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1 Qualitative Researching Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page i Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page iiQualitative ResearchingSecond EditionJENNIFER MASONSAGE PublicationsLondon Thousand Oaks New Delhi Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page iii Jennifer Mason 2002 First published 2002 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research orprivate study, or criticism or review, as permitted under theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publicationmay be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, orby any means, only with the prior permission in writingof the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction,in accordance with the terms of licencesissued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

2 Inquiriesconcerning reproduction outside those terms should besent to the Publications Ltd6 Bonhill StreetLondon EC2A 4 PUSAGE Publications Inc2455 Teller RoadThousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd32, M-Block MarketGreater Kailash lNew Delhi 110 048 British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available fromthe British LibraryISBN 0 7619 7427 XI5BN 0 7619 7428 8 (pbk)Library of Congress Control Number: availableTypeset by M RulesPrinted in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page ivContentsPreface and AcknowledgementsviiIntroduction: The Challenge of Qualitative Research1 Part I: Questions of Strategy111 Finding a Focus and Knowing Where You Stand132 Designing Qualitative Research24 Part II: Generating Qualitative Data493 Data Sources, Methods and Approaches514 Qualitative Interviewing625 Observing and Participating846 Using Visual Methods and Documents1037 Sampling and Selection in Qualitative Research120 Part III: Analysing Qualitative Data1458 Organizing and Indexing Qualitative Data1479 Making Convincing Arguments with Qualitative Data173 Appendix.

3 Difficult Questions for Qualitative Research205 References213 Index218 Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page v Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page viPreface and AcknowledgementsWhen I wrote the original Qualitative ResearchingI was convinced that new andwould-be Qualitative researchers needed a handbook that bridged the gap between cookbook texts and abstract theoretical discussions of methodology. I wanted toproduce a book that would encourage readers to engage actively with the doing ofqualitative research, rather than simply to follow recipes . I wanted to help peopleto usetheory in a grounded way in their research practice, and to recognize howthey do so, rather than to set out for them my assessment of the full range of the-oretical debates informing Qualitative research.

4 I wanted to write a book that wasusable in the practice of research, rather than one that concentrated on telling sto-ries about research. For that reason, I did not produce a book laden with richdescriptions of Qualitative research experience. Although such descriptions areinteresting and important for other purposes, I felt they were not the best way tostimulate and support the active engagement of the researcher around their ownset of research questions, that I think is so vital to the conduct of good qualityqualitative research. Instead, I focused the book on difficult questions that qual-itative researchers need to ask themselves, and to resolve, in the process andpractice of doing their aims for this second, fully revised and updated version, are essentially thesame.

5 Although research methods literature is a burgeoning field, there remains areal need for books that support a theoretically engaged, grounded approach toqualitative Researching , and that take issues of quality and rigour very seriously. Inthe light of contemporary theoretical debates about the state of qualitativeresearch, which are at the same time fascinating but often abstract and inaccessi-ble, I would like this second edition of Qualitative Researchingto be useful tothose who want to get on with the job of doing Qualitative research in a theoreti-cally cognizant research faces new opportunities in a social world that is increas-ingly thought to be complex and multi-dimensional, and where the particularlyqualitative strengths of understanding context, diversity, nuance and process mightpotentially be very highly valued.

6 It continues to represent a broad and pervasiveset of challenges to more fixed ways of perceiving and understanding that faces challenges too, however, to assemble and maintain its reputation and tocompete for resources in multiple new environments where the idea of evidence about the social world is very definitely flavour of the month. Qualitativeresearchers have to decide where they stand in all of this, and such decisions may Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page viinot be easy. However, I think it is important that they do not take too long aboutit, and risk getting left standing nowhere in particular. For these reasons, I wantthe second edition of Qualitative Researchingto be highly usable and useful inhelping to create Qualitative researchers who will engage in high quality research,and who will be keen to champion the Qualitative cause with confidence second edition thus retains the style and approach of the original, and inparticular its use of difficult questions to stimulate the reader s active engage-ment.

7 However, it is fully revised and updated throughout, and includes extrachapters and extended discussions of visual methods, observation, and some of themain Qualitative theoretical approaches. The original eight chapters have beenreplaced by nine chapters plus an introduction , and there is now an Appendixdrawing together all of the difficult questions raised in the book into one easy-ref-erence resource at the number of people have helped me in the production of the second to Karen Phillips at Sage for her advice and support during the productionof both editions of the book, and for encouraging me to write the second Slocombe, the Development Editor, made some very helpful suggestions forwhich I am grateful.

8 Thank you also to all of those people who found time to con-tact me personally to tell me how useful they had found the first edition, and formaking me think that a second edition would be worthwhile. Thanks to studentson my modules of the MA in Social Research at Leeds University, and to HelenWillmot, all of whom have continued to demonstrate to me how much it is possi-ble to learn through teaching enthusiastic and committed people. Thanks to all ofthe following people for useful discussions about Qualitative methods in recentyears, and for keeping me on my toes: Bren Neale, Simon Duncan, Carol Smart,Louise Ackers, Janet Finch, Jennifer Flowerdew, Amanda Wade.

9 Most of all,thanks to Andrew Jones, and to Rosa and AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Qualitative Research 12/7/02 10:29 Page viiiIntroduction:The Challenge of Qualitative ResearchQualitative Researching is exciting and important. It is a highly rewarding activitybecause it engages us with things that matter, in ways that matter. Through qual-itative research we can explore a wide array of dimensions of the social world,including the texture and weave of everyday life, the understandings, experiencesand imaginings of our research participants, the ways that social processes, insti-tutions, discourses or relationships work, and the significance of the meanings thatthey generate.

10 We can do all of this qualitatively by using methodologies that cel-ebrate richness, depth, nuance, context, multi-dimensionality and complexityrather than being embarrassed or inconvenienced by them. Instead of editing theseelements out in search of the general picture or the average, Qualitative researchfactors them directly into its analyses and explanations. This means that it has anunrivalled capacity to constitute compelling arguments about how things work inparticular contexts. More than that though, while not all Qualitative researchersare on a mission to produce the general picture of how things work, the qualita-tive habit of intimately connecting context with explanation means that qualitativeresearch is capable of producing very well-founded cross-contextual generalities,rather than aspiring to more flimsy de-contextual extraordinary set of strengths is sometimes forgotten in the face of crit-icisms that Qualitative research is merely anecdotal or at best illustrative, and thatit is practised in casual and unsystematic ways.