meanings and actions can the analyst pursue why they act as
they do. Certainly a fine-grained analysis of how people construct actions and
meanings can lead a grounded theorist to establishing some reasons for it,
although occasionally the why may emerge with the how.
The logical extension of the constructivist approach means learning how,
when, and to what extent the studied experience is embedded in larger and,
often, hidden positions, networks, situations, and relationships. Subsequently,
differences and distinctions between people become visible as well as the hierarchies
of power, communication, and opportunity that maintain and perpetuate such
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
differences and distinctions. A constructivist approach means being alert to
conditions under which such differences and distinctions arise and are maintained.
Having the material to anchor the experience takes rich data and entails
having sufficient knowledge so one can see differences and distinctions. When
grounded theory studies are extremely small, they risk being disconnected
from their social contexts and situations. Thus, researchers can diminish the
potential power oftheir analyses by treating experience as separate, fragmented,
and atomistic.
Constructivist grounded theorists take a reflexive stance toward the research
process and products and consider how their theories evolve, which involves
reflecting on my earlier point that both researchers and research participants
interpret meanings and actions. Constructivist grounded theorists assume that
both data and analyses are social constructions that reflect what their production
entailed (see also Bryant, 2002, 2003; Charmaz, 2000; Hall & Callery,
2001; Thome,Jensen, Kearney, Noblit & Sandelowski, 2004 ). In this view, any
analysis is contextually situated in time, place, culture, and situation. Because
constructivists see facts and values as linked, they acknowledge that what they
see-and don't see-rests on values. Thus, constructivists attempt to become
aware of their presuppositions and to grapple with how they affect the research.
They realize that grounded theorists can ironically import preconceived ideas
into their work when they remain unaware of their starting assumptions. Thus,
constructivism fosters reflexivity about their own interpretations as
well as those of their research participants.
Objectivist Grounded Theory
An objectivist approach to grounded theory contrasts with the constructivist
approach. Objectivist grounded theory resides in the positivist tradition and
thus attends to data as real in and of themselves
and does not attend to the processes of their
production.
This stance erases the social context from
which data emerge, the influence of the
researcher, and often the interactions between
grounded theorists and their research participants.
Note that most interview excerpts in
published reports, including mine, do not give
resides in the positivist
tradition and thus attends
to data as real in and of
themselves and does not
attend to the processes of
their production.
........... o .......................... ..
you a sense of how interviewers and their research participants produced the
data. An objectivist grounded theorist assumes that data represent objective
facts about a knowable world. The data already exist in the world; the
researcher finds them and 'discovers' theory from them.
In this approach, the conceptual sense the grounded theorist makes of data
derives from them; meaning inheres in the data and the grounded theorist discovers
it (see, for example Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Glaser, 1978; Glaser & Strauss,
1967). This view assumes an external reality awaiting discovery and an unbiased
observer who records facts about it Objectivist grounded theorists believe that
careful application of their methods produces theoretical understanding. Hence
131
132 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
their role becomes more of a conduit for the research process rather than a
creator of it Given these assumptions, objectivist proponents would argue for a
stricter adherence to grounded theory steps than would constructivists.2
Objectivist grounded theorists remain separate and distant from research
participants and their realities, although they may adopt observational methods.
Claims of value-free neutrality assume, paradoxically, a value position.
Consistent with their assumption of neutrality, these grounded theorists treat
how they portray research participants in their written reports as unproblematic.
They assume the role of authoritative experts who bring an objective view
to the research.
Glaser (see, for example, 1978, 1992, 1998, 2001, 2003) articulates crucial
aspects of an objectivist position, despite his disdain of quests for accurate data
and insistence that grounded theory is not a verification method.3
I agree with
Glaser on the issue of verification. Checking hunches and confirming emergent
ideas, in my view, does not equal verification, particularly if one defines verification
as entailing systematic quantitative procedures that presuppose establishing
firm definitions of the phenomena before studying them. Rather than contributing
verified knowledge, I see grounded theorists as offering plausible accounts.
Glaser (2002) treats data as something separate from the researcher and
implies that data are untouched by the competent researcher's interpretations.
If, perchance, researchers somehow interpret their data, Glaser argues that then
these data are 'rendered objective' by looking at many cases. This point contradicts
Glaser's vigorous defence of small samples in discussion of saturation.
Granted, the number of 'cases' may not always equal sample size but in many
grounded theory studies they come close and are minuscule.
Studying many cases is crucial, in part because researchers may become
aware of their preconceptions about their topics. Yet such study may not challenge
their fundamental assumptions about the world, ways of knowing it, or
actions in it Here, researchers' entrenched assumptions grind the lens for viewing
the world and filter their resulting images of it What we define as data and
howwe look at them matters because these acts shape what we can see and learn.
Without engaging in reflexivity, researchers may elevate their own tacit assumptions
and interpretations to 'objective' status. Our assumptions, interactions-and
interpretations-affect the social processes constituting each stage of inquiry.
Glaser is correct about the value of looking at many cases. Many theorists,
including those whose unexamined assumptions predetermine what they see,
benefit from looking at many cases because they can strengthen their grasp of
their empirical worlds and discern variation in their categories. Surely we learn
as we proceed, particularly when we strive to find out what our research participants
say and do and what their worlds are like.
A constructivist approach does not adhere to positivist notions of variable
analysis or of finding a single basic process or core category in the studied phenomenon.
The constructivist view assumes an obdurate, yet ever-changing
world but recognizes diverse local worlds and multiple realities, and addresses
how people's actions affect their local and larger worlds. Thus, those who take
a constructivist approach aim to show the complexities of particular worlds,
views, and actions.
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
Theorizing in Grounded Theory
Critique and Renewal
Where's the theory in grounded theory? Although more researchers claim to
have used grounded theory methods than profess to have constructed substantive
or formal theories, most hold some sort of conception of theory. If you
peruse articles whose authors claim allegiance to grounded theory to see how
they construe a finished grounded theory, you might find such varied views as:
1) an empirical generalization, 2) a category, 3) a predisposition, 4) an explication
of a process, 5) a relationship between variables, 6) an explanation, 7) an
abstract understanding, and 8) a description. Recently, Glaser (2001) described
grounded theory as a 'theory of resolving a main concern' that can be theoretically
coded in many ways.4
Assertions abound about what stands as theory in
grounded theory, and that, of course, complicates assessing the extent to which
grounded theorists have produced theories. Some observers look at what
researchers have done in the name of grounded theory (see, for example,
Becker, 1998; Charmaz, 1995b; Silverman, 2001) and note that most studies are
descriptive rather than theoretical. Granted, description entails conceptualization
but theoretical treatment is also analytic and abstract
Other observers address the logic of grounded theory. Certainly numerous
critics (see, for example.• Atkinson, Coffey, & Delamont, 2003; Bulmer, 1979;
Dey, 1999, 2004; Emerson, 1983, 2004; Layder, 1998) have challenged presuppositions
and prescriptions that they find in grounded theory concerning
preconception, pure induction, and procedures. Of course, grounded theorists
from different variants have critiqued each other's approaches, as is evident
throughout this book (see, for example, Bryant, 2002, 2003; Charmaz, 2000,
2001c, 2005; Clarke, 2005; Corbin, 1998; Glaser, 1992, 2002, 2003; Melia,
1996; Robrecht, 1995; Stem, 1994a; Wilson & Hutchinson, 1996).
Several more criticisms merit discussion. Burawoy (1991) says that grounded
theory produces empirical generalizations that lead to generic explanations
abstracted from time and place.5 Three points are relevant here. First, in contrast
to Burawoy, a major strength of grounded theory resides in its applicability
across substantive areas. Still, we should reconsider how and when we move
our analysis and ask whether we have gained intimate familiarity with the phenomenon
before transporting an analysis.6
Second, Burawoy argues that unlike
grounded theory, his extended case method (1991) uncovers the particulars of
situations, explains how macro foundations shape them, and grounds the reproduction
and maintenance of globalization (Burawoy, 2000). He sees grounded
theory as leading to astructural analyses and implies that inductive methods
and decontextualized generalizations contribute to that result
What Burawoy suggests that grounded theory cannot do, I argue, is exactly
what grounded theory gives us the methods to do (Charmaz, 2005). A contextualized
grounded theory can start with sensitizing concepts that address such
concepts as power, global reach, and difference and end with inductive analyses
that theorize connections between local worlds and larger social structures.
The issue of decontextualized analyses raises further concerns that Burawoy
does not mention. Grounded theorists may produce decontextualized analyses
i33
134 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
when they disattend to context or are unaware of or unclear about it. Such
analyses mask the significance of constructivist elements in grounded theory.
Objectivist grounded theorists strive to attain generality and decontextualization
typically results. While constructing decontextualized analyses by moving
across fields, these grounded theorists may ironically force their data into their
earlier generalizations because they lack sufficient contexts with which to
ground their new data. Similarly, seeking decontextualized generalities also
can reduce opportunities to create theoretical complexity because decontextualizing
fosters (over)simplification. Third, Burawoy is right that some empirical
generalizations from specific studies do become taken as generic statements
about larger realities. We might consider at what point these generalizations
are granted theoretical status. Who grants them theoretical status-or doesn't?
For what purposes? The stress on theorizing leads to consideration of who
does the theorizing and with what sort of claims of authority or of conferred
authorization.
Burawoy asserts that grounded theory does not consider power in micro contexts
and that 'it represses the broader macro forces that both limit change and
create domination in the micro sphere' (1991: 282). Burawoy is correct that the
originators of grounded theory did not address power. Yet it is quite another
issue to attribute the lack of attention to power as a weakness residing within
the method itself. The method? The method does not preclude attending to
power. Layder (1998: 10) raises a similar questionable criticism when he states
that grounded theory 'is committed epistemologically (the validity of knowledge)
and ontologically (its view of social reality) to denying the existence of
phenomena that are not only or simply behavioural (like markets, bureaucracies,
and forms of domination).' Not necessarily. Merely because earlier authors
did not address power or macro forces does not mean that grounded theory
methods cannot. It might mean pursuing mixed methods forms of data collection
that include use of documents. Chang's (2000) study of the social transformation
of class in China offers valuable clues as to how grounded theorists
might study power and macro processes. Adopting grounded theory methods
in these areas could wring a new twist to old theoretical clothes.
Burawoy's focus on the objectivist elements in grounded theory leaves out its
constructivist potentials. In contrast to Burawoy and Layder's claims, I contend
that we should use grounded theory methods in precisely these areas to gain
fresh insights in social justice inquiry (Charmaz, 2005b). Clarke's (2005) extensions
of grounded theory also encourage pursuing such directions.
Critics from within grounded theory debate what should stand as grounded
theory and which directions it should take. Critics from without sometimes
reify statements in the early works and turn them into static pronouncements,
rather than treating them as starting points or as now historical statements of an
evolving method. Most critics have not engaged the full range of sources about
grounded theory and a few read no further or deeper than the rhetoric they find
in the Discovery book (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Others interpret the method narrowly.
These critics commonly miss four crucial points: 1) theorizing is an activity;
2) grounded theory methods provide constructive ways to proceed with this
activity; 3) the research problem and the researcher's unfolding interests can
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
shape the content of this activity, not the method; and 4) the products of
theorizing reflect how researchers acted on these points.
Critics' reifications about the nature of grounded theory spawn further reifications
about its presumed limits. Critics often reify early grounded theory
statements. Subsequently, their pronouncements are sometimes reified as inherent
truths about what grounded theory is and what we can do with it. These
reifications influence other interpreters, practitioners, and students of the
method. Untested notions about what grounded theory can address spawn reifications
about boundaries circumscribing the content of grounded theory
studies, such as the belief that grounded theorists cannot use their methods to
theorize power. Limited ideas about the form of inquiry grounded theory takes
also produce other kinds of reifications. Treating grounded theory as only a
variable analysis, for example, can lead to reductionist frames and encourage
favoring those 'variables' within ready grasp. Hence, a superficial study can
result that may skirt the border of a category without explicating it.
Theory generation continues to be the unfilled promise and potential of
grounded theory. As Dan E. Miller (2000: 400) states, 'Although grounded theory
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967) is often invoked as a methodological strategy, ironically
too little grounded theory is actually done.'
Developing Theoretical Sensitivity through Theorizing
Like other recent texts {see Glaser, 1998; Goulding, 2002; Locke, 2001; Strauss &
Corbin, 1998), this volume clarifies the logic and sequence of grounded theory
methods. Early grounded theorists predicated constructing theory on developing
'theoretical sensitivity' (Glaser, 1978), but how might grounded theorists
acquire it? Which clues can we discover through studying grounded theorists'
actions? What do acts of theorizing entail?
Theorizing means stopping, pondering, and rethinking anew. We stop the flow
of studied experience and take it apart. To gain theoretical sensitivity, we look at
studied life from multiple vantage points, make comparisons, follow leads, and
build on ideas. Because you chart your direction
through acts of theorizing, you may not be able
to foresee endpoints or stops along the way.
........\; you reach down to ;
fundamentals, up to
abstractions, and probe
into experience. The
content of theorizing cuts
to the core of studied life
The acts involved in theorizing foster seeing
possibilities, establishing connections, and asking
questions. Grounded theory methods give you
theoretical openings that avoid importing and
imposing packaged images and automatic
H th d h and poses new questions
answers. ow you practice eorizing an ow
about it.
you construct the content of theorizing vary .•••.•••••••••.•••••••••..••••·
depending on what you find in the field. When
you theorize, you reach down to fundamentals, up to abstractions, and probe
into experience. The content of theorizing cuts to the core of studied life and
poses new questions about it.
Although tools may help, constructing theory is not a mechanical process.
Theoretical playfulness enters in. Whimsy and wonder can lead you to see the
i35
136 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
novel in the mundane. Openness to the unexpected expands your view of studied
life and subsequently of theoretical possibilities. Your hard work reins in those
ideas that best fit the data and brings them to fruition.
Consistent with Glaser's (1978) guidelines, I have stressed using gerunds in coding
and memo-writing. Adopting gerunds fosters theoretical sensitivity because these
words nudge us out of static topics and into enacted processes.7
Gerunds prompt
thinking about actions-large and small. If you can focus your coding on actions,
you have ready grist for seeing sequences and making connections. If your
gerunds quickly give way to coding for topics, you may synthesize and summarize
data but the connections between them will remain more implicit Thus, I
suggest renewed emphasis on actions and processes, not on individuals, as a strategy
in constructing theory and moving beyond categorizing types ofindividuals.8
In my analysis of identity levels in an identity hierarchy, the categories result
from people's objectives and actions rather than being pinned to certain individuals.
Individuals can and do move up and down the hierarchy and certain social
conditions foster such movement while other conditions hinder it
Taking a closer look at processual analyses may aid your efforts to construct
theory.9
Studying a process fosters your efforts to construct theory because you
define and conceptualize relationships between experiences and events. Then
you can define the major phases and concentrate on the relationships between
them. Major events and often the pacing may be clear when you study an identifiable
process, such as becoming a member of a profession.10
Graduate degree
programs in social work, for example, have definite beginnings and endings and
you can discern the pacing and sequencing that lie between. From early on, you
know the path and can watch for markers and transitions in the passage. Other
processes, such as being selected for lay-off from work or dying of cancer may
not be so clear-at least to those who experience these processes and researchers
who study them. If so, you may have to do considerable observational and analytic
work to define phases that make empirical and theoretical sense.
In their substantive grounded theory of bereavement, Hogan, Morse, and
Tas6n (1996) outline processes of surviving a death of a close family member.
They present their theory as somewhat sequential major processes that may
overlap·er reemerge:
1. Getting the news
2. Finding out
3. Facing realities
4. Becoming engulfed with suffering
5. Emerging from the suffering
6. Getting on with life
7. Experiencing personal growth
These authors qualify the process according to whether the deceased person had
experienced an illness or sudden death. Survivors of a person who suffered a
sudden death entered bereavement at the second major phase, finding out, while
those whose loved one died ofan illness experienced the shock of the terminal diagnosis
and a caregiving process. Hogan et al. connect descriptions of grief to specific
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
phases in the process, and to sub-processes that constitute a particular phase. Thus
they treat 'enduringhopelessness,' 'existingin the present,' and 'reliving the past' as
part of the 'missing, longing, and yearning' that characterizes how bereaved people
experience being engulfed in suffering. Note the strong parallels between these
processes and my 1991 analysis of experiencing a serious chronic illness. Both
studies tap fundamental phases in suffering and properties ofmeanings of loss.
If grounded theorists have the methods to construct theory, why do many
studies remain descriptive? Coding for themes rather than actions contributes
to remaining at a descriptive level. In contrast, grounded theorists have the
tools for explicating actions that constitute a process, as Clarke demonstrates in
Disciplining Reproduction (1998). She persists in analyzing these actions in her
treatment of each phase of the two-edged process of scientists establishing their
field as a legitimate discipline and exerting controls over women's bodies. Such
works keep the analytic momentum, and thus extend their theoretical reach further
than those that identify a process, outline its phases, and then describe them.
One hazard of grounded theory approaches is constructing a list of connected
but under-analyzed processes.
Star (1989) keeps the analytic momentum in her analysis of establishing
scientific certainty among early brain researchers who believed that mental
functions were localized to specific areas of the brain. In her discussion of their
tactics for dismissing opponents who argued mental functions were diffuse, she
simultaneously shows us localizationists' strategies and theorizes how their
actions establish scientific dominance. See how Star maintains her analytic
momentum as she discusses the following process:
Manipulating Hierarchies of Credibility
Ahierarchy of credibility refers to the differential weight given to the word
of people or organizations with different status. That is, a person or institution
at the top of a hierarchy is intrinsically more 'believable' than someone
at the bottom (Becker. 1967). All else being equal, the word of a
Nobel Prize winner is likely to be taken as more plausible than that of a
vagrant. even if the content of the statements is the same.
Scientific arguments that manipulate hierarchies of credibility are not
sanctioned by scientific method. Yet they are common. The localization
debate was not won because localizationists were more sarcastic or ad
hominem than diffusionists. Instead, localizationalists could more effectively
mampulate hierarchies of credibility as they gained professional
power in medicine and physiology.
'More Scientific than Thou'
Among the types of claims that manipulate hierarchies of credibility are claims
on the part of one side or another to [greater] scientificity. These are claims
that one procedure or approach is more scientifically viable. or technically
astute, than another. Such claims are often opposed to designations like
'metaphysical,' 'poetic,' 'impressionistic,' or 'soft science ...' (1989: 140)
1.37
138 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Star starts with a clear definition of her category of 'manipulating hierarchies
of credibility,' and then builds its structure by showing how localizationists built
the architecture of their argument. Hence, she reaches down into the data and
shows how localizationists established that they were 'more scientific than
thou,' as one tactic supporting the more general category of 'manipulating hierarchies
of credibility.' Subsequently, she fits together being more scientific than
thou with other tactics that support and specify the larger category, including
'arguments from authority' and 'ignoring, censorship, and sarcasm.' In each
case, she shows how localizationists used these tactics and gave reasons why
they invoked them. Because Star gives her categories and subcategories
imagery and substance, she constructs a dense theoretical statement that readers
remember. This excerpt shows how writing style and theoretical significance
merge in the narrative. Star's engaging style persuades readers and
involves them in her theoretical arguments.
To maintain analytic momentum, try to remain open to theoretical possibilities.
Recall that Glaser {1978, 1998) advises you to begin the analytic process by
asking, 'What is this data a study of?' {1978: 57). IT we ask the question at each
stage of the analytic process and seek the most fundamental answer that fits, we
might discover that particular meanings and actions in our studied world suggest
theoretical links to compelling ideas that had not occurred to us. As we pursue
theoretical possibilities, we may make connections between our theoretical categories
and ideas concerning the core ofhuman experience. ITso, our study may
be about fundamental views and values such as those concerning human nature,
selfhood, autonomy and attachment, moral life and responsibility, legitimacy
and control, and certainty and truth. For example, my study ofstruggling for self
in the identity hierarchy linked selfhood, autonomy, legitimacy, and control.
Any field contains fundamental concerns and contested ideas, whether or not
they have yet been theorized. As we code data and write memos, we can think
about which ones, if any, our materials suggest and how our completed theories
address them. In my field of sociology, such concerns include:
Embodiment and consciousness
Indiyidual and collective action
Cooperation and conflict
Choice and constraint
Meanings and actions
Standpoints and differences
Ritual and ceremony
Positions and networks
Power and prestige
Structure and process
Opportunities and inequalities
Rights and resources
Moral life, moral action, and moral responsibility
Discerning connections to such concerns opens possibilities for theorizing.
What deflects them? Analytic starting points matter. The early grounded
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
theory texts prescribed discovering a single basic process. If numerous 'basic'
social processes occur in a setting, determining 'the' most fundamental process
can be daunting, even for an objectivist grounded theorist. While I had no difficulty
defining loss of self (Charmaz, 1983b) as more basic than 'managing illness'
or 'disclosing illness' in my study of experiencing chronic illness, I could
not define a single basic process that unified everything I was learning. For
several years I wrestled with trying to identify one basic social process that captured
everything I learned about experiencing illness.11
I tried to find a more
specific process than 'experiencing illness'; however, people experienced many
processes ranging from learning to live with chronic illness to experiencing
time in new ways to recreating or reestablishing a self they could accept.
Once the analytic work begins, all the potential problems mentioned above
may arise. Thus, some grounded theories suffer from whatjohn Lofland (1970)
calls 'analytic interruptus' in qualitative research. The analytic work begins but
comes to an abrupt ending. A disjuncture arises between the analytic level in
these grounded theory studies and the goal of theorizing. Cathy Urquhart
(2003} attributes this disjuncture in her field of information systems to subjective
elements in coding. She states:
Experience with using GTM [Grounded Theory Methods] shows that it is
essentially a 'bottom up' coding method. Therefore. it is not unusual for
researchers to find that GTM gives them a low level theory which they find
difficult to 'scale up' appropriately.
One issue then. in our use of GTM in IS [Information Systems] is to
clearly identify what we are using it for: a) a coding method or b) a method
of theory generation. There is ample evidence in IS literature for the first
use. much less for the second. One useful side effect of using GTM in IS
could be a much more detailed consideration of the role of theory - and
generation of our own theories specific to IS. (2003: 47)
Urquhart's astute assessment applies to many grounded theory researchers
throughout the disciplines who stop their analytic work after coding and constructing
elementary categories. In contrast to Urquhart, however, I argue that
the bottom-up approach gives grounded theory its strength. The subjectivity of
the observer provides a way of viewing. Instead of arresting analysis at the coding
stage, researchers can raise their main categories to concepts.
Categories are major and minor. Which categories does a researcher raise to
theoretical concepts? Consistent with grounded theory logic, you raise the categories
that render the data most effectively. Clarke views these categories as
having 'carrying capacity' because they carry substantial analytic weight.12
These categories contain crucial properties that make data meaningful and
carry the analysis forward. We choose to raise certain categories to concepts
because of their theoretical reach, incisiveness, generic power, and relation
to other categories. Raising categories to concepts includes subjecting them to
further analytic refinement and involves showing their relationships to other
concepts. For objectivists, these concepts serve as core variables and hold explanatory
and predictive power. For constructivists, theoretical concepts serve as
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:140 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
interpretive frames and offer an abstract understanding of relationships.
Theoretical concepts subsume lesser categories and by comparison hold more
significance, account for more data and often are more evident. We make a
series of decisions about these categories after having compared them with
other categories and the data. Our actions shape the analytic process. Rather
than discovering order within the data, we create an explication, organization,
and presentation ofthe data (Charmaz, 1990).
Inspecting Grounded Theories
While keeping meanings of theory and theorizing practices in mind, we can
take a fresh look at theory construction in several grounded theories I introduced
earlier. Each theory bears the imprint of its author's interests and ideas
and reflects its historical context as well as the historical development of ideasand
of grounded theory-in its parent discipline. Each of the theories published
in the 1980s mirrors the form and style of the era. Before Clifford and Marcus's
(1986) postmodern challenge in Writing Culture, most qualitative researchers
strove to be objective and positivist. As Van Maanen (1988) suggests, Glaser
and Strauss (1967) created methods that emulated the natural sciences and provided
researchers with a defense against accusations of subjectivity.13
Jane Hood's Substantive Theory
Jane Hood's (1983) book stands out because she outlines specific theoretical conditions
that explain substantive problems and processes. Compared to today,
more working-and middle-class women with children married their male partners
at the time Hood collected her data and fewer married women felt forced to
reenter the workforce after having children. Many women-married or not-must
work now and earlier cultural values have changed that both dissuaded mothers
from working and fostered fathers' lack ofinvolvement in family work.
As I pointed out in the pervious chapter, Hood found that husbands' awareness
anP.. acknowledged value of their wives' significant contributions to family
finances became underlying conditions for sharing family work. Those husbands
who valued their wives' financial contribution participated in housework
and childcare. Those husbands who did not see their wives as coproviders did
not view housework and childcare as a joint effort.
Thus the husband's definition of the situation and in particular of the wife's
financial contribution became variables on which outcomes rested. Note that
Hood specifies what happens when the husband acknowledges and values his
wife's financial contribution and what happens when he does not.
Hood was influenced by Glaser and, not surprisingly, her mode of analysis
reflects that influence. Like other grounded theories of the early 1980s, Hood's
analysis has an objectivist cast. She seeks explanations and offers predictions.
Although she engages her participants in lively discussions and raises occasional
pointed questions, she offers crisp, straightforward assessments of her data from an
expert's vantage point Hood identifies variables, specifies conditions under which
RECONSTRUCTiNG THEORY
events and actions occur, and examines consequences. Her statements are
parsimonious and integrated and she deduces testable hypotheses from them.
Hood shows what people do and identifies the source offurther action. She maintains
analytic momentum throughout her research. As she studied her data and
engaged in theoretical sampling, Hood made her theory more dense by addressing
whether work-oriented spouses were more or less likely to stay together; which
kinds of wives remained in the workforce, how their relative commitments to
work and their wage ratios affected their bargaining power; and what categories
of husbands correspondingly increased their household responsibilities. Consider
this set of hypotheses that Hood deduced after she had articulated her theory:
1. Wives working for 'self' as opposed to 'family' reasons will be more
likely to remain in the labor force after the need for their incomes has
diminished.
2. Couples with competing goals will experience more strain than those
with complementary goals.
3. Increased work commitment on the part of a wife (accompanied by a
decrease in the amount of companionship she is able to offer her husband)
will cause most problems in husband- and couple-centered marriages
and least in child-centered marriages.
4. Wives working for self reasons married to job-oriented men are most
likely to move toward recognition as coproviders (and increase their
wage ratio).
5. Couples who are most ambivalent about their definition of the wife's
responsibility to provide will be likely to resolve this inconsistency
either by having the wife quit work or by accepting her as a coprovider.
6. Job-oriented husbands will have an easier time accepting their wives'
increased work commitment than will career-oriented husbands.
7. Job-oriented husbands and families with younger children will be most
likely to increase their share of household responsibility, where careeroriented
husbands and fathers of older children will be less likely to.
8. Regardless of her share of the family income, a wife's bargaining
power will be improved by gains in self-esteem and increased social
support outside the marriage. (1983: 138)
These hypotheses follow Hood's theory of the role bargaining process based
on her analysis of outcomes concerning specific research participants. If we
conducted a similar study today we might cast a wider initial net to discover if,
how, when, and to what extent other factors such as race or ethnic identification,
religious beliefs, and geographical location might affect what happens
during the bargaining process and, should patterns emerge, subsequently earn
their way into the analysis. For that matter, we would want to see what contemporary
couples bargain about and learn whether and to what extent they
have reframed the issues since Hood's original study. A contemporary
researcher likely would attend to the range of variation in the bargaining
process and to situating the subsequent analysis.
A further examination of Hood's type of analysis shows its usefulness in
defining what happened and in theorizing its implications. She reveals how
l.4i
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:142 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
implicit rules and tacit agreements about rights and obligations shape bargaining.
She points out that her research participants share a tacit agreement that a wife
cannot expect help with housework unless she has to work for family survival.
Children, in contrast, result in joint responsibilities that spouses must cover if
one partner cannot fulfill his or her tasks. Hood's couples assumed that children
must receive a certain amount of parental attention and thus a spouse felt compelled
to maintain that level commensurate to his or her partner's reduced
involvement with the children.
Interview data may provide accounts indicating how couples negotiate family
work from the perspectives of the men and women involved but interviews are
just that-retrospective accounts subject to reconstruction in view of present
exigencies and purposes. Nevertheless, Hood's multiple methods of data collection
do much to counteract the limitations of interviews. Her interview
accounts indicate hypothetical conditions concerning when negotiation is possible.
We learn why wives may be effective or ineffective in obtaining their
husbands' participation in family work. We certainly gain a sense of whose perspectives
and prerogatives prevail first, but we don't know how strongly
women whose husbands did not participate in family work felt that they should.
Nor do we know how these women may have tried to impose their definitions.
Interestingly, Hood did discover that men's participation in family work had
the consequence of couples becoming closer. Her data may not open up the
process of becoming closer but certainly points the way for further research to
examine how this process may unfold.
Hood's analysis shows the social conditions at play with remarkable clarity.
Not only does Hood maintain analytic momentum but also she is unwavering
in her focus. Once she discovers her core variables, she proceeds to trace out
their permutations and implications and integrate them in a logically precise
framework. Her hypothetical statements supply tools for making predictions
and for transporting the analysis to study other types of situations. For example,
we could observe whether and to what extent the analysis holds for twocareer
couples without children.
By developing integrated conditional statements, Hood moves her analysis
from empirical generalizations about a small sample to a substantive theory of
an empirical problem. The conceptual level of this theory is specific and immediate.
Hood shows how we can theorize concrete relationships in ways that provide
a useful handle to evaluate actual situations.
Hood built early comparisons into her research that gave her the foundation to
make distinctions and to .pursue differences about her major concerns of role
overload and marital equity. Consistent with Glaser's current emphasis on studying
how people resolve a pressing problem in their lives, she stuck with analyzing
if and how working women could negotiate the constant problem of family
work. Take note that Hood completed her study long before Glaser's (1998)
definitive statements appeared about studying how people resolve a problem.
Because of her systematic approach to data-gathering, making comparisons,
and theoretical sampling, Hood could generate conditions that characterized
her emerging substantive theory and contributed to its coalescence. Her theory
readily permits researchers and readers alike to check empirical instances.
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
Hood conducted her study as an independent research project although we can
easily envision transporting her approach to a large multi-method project that
combines qualitative research with comprehensive national quantitative surveys.
This study suggests how well certain qualitative grounded approaches
could work with multi-method and multi-disciplinary research teams that
address specific research problems.
Patrick Biernacki's Theory of a Basic Social Process
Patrick Biernacki's Pathways from Heroin Addiction (1986) offers a theoretical
explication of a basic social process, as consistent with early grounded theory
texts (Glaser, 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). His theory accounts for the identity
transformation from 'addict' to 'ex-addict' among individuals who did not
seek treatment. Biernacki demonstrates the phases in the process and treats
them as conceptual categories. He arrives at these categories by pulling
together processes defined in his codes. I present a diagram (Figure 6.1) to show
the logic of Biernacki's processual theory but only detail the last crucial phase
of the process, which I discuss below.
Biernacki's theory has a strong objectivist foundation with some interpretivist
elements. He traces the sequence of events and shows how sub-processes
build on each other. After ex-addicts quelled their drug cravings and stayed
abstinent, Biernacki argiles that they underwent subtle social psychological
processes involving symbolic and social reconstructions of their lives and worlds.
These reconstructions required making a place in the conventional world. Such
symbolic and social reconstructions usually presented addicts with harrowing
problems and continued troubles-but overcoming them remained a prerequisite
for completing their identity transformation. Thus, the category of 'becoming
and being "ordinary"' (p. 141) became an integral concept in Biernacki's
theory. He shows how his research participants experienced this phase of the
transformation process. Recovering addicts had to adopt and maintain conventional
lives. Yet they felt reluctant to interact with conventional people and
simultaneously faced stereotyped views of addicts as untrustworthy, loathsome
individuals.
To make his theory coalesce, Biernacki needed to explain the pivotal role that
'becoming and being "ordinary"' played in the recovery process to theorize how
addicts' identity transformation became real. What happened to make this transformation
possible? How did social circumstances and personal choices congeal
to lead to a complete identity transformation? Biernacki's categories below refer
to three different identity paths that addicts traversed to become ordinary:
• Emergent identities (pp. 144-148)
" Reverting to unspoiled identities (pp. 149-155)
• Extending identities (pp. 155-160).
Thus in the first case, recovering addicts' new identities emerged as
they adopted new pursuits that absorbed their attention and spawned identity
change. In the second case, constructing a former conventional identity eventually
:1.43
l.44
Resolving
to stop
CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
The Logic of Biernacki's Theory of Identity Transformation
Breaking away
from addiction
1
Becoming and
Staying abstinent ---+- being ordinary
Properties of Becoming and Being Ordinary
/Course of identity transformation Surmounting the barriers to change
Emergent identities Relationships with addicts
1 1Reverting to unspoiled identities Relationships with non-addicts
1Extending identities
1Speech nuances and identity
transformation
/The stabilization of identities,
perspectives, and relationships
The emergence of soc1al
commitments
1Drug-related expenences that
confirm identity changes
FIGURE G.l. Patrick Biernacki's theory of identity transformation in
recovery from addiction without treatment
allowed leaving the addict identity behind, and in the third, expanding an
unspoiled identity that had remained intact during addiction created possibilities
for identity change. Emergent identities developed through circumstance
and action, often without forethought. Reverting to an unspoiled identity and
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
extending a present one were more apt to result from conscious choices. Each
category maps an identity path to becoming and being ordinary.
Biernacki's identity categories exhaust the range of empirical instances that
he discovered in the field. Thus, his concept 'being and becoming "ordinary"'
derives from empirical indicators and accounts for them. Biernacki had to
address simultaneous processes to have his theory coalesce. While engaged in
these kinds of identity-work, addicts involved themselves in 'surmounting the
barriers to change,' the next major problem that Biernacki defines in their transformation.
Last, ex-addicts had to stabilize their new or revised identities, perspectives,
and relationships (pp. 161-180). If we take a closer look at Biernacki's
category 'surmounting the barriers to change,' and examine how he treats it, we
can see how he wove his data, codes, and categories into a theoretical explanation
that builds directly from the data. Recovering addicts had to reject
enticements offered by their addicted peers and, moreover, resist the power
and pervasiveness of the drug world and its discourse. Meanwhile, addicts had
to surmount the stigma ofaddiction in conventional worlds and prove that they
had changed. Biernacki has already defined when surmounting these barriers
becomes crucial. Next he looks at how ex-addicts established proof of their
changed identities.
How can this be done? Well. proof might be found in the ex-addicts' maintaining
some of the involvements thought of as typical of a conventional.
'ordinary' life over an extended period of time. For example. ex-addicts are
expected to be steadily employed. to maintain their own places of residence.
and to keep reasonably 'normal' hours. They should also possess
the material things that are common in the nonaddictive world-say, a television
set and a stereo. Ex-addicts must avoid. or at least not be seen in.
'deviant' places. especially those areas known to be frequented by drug
addicts. They should frequent 'normal' places-the cinema, restaurants.
or sports events-and when they do, they should pay their own way.
These may seem like small concerns, but they are important because
they go against the stereotypic images that non-addicted people have of
addicts ... By the addicts' actions and even their possessions, others
assess whether their claims that they are no longer using drugs and have
changed their lives are true. (Biernacki, 1986: 166-167)
Biernacki provides an integrated substantive theory of identity change among
addicts who do not receive treatment His theory is sufficiently abstract to cover
the range of empirical situations. Biernacki tackles the theoretical concept of
identity by systematically constructing categories that synthesize and explain
his research participants' accounts of their experiences. As he defined and conceptualized
patterns in the data, he sought further data to specify conditions
that affected the recovery. Not surprisingly, Biernacki discovered that a major
factor was the extent to which a person's participation in the world of addiction
excluded conventional pursuits. But Biernacki did not stop there. Rather, he
also juxtaposed immersion in the drug world again against access and costs,
and discovered how they varied. Biernacki found that addicts' immersion in the
drug world seemed to be most complete when their drug costs were high and
1.45
:!.46 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
access was difficult. Subsequently, he began theoretical sampling among
doctors and nurses. These professionals not only had low drug costs and relatively
easy access but possessed valued identities with demanding involvements.
By pursuing patterns in his data, Biernacki explains why certain addicts
recover without treatment.
The theoretical reach of Biernacki's analysis extends beyond drug addiction.
He addresses a generic process of identity transformation in a particular category
of people that we could transport across fields to develop the concepts further.
Other forms of deviant behavior, such as delinquency and prostitution,
offer possibilities for advancing or modifying Biernacki's theory.
ICathy Charmaz's Constructivist Theory
The discussion below clarifies how a constructivist approach encourages you to
theorize in the interpretive tradition. Interpretive theorizing may cover overt
processes but also delves into implicit meanings and processes and is most evident
then. To follow my reasoning, take another look at the category 'living one
day at a time'. The idea of living one day at a time appeared in my data as part
of the taken-for-granted discourse among chronically ill people. People stated
the need to live one day at a time as an obvious fact but did not elaborate on
it. A constructivist approach leads you to explore and interpret such implicit
statements or actions.
Living One Day at a Time
Living one day at a time means dealing with illness-each day-but only
one at a time. When people do so. they hold future plans and even ordinary
pursuits in abeyance. For most people. living one day at a time tacitly
acknowledges their fragility.
Living one day at a time also allows people to focus on illness, treatment.
and regimen without being overcome by dashed hopes and unmet expectations.
Taking this stance provides guidelines for functioning each day and
some sense of control. By concentrating on the present, the person
can avoid or minimize thinking about further disability and death.
The felt need to live one day at a time can drastically alter one's time
perspective. Living one day at a time pulls the person's attention into the
present and pushes once projected futures further away. Earlier visions of
the future recede without disruption and slip away, perhaps almost
unnoted. The present is compelling and, eventually, may seem rewarding.
If so, the content of time changes; moments become longer and fuller.
Living one day at a time is a strategy for managing chronic illness and
structuring time. Moreover, it also provides a way of managing self while
facing uncertainty. It gives a sense of control over one's actions and. by
extension, a sense of control over self and situation. Embracing this strategy
also alters time perspective....
Living one day at a time reveals emotions embedded in the experience
of illness. Many ill people, especially older people. express greater fear of
dependence, debility, and abandonment than of death. Living one day at a
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
time helps to reduce their fear that the future will be worse than the present.
During a series of setbacks, Mark Reinertsen murmured, 'I try to live one
day at a time because it is just less frightening.' Later he observed, 'I could
just get really tied up in what might happen [death or further deterioration]
since so much has happened in the last six months [multiple complications
and iatrogenic diseases]. But what good does it do? I can only handle
today?' (1991a. pp. 178, 180-181)
This excerpt represents an instance ofconstructivist analysis because it pieces
together and interprets implicit meanings that constitute the category, thereby
showing how a mundane statement alludes to an array of meanings and experiences.
I point out actions that people take although the content of the category
relies on how I assemble these actions and stated feelings and the interpretation
I give to participants' statements and actions. When we delve into tacit meanings,
not everyone we talk with is equally adept at describing them or of linking
their actions to these meanings. Thus, the researcher may develop special
methodological as well as analytic strategies to learn about relevant meanings
and actions.
The narrative above pulls together disparate experiences in the category and
elucidates the range of its tacit meanings. An interpretive analysis invites the
reader's imaginative participation in related experiences through the theoretical
rendering of the category. In this sense, the theoretical understanding of the category
creates its significance; without it, research participants' unexplicated statements
about living one day at a time would remain unexamined asides that
happened to occur during the course of conversation. Pure description, in contrast,
invites readers into scenes and invokes interest in and, often, identification
with research participants' stories. The significance of the experience is often
straightforward, as when Hood and Biernacki offer telling descriptions of their
research. Their descriptions underscore the plausibility of their explanations.
Consistent with a constructivist approach, the view I have of the data is part of
their rendering. That is also true of Hood and Biernacki's grounded theories, but
it is a matter ofextent Hood and Biernacki's theories both cover definitive events
with clear markers and tangible experiences. Other trained observers in their
respective fields could see and chart similar processes, once they made the
respective initial empirical and conceptual leaps that Hood and Biernacki made.
(In Hood's case that meant ferreting out the reasons why working women
received little household help from husbands and in Biernacki's case, if and how
heroin addicts recover from addiction without treatment)
My analysis above remains more intuitive and impressionistic than Hood's
or Biernacki's. Whether or not its interpretive frame strengthens or weakens it
redounds back to critics' allegiances to constructivist or objectivist grounded
theory. Would other researchers have drawn out the relationship between past
and future or treated it as a strategy to maintain emotional control?
Conceivably-if they already possessed some theoretical sensitivity toward concepts
of self, time, emotions, and life disruptions. Ifnot, it's hard to say because
the properties of the category remain implicit until theoretical sampling and
interpretive rendering make them explicit The further we go into implicit
experience, the longer it may take to make such empirical and conceptual
:1.47
148 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
leaps. Might other researchers have seen different things in the experience and
by extension, the category? Yes, that's possible. Perhaps the kinds of theoretical
sensitivities that the researcher brings to studied life assume special significance
here. The analysis results from the researcher's involvement at every
point in the research process.
Part of the interpretive task is being alert to possibilities for moving the analysis
beyond the definitive evidence you currently have. That's why subsequent entering
or reentering the experience is crucial. Rather than viewing living one day at
a time as a convenient slogan, I sampled further to find out if and how people
acted on it Observers may be able to reenter the scene; interviewers can only seek
access to stories that might illuminate the category. In this case, theoretical sampling
became a means ofgaining access to this specific experience. By going back
and exploring further questions, the fragments of experience took form.
What place do categories have in constructivist analyses? Although categories
do not serve as core variables, researchers may show relationships among them.
In this case, I conveyed how my category 'living one day at time' connected
with three major concepts: 'Time Perspectives,' 'Time Structures,' and 'Situating
the Self in Time.' Thus, living one day at a time shapes the time structure of
someone's days and weeks. Taking this stance for long periods alters the person's
time perspective as the past fades and the future wanes. AB a result, the person
locates his or her self in the present.
Uke Hood and Biernacki, I specify conditions, show conceptual relationships,
and forecast consequences. Rather than making explicit theoretical propositions,
I weave them into the narrative. Although the theory is more diffuse than either
Hood's or Biernacki's, simultaneously, it is more abstract and general. Certainly
the content ofinquiry influences the theoretical outcomes. The elusive nature of
my dual emphases on the self and time contributes to how I developed my theoretical
statements. Still, a constructivist grounded theory informed my emerging
analysis and inspired making fresh theoretical connections.
Concluding Thoughts
Throughout this chapter, I drew firm lines between positivist and interpretive
inquiry, constructivist and objectivist grounded theory, and the subsequent distinctions
and directions they suggest. In research practice, however, the lines
may not be so clear. Positivist researchers may explore elusive topics with
ephemeral meanings. Constructivist grounded theorists may investigate overt
processes in painstaking detail. In research practice, theorizing means being
eclectic, drawing on what works, defining what fits (see also Wuest, 2000). For
that matter, neither positivist nor constructivist may intend that readers view
their written grounded theories as Theory, shrouded in all its grand mystique, or
acts of theorizing. Instead they just are doing grounded theory in whatever way
they understand it.
Uke Star's early brain researchers, however, grounded theorists sometimes
invoke a 'more theoretical than thou' form ofinvidious comparison. An elegant
RECONSTRUCTING THEORY
parsimonious theory may offer clear propositions but have limited scope. An
imaginative diffuse theory may spark bursts of insight but offer interpretive
frames with porous borders. Each presupposes different objectives and favors
certain ways of knowing and types of knowledge. A theory allows us to cut
through ordinary explanations and understandings and to attend to certain
realities and not to others. Theories cannot be measured like bank statements
although we can establish criteria for different kinds of theorizing. The balance
ofIf-Then theoretical propositions and the number and density of abstractions
depends on a grounded theorist's audience and purpose as well as on his or her
theoretical proclivities. As my above discussions of theorizing in grounded theory
reveal, theories serve different purposes and differ in their inclusiveness, precision,
level, scope, generality, and applicability.
The subjectivity and ambiguity I portrayed in constructivist grounded theory
permeates objectivist approaches as well. These approaches mask subjectivity
and ambiguity through shared assumptions about the world and established
formats for conducting research. In the end, inquiry takes us outward yet reflecting
about it draws us inward. Subsequently, grounded theory leads us back to
the world for a further look and deeper reflection-again and again. Our imaginative
renderings ofwhat we see and learn are interpretations, emanating from
dialectics of thought and experience. Whether we adhere to positivist or interpretive
traditions, we do not gain an autonomous theory, albeit one amenable
to modification. Rather we are part of our constructed theory and this theory
reflects the vantage points inherent in our varied experiences, whether or not
we are aware of them.
NOTES
1 After completing a chapter-length analysis of tlus matenal by 1983. the published version
appeared ill 1987. I had laid out the central ideas ill my dissertation (1973) but ill the
intenm I had collected more data to refine the categories.
2 For a more complete statement of contrasts distmguishmg construcUVlSt and objecnVIst
grounded theory, see Charmaz, 2000; 2006a.
3 I agree with Glaser (1992) on the issue of verificanon, despite its appearance in the
Discovery (1967) book. Checkmg hunches and confirming ideas, in my VIew, does not
equal verificanon. Rather than contributmg verified knowledge, I see grounded theonsts
as offenng plausible accounts.
4 Glaser (2001) now argues that researchers identifY tlns maill concern, winch represents a
Significant deparrure from Ins (1992) assernon that researchers should analyze the mam
concern in the setring and that participants will tell them what It is.
5 Burawoy calls for 'grounded globalizanons' (2000: 341) and an agenda for 'grounding
globalization'later in Global Etltnograplty (2000: 337-373). Although Ius concepts allude
to grounded theory, he does not engage or ate it.
6 My point here complements Silverman's (2004) argument crted above.
7 An emphasis on gerunds may seem like a tnVIal poillt; rnstead I see it as a pivotal point but
one that grounded theorists do not always adopt. Perhaps the much greater emphasis on
structure than process ill the English language makes thmkmg wrth gerunds unfamiliar;
however. researchers often find that gerunds fit much of their data in ways they had notand
could not have--fully annapated.
149
:1.50 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
8 Learmng to focus on processes instead of on individuals and topics was one our first
lessons in our grounded theory analysis seminars durmg my graduate years.We learned
to go beyond static typologies labeling individuals mto analyzing basic social processes
to giVe the studied phenomenon fuller analync treatment. Many qualitative studies at the
nme relied on labeling indiVlduals, so developing explicit analyses ofsocial processes m
grounded theory marked a decided advance.
9 Numerous grounded theory studies offer msightful observations ofsubjective experience
or orgaruzational processes (see, for example. Hogan, Morse. & Tas6n, 1996; Lempert,
1996; Melia, 1987;Thulesius, Hakansson, & Petersson, 2003; Tweed & Salter, 2000) and
mcreasmgly more grounded theory studies proVlde useful treatment of larger social
processes (see for example Clarke, 1998; Star, 1989, 1999).
10 The level we address figures here.Although many grounded theonsts study process as indicated
m narratives or natural settings, to my knowledge we have not addressed mteracnonal
sequences as closely as conversational analysts (see, for example, Maynard, 2003; Silverman,
1997). Urquhart's (1998) study; which builds on system analysiS, takes a step in thiS direction.
11 In my dissertation (1973), which addressed the same substantive area, I made 'remobilizing'
the maJor process. Besides being an ugly word that evokes mechanistic and militaristic
images, the term did not account for the range of experience. ThiS decided
limitation became mcreasmgly apparent when I gathered additional and more complete
data after the dissertation. By then, I had improved my mterV!ewing skills and routinely
tape-recorded the interV!ews.
12 Personal communication, February 28, 2005.
13 In the 1960s. many scholars disrrussed qualitative research as unpressiorusnc, unsystematic,
and subjective.
Writing the Draft
A grounded theory journey extends through the process of writing, as
you will see in this chapter. Writing your manuscript presents opportunities
for drafting new discoveries with each revision and making
your mark in your field with grace and style. I suggest ways to pull
together the pieces of your manuscript, construct a compelling argument
that fits your grounded theory, and scrutinize your categories
again to gauge how they shape the core of the manuscript. After
drafting your grounded theory, we grapple with the disputed literature
review and often troublesome theoretical framework. I offer solutions
to the tensions between these standard scholarly requirements and
grounded theorizing that will serve your theoretical analysis and the
argument you make about it. The chapter ends with writers' strategies
and rhetorical devices to render your grounded theory accessibleand
to make it matter.
Grounded theory writing preserves and presents the form and content of
the analytic work. Rather than spotlighting actors or authors, grounded
theory places ideas and analytic frameworks on center stage. In a sense, our
concepts become 'actors' who create the analysis of actions in the scene. What
tensions arise between constructing our grounded theory analyses and our writing
tasks? How might we recapture the fullness of events through our analytic
renderings? How can we merge the analytic demands of grounded theory with
the standards of good writing?
As I have argued, the potential strength ofgrounded theory lies in its analytic
power to theorize how meanings, actions, and social structures are constructed.
Analytic memos grab readers' attention. These memos pierce our understandings
and puncture our preconceptions about it We can pull such memos
together in an integrated analysis that theorizes the realm of studied action.
Grounded theories dig deep into the empirical and build analytic structures
that reach up to the hypothetical. Thus, straightforward categories about ordinary
experiences shine with bright meanings-through our analytic renderings.
My excerpt below depicts ordinary experiences of having a chronic illness with
an analytic lens that focuses and sharpens our views of these experiences. Think
about the widespread incidence of common chronic illnesses. Many adults
know about early symptoms, progression, current treatments, and more. If so,
would they not foresee what having an illness entails? What could be more
:152 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
mundane than understanding what having a chronic illness means? But learning
what it means is not so easy. Grounded theory research can illuminate how
people learn the difference between having a diagnosis and an illness. By studying
how people learn about chronicity, we also gain ideas about what having the
illness means to them.1
Learning about Chronicity
Weeks and months of unrelenting symptoms teach ill people about
chronicity. Further. learning about chronicity means discovering its effects
on daily life. By attempting to manage their usual activities, ill people discover
the meaning of their altered bodies. After his first heart attack, Harry
Bauer recalled that 'when I was laying on the bed there [at the hospital],
i told the doctor I was going to work. He said, "No way." He said, "When you
get up from there, you'll find out how weak you are." I used to be able to
pick up 100 pounds In each hand. When I got up from there, I found what
he meant. I couldn't hardly hold myself up.·
The meaning of disability, dysfunction, or impairment becomes real in
daily life. Until put to test in daily routines, someone cannot know what
having an altered body is like. Heather Robinson did not have her first serious
episode until ten months after her diagnosis but others mistook having
a diagnosis with dealing with the disease. She recounted:
'People said, "You deal with this so well [immediately after diagnosis]."
Ijust said, "I haven't really dealt with this because I haven't been ill." I mean
you can't deal with something until you've experienced something, you don't
have to. So as soon as I got sick with it and had to deal with it then, that
I think is when I realized I had MS [multiple sclerosis] ... now I am learning
where I can go and how much I can do without knocking myself out.·
The yardsticks of the past, not of an altered present and future, measure
distances to walk, tasks to complete, and plans to make. Lessons
about chronicity come with discoveries that those yardsticks pose arduous
or impossible standards.
Frequently, ill people must abandon their hopes and their plans, and
relinquish their former activities. Illness and disability force lowering expectations
of self-at least for a while. Yet doing so shocks and unsettles
people. In his book, psychiatrist Clay Dahlberg recounts his feelings when
he learns that he can go home after having a CVA [cerebrovascular accident]:
'That was a glorious day. ! started planning all the things I could do
with the incredible amount of free time I was going to have. Chores I had
put off, museums and galleries to visit, friends I had wanted to meet for
lunch-so many joyful things. It was not until several days later that
I realized that I simply couldn't do them. I didn't have the mental or physical
strength and ! sank into depression' (Dahlberg & Jaffe, 1977: 30).
The difference between past and present functioning contrasts sharply,
for the past remains so close ... (Charmaz, 1991a: 21-22)
The example above blends analytic statements with supporting description
and illustration. It thus moves back and forth between theoretical interpretation
W R IT I N G T H E D RAFT
and empirical evidence. Grounded theory works can be written in a variety of
ways. What steps expedite finishing the grounded theory report? How do you
manage tensions between an inductive grounded theory and the deductive
logic inherent in standard formats for scholarly writing? Which writing strategies
enhance producing a powerful theory and vivid narrative? How can you
best handle writing your report?
Regarding Writing
Making Your Mark
How do you say something original? New scholars need to make their mark on
their disciplines. Senior scholars need to prove that they are still up to the mark.
Old and new scholars want to show that they haven't missed the mark in their fields.
Robert F. Murphy (1987: 81} proposes his 'Murphy's First Law of Academic
Careers' as having two phases: 'In the first, young academics are anxious over
whether they will be discovered; in the second, the established ones are worried
about whether they will be found out.'
What does an 'original contribution' mean? Hyou offer a fresh or deeper understanding
of the studied phenomena, you can make an original contribution. All
too frequently researchers' assertions of an original grounded theory amount to a
trite list of common-sense accounts (see also, Silverman, 2000). Of course, what
stands as original depends in part on the audience. Authors invoke several strategies
to claim originality. They provide 1) an analysis in a new area, 2) an original
treatise in an established or fading area, and 3} an extension of current ideas.
In the past, a number of scholars made their mark by exploring significant
new terrain. Like a first explorer on distant shores, they claimed the turf-and
have been cited ever afterwards. The new turf may have been a field such as
sociology of emotions or an intriguing topic such as the work of laboratory scientists
(Clarke, 1998; Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Star, 1989). As a field develops,
however, the areas narrow in which scholars can claim originality. In many disciplines,
the days have long past when an author could make a breakthrough
by constructing a new field.
Grounded theorists can contribute to a speciality field and simultaneously
extend general theoretical interpretations that cut across fields. Theoretical
ideas with grab reach further than treatment of a specific empirical problem.
Patrick Biernacki's (1986) questions about accepted notions of recovery from
opiate addiction not only resulted in a contribution to the study of drug abuse
but also to our knowledge of identity change. Biernacki's fresh questions
produced new insights in two established areas. H you can't claim new turf, you
may be able to mine an overlooked area.
Some scholars develop original grounded theories in areas that have relied
on other forms of study or methods of inquiry. Carolyn Wiener (2000} brought
grounded theory into the field of accountability for hospital care, an area dominated
by economists and quantification. Monica Casper's (1998} grounded
theory ethnographic study entered the field of bioethics in which philosophers
had studied hypothetical cases rather than exploring empirical circumstances.
1.53
:154 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Whether you dove into a new area or plunged into an established one, now
it's time to pinpoint the original ideas in your analysis. Subsequently, use these
ideas to form an argument that will speak to your intended audience.
Drafting Discoveries
The discovery process in grounded theory extends into the writing and rewriting
stages. You'll gain further insights and create more ideas about your data while
you're writing. You'll see clearer connections between categories and draw implications
from them. Thus writing and rewriting become crucial phases of the
analytic process. Writing demands more than mere reporting. Through writing
and rewriting drafts, you can bring out implicit arguments, provide their context,
make links with extant literatures, critically examine your categories, present
your analysis, and provide data that support your analytic arguments. Each successive
draft grows more theoretical and comprehensive.
Similar principles apply to writing your manuscript as in doing grounded
theory analysis itself. Let your ideas emerge
beforeyou make decisions about what to do with
the manuscript. Whether you intend to write a
grounded theory class report or book, draft it
first. Decide what to do with the manuscript
and how to do it afteryou have a solid analytic
draft. Take one step at a time. When reassessing
your manuscript later, you may discover that it
could serve a lofty goal. The grounded theory
class report may make a stunning student competition
submission. With revision, a thesis
chapter might work as a journal submission. A
dissertation could be rewritten to fit a particular
series for a publishing house.
The emergent character of grounded theory
writing may conflict with class report or dissertation
requirements. Residuals of positivist
dominance cast shadows over how we frame
.........................................
/ Let your ideas emerge \
before you make decisions
about what to do with the
manuscript. Whether you
intend to write a grounded
theory class report or book,
draft it first. Decide what to
do with the manuscript and
how to do it after you have
a solid analytic draft
.·····...............................
...................................,.
/ Required formats often \
presuppose a traditional
logico-deductive
organization. Thus, we
need to adapt the format
rather than pour our work
our research reports-sometimes long shadows. into standard categories.
Required formats often presuppose a tradi- Do it in ways that work for
tionallogico-deductive organization. Thus, we your ideas rather than
need to rethink the format and adapt it to our •. compromise your analysis. ••
needs and goals rather than pour our work •••• •••••"·••••·•••••••••••••·
into standard categories. Rethink and adapt a prescribed format in ways that
work for your ideas rather than compromise your analysis.
Revising Early Drafts
A trade secret: writing qualitative research is an ambiguous process. Writing
our analysis entails more than mere reporting. We may not realize what
WRITING THE DRAFT
we've got or know where we're going. Grounded theory gives us more
guidelines and, yes, grounding, than most approaches. Yet we may still feel
as though we step on shaky terrain. Perhaps we wonder if our analysis has
value. At this stage, learn to tolerate ambiguity but keep moving in the
process. That will keep you progressing toward your goals. You'll discover
rewards at the end. Learning to trust in the writing process, if not in ourselves,
is like learning to trust in the grounded theory analytic process: our
writing, like our analyses, is emergent. Involvement in these processes can
take us where we need to go.
Similar to constructing a grounded theory analysis, writing the finished
report may be filled with ambiguity and uncertainty. Finished work is replete
with impression management as writers' voices exude certitude and authority
(Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996). Published writers often act as if they proceeded on
a single path with a clear destination from choosing their topics to writing their
conclusions. More likely, the path is not single, or the destination clear. And
today you can write about the bumps in the road as well.
Pulling the Pieces Together
Enthusiastic researchers might pin three lovely memos together and tack on
a short introduction and conclusion. This ploy might produce a sparkling
presentation but does not suffice for a completed report or published article.
Carefully sorted and selected memos give you compelling content for a presentation.
How you present the material matters. In an oral presentation, you
impart significance through the rhythm and pacing of your speech, emotional
nuances and enthusiasm, body language, and eye contact with the audience. In
your written paper, the powerful ideas, subtle meanings, and graceful transitions,
so apparent in your talk, all disappear. Wbat happened? Your spoken
words fade and flatten in written texts. Your analysis gave you superb material
to work with-but it still needs work. Wbat should you do?
Order your memos according to the logic ofyour sorting and the most telling
diagram or clustering that you made. Study them. Then put your memos
together in a first draft that integrates them and demonstrates the relations
between them. As you work with the material, try to make the analysis more
abstract. You form the core of your report with it. Take your grounded theory
as far as you can before working on other sections.
Look at your theory and think about the following questions:
• Are the definitions of major categories complete?
• Have I raised major categories to concepts in my theory?
" How have I increased the scope and depth of the analysis in this draft?
• Have I established strong theoretical links between categories and between
categories and their properties, in addition to the data?
• How have I increased understanding of the studied phenomenon?
• Wbat are the implications of this analysis for moving theoretical edges? For
its theoretical reach and breadth? For methods? For substantive knowledge?
For actions or interventions?
:1.55
i56 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
• With which theoretical, substantive, or practical problems is this analysis
most closely aligned? Which audiences might be most interested in it?
Where shall I go with it?
• How does my theory make a fresh contribution?
Then start writing an introduction and conclusion that takes these problems
into account. These sections will be rough. Just keep refining them. Your first
draft of an introduction or conclusion is merely that-a draft. You can-and
should-rework each section multiple times. Nothing is perfect in the early
stages.2
By reworking your draft several times, you catch vague statements and
confusing sentences, and moreover craft a tight, convincing statement.
Now you can work with the whole draft. You may have generated an absorbing
grounded theory analysis, but it may not contain an explicit purpose or
argument. Involved researchers often assume that their purposes are obvious
and their arguments, clear. They may be wrong. New authors may believe that
the purpose that steered their study suffices to drive the argument and make a
disciplinary contribution. That's unlikely. To make a contribution, you need
to position your analysis in a specific purpose that drives your argument for
this manuscript. We all make mistakes about the purpose and argument when
immersed in our work.Just be aware that confusing an initial purpose for a contribution
and assuming your argument speaks for itself, are standard pitfalls.
Constructing Arguments
Much scholarly writing consists of arguments-whether explicit or implicit.
Ostensibly straightforward data analyses rely on arguments and invoke rhetorical
devices to form them. We persuade readers to accept a new theory or
interpretation. We convince researchers that we
have solid data and sound analyses. A strong
argument persuades the reader to accept the
writer's viewpoint. Think about why a reader
should attend to your ideas, much less accept
them. ··
.................................
/ Writers must address \
the 'So what?' question.
A strong argument answers
the 'So what?' question
because you explicitly
You think you have an argument. The mater- claim why your grounded
ial fascinates you; therefore, you presume that theory makes a significant
anyone would want to read it. But why should •• contribution. ••
your reader care? So what? ...............................·
Writers must address the 'So what?' question. A strong argument answers the
'So what?' question because you explicitly claim why your grounded theory
makes a significant contribution. Nonetheless, answering this question can lead
to quandaries because arguments can be elusive-or stale. That means finding
your argument and making it original and meaningful.
Most likely, you've buried the argument in the initial drafts. Find it. Get help
in finding it. Your actual argument likely differs from what you originally set
out to do. That's fine. That indicates that you've grown. An initial purpose
brings you into the study but seldom suffices for an argument for a finished
manuscript. New authors often mistake their initial purpose for a developed
argument when they submit manuscripts for publication. You can make a more
WRITING THE DRAFT
intriguing argument now, so go ahead and revise and reorganize your draft
around it Build your argument into each section, point by point, step by step.
Our arguments do not stand like parked cars, waiting for us to find them. We
rarely begin with an overriding argument that drives our writing. Ifit happens,
appreciate your good fortune. If not, don't stop and wait for an argument to
pop up and put the pieces of your analysis together for you.
Instead, work at it. Your argument will emerge. It develops as your thinking
progresses. An argument is a product of grappling with the material. Writing
short successive memos about your emerging argument can help you focus it.
Some researchers benefit from talking out loud about their ideas at this point
Talking to yourself may give nebulous arguments form. Go through your manuscript
and write:
• My argument here is that ___________
• My reasoning is-----------·
• I support this argument by including ___________
Talking with other people is riskier than talking to yourself in writing. They
may encourage you to tell what you already know or you may focus on what
they wish to know, not on your remaining analytic work with the argument My
advice? Ifyou must talk with other people, then explain the logic of your analysis
to them, and bring atape recorder. You might
capture the essence of an argument and its ordering
during the conversation that you had not stated or
left implicit in your manuscript.
You create your argument from points embedded in
your analysis. Outlining your paper for the main point
in each paragraph can help you identify a nascent argument
Sometimes it may help to begin with a tentative
.........................
/ An argument is a \
product of grappling
with the material.
You create it from
points embedded in
your analysis.
...........................
initial argument Keep refining it; see how it works. But don't commit yourself to
it until you know that it accounts for your most important ideas. You may abandon
the argument with which you started-that's alright You'll gain a far more
thoughtful argument than you had anticipated through wrestling with the ideas.
Questions to Help You Find Arguments:
• What sense of this process or analysis do you want your reader to make?
• Why is it significant (even practiced writers often assume the significance of
their work rather than making it clear and explicit)?
• What did you tell your readers that you intended to do? Why did you tell
them that?
• In which sentences or paragraph do your major points coalesce?
Go back and look for your argument(s)-color-code it with highlighters. Better
yet, outline it. What are your sub-arguments? How closely aligned are they with
your main argument? Are they integral to it? If the sub-arguments seem loosely
aligned to your main argument, can you chop them out without changing it? If
so, do so. Pick them up in another piece of work. If not, clarify and strengthen
the connections to your main argument
157
:1.58 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Look for the telling sentence or paragraph that makes your points coalesce.
That's where you'll find your argument. Writers may not sense what is significant
in their analyses. Your argument may hide where you least suspect-buried in the
conclusion. You articulated your argument at the last minute. Now put it in the
first moment, early in the introduction, and build it up throughout the paper.
To substantiate your argument, provide vivid description, examples, evidence
that shows the point, rather than tells the reader what it is. Mere assertions
bore readers; they do not convince them. Consider providing a balance
of analytic statements anchored in concrete empirical instances. Can you see
the difference between the excerpt at the beginning of this chapter ('Learning
about Chronicity') and the following excerpt? Which do you find more theoretical?
Which excerpt is most persuasive?
Learning What Illness Means
In order to be ill, someone has to feel sick. Merely being informed that one
has a disease seldom suffices. Until a person defines changes in bodily feeling
or function, he or she may postpone dealing with a diagnosis, even a serious
one, and. subsequently, ignore medical advice and regimen. Illness does
not seem real. Then the person may claim that the diagnosis is wrong, secondary,
or inconsequential and relations with practitioners suffer accordingly.
People learn what illness is through their experience of it (Charmaz,
1991; Davis. 1963). Lessons in chronicity come in small everyday experiences
such as difficulty in opening a can, bending over to pick up a news.
paper. folding bedsheets, weeding the garden. Comparisons with past
effortless performance can be shocking. Such jolts later become measures
explicitly sought and then assessed ... (Charmaz, 1999: 282)
Granted, the two excerpts represent different genres and serve different audiences.
The first is for a university press cross-over book that presents the original
study. Cross-over books not only offer sound scholarship but are selected to
reach general audiences as well as academic experts. The second excerpt summarizes
.the point for an essay in a handbook designed to serve social scientists
in health and medical professionals. After writing a grounded theory, you may
present your ideas in subsequent writings for different objectives, as is evident
in the second piece. How you frame each rendering depends on your objective
for writing it and the audience that will read it.
To keep your analysis at the forefront, write for your audience and professional
standards after you have established your argument and garnered your
evidence. Write in successive drafts. With each draft, adopt simpler, more
direct words and tighter phrasing and logic. AB a result, you will improve the
analytic precision, clarity, and flow of the piece.
Scrutinizing Categories
Inspect your categories again to see how they shape this manuscript. Scrutinize
these categories for their power, purpose, and pattern. Then you can clean
WRITING THE DRAFT
them up and make them clear and crisp. Compelling categories give you a fresh
handle on your material. Be judicious in your use of categories; don't abuse
them or your readers. One grounded theory pitfall is overioading your work
with clumsy jargon. Whittle and smooth those categories and turn the most
significant ones into your concepts for this manuscript.
You have already treated your categories to analytic scrutiny several times.
With each successive memo, your ideas grew stronger and more coherent.
Thus, you already have a rhythm and flow to much of your work. Grounded
theory methods prompt making connections within and between categories as
an inherent part of the analytic process. Thus, your sentences already flow
together to create a section.
Now examine your categories for their power, purpose, and patterns.
Consider collapsing categories that lack power. Ask yourself: what purpose do
they serve here? If you do not need them for this analysis, argument, or audience,
drop them. In the excerpt from an early memo in Box 7.1 my categories
read like a list and sound like a lecture. They do reveal, however, how I
ordered and integrated the ideas in the narrative.
The Dilemmas of Disclosing Illness
Chronically ill people often wonder what they should tell and what they need to tell
others about their illnesses, As Kathleen Lewis (1985) who has lupus erythematosus
begins her book, '"How are you?" can perhaps become the most difficult question a
chronically ill person needs to learn to answer (p. 3) ...'
Avoiding Disclosure
Given the potential costs, avoiding disclosure entirely can be a natural response to
illness. Social circumstances as well as specific relationships may shape or intensify
someone's proclivity to avoid disclosure. Perhaps the most basic reason for avoiding
disclosure turns on whether someone grants illness a level of reality at all, and, if so,
what kind of reality ...
Forms of Telling
Telling means to relate thoughts. actions, or feelings and to state them clearly. Here,
telling often includes announcing and recounting professionals' accounts of one's illness
and prognosis ...
1. Disclosing
Disclosing represents a subjective form of telling, which brings one's experiencing,
feeling self into the foreground. A disclosure reveals crucial facts and feelings about
self. Private views of self and personal concerns seldom made public in middle-class
American life may emerge. The very process of disclosing is risky ...
(Continued)
i59
:160 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
(Couiinued)
I found two types of disclosure in the data: protective disclosures and spontaneous
disclosures ...
2. Informing
When informing, in contrast, ill people assume an objective stance, almost as if
their bodies and their situations remain separate from themselves ... Informing
decreases emotional risks. Compared to disclosing, informing permits greater control
over emotions. over others' responses, and over possible negative labels.
3. Strategic announcing
By making strategic announcements. ill people extend their control over the information.
themselves, and another's response. They plan what they will tell, to whom
they will tell it, and when they will do it. Strategic announcing may protect self, control
interaction, and preserve power ...
4. Flaunting illness
The logical extension of making strategic announcements is flaunting illness. When
flaunting illness, people extend further control over another's response and try to
extract a specific response, often shock or guilt, from their audience ...
Strategies for disclosing
Ill people develop strategies for disclosing which protect others. themselves, and
their relationships. They may not wish to avoid disclosing. But. they may not
want to handle another's response, particularly if it taps deep feelings of anger.
remorse, or fear in self. Their strategies turn on what they disclose and how they
disclose it ...
1. The content of disclosure
Softening the news teaches others a tempered view of illness. Ill people, like professionals,
soften the news by stressing the positive, by glossing over any dark feelings,
by claiming an active stance toward their treatment ...
2. Structuring protective disclosures
protective disclosures includes using the following four strategies:
1) invoking the assistance of others, 2) setting the stage. 3) building progressive
clues and 4) selective informing ...
The categories in Box 7.1 are straightforward and their ordering makes
sense. They cover experiences that spark readers to make comparisons.
Everyone has had to make problematic disclosures of some sort. Assess your
readers' familiarity with analogous experiences and understanding of the categories.
Then decide whether to dispense with the formal titling and treatment
of each category. Box 7.2 shows how the categories collapsed in the published
version.
W R IT I N G T H E D RAFT
Dilemmas of Disclosing Illness
Chronically ill people often wonder what they should tell and what they need to tell
others about their illnesses ...
Avoiding Disclosure
Given the potential costs, avoiding disclosure entirely can be a natural response to
illness ...
Potential Losses and Risks
In addition to the ultimate risks of losing acceptance and autonomy, ill people face
immediate interactional risks: 1) being rejected and stigmatized for disclosing and for
having an illness, 2) being unable to handle others' responses, and 3) losing control
over their emotions ...
Forms of Telling
Telling means relating thoughts, actions, or feelings with sufficient clarity to be understandable.
Telling usually includes announcing and recounting professionals' accounts
of one's illness and prognosis. Because disclosing represents a subjective form of
telling, the person's experiencing, feeling self is brought into the foreground. Private
views of self and personal concerns seldom made public in middle-class American
life may emerge ... (Charmaz. 1991a. pp. 109-119)
Use your categories as tools to build context. Make every subcategory fit
under your major headings. Then think about including your subcategory titles.
Carefully crafted grounded theory categories work well as signposts for student
papers and professional journals. Social science and professional journal articles
include multiple signposts. Essays have fewer, if any, formal breaks. A
copy editor may delete all the subheadings in one quick read. As signposts disappear,
the narrative style changes. A straightforward scientific style recedes
and a more literary style evolves. Ensure that whatever categories you use as
signposts earn their way into the narrative.
Categories don't work well when they are general or obvious. Why bother
including them? By this time, you should be able to dispense with everything
that strays from your purpose. Fewer, but novel, categories give you writing
power and become concepts that readers will remember.
Consider including only those subcategories as explicit headings that explain
new ideas. Keep the ideas but subjugate them to the main heading or purpose.
At this point, think about whether including diagrams will clarify your analysis
and argument for your reader. As we shift from analytic writing to communicating
with an audience, what we need to do for ourselves as writers and analysts
l.61
:1.62 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
differs from what we need to write for our audience. You may collapse
subcategories, condense descriptions, and dispense with obvious statements but
add a diagram to pinpoint the conceptual relations
that are abundantly clear to you but not to
the reader.
When we include all our subcategories, our
voices grow ponderous and our writing, stilted.
Yes, we may generate subcategory after subcategory
to handle the work. Buthandling the work
is not the same as writing to and for our readers.
writing to communicating
with an audience, what we
need to do for ourselves
as writers and analysts
differs from what we need
to write for our audience.
Think about what it would be like to read an ••••.••••••••.••••••••••.•••.••
analysis with every axial code carefully articulated.
A caveat. Making subcategories into explicit subheadings is useful when on
unfamiliar terrain. Unconventional ideas and abstract conceptual schemes require
more signposts. For example, we do not have a developed language to talk
about experiencing time. Thus, I refused to let the copy editor automatically
remove the subheadings (and the managing editor agreed). The following subheadings
not only serve as signposts, but also show how chronically ill people
relate to time. These subheadings serve as conceptual categories and gronnd
the analysis in contexts and actions.
Illness as a Timemarker
Many people use illness to mark time and to divide periods of their lives
(Roth, 1963). They celebrate certain markers as anniversaries to note a
positive change. Markers can also be cast as comparative anchor points
for measuring illness. health. and self ...
Creating a Chronology
Ill people note how the time within periods of their lives directly relates
to self. Their illness chronologies render their experiences more comprehensible.
They draw upon their chronologies to help them explain what
had happened. why they got worse, or better, and what illness meant to
them ...
Establishing Markers
What are the benchmarks of time? Why do some events stand out forever
and others blur into the past ...?
Markers as Measures
When people mark time by illness, what do the markers mean? What lies
between the marked events? By comparing views of self in illness with
other views of self, one can measure the present self. Measures can be
taken of how 'sick' or 'well' the person is. Similarly, marking time prospectively
takes a different cast than finding retrospective markers ...
(Charmaz, 1991a, pp. 198-206)
Use your major categories for headings of sections. Gronnded theory gives
you a decided advantage when developing a completed report Your categories
f
I
WRITING THE DRAFT
ground readers in your topic and direct
them through your analysis. They foreshadow
the content and emphasize the
logic of the piece. Action categories involve
readers much more than 'Findings' or
'Analysis of Data.' If you must adopt a
traditional quantitative research format,
then include standard sections early in
the report: 'Introduction,' 'Review of the
Literature,' 'Theoretical Framework' and
'Methods and Data.' When you have done
admirable work in these areas, you have
•••••
for headings of sections.
Grounded theory gives you
a decided advantage when
developing a completed
report. Your categories ground
readers in your topic and
direct them through your
analysis. They foreshadow
the content and emphasize
the logic of the piece.
.""•• ., • • • • • • • o • o • •,. • • • • "• • a •" "
built a solid foundation for your analysis-and earned some latitude. Take full
advantage of it Showcase the analysis section with your categories and make it
the most compelling-and lengthiest-section of your report
Returning to the Library: Literature Reviews
and Theoretical Frameworks
What happens when you return to the library to write your literature review
and theoretical framework? Do you envision an objective scholar who labours
over the materials to present an impartial analysis? Although scholars may don
a cloak of objectivity, research and writing
are inherently ideological activities.
The literature review and theoretical
frameworks are ideological sites in which
you claim, locate, evaluate, and defend
your position (see also Holliday, 2002).
These two parts of your report should
contain much more than summaries.
Instead, show why you favor certain arguments,
what evidence you accept and
reject, and how you arrived at considered
•.....\cloak of objectivity, research
and writing are inherently
ideological activities. The
literature review and theoretical
frameworks are ideological sites
in which you claim, locate,
evaluate, and defend your
position (see also Holliday, 2002).
. .·.............................................·
decisions. What do you need to take into account? How do you go about it?
Start with the formal requirements and informal traditions that shape your
task. Lines often blur between a literature review and a theoretical framework.
Whether you make sharp distinctions between them depends on the task at
hand and its requirements. Student research projects at all levels typically
require both a literature review and theoretical framework. Other tasks take
varied forms. In most disciplines, a book differs from a dissertation. A research
report for a funding agency diverges from books and dissertations. A journal
article may draw on all the chapters in a thesis, but not replicate any one chapter.
A chapter in a collection may take still another form.
Disciplines and genres also shape how, where, and to what extent you 'review'
the literature and 'use' extant theories. Departments and advisors vary in
their requirements for covering the literature and theoretical framework. One
163
1.64 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
department's thesis requirements may demand lengthy separate chapters for
each; another may ask students to weave the research literature and theoretical
arguments throughout their analyses.
If you plan to submit your grounded theory for publication, first take note
of where related studies appear. Next take a careful look at these journals and
publishers. Their editorial policies can help you judge each editor's potential
interest in your study. You can find these policies in journal editors' statements
at the beginning of their editorial terms and in guidelines in the journal.
Publishing houses often post them on their websites. It helps to study related
articles or books for their substantive topics, analytic style and level, research
approaches, and audiences. After assessing editorial policies and practices and
evaluating authors' works, you can choose several potential outlets for your
work. Examine how authors review the literature and write the theoretical
framework in your targeted journals or publisher's lists. Study the rhetorical
style of the best authors but develop your own style.
The best writers may not be the most well-known scholars. Once a scholar
has an established reputation, an editor may accept his or her work despite less
than stellar writing. That said, some senior scholars have honed their skills and
write with clarity, grace, and style. Their work evinces none of the tortuous
jargon and convoluted sentences of their junior colleagues (Derricourt, 1996).
These authors merit close attention for their writing as well as for their ideas
because the scale for writing has shifted upward over the past four decades and
differentially affects newer authors. Choose your writing role models well.
When you plan to submit your work for external review, use the acceptable
substantive conventions and manuscript style for your targeted journal,
or publisher. Published works differ by disciplines in how authors treat topics
and organize narratives. One discipline may valorize exhaustive coverage
of preceding literatures; another may emphasize a succinct and limited
survey. One publisher may ask you to acknowledge relevant works throughout
a chapter; another may expect you to use notes at the end. Articles for
many scholarly journals include citations with little discussion of most
works. Some journal policies forbid endnotes but assume authors will have
numerous citations. Coverage of the literature may appear in the introduction.
Preceding chapters in a book may form the foundation for a discussion
of extant theories that appears after the analysis rather than before it.
Do varied styles leave you with endless
choices? No. Draft your literature review and
theoretical framework in relation to your
grounded theory. You can use it to direct how
you critique earlier studies and theories and
to make comparisons with these materials.
Aim to get your ideas out in clear statements.
Then revise the sections to fit your specific
task. Write for your audience and professional
standards after you have developed your
analysis.
framework in relation to
your grounded theory. You
can use it to direct how
you critique earlier studies
and theories and to make
comparisons with these
materials.
. .....................................
WRITING THE DRAFT
The constant comparative method in grounded theory does not end with
completion of your data analysis. The literature review and theoretical framework
can serve as valuable sources of comparison and analysis. Through comparing
other scholars' evidence and ideas with your grounded theory, you may
show where and how their ideas illuminate your theoretical categories and how
your theory extends, transcends, or challenges dominant ideas in your field.
The Disputed Literature Review
When should you delve into the literature? How do you go about doing it? What
do you need to cover? The place of the literature review in grounded theory
research has long been both disputed and misunderstood. Recall that classic
grounded theorists (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1978) advocate delaying the
literature review until after completing the analysis. They do not want you to see
your data through the lens of earlier ideas, often known as 'received theory.'
Glaser and Strauss raise a valuable although problematic point. Not uncommonly,
teachers judge students by how well they recite key theories in their
fields. Some graduate departments expect students to produce dissertations that
demonstrate their competence in working out applications of well-established
theories and methods. Period. Novices may become enthralled with other
people's ideas; scholars may become enamored with their own. In
either case, scholars old and new may force their data into pre-existing categories.
The intended purpose of delaying the literature review is to avoid
importing preconceived ideas and imposing them on your work. Delaying the
review encourages you to articulate your ideas.
In their battle to free new scholars from the shackles of old ideas, Glaser and
Strauss either overstated their position or differed on it. For Strauss, key points
in the Discovery book were rhetorical.3
Strauss and Corbin (1990) clarify their
position by saying, 'We all bring to the inquiry a considerable background in
professional and disciplinary literature' (p. 48). Glaser's (1992, 1998) position
on prior knowledge is somewhat ambiguous. He continues to imply that
grounded theorists can and should keep themselves uncontaminated by extant
ideas. Yet in T7zeoretical Sensitivity (1978), Glaser speaks to possessing prior
knowledge in his discussion of theoretical codes. He writes, 'It is necessary for
the grounded theorist to know many theoretical codes in order to be sensitive
to rendering explicitly the subtleties of the relationships in his data' (p. 72).
How do we know these codes if they have not become part of our repertoire?
And if they have, would we not know something of the major works from
which they are derived?
Other scholars have rejected Glaser and Strauss's original pronouncement
and continue to do so. For example, Bulmer (1979), Dey (1999), and Layder
(1998) assume that Glaser and perhaps Strauss naively viewed the researcher
as a tabula rasa. Despite the early works, not all grounded theorists share this
view. Karen Henwood and Nick Pidgeon's (2003: 138) apt term 'theoretical
agnosticism' provides a useful stance to take throughout the research process.
:1.65
:1.66 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
They argue that researchers should take a critical stance toward earlier theories.
Their stance is congruent with Glaser's (1978) position of requiring extant concepts
to earn their way into your narrative. Consider treating extant concepts
as problematic and then look for the extent to which their characteristics are
lived and understood, not as given in textbooks.
Requirements for a research or grant proposal probably led you to the
library months before you conducted your study. The proposal demanded a
sophisticated knowledge of leading studies and theories in your field. If so, you
can let this material lie fallow until after you have developed your categories
and the analytic relationships between them. Then begin locating your work
within the relevant literatures. Since you began your study, you may have traveled
to new substantive terrain and scaled unimagined theoretical heights. If
need be, satisfy your teachers by outlining your path but first attend to writing
your grounded theory.
Delaying the literature review differs from writing a scanty one. Nor does
delaying it excuse careless coverage. Some grounded theorists' statements or
inattention reflect a cavalier attitude toward earlier works. Certain scholars
loathe acknowledging their colleagues' competing ideas-or any crucial ideasthat
might undermine their stance. Still others cite competitors' lesser works
instead of their most significant contributions. Lazy scholars fail to cite the most
significant points of convergence and divergence. Give earlier works their due.
Completing a thorough, sharply focused literature review strengthens your
argument-and your credibility. For grounded theorists, writing a thorough but
focused literature review often means going across fields and disciplines (for
excellent examples see Baszanger, 1998; Casper, 1998; Clarke, 1998, 2005;
Wiener, 2000).
Many research reports require a standard-rigid-format. The trick is to use it
without letting it stifle your creativity or strangle your theory. The literature
review can serve as an opportunity to set the stage for what you do in subsequent
sections or chapters. Analyze the most significant works in relation to
what you addressed in your now developed grounded theory. Assess and critique
the literature from this vantage point. Your literature review can do more work
for you than merely list, summarize, and synthesize major works.
Key points from the literature and earlier theories often appear in the introduction
of an article or report. In the introduction to her article 'The other side
of help: the negative effects of help-seeking processes of abused women,' Lora
Bex Lempert addresses key studies in the literature, presents her argument, and
juxtaposes it against earlier theories. The following excerpt illustrates her logic:
In this article I offer an examination of some significant social actions that
abused women take to access help from informal network resources,
initially to preserve their relationships and later to leave them. Collective representations
of 'wife abuse' reduce such relationships to acts of violence
and hold that abused women should resolve the problem of their abuse by
leaving their abusing mates (Loseke. 1992). Abused women, however. hold
much more complex interpretations of their mates and their relationships.
WRITING THE DRAFT
They believe in their partners as their primary sources of love and affection
and, simultaneously, as the most dangerous persons in their lives (Walker,
1979; Lempert. 1995). It is this simultaneity that must be grasped analytically
to understand when. why, and how abused women seek help to cope
with. change, and/or leave their relationships.
Theories developed to explain 'domestic violence' and/or 'wife abuse'
have contributed to an understanding of the whole of the complex dynamic
(see Walker, 1979, 1989 on psychosocial cycle of violence theory; Straus.
Gelles & Steinmetz. 1980 for culture of violence theory; Pagelow. 1984 for
social learning theory; Giles-Sims (1983) for general systems theory;
Dobash & Dobash, 1979 and Martin, 1976 for conflict theory; Straus
1977 for intimate resource theory); MacKinnon. 1993 for eroticization of
violence theory). Yet none is complete.
With few exceptions (Dobash & Dobash, 1981: Ferraro & Johnson,
1983; Mills, 1985; Loseke. 1987; Chang, 1989), researchers on wife
abuse have focused on what women in violent relationships do rather
than how abused women interpret the violent actions, or events. and
how those meaning-making interpretations affect their help-seeking
process. Most of the research on battered women's help-seeking has
focused on formal agencies. primarily police and medical responses (or
lack thereof) and community shelters (Berk et al., 1983, 1984: Berk &
Loseke, 1980/81; Elowker & Maurer, 1987: Edwards. 1987; Ferraro,
1987, 1989; Schechter. 1982; Stark & Ritcraft, 1983. 1988: Loseke,
1992). My analysis has as its fundamental focus the informal help-seeking
overtures of women in abusive relationships, that is, within the contradictory,
but simultaneous contexts of love and violence. and it
includes the unanticipated consequences of these overtures. By directing
analytic attention to some negative effects of well-intentioned assistance
efforts, this work extends the reports of previous researchers and
highlights both help-seeking processes and their unanticipated consequences.
It further calls attention to the ways that binary divisions of
either(or logic impede both the help-seeking and the help-provision
processes. (1997: 290-291)
Engaging the literature goes beyond a short section of a paper or a chapter of
a thesis. Weave your discussion of it throughout the piece. A required section
or chapter compels you to lay the foundation for this discussion. You might
treat it as a challenge to do the following:
• Clarify your ideas
" Make intriguing comparisons
" Invite your reader to begin a theoretical discussion
" Show how and where your work fits or extends relevant literatures.
Subsequently, you create a dialog and enter the current conversations in your
field (see also Silverman, 2000). Becoming part of a sophisticated conversation in
a substantive area signifies that your readers can view you as a serious scholar.
:1.67
:168 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
A literature review provides a place to engage the ideas and research in the areas that
your grounded theory addresses. It also serves as a way to evaluate your grasp of these
areas. A literature review gives you the opportunity to fulfill the following objectives:
• To demonstrate your grasp of relevant works
• To show your skill in identifying and discussing the most significant ideas and
findings in these works
• To prompt you to make explicit and compelling connections between your
study and earlier studies
• To permit you to make claims from your grounded theory
Use the literature review to analyze relevant works in relation to your specific research
problem and now developed grounded theory. Use the literature review to do the
following tasks:
• Enlist your conceptual argument to frame. integrate, and assess the literature
• Evaluate earlier studies
• Specify who did what, when and why, and how they did it
• Reveal gaps in extant knowledge and state how your grounded theory answers
them
• Position your study and clarify its contribution.
Instead of summarizing, argue why readers must examine the cited works-in
relation to your objectives for the report. How exhaustive the literature review
needs to be depends on the requirements of your task. In any case, engage the
leading works-whether or not they support your grounded theory and show
points of divergence as well as convergence. Think about showing how your
work transcends specific works later in the conclusion. Craft a pertinent and
focused literature review. An exhaustive literature review does not mean an endless
list of summaries. Should your teacher or department expect an exhaustive
literature review, focus and organize your remarks. Again, use your grounded
theory to organize how you frame the review.
Think beyond the immediate substantive area to connections with other
areas. Make the most of your innovative analytic contributions. Also take the
opportunity to contribute a fresh topic, study a new group of research participants,
or create new methods.
Writing the Theoretical Framework
How can a grounded theorist who conducted an inductive study write a required
theoretical framework? Might not this framework clutter rather than clarify?
Perhaps. Would not such a framework imply that you used deductive logic? Not
necessarily. You might balk, then stumble over the theoretical framework. Rather
than stumble, use it to provide an anchor for your reader and to demonstrate how
WRITING THE DRAFT
your grounded theory refines., extends, challenges or supercedes extant concepts. Thus,
a theoretical framework does more than announce and summarize the conceptual
underpinnings of the manuscript.
Theoretical frameworks differ in grounded theory from traditional quantitative
research. We do not use theories for deducing specific hypotheses before
data-gathering. Symbolic interactionist concepts happen to inform my worldview.
Thus, these concepts influence what I see and how I see it, similar to how
other researchers' perspectives influence them. However, these concepts remain
in the background until they become relevant for immediate analytic problems.
Your argument tells how you want readers to think about your analysis. The
theoretical framework locates the specific argument that you make. Here, how
you use and develop a theoretical framework takes a new twist: it emerges from
your analysis and argument about it. In contrast,
researchers who use a traditional quantitative
design invoke an established theory and deduce
hypotheses from it before conducting their
studies. For them, the theory to use in their theoretical
framework is already there.
In contrast, in a grounded theory study you put
your sensitizing concepts and theoretical codes to
work in the theoretical framework. These con-
···.\
; how you want readers :
: to think about your :
analysis. The theoretical
framework locates the
specific argument that
you make.
·················•G•e•oo•O
cepts and codes locate your manuscript in relevant disciplines and discourses.
Sensitizing concepts account for your starting point. Theoretical codes can help
you explain how you conceptualize the arrangement of key ideas.
Write a sound theoretical framework that serves your grounded theory. How
might you go about it? Think about using the theoretical framework to:
• Explicate your conceptual logic and direction(s)
• Engage leading ideas
• Acknowledge prior theoretical works
• Position your new grounded theory in relation to these theories
• Explain the significance of your original concepts
• Fit your immediate writing task and readers.
Theoretical frameworks are not all alike. They need to fit your intended audience
and to fulfill the task at hand. What you need to write for one journal, for
example, can differ from another. I wrote the theoretical framework below for
an article for The Sociological Q_uarterly, a journal whose readers are well
schooled in symbolic interactionist social psychology. This theoretical framework
takes into account relationships between body, self, and identity for
adapting to illness and disability.
Theoretical Framework
This article takes a symbolic interactionist perspective on identity (Blumer.
1969; Cooley, 1902; Lindesmith, Strauss. & Denzin, 1988; Mead, 1934;
and Strauss. 1959) and builds upon the emerging literature on the body
(DiGiacomo. 1992: Frank. 1990: 1991a; 1991b; Frankenberg, 1990: Freund.
l.69
:1.70 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
1982; 1988; 1990; Gadow, 1982; Glassner, 1988; 1989; Kotarba, 1994;
Olesen, 1994; Olesen, Schatzman, Droes, Hatton & Chico, 1990; Sanders,
1990; Scheper-Hughes & Lock, 1987; Zola, 1982; 1991). I draw upon the
philosopher Sally Gadow's (1982) clarification of the relation between
body and self and on my earlier work on the self in chronic illness
(Charmaz, 1991[a]) and the effects of loss upon identity (Charmaz, 1987).
In keeping with symbolic interactionism, personal identity means the way
an individual defines, locates, and differentiates self from others (see Hewitt,
1992). Following Peter Burke (1980), the concept of identity implicitly takes
into account the ways people wish to define themselves. Wishes are
founded on feelings as well as thoughts. If possible, ill people usually try to
turn their wishes into intentions, purposes. and actions. Thus. they are motivated
to realize future identities, and are sometimes forced to acknowledge
present ones. However implicitly, they form identity goals. Here, I define identity
goals as preferred identities that people assume. desire. hope, or plan
for (Charmaz. 1987). The concept of identity goals assumes that human
beings create meanings and act purposefully as they interpret their experience
and interact within the world. Some people's identity goals are implicit,
unstated. and understood; other people have explicit preferred identities.
Like other categories of people. some individuals with chronic illnesses
assume that they will realize their preferred identities; others keep a watchful
eye on their future selves and emerging identities as they experience the
present (see also. Radley & Green. 1987).
Gadow (1982) assumes that human existence essentially means embodiment
and that the self is inseparable from the body. I agree. Mind and consciousness
depend upon being in a body. In turn. bodily feelings affect
mind and consciousness. Yet. as Gadow points out. body and self, although
inseparable, are not identical. The relation between body and self becomes
particularly problematic for those chronically ill people who realize that
they have suffered lasting bodily losses. The problematic nature of such
realizations intensifies for ill people who had previously pursued and preserved
an endless youth through controlling and constructing their bodies
(Turner. 1992). Thus. meanings of loss are embedded in assumptions and
discourses about the body. Not only do individuals assume bodily control
through rational practices. but they also assume their practices achieve
and. quite literally, embody individualism (Shilling, 1993).
As Victor Kestenbaum (1982) observes. illness threatens a person's
sense of integrity of self and the body and of self and the world. People
who have serious chronic illnesses find progressive losses repeatedly
threaten their body and self-integrity. They risk becoming socially identified
and self-defined exclusively by their impaired bodies (Bury, 1988; Goffrnan.
1963; Locker. 1983; MacDonald, 1988). Thus. chronically ill people who
move beyond loss and transcend stigmatizing negative labels define themselves
as much more than their bodies and as much more than an illness
(Charmaz. 1991[a]).
Gadow argues that illness and aging result in loss of the original unity
of body and self and provide the means of recovering it at a new level. She
assumes that an original unity existed and implies that loss and recovery
of unity is a single process. However. what unity means can only be
W R IT I N G T H E D RAFT
defined subjectively. Some people may not have defined themselves as
having experienced such unity before illness, or as only having partially
experienced it. Further, with each new and often unsuspected bodily impairment,
people with chronic illnesses repeatedly experience loss of whatever
unity between body and selfthey had previously defined or accepted. Thus,
at each point when they suffer and define loss. identity questions and
identity changes can emerge or reoccur. Throughout this article, I deal with
the loss of body-self unity and its recovery through acknowledging bodily
experience and opening oneself to the quest for harmony between body
and self.
In order to understand how loss and recovery of body-self unity occurs,
we must understand ill people's meanings of their bodily experiences and
the social contexts in which they occur (Fabrega & Manning, 1972;
Gerhardt, 1979; Radley & Green, 1987; Zola, 1991). Such meanings arise
in dialectical relation to their biographies (Bury, 1982; 1988; 1991; Corbin &
Strauss. 1987; 1988; Dingwall, 1976; Gerhardt, 1989; Radley, 1989;
Radley & Green. 1987; Williams. 1984) and are mediated by their interpretations
of ongoing experiences. Consistent with symbolic interactionist
social psychology, present meanings of the ill body and self develop from,
but are not determined by, past discourses of meaning and present social
identifications (Blumer, 1969; Goffman. 1963; Mead, 1934).
As chronic illness encroaches upon life, people learn that it erodes their
taken-for-granted preferred identities as well as their health. Further, they
may discover that visible illness and disability can leave them with a master
status and overriding stigmatized identity. Because of their physical
losses. they reassess who they are and who they can become. Subsequently,
they form identity goals as they try to reconstruct normal lives to whatever
extent possible (Charmaz, 1987; 1991[a]). Frequently, people with chronic
illnesses initially plan and expect to resume their lives unaffected by illness,
or even to exceed their prior identity goals. As they test their bodies and
themselves, ill people need to make identity trade-offs at certain points,
or even to lower their identity goals systematically until they match their
lessened capacities. At other times. they may gradually raise their hopes
and progressively increase their identity goals when they meet with success.
Therefore, both raised or lowered identity goals form an implicit identity
hierarchy that ill people create as they adapt to bodily loss and change
(Charmaz, 1987). (Charmaz, 1995a: 659-660)
Note that I engaged Sally Gadow's (1982) arguments directly. They are central
to my argument and the analysis that follows. Gadow's philosophical argument
provides one fundamental source for understanding what I try to do in the article;
symbolic interactionist social psychology provides another. Because readers
of The Sociological Qgarterly already understand symbolic interactionist theories of
the self, I acknowledge significant works but do not need to explain them. The
amount and depth of explanation you give in a published article depends on the
journal and its readers. A class project or thesis remains an entirely different
matter. Rather than writing for a reader who shares your knowledge, you must
prove that you can explain, critique, and use extant theories.
:1.7:1.
i72 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Think about using the theoretical framework to inform a specific argument in a
particular piece of work-rather than your entire research project You may have
several papers with different arguments. For that matter, you may construct several
grounded theories that begin with the same data. Sally Gadow's ideas became
significant as I worked outideas about 'adapting to impairment' Gadow and I both
take bodily experience as real and as tied to self. My argument extends Gadow by
emphasizingpersonal meaning, repeated loss and regaining ofbody-selfunity, and
reconstruction ofidentity within an implicit identity hierarchy.
Rendering through Writing
Writing reflects the choices authors make. Grounded theorists' writing style
typically relies on conventional reporting. Researchers record their grounded theories
and recount 'facts' to support them. However, you can broaden the range of
possibilities-and publishing venues-by attending to your writing. As Laurel
Richardson (1990) declares, writing matters:' You can make use of those rhetorical
devices and writing strategies that mirror how you constructed your grounded
theory. Taking this tactic can help you advance your grounded theory and
enhance the power of your writing. Several strategies and examples may help.
Go beyond an analysis of acts and facts. Think about what is relevant but
lurks. in the background of your analysis. Cultural context? Historical
antecedents? Organizational climate? Emotional ambiance? See how rendering
it explicitly in the text affects your writing-and moves your analysis beyond
reporting. In my studies, the gamut of emotions shades scenes and statements.
Thus, I evoke experiential feeling through rendering it in writing-as part ofthe
anal:ysis and evidence. This strategy includes taking the reader into a story and
imparting its mood through linguistic style and narrative exposition. Such
approaches set your writing apart from typical scientific format without transforming
it into fiction, drama, or poetry. I framed key definitions and distinctions
in words that reproduced the tempo and mood of the experience:
Existing from day to day occurs when a person plummets into continued
crises that rip life apart (Charmaz. 1991a: 185)
Others wait to map a future. And wait. They monitor their bodies and their
lives. They look for signs to indicate what steps to take next. They map a
future or move to the next point on the map only when they feel assured
that the worst of their illness is over. These people map a future or move
to the next point when they feel distant enough from illness to release
their emotions from it. (p. 191)
Analogies and metaphors can explicate tacit meanings and feelings subsumed
within a category (see also Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996; Richardson, 1994). In
the first excerpt below, I wanted the reader to sense the constraints that certain
chronically ill people experience. In the second excerpt, I aimed to impart how
the duration of time felt.
WR!TING THE DRAFT
Such men and women feel coerced into living one day at a time. They force
it upon themselves, almost with clenched teeth. Here, living one day at a
time resembles learning an unfamiliar, disagreeable lesson in grammar
school; it is an unwelcome prerequisite to staying alive. (1991a: 179)
Drifting time, in contrast [to dragging time], spreads out. Like a fan. drifting
time unfolds and expands during a serious immersion in illness. (p. 91)
Simple language and straightforward ideas make theory readable. Again,
the extent to which you use these devices depends on your writing task and audience.
For a department that expects you to write books, not dissertations, adopting
these strategies expedites your work. For a spare theoretical article, use fewer
of them. Whether the theory remains embedded in the narrative or stands out in
bold relief depends on your task and your rendering ofit A theory becomes more
accessible but less identifiable as theory when woven into the narrative.
Several other strategies foster making your writing accessible. Catching experiential
rhythm and timing allows reproducing it within the writing:
From embarrassment to mortification. From discomfort to pain. Endless
uncertainty. What follows? Regimentation. (p. 134)
Days slip by. The same day keeps slipping by. Durations of time lengthen
since few events break up the day, week, or month. Illness seems like one
long, uninterrupted duration of time. (p. 88)
Unexpected definitions and assertions can catch readers' attention.
The language of habit is silent. (Charmaz. 2002b: 31S)
Grounded theory served at the front of the 'qualitative revolution' (Denzin &
Lincoln, 1994, p. ix). (Charmaz, 2000a: 509)
Questions help tie main ideas together or redirect the reader. Rhetorical
questions quicken the pace and focus subsequent points. You can also use questions
in novel ways. Consider adopting the role or standpoint of your readers
or research participants and ask questions as they would.
Is it cancer? Could it be angina? Pangs of uncertainty spring up when
current, frequently undiagnosed. symptoms could mean a serious chronic
illness. (Charmaz. 1991a: 32)
Try to balance the logic of exposition with the logic of the theorized experience.
Writers use a linear logic to organize their analyses and to make experience
understandable. Yet experience is neither necessarily linear, nor always
conveniently demarcated with clear boundaries. For example, experiencing illness,
much less all its spiraling consequences, does not always fit neatly into one
linear progressive process. Earlier grounded theory works (Glaser & Strauss,
1967; Glaser, 1978) stress discovering and analyzing abasic process, which may
not work for you.
:1.73
l.74 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Consider the pacing and tone of your piece. Think about how and when you
need to alter them. Set the tone as you lead the reader into the topic. Provide
evidence that fits your tone as well as your point The following excerpt opens a
chapter tided 'Intrusive lllness.' I aimed to show how symptoms and impairment
encroach on daily life and could not be easily dismissed. Research participants
likeJohn Garston identified 'good' days and 'bad days' at this point He said,
What's a good day now? There is no good day ... Well. a good day now is
sort of a neutral day. That's you know. there are never days when I have ...
almost never when I have lots of energy and runaround! ... I really don't
pay that much attention [to my body], and never have. Ido pay more attention
now because I am limited [by severe emphysema].... I don't know if
you could say I monitor; Iobserve [laughs]. Yeah. I'm forced to observe it.
(Charmaz. 1991a: 41}
For grounded theorists, a story does not stand on its own. Instead, we use
stories in service of our analyses. The power of a piece rests on the scope, incisiveness,
and usefulness of the analysis. My analytic statement about a 'good'
day reads:
Agood day means minimal intrusiveness of illness, maximal control over
mind. body, and actions. and greater choice of activities. Ill people concentrate
minimally, if at all, on symptoms and regimen during a good day,
or they handle them smoothly and efficiently. Illness remains in the background
of their lives. Spatial and temporal horizons expand and may even
become expansive during a good day. When illness abates, people have
much better days. Like ex-convicts just released from jail. they may wish
to make up for lost time all at once. (p. 50}
Note howJohn Garston's frank statement sets the tone for the analysis, complements
the incisiveness of the analysis, and provides a counterpoint to the
rhythm ofmy authorial voice. The category 'a "good" day' was embedded in the
larger analysis of experiencing an intrusive illness and juxtaposed against 'a bad
day.' The. analytic positioning of 'a "good" day' allowed me to stretch the
distance betweenJohn's statement and its theoretical explanation. Think about
places where you have latitude in contrast with those in which you need the
empirical evidence right there.
Now consider a note about the writer's voice. I have noted in previous chapters
that the analytic emphasis in grounded theory can lead to silent authorship
replete with assumed neutrality, objectivist pretensions, and an absent author
(Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996). Yet, completed grounded theories need not be
voiceless, objectified recordings. We can weave our points of view into the text
and portray a sense of wonder, imagery, and drama.
My examples above suggest that even grounded theorists do not have to write
as disembodied technicians. We can bring evocative writing into our narratives.
In the excerpts above, my voice pervades the passages and persuades the
reader although I remain in the background as an interpreter of scenes
and situations (see also Charmaz & Mitchell, 1996). Writers' rendering of
WRITING THE DRAFT
experience becomes their own through word choice, tone, and rhythm. Voice
echoes the researcher's involvement with the studied phenomena; it does not
reproduce the phenomena. Yet through strugglingwith representing our research
participants' experience we may find the collective in the subjective.
Listen to the difference between the following two passages:
Identity levels are implicit or explicit objectives for personal and/or social
identity that chronically ill people aim to realize. These identity levels
reflect the kind of selves they wish to shape or select. their preferred identities.
Hence, realizing them negates or overrides identifications derived
from illness. The efforts of these chronically ill people to construct preferred
identities emerged out of their experience as ill individuals. Almost none
of my respondents derived their identity objectives from any organized
group of similar others (cf. Anspach [2]). These ill persons then constructed
their identity levels in relationship to their hopes, desires. or dreams juxtaposed
with their expectations and definitions of their specific circumstances.
Hence, particular individuals aimed toward different preferred
identities representing different identity levels during specific phases
in their illnesses and at particular points in their biographies. (Charmaz,
1987: 286-287)
Through struggle and surrender. ill people paradoxically grow more resolute
in self as they adapt to·impairment. They suffer bodily losses but gain themselves.
Their odyssey leads them to a deeper level of awareness-of self.
of situation, of their place with others. They believe in their inner strength
as their bodies crumble. They transcend their bodies as they surrender control.
The self is of the body yet beyond it. With this stance comes a sense
of resolution and an awareness of timing. Ill people grasp when to struggle
and when to flow into surrender. They grow impervious to social meanings,
including being devalued. They can face the unknown without fear while
remaining themselves. At this point. chronically ill people may find themselves
in the ironic position of giving solace and comfort to the healthy.
They gain pride in knowing that their selves have been put to test-a test
of character. resourcefulness, and will. They know they gave themselves to
their struggles and lived their loss with courage.
Yet the odyssey seldom remains a single journey for these chronically
ill people. Frequently, they repeat their journey on the same terrain over
and over and, also, find themselves transported to unplanned side trips
and held captives within hostile territories as they experience setbacks,
flare-ups. complications. and secondary conditions. Still they may discover
that each part of their odyssey not only poses barriers, but also brings
possibilities for resolution and renewal. (Charmaz, 1995a: 675)
In which passage did you hear a human voice? Which one was loaded with
disciplinary codes? Of which would you want to hear more? By taking the first
quote out of context, I'm not being quite fair to me. This quote begins with
introducing my grounded theory concepts and sets the stage for what follows.
I next spell out identity levels in the identity hierarchy-supernormal social
identity, restored self, contingent personal identity and a salvaged self. These
:175
:1.76 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
categories arrest the reader's attention more than the larger theoretical frame
from which I yanked the excerpt. Again the second passage is out of context.
Rather than comparing the two theoretical sections that draw upon the same
concepts, I took the second passage from the ending. Writers are not always fair
to other writers, even themselves. But the point remains: the sound of a human
voice makes for compelling reading.
Concluding Thoughts
Writing is a social process. Draw upon friends and colleagues but write for
yourself and your grounded theory first. You are now the expert; the theory is
yours. Let the voices of teachers and earlier researchers grow faint while you
compose the manuscript. Once you have drafted your core ideas, bring these
voices back. Ask your mentors and close colleagues for constructive critiques.
Enlist their help before you submit your manuscript for review-whether it is
your thesis or an article. Then be willing to rethink, revise, and rework the
entire manuscript according to your critical appraisal of their comments. That
means more than cosmetic tinkering. It may mean reframing central points. A
mentor, for example, may raise a serious criticism with which you disagree.
Think about what sparked this criticism as well as its content. Quite possibly,
vague statements, over-generalizations, or logical gaps weakened your argument
and flashed caution lights to your mentor who may not see beyond them.
You can fix such problems and avert delays and later disappointments, particularly
at the stage of publication submission. One common reason for rejection
of studies with solid data and interesting ideas stands out: too early submission.
By entertaining early critiques and revising your manuscript, you can submit
a polished piece of work that makes your grounded theory shine. Each revision
can make your manuscript stronger, sharper, and more compelling. As you
think about each draft, the criteria in the next chapter, 'Reflecting on the
Process' may help you develop your manuscript and anticipate reviewers'
concerns. In the meantime, enjoy the discoveries you make along the way.
NOTES
1 Any rendenng of meanmg JS an rnterpret::lve one. We cannot know what goes on in
people's heads, but we can offer our interpretatJons ofwhat they say and do.
2 Adele Clarke observes that ten or more revlSlons are common (personal commumcation,
December 22, 2004). A writing teacher once told me that she made it a practJce not to
share her unpublished work for rnformal comments until after the fourth draft.
3 I base thJS pornt on many conversatJons and rnterviews I had with Strauss, who assumed
that grounded theomts had prior lives and knowledge before embarkrng on therr research.
See also (Charmaz, 1983).
4 Glaser (2001: 80) remmds readers that 'GT gets known and remembered on its conceptual
ideas. No one remembers how it was written.' Speakrng as a former editor, I see Glaser
as correct on the first point and wrong on the second.The best-and worst- writers and
writJng become parr of disciplinary lore.
Reflecting on the
Research Process
We end our journey by looking back on the steps we have taken and
by looking forward to assess the impact of our grounded theory.
Questions arise as to what stands as grounded theory and when it is
an evolving method and when it is something else. A definition of
grounded theory that takes into account methodological developments
over the past half century holds vast potential for advancing
knowledge. Grounded theory gives us analytic tools and methodological
strategies that we can adopt without endorsing a prescribed
theory of knowl.edge or view of reality. To begin to broaden the scope
of grounded theory, I call for returning to its pragmatist roots and for
making committed inquiry our goal for future research journeys.
This chapter ends our journey through the research process. Along the way,
we have gathered data, stopped, and categorized them through coding.
Subsequently we cut new analytic paths through memo-writing. We widened our
route by conducting theoretical sampling, and specified directions for our
grounded theorizing through sorting and integrating our categories. Last, we
explored ways ofimparting what we have learned through writing. What sense do
we make of our journey? How do we evaluate our completed grounded theory?
Where does the grounded theory method take us? To place these questions into
perspective, we need to look back at ourjourney through the preceding chapters.
The Core of Grounded Theory: Contested
Versions and Revisions
While reflecting on your view of grounded theory, consider what constitutes
grounded theory. Everyone 'knows' what grounded theory is all about; however,
do they share definitions and basic assumptions? Over the year after its inception
in 1967 the term grounded theory has been packed with multiple meanings, but
also fraught by numerous misunderstandings, and complicated by competing versions.
Discourse about grounded theory blurs distinctions between the method as
process and the theory as product of that process. What stands as grounded
theory? How do we define a finished work as a grounded theory? Which properties,
178 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
objectives and strategies constitute the core of the method? What counts as an
evolving grounded theory method and what irrevocably changes it?
Emerging Constructions of Grounded Theory Methods and
Grounded Theories as Emergent Constructions
When we think about what defines the grounded theory method, we may consider
a specific philosophical stance, a particular logic of inquiry, a set of procedures,
or flexible guidelines. All these views imply that the defining properties of
grounded theory reside in attributes external to the researcher and the research
process. Yet finished grounded theories are emergent, the grounded theory method
itselfis open-ended and relies on emergentprocesses, and the researcher's emerging
constructions of concepts shape both process and product.
I have argued throughout this book that the strength ofgrounded theory methods
lies in their flexibility and that one must engage the method to make this flexibility
real. Researchers can draw on the flexibility of grounded theory without
transforming it into rigid prescriptions concerning data collection, analysis, theoretical
leanings, and epistemological positions. Must grounded theory methods
be tied to a single epistemology? I think not. Just as these grounded methods
need not be tied to a single method of data collection, or emerge from a specific
theoretical perspective, the methods need not be tied to a single epistemology.
We can use the tools ofgrounded theory methods without subscribing to a prescribed
theory of knowledge or view of reality. We are not compelled to view
grounded theory as discovering categories that inhere in data in an external
wodd. Nor do we need to see grounded theory as an application of procedures.
Rather, we can view grounded theories as products of emergent processes that
occur through interaction. Researchers construct their respective products from
the fabric ofthe interactions, both witnessed and lived. The following points summarize
my constructivist stance:
• The grounded theory research process is fluid, interactive, and open-ended.
• The research probleminforms initial methodological choices for data collection.
• .Researchers are part of what they study, not separate from it.
• Grounded theory analysisshapes the conceptual content and direction of the
study; the emerging analysis may lead to adopting multiple methods of data
collection and to pursuing inquiry in several sites.
• Successive levels of abstraction through comparative analysis constitute the
core of grounded theory analysis.
• Analytic directions arise from how researchers interact with and interpret their
comparisons and emerging analyses rather than from external prescriptions.
The Union of Comparative Methods and
Interaction in Grounded Theory
The grounded theory method depends on using constant comparative methods and
your engagement. Both constitute the core of the method. Making comparisons
1I
REFLECTING ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS
between data, codes, and categories advances your conceptual understanding
because you define analytic properties of your categories and then begin to treat
these properties to rigorous scrutiny. Your analysis becomes more explicitly theoretical
when you ask: Ofwhat theoretical category are these data an instance?
And to the extent that you interrogate relationships between your categories and
fundamental aspects of human existence such as the nature of social bond or
relationships between choice and constraint, individuals and institutions or
actions and structures, your work becomes yet more theoretical.
Comparative methods lend you basic tools, yet myriad interactions occurring
in multiple forms at various levels shape the content of your grounded
theory. illtimately, the emerging content shapes how you use the tools. Your
grounded theory journey relies on interaction-emanating from your worldview,
standpoints, and situations, arising in the research sites, developing between
you and your data, emerging with your ideas, then returning back to the fieldor
another field, and moving on to conversations with your discipline and substantive
fields. To interact at all, we make sense of our situations, appraise what
occurs in them, and draw on language and culture to create meanings and
frame actions. In short, interaction is interpretive.
'frue, some scholars have long worried about the interpretive nature of data
collection in qualitative research. Quantitative researchers have raised questions
about the reliability of qualitative data based on immediate interactions
that lone, possibly biased, qualitative observers have recorded. Qualitative
researchers who tried to meet these concerns scrambled to take a distanced
stance toward their studies. Such concerns have spawned debates about the
place of interpretation in the resulting analyses. Historically, qualitative
researchers have paid less attention to the entire research process as interactive,
perhaps because many were struggling to earn a rightful place in traditional
quantitative scientific discourses and therefore aimed to be objective.
The cloak of objectivity enshrouding grounded theory of the past reduced
visibility of its interactive strength. Enlisting grounded theory in a contemporary
more reflexive mode, keeps you interacting with your data and emerging
ideas. It does so in ways that foster making abstract interpretations. From your
tentative interpretations in initial coding and memos to your finished project,
grounded theory methods capture your fleeting thoughts and immediate questions
and prompt you to give your ideas concrete form in analytic writing.
Certainly we can see continuities between these strengths and Glaser and
Strauss's (1967) original statement of the logic of grounded theory. Their statement
resonated with wide audiences that included diverse researchers of both
social constructionist and objectivist allegiances. Glaser's (1978) version elaborated
basic grounded theory strategies and expressed its positivistic, objectivist
antecedents but spoke to fewer scholars. Strauss's (1987) and Strauss and Corbin's
(1990, 1998) immensely successful and accessible version of grounded theory
attracted wide audiences but made using it more technical and procedural.
The development ofsoftware programs presumably built on the method, simultaneously
enhanced interest in it (see Fielding & Lee, 1998) and raised concerns
about short-changing the analytic process, generating superficial analyses, and forcing
qualitative research into a single method (Coffey, Holbrook, & Atkinson, 1996;
:1.79
:1.80 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Lonkila, 1995). The comparative logic of earlier versions is less apparent in Strauss
and Corbin's (1990, 1998) version of grounded theory, while their additional techniques
make it more procedural and less clearly rooted in pragmatist philosophy
than Glaser and Strauss's original statement or in Strauss's (1987) exegisis.
My emphasis on constructivism loosens grounded theory from its objectivist
foundations. Critics may interpret either my or Strauss and Corbin's recent directions
as advancing the method or diverging from it Glaser views his current version
as classic grounded theory; however, Glaser's approach has changed, too, as
I noted in earlier chapters. Glaser has always advocated streamlining data collection
through grounded theory guidelines. His defense of very small samples, however,
appears to have stiffened despite the resulting tensions between limited data
collection and comparing many cases, as he recommends. When thinking about
what to study, however, Glaser (2001) made a significant shift in thinking from his
earlier insistence (1992) that participants will inform the researcher about what is
significant when he acknowledged that researchers may define a major concern
that participants view as routine. This shift allows at least some interpretive possibilities
and brings the grounded theorist into the research process. We stand within
the research process rather than above, before, or outside it.
What Defines a Grounded Theory?
When we think about identifying defining properties ofgrounded theory, we enter
ambiguous terrain. To what extent do the goal and focus of grounded theory
analysis constitute its defining properties? From a constructivist view, researchers
may use grounded theory methods to pursue varied emergent analytic goals and
foci instead of pursuing a priori goals and foci such as a single basic social process.
If studying social processes once defined grounded theory methods but no
longer necessarily does, what does that mean for the method itself? Does it constitute
a fundamental change in the method itself? A constructivist approach
can invoke grounded theory methods for diverse analytic and substantive problems.
When Glaser argues grounded theory is a 'theory of resolving a main
concern' that can be theoretically coded in many ways, he offers an excellent
use of grounded theory, but not the only one. For that matter, what constitutes
a main concern depends on one's point of view. Constructions matter. Who
defines this main concern? With which criteria? Whose definitions stick? Note
that addressing such questions treats the main concern as problematic, not as
given, and brings power and control into the analysis. Grounded theory offers
tools to get at varied constructions or competing definitions of the situation, as
given in action, not merely stated in reconstructed accounts.
Must grounded theory aim for the general level abstracted from empirical
realities? No. In sharp contrast, I argue that situating grounded theories in their
social, historical, local, and interactional contexts strengthens them. Such situating
permits making nuanced comparisons between studies. Subsequently
these comparisons can result in more abstract-and, paradoxically-general
theories. The generality arises here from scrutinizing numerous particulars and
after developing a substantive theory may include analyzing and conceptualizing
the results of multiple studies to construct a formal theory.
REFLECTING ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Generality emerges from the analytic process rather than as a prescribed goal
for it. When you situate your study and let generality emerge from the analysis,
you construct a safeguard against forcing data into your favorite analytic categories.
As I have noted earlier, situating grounded theory studies also reduces
possibilities ofimporting preconceived assumptions such as those about human
intentions, actions, and meanings and minimizes letting ethnocentric, gender,
class, or racial biases seep into the analysis.
Does the form of analysis separate researchers who do 'genuine' grounded
theory from those who merely claim to use the method? Not always. Must a
finished grounded theory always be a variable analysis? No. Should it be a
conceptual analysis of patterned relationships? Yes. Does it ignore relationships
outside the pattern? No. These relationships suggest paths to learn about variations
in a process or category and alternative interpretations. Ironically, a traditional
grounded theory emphasis can lead to researchers' minimizing the
significance ofdata and details that do not fit their emerging categories and subsequently
they force the data into them.
One of the few written reflections on a grounded theory study speaks to this
point. Carolyn Ellis (1986) states that her grounded theory focus caused her to
force details of her ethnography into her emerging categories with the result
that her categories had explanatory value but 'presented life as lived much
more categorically than actual day-to-day experiences warranted' (p. 91). You
might think that this problem might be resolved by invoking the criterion of
modifiability. But does that occur? How often do researchers conduct subsequent
studies that alter a category or promote a different understanding? Ellis
visited this community many times before and during her research. After a
troubling revisit to the community three years following publication of her
book, her subsequent reflections sparked new insights. Researchers with limited
involvement in their respective fields probably would not have realized the
limitations of their categories. Without such knowledge no one acts on the criterion
of modifiability. Meanwhile, the usefulness of the theory diminishes, or
worse, less than useful public or professional policies may result from it.
Grounded theory involves taking comparisons from data and reaching up to
construct abstractions and simultaneously reaching down to tie these abstractions
to data. It means learning about the specific and the general-and seeing what is
new in them-then exploring their links to larger issues or creating larger uurecognized
issues in entirety. An imaginative interpretation sparks new views and
leads other scholars to new vistas. Grounded theory methods can provide a route
to see beyond the obvious and a path to reach imaginative interpretations.
Evaluating Grounded Theory
As we evaluate where we have been and what we have gained, we look back
into our journey and forward to imagining how our endpoint appears to our
readers or viewers. The method of transporting us through our journey differs
from what we gain from this journey. The sense we make of the journey takes
form in our completed work. The endpoint that we portray makes sense to us
because we have been immersed in the process. For our audiences, however,
:1.8:1.
:182 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
lines become blurred between process and product Other scholars will likely
judge the grounded theory process as an integral part of the product I have
argued throughout the book that grounded theory methods contain untapped
versatility and potential. We need to consider our audiences, be they teachers or
colleagues. They will judge the usefulness of our methods by the quality of our
final product.
Criteria for evaluating research depend on who forms them and what purposes
he or she invokes. Glaser's {1978: 4-5) criteria offit, work, relevance, and
modifiability are particularly useful for thinking about how your constructed
theory renders the data.
Other important criteria take into account disciplinary, evidentiary, or aesthetic
issues. Each is significant for your project Different disciplines adhere to
different standards for the conduct ofresearch and for acceptability of evidence
(see for example, Conrad, 1990; Thome, 2001). Criteria for barely adequate
research may differ from those studies accorded respect Disciplines or departments
may also require less their graduate students than of qualified professionals.
Although expectations for grounded theory studies may vary, the
following criteria may give you some ideas.
Criteria for Grounded Theory Studies1
Credibility
" Has your research achieved intimate familiarity with the setting or topic?
" Are the data sufficient to merit your claims? Consider the range, number,
and depth of observations contained in the data.
" Have you made systematic comparisons between observations and between
categories?
o Do the categories cover a wide range of empirical observations?
o Are there strong logical links between the gathered data and your argument
and analysis?
o Hal} your research provided enough evidence for your claims to allow the
reader to form an independent assessment-and agree with your claims?
Originality
<> Are your categories fresh? Do they offer new insights?
., Does your analysis provide a new conceptual rendering of the data?
• What is the social and theoretical significance of this work?
• How does your grounded theory challenge, extend, or refine current ideas,
concepts, and practices?
Resonance
• Do the categories portray the fullness of the studied experience?
• Have you revealed both liminal and unstable taken-for-granted meanings?
REFLECTING ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS
• Have you drawn links between larger collectivities or institutions and
individual lives, when the data so indicate?
• Does your grounded theory make sense to your participants or people who
share their circumstances? Does your analysis offer them deeper insights
about their lives and worlds?
Usefulness
• Does your analysis offer interpretations that people can use in their everyday
worlds?
• Do your analytic categories suggest any generic processes?
• If so, have you examined these generic processes for tacit implications?
• Can the analysis spark further research in other substantive areas?
• How does your work contribute to knowledge? How does it contribute to
making a better world?
A strong combination of originality and credibility increases resonance, usefulness,
and the subsequent value of the contribution. A claim to making a scholarly
contribution requires a careful study of relevant literatures, including those
that go beyond disciplinary boundaries, and a clear positioning of your
grounded theory. These <;riteria address the implicit actions and meanings in
the studied phenomenon and help you analyze how it is constructed. The
above criteria account for the empirical study and development of the theory.
They say little about how the researcher writes the narrative or what makes it
compelling. Other criteria speak to the aesthetics of the writing. Our written
works derive from aesthetic principles and rhetorical devices-in addition to
theoretical statements and scientific rationales. The act of writing is intuitive,
inventive, and interpretive, not merely a reporting of acts and facts, or in the
case of grounded theory, causes, conditions, categories, and consequences-or
an outline of processes that depict resolving a main concern.
When born from reasoned reflections and principled convictions, a
grounded theory that conceptualizes and conveys what is meaningful about a
substantive area can make a valuable contribution. Add aesthetic merit and
analytic impact, and then its influence may spread to larger audiences.
Grounded Theory of the Past, Present, and Future
A Constructive Return to Classic Grounded Theory
My version of grounded theory looks back into its past, explores its present,
and turns forward to the future. The dual roots of grounded theory in midcentury
positivism and Chicago school sociology, with its foundation in pragmatist
philosophy, have given grounded theory its rigor and its reliance on
emergence. Throughout the preceding chapters, I have attempted to bring the
Chicago school antecedents of grounded theory back into the foreground and
to show they inform and enrich current discussions of grounded theory.
Ourjourney forward through the grounded theory process took into account
its pragmatist antecedents. Now I call for other scholars-old and new-to
183
:1.84 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
journey back to the pragmatist heritage of grounded theory and to build on
these antecedents while invoking twenty-first century constructivist sensibilities.
A constructivist grounded theory retains the fluidity and open-ended character
of pragmatism as evidenced in Strauss's works and those influenced by
him (see for example, Baszanger, 1998; Bowker & Star, 1999; Clarke, 1998,
2005; Corbin & Strauss, 1988; Strauss, 1959, 1978a, 1978b, 1993, 1995). In typical
grounded theory practice, you follow the leads in your data, as you see
them-and constructivist grounded theory takes you one step further. With it,
you try to make everyone's vantage points and their implications explicit- yours
as well as those of your various participants. Not only does a constructivist
approach help you to remain clear about the antecedents of your constructed
theory, this approach helps other researchers and policy-makers to establish the
boundaries of the usefulness of your grounded theory and, possibly, to ascertain
how and where to modify it.
A pragmatist foundation can help you preserve an emphasis on language,
meaning, and action in grounded theory. Subsequently you avoid reducing
grounded theory research to studies of overt behavior or interview accounts taken
at face value. If you hold constructivist sensibilities, you may learn and interpret
nuances ofmeaning and action while becoming increasingly aware of the interactive
and emergent nature ofyour data and analyses. In short, returning to the pragmatist
foundations encourages us to construct an interpretive renderingof the worlds
we study rather than an external reporting of events and statements.
Although constructivist grounded theory provides a methodological route to
renewing and revitalizing the pragmatist foundations of classic grounded theory,
constructivist grounded theory can also serve researchers from other traditions.
Thus, constructivist sensibilities are congenial with other approaches such as feminist
theory, narrative analysis, cultural studies, critical realism, and critical inquiry.
You may see connections between your work and the Chicago school that
you had not realized before. If you were not familiar with the Chicago school
earlier, you might wish to ponder how this tradition could reveal new vistas and
transport you to new heights. In brief, several advantages of Chicago School
traditions with their pragmatist underpinnings stand out. These traditions:
• Foster openness to the world and curiosity about it
• Encourage an empathetic understanding of research participants' meanings,
actions, and worlds
• Take temporality into account
• Focus on meaning and process at the subjective and social levels.
Transforming Knowledge
Now that you have finished your grounded theory study, consider the purposes
it serves. Your original purposes may have been immediate: to use the
grounded theory method in practice to do the job before you. Other purposes
may have remained under the surface while your pressing project and involvement
in the process narrowed your attention. In a larger sense, what purpose
does your grounded theory serve?
REFLECTING ON THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Taking the question to a wider level, what purposes shouldknowledge serve?
RobertS. Lynd (1939) raised this question, Knowledge for What?, in his book of
the same title almost seven decades ago. The question still persists; the answers
still remain contested. Yet if we take the constructivist position to its logical
extension, the questions become more specific and the answers clear. Should
knowledge transform practice and social processes? Yes. Can grounded theory
studies contribute to a better world? Yes. Should such questions influence what
we study and how we study it? Yes.
Turning to researchers' actions, does the grounded theory research literature
reflect efforts to transform knowledge, social processes-and grounded theory as
practice? Grounded theorists in nursing and education have moved forward in
these areas, and some sociologists have too. Yet career advancement may spawn
more grounded theory studies than commitment to a subject area or emergent
goals to transform knowledge. To the extent that researchers rely on claims of
value neutrality, their explicit and implicit purposes may remain obscure. Claims
of value neutrality may mask the implications of the knowledge we produce,
whether significant or trivial. Objectivist grounded theorists may claim neutrality
in producing knowledge and separation from public affairs. Knowledge is not
neutral, nor are we separate from its production or the world.
The research journey can be an end in itself rather than a means to establishing
a career. We can use grounded theory methods to do more than score career
points. Through using grounded theory, you can realize impassioned goals.
Grounded theory methods enhance possibilities for you to transform knowledge.
Topics that ignite your passions lead you to do research that can go
beyond fulfilling academic requirements and professional credits. You'll enter
the studied phenomenon with enthusiasm and open yourself to the research
experience and follow where it takes you. The path may present inevitable
ambiguities that hurl you into the existential dislocation of bewilderment. Still,
when you bring passion, curiosity, openness, and care to your work, novel
experiences will ensue and your ideas will emerge. Recall Margie Arlen at the
beginning of this book, who avowed her chronic illness changed her as she
learned to look outward to other people. Like Margie's journey with chronic illness,
your journey through grounded theory may transform you.
NOTE
1 Th.ts section is expanded from Charmaz (2005a).
185
-
Glossary
Abduction a type of reasoning that begins by examining data and after scrutiny
of these data, entertains all possible explanations for the observed data, and
then forms hypotheses to confirm or disconfirm until the researcher arrives at
the most plausible interpretation of the observed data.
Axial coding a type of coding that treats a category as an axis around which
the analyst delineates relationships and specifies the dimensions of this
category. A major purpose of axial coding is to bring the data back together again
into a coherent whole after the researcher has fractured them through line-by-line
coding.
Categorizing the analytic step in grounded theory of selecting certain codes as
having overriding significance or abstracting common themes and patterns in
several codes into an analytic concept. As the researcher categorizes, he or she
raises the conceptual level of the analysis from description to a more abstract.
theoretical level. The researcher then tries to define the properties of the
category, the conditions under which it is operative. the conditions under which
it changes. and its relation to other categories. Grounded theorists make their
most significant theoretical categories into the concepts of their theory.
Chicago school sociology a tradition in sociology that arose at the University
of Chicago during the early decades of the twentieth century. Pragmatist
philosophy and ethnographic fieldwork formed the respective intellectual
foundations and methodological principles of this tradition. Chicago school
sociologists were not as homogeneous as textbooks portray them and not all
members of the sociology department at the University of Chicago at that time
had any affinity toward the Chicago school; however, this school spawned a rich
tradition of symbolic interactionist social psychology and of ethnographic and
qualitative research. Chicago school sociology assumes dynamic, reciprocal
relationships between interpretation and action. Social life is interactive,
emergent, and somewhat indeterminant. Chicago school ethnography fosters
openness to the world and curiosity about it and symbolic interactionism
fosters developing an empathetic understanding of research participants
and their worlds.
Coding the process of defining what the data are about. Unlike quantitative
researchers. who apply preconceived categories or codes to the data, a
GLOSSARY
grounded theorist creates qualitative codes by defining what he or she sees in
the data. Thus. the codes are emergent-they develop as the researcher studies
his or her data. The coding process may take the researcher to unforeseen
areas and research questions. Grounded theory proponents follow such leads;
they do not pursue previously designed research problems that lead to
dead-ends.
Concept-indicator model a method of theory construction in which the
researcher constructs concepts that account for relationships defined
in the empirical data and each concept rests on empirical indications. Thus,
the concept is 'grounded' in data.
Conditional/consequential matrix a coding device to show the intersections
of micro and macro conditions/consequences on actions and to clarify the
connections between them.
Constant comparative method a method of analysis that generates
successively more abstract concepts and theories through inductive processes
of comparing data with data, data with category, category with category, and
category with concept. Comparisons then constitute each stage of analytic
development.
Constructivism a social scientific perspective that addresses how realities are
made. This perspective assumes that people, including researchers, construct
the realities in which they participate. Constructivist inquiry starts with the
experience and asks how members construct it. To the best of their ability,
constructivists enter the phenomenon, gain multiple views of it, and locate it in
its web of connections and constraints. Constructivists acknowledge that their
interpretation of the studied phenomenon is itself a construction.
Deduction a type of reasoning that starts with the general or abstract concept
and reasons to specific instances.
Formal theory a theoretical rendering of a generic issue or process that cuts
across several substantive areas of study. The concepts in a formal theory
are abstract and general and the theory specifies the links between these
concepts. Theories that deal with identity formation or loss, the construction of
culture, or the development of ideologies can help us understand behavior in
diverse areas such as juvenile gangs, the socialization of professionals, and the
experience of immigration.
Grounded theory a method of conducting qualitative research that focuses on
creating conceptual frameworks or theories through building inductive analysis
from the data. Hence, the analytic categories are directly 'grounded' in the data.
The method favors analysis over description, fresh categories over preconceived
ideas and extant theories, and systematically focused sequential data collection
over large initial samples. This method is distinguished from others since it
involves the researcher in data analysis while collecting data-we use this
data analysis to inform and shape further data collection. Thus, the sharp
:187
:1.88 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
distinction between data collection and analysis phases of traditional research
is intentionally blurred in grounded theory studies.
Induction a type of reasoning that begins with study of a range of individual
cases and extrapolates patterns from them to form a conceptual category.
Memo-writing the pivotal intermediate step in grounded theory between data
collection and writing drafts of papers. When grounded theorists write memos,
they stop and analyze their ideas about their codes and emerging categories in
whatever way that occurs to them (see also Glaser. 1998). Memo-writing is a
crucial method in grounded theory because it prompts researchers to analyze
their data and to develop their codes into categories early in the research
process. Writing successive memos keeps researchers involved in the analysis
and helps them to increase the level of abstraction of their ideas.
Objectivist grounded theory a grounded theory approach in which the
researcher takes the role of a dispassionate, neutral observer who remains
separate from the research participants, analyzes their world as an outside
expert. and treats research relationships and representation of participants as
unproblematic. Objectivist grounded theory is a form of positivist qualitative
research and thus subscribes to many of the assumptions and logic of the
positivist tradition.
Positivism an epistemology that subscribes to a unitary scientific method
consisting of objective systematic observation and experimentation in an external
The goal of positivistic inquiry is to discover and to establish general laws
that explain the studied phenomena and from which predictions can be made.
Subsequently, experimentation and prediction can lead to scientific control over
the studied phenomena.
Postmodernism a theoretical turn that challenges the foundational assumptions
of the Enlightenment with its belief in human reason, belief in science, and belief
in progress through science. Postmodernists range from those who wish to
acknowledge intuitive forms of knowing to those who call for nihilistic rejection
of moderri ways of knowing and of being in the world and their foundation in
Enlightenment values.
Pragmatism an American philosophical tradition that views reality as
characterized by indeterminacy and fluidity, and as open to multiple interpretations.
Pragmatism assumes that people are active and creative. In pragmatist
philosophy, meanings emerge through practical actions to solve problems, and
through actions people come to know the world. Pragmatists see facts and
values as linked rather than separate and truth as relativistic and provisional.
Reflexivity the researcher's scrutiny of his or her research experience,
decisions. and interpretations in ways that bring the researcher into the process
and allow the reader to assess how and to what extent the researcher's
interests. positions. and assumptions influenced inquiry. A reflexive stance
GLOSSARY
informs how the researcher conducts his or her research, relates to the
research participants, and represents them in written reports.
Social constructionism a theoretical perspective that assumes that people
create social reality(ies) through individual and collective actions. Rather
than seeing the world as given, constructionists ask, how is it accomplished?
Thus, instead of assuming realities in an external world-including global
structures and local cultures-social constructionists study what people at a
particular time and place take as real, how they construct their views and
actions. when different constructions arise. whose constructions become taken
as definitive. and how that process ensues. Symbolic interactionism is a
constructionist perspective because it assumes that meanings and obdurate
realities are the product of collective processes.
Substantive theory a theoretical interpretation or explanation of a delimited
problem in a particular area, such as family relationships, formal organizations.
or education.
Symbolic interactionism a theoretical perspective derived from pragmatism
which assumes that people construct selves. society, and reality through
interaction. Because this perspective focuses on dynamic relationships between
meaning and actions, it the active processes through which people
create and mediate meanings. Meanings arise out of actions. and in turn
influence actions. This perspective assumes that individuals are active, creative,
and reflective and that social life consists of processes.
Theoretical sampling a type of grounded theory sampling in which the
researcher aims to develop the properties of his or her developing categories or
theory, not to sample randomly selected populations or to sample representative
distributions of a particular population. When engaging in theoretical sampling,
the researcher seeks people, events. or information to illuminate and define the
boundaries and relevance of the categories. Because the purpose of theoretical
sampling is to sample to develop the theoretical categories, conducting it can
take the researcher across substantive areas.
Theoretical saturation refers to the point at which gathering more data about a
theoretical category reveals no new properties nor yields any further theoretical
insights about the emerging grounded theory.
i89
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20i
Index
abduction 186
abductive reasoning 103-4
access to research participants, formal llO
actions 137
axial coding 61
coding 48
age, interviews 27, 28
Alasuutari; Pertti 17, 102, lll-13, 128, 129
Albas, Cheryl lll, 122
Albas, Dan ll1, 122
ambiguity 85-6, 105, 149, 155
analogies 172
'analytic interruptns' 139
analytic momentum 137-8, 142
Anderson, Elijah 57
anonymous texts 36
archival records 37, 39
archival texts 35
Terry 28
argument construction 156-8
Arlen, Margie 1-3, 7, 185
Ashworth, Peter D. 21
assumptions, researcher's 19, 47, 67-69
Atkinson, Paul, 2, 22, 23, 24, 133, 179
audience, text 35
axial coding 60-3, 66, ll5, 186
background data 18
basic soCial process 20-1, 23, 139, 143-6, 173
Baszanger, Isabelle, 25, 166, 184
Becker, Howard 57
Becker, Patricia H. 102, 133
bereavement, grounded theory of 136-7
Bergson, Henri 25
Biernacki, Patrick 13-14, 143-6, "147, 153
biomedical models ll1
Blumer, Herbert 7, 16, 19
Bogard, Cynthia 39
Bowker, Geoff 184
Britt, David W. 87
Bryant, Anthony 9, 130, 131, 133
Bucher, Rue 129
Bulmer, Martin, 133, 165
Burawoy, Michael 133-4, 149
Burgess, Ernest W. 7
Calkins, Kathy 36
Callery, Peter 131
'carrying capacity' of concepts 139
Casper, Monica 25, 153, 166
categories 3, 5, 19
axial coding 61
'carrying capacity' 139
collapsing 159-169
definition of 82-3
emerging 181
ethnography 23
focused codes, relation to 91-4
gaps between 108
integrating into theory 115-121
memos on 84-5
patterns 158-9
preconceived 8, 46
refining llO
saturation of 96-122
scrutinizing 158-63
sorting 96-122
subcategories 161, 162
theoretical sampling for 103
theory 127
categorizing 186
causal relationships 120
Chang,Johannes Han-Lin, 134
Chase, Susan E. 28
Cbenitz, Carole, 8
Chicago school sociology 7, 10, 183, 186
Clark, Candace, 19
Clarke, Adele E. 9, 86-7, 117, 133, 134, 153,
166, 184
actions 137
'carrying capacity' of concepts 139
social worlds/arenas 64, 118, 129
classical theory 126
Clifford,James, 140
clustering 86-8, 89, 90
coding 3, 5, 7, 11, 42-1'1, 186-7
axial 60-3, 66, 115, 186
bottom-up approach 139
categories 91-2
definition 3, 45-6
families of theoretical codes 63-4, 65-6
INDEX
coding cont.
focused 11. 46, 57-60, 72, 91-4, 96
framework 169
in vivo 55-7, 92-3, 99
incident-by-incident 51, 53, 54, 55
initial 46, 47-57, 60, 61, 68
line-by-line 11, 50-3, 54, 55, 75
memo-writing 75
preconceived 46
prior knowledge 165
processes, coding for 51
reducing problems in 67-70
speed in 48-9
strategies for 50-1
themes, coding for 137
theoretical coding 63-6
theoretical sampling 103
word-by-word 50, 51, 54, 55
Coffey, Amanda 2, 23, 24, 133, 179
Collins, Patricia Hill 71
Collins, Randall 128, 129
combined methods 15
common sense theonzing 67
comparative method 8, 54, 100, 127, 178-80
coding 53
constant 5, 54, 84, 165, 178-80, 187
ethnography 23
interaction 178-80
concept-indicator model 187
concepts 23, 61, 139-40
conceptual maps 118
condensed meaning 55, 56, 57, 83
conditional/consequential matrix 118-19, 187
conditions, axial coding 61
Conrad, Peter 182
consensus model 64
consequences, axial coding 61
constant comparative method 5, 54, 84, 113,
117, 165, 178-80, 187
constructivism 125, 129-31, 132, 134, 146-9,
180, 183-4
concepts 139-40
definition 187
interviews 32
context 39, 131, 180
conversational analysis 130
Corbin,Juliet M. 8, 9, 32, 61, 97, 127, 131,
133, 135, 179-80, 184
axial coding 60-1, 115
diagrammmg 117
literature reviews 165
negative cases 102
objectivism 131
theory 127
creativity 86
credibility 182, 183
credibility hierarchies 137-8
Creswell,John 41, 60
critique 133-5
cultural theory 128
Daly, Kerry 122
Danforth, Christine 52, 58, 61, 75, 78-9
data
construction of 16, 20-1
critical inspection of 51
evaluation of quality 18-19
forcing 17-18, 32. 34, 67, 115
patterns in 113
small samples 18
sufficiency of 18, 19
suitability 18
transformation of 69-70
data collection 1, 2-3, 5, 10-11, 13-41
gaps in data 48, 94, 96, 103
mixed methods 134
simultaneous analysis 19, 23-4, 48, 103
theoretical sampling 12, 96-122
Davis, Fred 128
decontextualized analyses 133-4
deduction 187
deductive reasoning 103
Deely,John N. 103
Delamont, Sara 2, 133
demographic data 38
Derricourt, Robin 164
descnption 127
Dewey,John 122
Dey, Ian 18, 19, 48, 114-15, 133, 165
diagramming 115, 117-19, 121
Diamond, Timothy 37
diaries 36
Dingwall, Robert 19, 27, 36
disciplinary perspectives 17
disclosing illness 17, 42-5. 49, 58. 59, 61-2,
66,75-6,92,120,159-61
drafts, writing 151-76
Durkheim, Emile 76
editorial policy 164
Ehrlich, Danuta 129
Eide, Lisa 95
Elbow, Peter 86
elicited texts 35, 36-7
Ellis, Carolyn 181
emergent categories 181
emergent constructions 178
emergent data 80
emergent goals 180
emergent identities 143, 144
emergent method 10, 48, 59, 110-11
emergent nature 30, 154
emergent objectives 104
emergent theory 46, 101, 108
Emerson, Robert M. 21, 133
ending questions 30, 31
203
204 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
entry llO
ethnography 3, 7, 18, 21-5
coding 70
emerging categories 181
in vivo codes 57
new directions 16
preconceptions 67
questions in 24
sampling 102
texts 36, 38
explanation 126
extant concepts 68, 166
extant texts 35, 37-8
extant theories 48, 67
extended case method 133
external review 164
false starts 17
familiarity 68, 84
Fann, K.T. 103
feminist theorists 71
field research 7
Fielding, Nigel G. 179
fieldnotes 22, 38
coding 51, 53
focused coding 59
theoretical sampling 97
transcriptions 70
Fine, Gary Alan 19
fit
coding 54
sampling 102
flexibility 9, 14-15, 29, 178
focused coding 11, 46, 57-60, 72. 91-4, 96
focused freewrites 90-1
Fontana, Andrea 25
formal theory 8, 187
frameworks 6, 163-5
axial coding 61, 62
codes 45-6
theoretk<!l coding 65
writing 168-72
free association 88
freewriting 86, 88-91
Frey,James H. 25
Gadow, Sally 171, 172
Garston,John 174
Geertz, Clifford 14
gender
interviews 27-8
working mothers 97-9, 103, 140-3
general concepts 16-17
generality 180-1
generalizations 133, 134, 142
generic process 92
generic statements 133, 134
gerunds 49, 136
Glaser, Barney G. 4, 5-10, 15, 16, 20, 25. 32,
36, 47, 48, 49, 50, 65-6, 134, 136, 138,
140, 142, 143, 149, 165, 179-80, 182
analysis 138
basic process 143, 173
categories 91
comparative methods 54, 84
extant concepts 166
focused coding 57
forcing data 18, 32, 34
gerunds 49, 136
mitial coding 47, 48
line-by-line coding 50
literature reviews 165
maps ll8
memos 72, ll7
objectivism 131, 132
patterns 82
preconceptions 68
rapport 19
saturation 113, 114
six Cs 63
theoretical coding 63, 64, 65-6, 115
theoretical sampling 97
theoretical sensitivity 135
theory 127, 133
Goffman, Erving 64-5, 67' 73, 76
Goodman, Douglas]. 126
Gorden, Raymond 32
Goulding, Christina 135
grand theories 7
grounded theory
based on emergent interaction 178-9
challenges to mid-century theory and
research 5-8
components 5-6
contested versions 177-8
criteria for evaluating 54, 182-3
criticisms of 41, 114-15, 133, 135
definition 2-3
examples of 140-9
history 4-10
outsider's view 25, 49
pitfalls 107
types
classic 3-8, 20
constructivist 130-2, 146-8, 180-1, 183
objectivist 131-2, 140
Guba, Egon G. 10
Gubriurn,Jaber F. 33, 122
guiding interests 17
Hall, Wendy A. 131
Harris, Bessie 74-5, 77
Harsock, Nancy 71
HenwoocL Karen 165-6
Hermes,Joka 25
Hertz, Rosanna 67-8
hidden assumptions 47
Hogan, Nancy 136-7
Holbrook, P. 179
Holliday, Adrian 163
Holstein,James A. 33
Hood,Jane 97-9, 101, 103, 104, 106-7,
140-3, 147
human subjects committees 30
Hutchinson, Sally 133
'identifying moment' 59-60
identity
changing 36, 143
extension 143, 145
framework 169-71
goals 123-4
hierarchy 124-5, 136, 175
levels 136, 175-6
paths 143
transformation 143-6
immersion in illness 109-10
in vivo codes 55-7, 92-3, 99
incident-by-incident coding 51, 53, 54, 55
mdividualism 84
induction 188
inductive reasoning 103
inference 103-4
informational interviews 25
initial coding 46, 47-57, 60, 61, 68
initial questions 30-1
initial sampling 100, 101
instiintional constraints 110-11
institutional review boards 30, 110-11
integration of categories 115, 116-7, 119-21
intensive interviews 25-35
interactions 178-80
axial coding 61
coding 47
strategic model 64-5
intermediate questions 31
Internet
surveys 36
textual analysis 39
interpretive theorizing 146-8
interpretive understanding 19
lnterpretivism 126-9, 143, 184
mterviews 3, 142
coding 50, 51, 54, 69-70
conducting 29-35
conversational prerogatives 26-7
definition 25
framing questions 31-3
guide 18, 29, 30-1
institutional constraints 111
negotiations during 27-8
new directions 16
sample interview questions 30-l
texts 36, 39
INDEX
interviews cont.
theoretical sampling 97-8, 99, 107
transcriptions69-70
types
informational 25
intensive 25-35
intrusive illness 105-6, 174
Jankowski, Martin 84
Jensen, Louise 131
Kearney, Margaret H. 8, 131
Kelle, Udo 62
knowledge transformation 184-5
Kusow, Abdi 70
language
coding 46-8, 49
in vivo codes 55
technical terms 32
Latour, Bruno 153
Layder, Derek 133-4, 165
Lazarsfeld, Paul 7
Lee, Raymond M. 179
Lempert, Lora Bex 166-7
Lewis, Kathleen 38
liminal experience 108
Lincoln, Yvonna S. 10
line-by-line coding 11, 50-3, 54, 55, 71, 75
literature reviews 6, 163-8
Locke, Karen 135
Lofland,John 25, 84, 139
Lofland, Lyn H. 25, 84
logico-deductive model 17
logs 36
longilndinal data 84, 109
Lonkila, Markku 180
Loseke, Donileen 56
Luker, Kristin 19
Lynd, Robert S. 185
macro level 129
macro relationships 118
Maines, David R. 87, 129
maps 117, 118, 119, 120
Markovsky, Barry 128
Marshall,Joyce 58
Marxism 64
masculinity 28
Maynard, Douglas 150
Mead, George Herbert 7, 10, 127
meanmg35
coding 47
constructivism 147
conversational analysis 130
rn vivo codes 55-7
memo-writing 83
medical records 39
205
206 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
Melia, Kath M. 133
member-checking 111
memo-writing 3, 6, 11, 12, 72-95, 96,
151, 188
advanced memos 81
definition of 72
early memos 80
finished piece 155
how to write memos 80-5
integration 119-21
methods 80-5
natural voice 84
raising focused codes to conceptual
categories 91-4
sorting 115-17, 118, 121, 155
theoretical sampling 103, 110
Merton, Robert K. 7
meso levels 129
metaphors 172
method slurring 121
methodological ecumenicalism 121
micro contexts 134
micro relationships 118
middle-range theories 7
Miller, Dan E. 135
Mitchell, Richard G. 15, 19, 24, 53, 125, 130,
155, 172, 174
modifiability 181
moral status 73-5, 76-9
morality 76
Morrill, Calvin 56
Morse,Janice M. 114, 136-7
Murphy, Elizabeth 19, 27, 36
Murphy, Robert F. 153
negative cases 101-2
negotiated orders 129
network analysis 129
neutral questions 27
neutral writer's voice 174
neutrality 132
newspaper reports 39
Noblit, George 131
note taking, interviews 32
nuances of research participants'
language 34-5
nucleus words in clustering 87
objectivism 129-30, 131-2, 134, 139, 143,
149, 185
definition 188
interviews 32
Jane Hood 140-1
theory 127
objectivity 132, 179
extant texts 37, 38
theoretical coding 66
theory construction 125
writing 163
observations
coding 50
incident-by-incident coding 53
participant 21
passive 21, 23
text contrast 36, 38
Olesen, Virginia 21, 102
open-ended questionnaires 16
open-ended questions 26, 29, 30-2, 33
oral presentation 155
origmality 153, 182, 183
pacing, writing 174
Park, Robert 7
parsimony 126, 127, 149
Parsons, Talcott 76
participant observation 21
participants
distress 30
in viva codes 55-7
interviews 27
member-checking 111
perspective 14, 19, 47, 54, 68
rapport 19
respect 19
passive observation 21, 23
patterns
categories 158-9
data 113
memo-writing 82
Peirce, Charles S. 104
personal views 54-5
Pidgeon, Nick 165-6
Pollner, Melvin 21
positional mapping 129
positivtsm 4-5, 6-7, 9, 132, 148, 183
definition 188
theory 125-6, 127, 128
postmodernism 140, 188
power 134
categories 158-9
interviews 27
pragmatism 7, 10, 183-4, 188
preconceptions, coding 67-9
prediction 126
pre.JUdgement 54
presentations 76-9, 155
prewriting exercises 86-91
clustering 86-8, 89, 90
freewriting 86, 88-91
Presley, Bonnie 42-5, 48-9, 61, 75-6, 90-1
prewriting exercises 85-91
primary data 35
prior knowledge 15, 17, 48, 54, 67, 165-6
Prior, Lindsay F. 35
pro-life activists 19
process 7, 10, 20-1, 136
analyses 119-20, 136
basic social 20-1, 23, 139, 143-6, 173
process cont.
ethnography 22, 23
generic 92
variations in 108
Prus, Robert C. 25, 92
publication 76-9, 156-7, 164
purposeful sampling 101
quality, data collection 18-19
quantitative research 4-5, 101
questionnaires 36
open-ended 16
theoretical sampling 97
questions
ending 30, 31
framing 29
initial30-1
intermediate 31
neutral27
open-ended 26, 29, 30-2, 33
race, interviews 27, 28
random samples 101
rapport 19
reasoning 103-4
reciprocities with research participants 110
reciprocity, theoretical sampling 110
reconstructing theory 123-50
reflexivity 188-9
reification 135
Reinharz, Shulainit 28, 38
relationships 120, 127, 128, 181
diagramining 118
theoreticai sampling 110
relevance, coding 54
rendering 147, 172-6
renewal 133-5
resonance 182-3
rhetoric 128-9, 172, 173
rich data 10-11, 13-41
Richardson, Laurel 172
Rico, Gabriele Lusser 86
Ritzer, George 126
Robrecht. Linda C. 63, 133
Rock, Paul6
role models 164
Rosenberg, Morris 7
Rosenthal, Gabriele 103
Rubin, HerbertJ. 33
Rubin, Irene S. 33
Sabshin, Melvin 129
sample size 18, 114, 132
sampling 6
theoretical 12, 96-122, 189
types 99-100
Sandelowski, Margaret 131
Sarton, May 65
scene recording 70
INDEX
Schatzman, Leonard 129
Schutz, Alfred 67, 128
Schwalbe, Michael 27
Schwandt, Thomas A 10
scientific method 4-5
Seale, Clive 9
Seidman, I. E. 25, 33
self 123-5
self·concept 51, 65, 108
sensitizing concepts 16-17, 60, 133
framework 169
memo-writing 76
sequential compartsons 54
sequential methods 15
significant events 115-16
signposts in writing 162
Silverman, David 27, 130, 133, 153, 167
situating theories 180
situational analysis 129
situational maps 118, 119, 120
'smash and grab' data collection 18-19
Smith, Dorothy 71, 121
social constructionism 127, 129, 131, 189
social justice 134, 185
social processes 176. 180
basic 20-1, 23, 139, 143-6, 173
social worlds/arenas 64, 118, 129
sociological theory 126
software 179
sorting 12, 96-122. 155
Soulliere, Danielle, 87
Speedling, EdwardJ. 95
Star, Susan Leigh, 137-8, 148, 153, 184
status ofinterviewer and research participant 27
Stem, Phyllis N. 18, 114, 133
stigma 73
strategic model of interaction 64-5
Strauss, Anselm L. 4, 5-10, 15, 20, 25, 32,
47, 61, 84, 91, 131, 134, 135, 140, 143,
179-80, 184
axial coding 60-1, 115
basic process 143, 173
categories 91
comparative methods 54, 84
diagramining 117, 118
literature reviews 165
negative cases 102
negotiated orders 129
objectivism 131
patterns 82
rapport 19
social worlds 64, 129
theoretical sampling 97
theoretical sensitivity 135
theory 127
structure, memo-writing 76
subjectivity 149
'bottom-up' approach in coding 139
theoretical coding 66
207
208 CONSTRUCTING GROUNDED THEORY
substantive codes 93
substantive theory 8, 64, 65, 99, 106-7, 136,
140-3, 145, 189
suffering as a moral status 73-5, 76-9
'supernormal identity' 57, 124
supplementary data 35, 38
Swanson,Janice M. 8
symbolic interactionism 7, 10, 64, 65
definition 189
framework 169-71
interviews 29
theory 127-9
tacit actions 112
tacit agreements 142
tacit meaning 47, 147, 172
tacit understanding 25
tacit views 108
tape recording 32, 157
transcribing 34-5
Tas6n, :M:;.ntza Cerdas 136-7
textual analysis 35-40
construction of 35
elicited texts 36-7
extant texts 37-8
interrogating texts 39-40
themes 102, 137
theoretical agnostiasm 165-6
theoretical coding 63-6, 115
theoretical logic 123-8
theoretical sampling 12, 96-122, 189
definition 12, 96
distinguished from other types of
sampling 100-2
logtc 102-6
objectives of 104
theoretical saturation 12, 96-122, 132, 189
theoretical sensitivity 135-40
theoretical sufficiency 114
theorizing 24, 128-9, 133-40, 146-8, !51
theory ,••
definition 123, 125-8
reconstruction 12, 123-50
Indexed !Jy Caroline Eley
theory development 4, 5, 6
codes 46
middle-range theories 7
thick description 14
Thomas,Jim 55
Thome, Sally 131, !82
time 34, 51, 83, 108, 146-9, 162
Timmermans, Stefan 25
titles, memo-writing 82
tone 174
trust 15, 112
understanding 126
unspoiled identities 143,144-5
Ur<inhart. Cathy 139
usefulness 183
van den Hoonaard, Will 60
Van Maanen,John 140
variation 108-13
verification 8, 132
voice 84, 174-5
Wiener, Carolyn 93-4, 153, 166
Wilson, Holly S. 133
Wolkomir, Michelle 27
Woolgar, Steve 153
word-by-word coding 50, 51, 54, 55
writing
see also memo-writing
collapsing categories 159-61
constructing argJlffients 156-8
drafts 12, 151-76
experiential rhythm 173
guidelines for the literature review 168
introductions 156
prewriting exercises 85-91
revision 154-63
subheadings 160-2
theoretical framework !68-72
using literary devices 172-4
writer's voice 174-6
Wuest,Judith 148