Transcription of FINDING THEMES - SAGE Publications Inc
1 53C H A P T E R3FI NDINGTHEMESA uthors note:Werelyheavilyin thischapteronourarticleRyanandBernard,Fi eldMethods15(1):85 20 03 sage s a Theme?Where Do ThemesCom e From?Eight ObservationalTec hn iques:Thi ngs toLook For1. Re petitions2. In digenousTypol ogies or Cat ego ries3. Metaphorsand Analogies4. Transitions5. Simi la ritiesand Differences6. Li nguisticConnectors7. Miss in g Data8. Theory-Rela ted Mat er ialFour Manipulative Techniques: WaystoProcessTexts9. Cuttingand So rt ing10. WordLis ts and Key -Words-in-Context (KWIC)11.
2 WordCo-o ccu rre nc e12. Me tacodingSelecting AmongTechniques1. Kindof Dat a2. Skill3. La bor4. Nu mberand Kindsof The mes5. Rel iabilityand ValidityAnd INTRODUCTIONA nalyzingtextinvolvesfi vecomplextasks: (1)discoveringthemesandsubthemes; (2)describingthecore andperipheralelementsofthemes;(3)buildin ghierarchies ofthemesorcodebooks;(4)applyingthemes thatis,attachingthemto chunksofactualtext;and(5)linkingthemesin toth ,wefo cusonthefirstta sk : discoveringth emes andsubthemes. Then,inChapter4,wediscussmethodsfordescr ibing th emes,buildingcodebooks,andapplyingthemes to buildi fo r discovering themescomefromacrossth e canbedonebyacomputer tolabor-intensive,line-by-lineanalysesth at,sofar,onlypeopleca chniquehas ll see, somemethodsarebetterforanalyzinglong,com ple x narratives,andothersarebetterforshortres pons estoopen-ended quiremorelabor andskill, ll havemoretosayla te r about howyouchooseamongthesemethods.
3 WHAT SA THEME?This questionhasa longhistory. Thompson(1932 36)createdanindex offolktalemotifs, orthemes, ,MorrisOpler,ananthropologist, madeth e id entif icationofthemesa keyst :Ineveryculturearefounda limitednumber ofdynamicaffirmations,calledth emes, whichcontrolbehaviororstimulateactivity. Theactivities,prohibitionsofactivities,o rreferenceswhichresultfromth e acceptanceofa themear ofa theme, ofcourse,aidusin discoveringit.( 199)Oplerestablishedthreeprinciplesforan alyzing th ,heobservedth atthemesareonlyvisible (andthusdiscovera ble) , ,Oplernoted that so meexpres-sionsofa themeareobviousandcultu rallyagreedon,butothersaresubtler,symbol ic , PARTITHEBASICSA ndth ird,Opler observedthatculturalsystemscomprisese , hesaid,isrelatedto:(1 ) howoftenit appears;(2 ) howpervasiveit is acrossdifferent types ofcult uralideasandpractices;(3 ) howpeoplereactwhenth ethemeisviolated.
4 And(4 ) thedegreetowhichth e forceandva riety ofa th eme sexpressionis controlledbyspecificcontext s ( ).Chapter3 FindingThemes 55 Termsfo r ThemesToday,socialscientistsstill talk abo ut the linkage betweenthe mes and the irexpressions, but use differenttermsto do so. Gr oundedtheoriststa lk about categories (Glaserand A. Strauss1967), codes (Milesand Huberman 1994),or l abel s (De y 1993:96).Opler s exp ressions are called inc ide nts (Glaserand A. Strauss 1967), segmen ts (Tesch1990), thematic units (Krippendorff1980b), d ata- bits (D ey 1993),and chunks (Milesand Huberman1994).
5 Linco ln and Gu ba referto exp ressionsas units (1985:345).A. Str aussandCorbin(199 0:6 1) ca ll them con cepts tha t are groupedtog etherin a higherord er of classification to , we fo llow Ag ar s lead(1979,1980a)and remainfa ithfulto Ople r sterminology. To us, the terms theme an d expression morenaturallyconnotethe fundamenta l co nceptswe ar e tyingto describe. In everydaylanguage, wetal k aboutth em es thatap pearin tex ts, pa intings,and moviesand ref er toparticular instances as expressions of go odnessor ange r or evil.
6 In selectingone set of term s over others,we surelyignoresubtledifferences, but the basicideasare just as useful Themescomebothfromdata(aninductiveapproa ch)andfromourpriortheoreticalunderstandi ngofwhateverphenomenonwearestudying (anapriori,ordeductiveapproach).A priorithemescomefromchara cteristicsofthephenomenabeingstudied whatAristotleidentifiedasessences andwhatdozensofgenerationsofscholarssinc ehavereliedonasa youarest udying th e night sky,forexample,it won t takelongtodecidethatthere is a unique,largebody(th e moon), afewsmall bodiesthatdon ttwinkle(p la nets) , and millions ofsmallbodiesthatdotwinkle (s tars).
7 Apriorithemesalsocomefromalready-agreed- onprofessionaldefinitionsfoundinliteratu rereviews;fromlocal,commonse nseconstructs;andfromresearchers values,theoreticalorientations,andperson alexperiences(Bulmer1979;Maxwell2005; ). (1 990:4 1 47)calltheuseofa priorith howbesttoquerypeopleaboutth os e topicsarerich sourcesofa priorithemes(Dey 1993:98). Infa ct,th e firstpass atgeneratingthemesoftencomes fromthequest ions inaninterviewprotocol(CoffeyandAtkinson1 996:34).Mostly,though,th emesarederivedempirically witha fixedsetofopen-endedquestions, th ere s nowaytoanticipateallthethemesthatwi ll comeupbeforeyouanalyzea setoftexts(Dey1993:97 9 8).
8 Theactofdi scoveringthemes is whatgrounded theoristscallopencoding,andwhatclassicco ntentanalystsca llqualitativeanalysis(Berelson195 2)orlatentcoding(ShapiroandMarkoff1997). Therearemanyvariationsonthesemethodsandm any recipes forarriving ata pr eli minarysetofthemes(Tesch1990:91). We ll describeeightobser vationaltechniques thingstolookforintexts andfourmanipulativetechniques ways (Furt herReading:findingthemes.) EIGHTOBSERVATIONALTECHNIQUES: THINGSTOLOOK FORL ookingforthemesin writtenmaterialtypicallyinvolvespawingth roughtextsandmarkingthemupwithdifferent in te r-vi ews,theprocess ofidentifyingthemesbegins video,audio,or writtendocuments,handlingthemphysically is alwayshelpfulforfindin g th whattolookfo Anyonewhohaslistenedtolongstretchesofta lk, saysD Andrade, knowshowfr equentlypeopl e circle throughth e samenet workof ideas (1991:287).
9 Repetitioniseasytorecogniz e inte xt . ClaudiaStrauss (1992)didseveralin-depthinterviewswith Tony,a retiredbl ue-collarworker andagaintoideasassociatedwit h greed,56 PARTITHEBASICS money, businessmen,siblings,and beingdifferent. Straussconcludedth attheseideaswere importantthemesinTony s id eaofhowtheseideaswererelated,Strausswrot ethemona pieceofpaper andconnectedthemwithlinestosnippetsofTon y s verbatimexpressions muchasresearcherstodaydowithtextanalysis so text, onsmakeanimportantth eme, however, ndthemesis tolookforunfamiliar,local words,andforfa miliarwordsthatareused inunfamiliarways what Pa ttoncalls indi-genous cat egories (2002:454; andseeLinnekin1987).
10 Groundedtheoristsrefertothepr ocessofidentifying localtermsas invivocoding( ra uss1987:28; andCorbin1990:61 74).Ethnographerscallthisth esearchfortypologiesorclassificationsche mes (BogdanandTaylor1975:83)orcult uraldomains(Spradley1979:1 07 119).Ina classic ethnographicstudy,Spradley(1972)recorded conversationsamongtrampsatinformalgather ings,meals,and lkedto eachotherabouttheirexperiences,theyke ptmentionin g theideaof makinga flop, which tu rnedout tobethelo caltermforfi ndinga throughhis recorded material andhisfieldnotesforstatementsabout makinga flopandfo undthat he couldcategorize themintosubthemessuchaskindsofflops, waystomakeflops ,waystomakeyourownflop, kindsof people whobotheryouwhenyouflop,waystomakea bed,andkindsofbeds.
