Rowland,
I am with you most of the way here. I come from Social Anthropology and the big problem I have is getting swamped by data (saturation comes late when there are so many variables). This leads me, at any rate, to consider G & S to have written down some very useful things which can be used as reference points but I do not follow them to the letter. This makes me eclectic, I suppose.
But I am very positive about model building, which makes me a positivist... or so my colleagues told me scornfully when I naively began to discuss things with them.
Charles.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rowland Atkinson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2000 12:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Re Grounded Theory
>Strauss-Corbin (high a-priori). It therefore can be used to justify
>theoretical approaches all along that spectrum -- a nice freedom for
>researchers.
To me this is like recognising Glaser and Strauss as either the bible or
Microsoft as the guiding philosphy or operating system within which we base
qualitative research. I often wonder why other social scientific philosophy
such as Popperian or Feyerabendian (?) principles arent invoked. As Ive
said before it often strikes me that G and S have tried to monopolise the
basic principles of social research; that it is guided by theory and that
stronger theories are built from research (maybe it was novel then but is
it now?). Perhaps more pertinent questions to turn to are the linkages
between theoretical and random sampling and our knowledge of the social
world or how we step from theoretical saturation (surely a naive or
relative idea?) to a wider sense of replication or reliability. I dont
believe this is heretical or quanititaive colonialism, interested to hear
some views though. Are there really some people on this list who would call
themselves phenomenologists or positivists or whatever or is research a
more eclectic enterprise than textbooks usually allow for?
cheers
rowland
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