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Part 1
THE SOCIAL WORK AGENDA FOR QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
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Introduction
It would not be unreasonable to expect a book such as this to fit into some bigger picture, and for its value to be assessed in the context of that picture. What is that larger context? The several writers of this book share, with some variation, expectations that research in social work should:
- contribute to the development and evaluation of social work practice and services
- enhance social workâs moral purpose
- strengthen social workâs disciplinary character and location
- promote social work inquiry marked by rigour, range, variety, depth and progression.
Social work practice and services may gain in three broad ways from research. First, research may shed light on the processes and outcomes of practice, thus assisting in building knowledge and skills for practice. American research has contributed relatively strongly to outcomes research, through, for example, the sustained development of task-centred intervention. More recent work on reflective practice, stimulated by Donald Schon and others, is also a form of intervention research. Second, social work has also gained from the wider range of knowledge-questioning research that seeks to describe or explain social problems encountered by human services practitioners. The phrase âknowledge-questioningâ serves partly to ensure we keep open the question whether social work research is progressive and beneficial.
Third, practice and research may mutually benefit from considering how far the perspectives and methods of one provide a template for the other. For example, is social work akin to research, in the sense that it is marked by âthe systematic collection of data, the cautious use of inference and the consideration of alternative explanations, the application where possible of research based knowledge, and the discriminating evaluation of the outcomes of oneâs effortsâ (Reid, 1995: 2040)? The question is far from straightforward, and it surfaces several times in the subsequent chapters of this book.
The expectation that social work research should be assessed by the extent to which it enhances the strength with which the moral purpose of social work is promoted, is both substantial and complex. The infusion of practice, methodology and research utilization with criteria of justice is one of the most contested and central issues facing social work. The problem is tackled in two main ways in this book. First, we wish to reflect on the different moral and political positions that share a common commitment to justice-led research and practice. It would be premature to rally round one particular flag, just as it would be inconceivable to evacuate social work research of a justice agenda. Second, we will give space to addressing the question whether there is a direct connection between methodology and justice. More particularly, we will consider whether qualitative methodologies are especially congenial to the promotion of justice in social work services and practice. These discussions surface in several of the contributorsâ chapters and in Chapters 1, 2 and 10.
Research will also be judged according to its contribution to strengthening social workâs disciplinary character and location. We do not think social work researchers and academics need be too preoccupied with the more arcane reaches of debates as to whether social work is a distinct discipline. But we do believe that disciplinary issues such as theorizing, conceptualization, doctoral level work, practice/higher education interfaces, and research ethics are ignored at our peril.
Finally, we suggested that social work research, and books thereon, should be judged by the extent to which they promote social work inquiry marked by rigour, range, variety, depth and progression. This is more likely to be achieved if we
- Avoid ethnocentrism. Social work and its research enterprise are not hermetically sealed from cognate enterprises in the fields of education, health, criminal justice, and evaluation. Social work research has special characteristics. It is a large part of our hope to demonstrate this in the chapters that follow. But social work research, though difficult, is not more difficult or demanding than research in education or health. We have no reason to be precious regarding our professional enterprise.
- Remember â but are not stifled by the realization â that regimes of truth are regimes of power.
- Eschew sentimentalism of the kind that refuses to question dearly held positions, or launches attacks on straw figures. NaĂŻve constructionism and relativism, attacks on so-called positivism, and uncritical adoption of the latest research vogue, whether it be of methods (e.g. focus groups) or methodology (e.g. critical realism), are among the less than helpful trends that leave us feeling intellectually and occasionally morally queasy.
Doubts have sometimes been raised as to whether qualitative research is adequately equipped to deliver these gains for social work and social science. There have been a number of such doubts, the focus of which varies according to the direction from which they come. For example, adherents of conventional research strategies have been heard to argue for the greater benefits of tightly designed evaluative research on the grounds that such research is more adapted to the needs of social work. Qualitative research, so it is thought, is ill-adapted to shed light on social work outcomes, is sometimes lacking in rigour, is not susceptible to enabling generalization to other contexts, and, more generally, is less likely to yield findings that are useful in a clear, instrumental form (e.g. Macdonald, 1999; Thyer, 1989, 2000). We will have a good deal to say about these issues of rigour, outcomes, generalization and research uses through this book â both by way of illustration in the core contributed chapters, and by further reflection in the early and final chapters.
Qualitative research within social work and related professions has also come under âfriendly fireâ from some quarters within mainstream ethnographic research. The origins of this, especially in Britain, can be found in the development of social science disciplines, and the divergent paths of sociology and social policy. This can be put, admittedly over simply, as aiming to achieve discipline development in the case of sociology, and applied relevance in the case of social policy (Atkinson et al., 1988; Finch, 1986; Jacob, 1987). Qualitative research, particularly when it has a strong applied agenda, has been criticized for being atheoretical or lacking rigour, for promoting a diluted, token form of ethnography, and for being generally methodologically weak.
We will resist any knee-jerk ânot guiltyâ pleas to these charges. It does neither social work nor qualitative research a service to either caricature or unquestioningly dismiss criticisms from conventional or qualitative methodologists. Social work research too often lacks methodological imagination. Decisions about methods seem to be treated as technical matters, to be taken with naĂŻve pragmatism. This unnecessarily strengthens the arms of critics, insofar as pragmatists âexist in splendid isolation from developments and debates in research methodology outside of social workâ (Trinder, 2000: 43). The response in the following chapters is to seek to exemplify imaginative and uncompromising qualitative methodology in the contributed chapters, and to reflect further on methodological issues, for example in Chapters 2 and 9. We take a similar stance regarding theorizing. Several of the contributors write explicitly regarding theorizing within their research, and we subsequently reflect in a sustained way on the place of theorizing within qualitative social work research in the final chapter.
Criticisms of qualitative social work research have also come from within social work. For example, some research funders, especially within government departments in Western countries, too often mistrust qualitative research as anecdotal on the one hand or guilty of mystification on the other. The first of these criticisms may be based on a misreading of the logics of qualitative research. If so, then mutual conversations are called for, and the underlying issue of the bases for generalization brought to the foreground. We do this in Chapter 11. The second charge of mystification has been conceded by some qualitative researchers. For example, Janesick aspires to an accessible language, and concludes that students âare more excited about theory, practice and praxis when they are not excluded from the conversationâ (Janesick, 1998: 3). Her hopes for qualitative research â with which we entirely concur â are that it will disrupt, educate and engage, inspire, demystify and democratize.
Qualitative research has also been criticized for being methodology-led, for example by feminist practitioners and researchers, and by activists in the disability movement. Linked to this have been criticisms that it does not go far enough in its engagement with participatory methods and practices (e.g. Heron, 1996). Issues of justice, empowerment and user-led inquiry recur constantly through the following pages. Yet, we are left with an unresolved question.
There is a central and perhaps inescapable paradox in social research. The need to know is based on the one hand on a wish to make a social problem visible and to empower people to combat that problem. Yet knowledge of a problem may lead to growth in social control, and efforts to make a problem visible may make people more likely to live for the record and to avoid visibility. The social worker and the researcher have to work with the paradox that they seek to be empowering and yet in so doing risk increasing peopleâs marginality â the wish to understand in itself increases the risk of greater social exclusion. (Shaw, 1998: 35)
We say towards the end of this Introduction that the contributors were asked to write without compromising strong allegiances, yet with critical awareness of the contradictions and lacunĂŚ associated with their position. If these twin commitments mark the whole book we will not be disappointed.
Qualitative research
We have taken for granted so far that we can refer to qualitative research without undue ambiguity. However, any attempt to list the shared characteristics of qualitative research will fall short of universal agreement, and some think the effort itself is misguided. Nonetheless, many qualitative researchers would identify with the majority of these descriptors.
- It involves immersion in situations of everyday life. âThese situations are typically âbanalâ or normal ones, reflective of the everyday life of individuals, groups, societies and organizationsâ (Miles and Huberman, 1994: 6). It involves âlooking at the ordinary in places where it takes unaccustomed formsâ, so that âunderstanding a peopleâs culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularityâ (Geertz, 1973:14). Geertz introduced the phrase âthick descriptionâ to describe what goes on in such research. Traditionally, qualitative research is conducted through long-term contact with the field. Hall and Whitmore raise issues of enduring contact in their contributed research accounts.
- The researcherâs role is to gain an overview of the whole of the culture and context under study. The word âholisticâ is often used.
- Holism is pursued through inquiry into the particular. âThe anthropologist characteristically approaches . . . broader interpretations . . . from the direction of exceedingly extended acquaintance with extremely small matters.â Grand realities of Power, Faith, Prestige, Love, etc. are confronted âin contexts obscure enough . . . to take the capital letters offâ (Geertz, 1973: 21). Qualitative researchers âmake the case palpableâ (Eisner, 1991: 39).
- The whole and the particular are held in tension. âSmall facts speak to large issuesâ (Geertz, 1973: 23), and âin the particular is located a general themeâ (Eisner, 1991: 39). This process is anything but obvious or simple â what we understand about individual service users, particular social workers, local clinics, and so on, may not be transferable in a straight forward way to understanding other service users, social workers or clinics.
- âThe researcher attempts to capture data on the perceptions of local actors âfrom the insideâ, through a process of deep attentiveness, of empathic understanding (verstehen), and of suspending or âbracketingâ preconceptions about the topics under discussionâ (Miles and Huberman, 1994: 6). Michael Agar1 talks in this context about the need for us to have âa theory of noticingâ, and to look for ârich pointsâ.
- A caveat is in order. This stance is sometimes referred to as one of âethnomethodological indifferenceâ (after Garfinkel). However, it need not preclude a normative position. Indeed, qualitative approaches âcan effectively give voice to the normally silenced and can poignantly illuminate what is typically maskedâ (Greene, 1994: 541).
- Respondent or member categories are kept to the foreground throughout the research. This is linked to the strong inductive tradition in qualitative research â a commitment to the imaginative production of new concepts, through the cultivation of openness on the part of the researcher.
- Qualitative research is interpretive. âA main task is to explicate the ways people in particular settings come to understand, account for, take action, and otherwise manage their day-to-day situationsâ (Miles and Huberman, 1994: 7). Hence, âqualitative data are not so much about âbehaviourâ as they are about actions which carry with them intentions and meanings, and lead to consequencesâ (p. 10). This is partly what is meant when the word âconstructivistâ is used.
- Relatively little standardized instrumentation is used, especially at the outset. The researcher is essentially the main instrument in the study. It is here that the important word âreflexiveâ often occurs â referring to the central part played by the subjectivities of the researcher and of those being studied. Qualitative fieldwork is not straightforward. âThe features that count in a setting do not wear their labels on their sleeveâ (Eisner, 1991: 33). The part played by the self in qualitative research also raises the special significance of questions of ethics in qualitative research, and renders the relationship between researcher and researched central to the activity.
- Finally, âmost analysis is done in wordsâ (Miles and Huberman, 1994: 7). This is true â perhaps even more so â with the advent of increasingly sophisticated software for analysing qualitative data. There are frequent references in this connection to âtextsâ. Judgement and persuasion by reason are deeply involved, and in qualitative research the facts never speak for themselves.
Is there a central organizing idea behind this characterization of qualitative research? May be not, and anyway the question is not very interesting. But we like, for example, Elliot Eisnerâs comment that qualitative research slows down the perception and invites exploration, and releases us from the stupor of the familiar, thus contributing to a state of âwide-awakenessâ. He compares this to what happens when we look at a painting. If there is a core â a qualitative eye â it has been expressed in different ways. For Riessman, it is âScepticism about universalising generalisations; respect for particularity and context; appreciation of reflexivity and standpoint; and the need for empirical evidenceâ (Riessman, 1994a: xv).
Qualitative research is not a unified tradition. The term qualitative ârefers to a family of approaches with a very loose and extended kinship, even divorcesâ. âBeyond focus on text...it is sometimes hard to see the relationship between what various qualitative scholars do. They use very different kinds of texts...They also treat texts in radically different waysâ (Riessman, 1994a: xii). These differences of research practice stem from diverse theoretical positions. For example, symbolic interactionism is concerned with studying subjective meanings and individual ascriptions of meaning. Symbolic interactionist research is founded on the premises that
- people act towards things on the basis of the meanings such things have for them
- the meaning is derived from interactions one has with oneâs fellows
- meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things encountered (Flick, 1998).
These processes form the starting point for empirical work. âThe reconstruction of such subjective viewpoints becomes the instrument for analysing social worldsâ (Flick, 1998: 17). There has been a major research interest in the forms such viewpoints take. These include subjective theories about things (e.g. lay theories of health, education, counselling, or social work), and narratives such as life histories, autobiographies, and deviant careers.
Ethnomethodology addresses how people produce social reality through interactive processes. âThe focus is not the subjective meaning for the participants of an interaction and its contents but how this interaction is organised. The research topic becomes the study of the routines of everyday lifeâ (Flick, 1998: 20). Interaction is assumed by ethnomethodologists to be structurally organized, and to be both shaped by and in turn shape the context. Hence, interaction repays detailed attention, because it is never disorderly, accidental or irrelevant.
We avoid a partisan position on traditions and schools within qualitative social science. Nonetheless, we believe that social work researchers have been unduly selective i...
