More discipline(s) with qualitative methods.

Abstract

This paper shows how I use scholarship from many disciplines to teach qualitative methods in sociology. Incorporating work from other disciplines into the course helps students become better researchers and better sociology students. On the surface, the latter may seem counterintuitive, but ideas and practices from outside of sociology and its curriculum reinforce some ideas as effectively as ideas from within the discipline. Moreover, when students learn the value of other disciplines to sociology, they also learn what sociology offers in return.

The greatest challenge in teaching qualitative methods in sociology is deceptively complex: teachers must find an appropriate balance between teaching qualitative research methods and teaching sociology. Sociology's own pedagogical literature offers little help in managing the dilemmas of teaching qualitative methods in sociology. For example, the last set of syllabi and course materials was published nearly twenty years ago (Stoddart 1986). Moreover, as Clark and Lang find, "Teaching Sociology published only six articles in the 1990s that addressed teaching qualitative research methods" (2002:349). The largest measures of success include students being able to evaluate literature, collect relevant data, analyze it, and write it, even when these seem to be ideals as much as goals (Berg 2004; Miles and Huberman 1994; Snyder 1995; Warren and Kramer 2005). Reaching these goals becomes problematic when the focus of the course becomes too focused on either qualitative methods or sociology.

This challenge stems from debates that define qualitative research and sociology, respectively. Many scholars position qualitative research in holistic terms, defined by the commonalities of methodology rather than disciplinary boundaries (Cisneros-Puebla, Faus, and Mey 2004), while, conversely, disciplinary knowledge, regardless of methodological approach, is definitive to many sociologists. The consequent tensions can lead instructors to face either the obfuscation of unresolved epistemological concerns or the willful ignorance of the boundaries that academic debates have created. Either choice burdens undergraduate learning with a false dichotomy. In teaching qualitative sociological methods, my solution to the dilemma of facing two competing approaches is to confront them in a spirit of mutual enrichment, rather than mutual exclusion.

As a stand-alone paradigm, qualitative research unifies scholarship across diverse and divergent disciplines, including sociology, anthropology (Geertz 1973), psychology (Gergen 1994), business (Siegel, Shelton, and Omer 1994), advertising (Shields1997), information science (Dervin and Clark 1999) education (Kramp 2004), and health sciences (Eakin and Mykhalovskiy 2004). Disciplinary knowledge has become "conceptual lenses" (Adams 2004:29) from which analysts confront data, and is more catholic that exclusive. Even those who choose to ignore the postmodern challenge to disciplinary boundaries will find that methodological epistemology usurps disciplinary boundaries, particularly in the social sciences. Most notably, grounded theory approaches (Corbin And Strauss 1990; Glaser 1992; Glaser and Strauss 1967) place a premium on proper technique in developing theory, rather than specifically locating the knowledge within a disciplinary framework. These conditions can create difficulty when designing a qualitative research class that is distinctly sociological.

The somewhat antagonistic relationship of method and discipline is especially problematic in sociology, which has a unique shared history with qualitative methods. Beginning with Weber's work to define the discipline (Runciman 1978), debates about qualitative methods have been debates about growing sociology. Most notably, urban ethnography (Vidich and Lyman 2000), in-depth interviewing (Bentley and Hughes 1956), and, somewhat ironically, grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) are products of distinctly sociological inquiry. Moreover, techniques such as ethnography are more "nuanced and interactionally complex" when based in solely sociological knowledge (Anderson 2002:1536). In short, qualitative knowledge, in some ways is distinctly and definitively sociological. Consequently, teaching qualitative methods in sociology can involve teaching "just" sociology, at the exclusion of techniques outside of the canon.

Despite its shared history with the development of the discipline, qualitative sociology is often overshadowed by quantitative approaches. In particular, the positivistic leanings of contemporary sociology put qualitative researchers at a disadvantage over their quantitative counterparts, especially in pragmatic concerns over venues for publication and research funding (Ragin, Nagel, and White 2004). Consequently, much of the language of the discipline has become steeped in the language of quantitative methods--causality, predictability, and variables--which are not the core concerns of qualitative inquiry. I do not mean to imply that methodological fetishism has hijacked sociology; I mean to say qualitative inquiry in sociology challenges a certain amount of disciplinary orthodoxy (Berg 2004:3; Miles and Huberman 1994).

The perceived exclusivity of different approaches bleeds into teaching. In planning my course, debates that seek to position qualitative approaches relative to quantitative ones might be more contested than internal debates amongst qualitative researchers. While this does not shape the content of my course, I must consider the possibility that some students approach the course skeptically, particularly those who have taken the other courses in the methods sequence, which is quantitatively oriented in my department. In other words, I not only have to manage internal debates within qualitative methods, I have to cultivate a mode of thinking and inquiry that is not always reinforced in other classes in my department's curriculum. This also demands that I teach the course well, as it is the only course that will address qualitative sociology--and not just qualitative methods--specifically.

A more practical challenge is that I have to meet students outside of their comfort zone, engage them, and help them learn the relatively lengthy process of qualitative research in one term. Realistically, a one-semester course does not afford me the opportunity to teach multiple methods of data collection and analysis with the depth that I would like; nevertheless I also understand I have the luxury of an entire course devoted to qualitative methods, which is often not the case in the sociology curriculum (Clark and Lang 2002). I choose to emphasize many data gathering strategies and techniques slightly more than analysis, because data gathering better engages students with the logic and practice of qualitative inquiry, especially when they are given opportunities for actually collecting data. This choice allows me to explore a breadth of techniques and strategies, which also opens up the course to new ideas from other disciplines. Essentially, I sacrifice time I could spend on analysis to expose students to more methodological options, such as focus groups and document research, which may be ignored in the ways others teach this class (Warren and Kramer 2005). I make this choice with the belief that engagement is the only way to inspire students to pursue qualitative work in sociology, and the conviction that I have a better chance of engaging students by exposing them to additional strategies than with additional time spent on data analysis.

This choice requires me to emphasize strategies and ideas that are used not just in sociology, but quite prominently outside of sociology. For example, I teach ethnographic approaches associated with anthropology, focus groups used in marketing and advertising, case studies from management research, content analysis from mass communications, and document research used in history. I show how these strategies from other disciplines have enriched sociology with their ideas, refinement of technique, and challenging findings. The outside voices also help shape an interdisciplinary context, in which students can couch the sociology they have learned and are continuing to learn. They may get this context nowhere else. This approach to teaching qualitative methods reinforces the value of sociology relative to other disciplines. Moreover, it engages students with the value of those other disciplines, but not at the expense of sociological knowledge and training. In short, I have more opportunities to foster a spirit of mutual enrichment between qualitative research and sociology when I expose students to work outside of the discipline.

Opening the Course to other Disciplines

I designed this course with sections on ethics, the logic of inquiry, methodological strategies, data analysis and writing results. The majority of the course--roughly two-thirds of it--is spent investigating methodological strategies, including interviews, ethnographies, case studies, focus groups, and unobtrusive research, including document research and content analysis. I incorporate work from outside of sociology in each of these sections, beginning the first day of class.

I begin the course with a section on institutional review of research, focusing on the principles of the Belmont Report (Berg 2004), which governs most research involving human participants. This section demands a discussion of research ethics, which is the primary reason I begin the course with this topic, but this section also lends itself to incorporating a cross-disciplinary perspective into the course at its onset. I confront students with the idea that sociological inquiry is subject to the scrutiny of scholars other than sociologists before the process of data collection even begins. This is an effective way to introduce the idea that sociology has much to gain from understanding how it relates to other academic disciplines.

The second section of the course, on the logic of inquiry, also embraces a cross-disciplinary emphasis, albeit secondarily. In discussing the nature of formulating different kinds of academically grounded research topics, I try to show how humanistic models necessarily differ from positivistic ones. I shape class discussions that allow students to draw on their accumulated academic experience, opposing the logic of experimental methods learned in physics or chemistry to the logic of inquiry in philosophy or literature. For example, I ask them to consider the positivism of Eisenberg's uncertainty principal relative to literary criticism of Sartre. Such examples help students understand the place that much qualitative research in sociology occupies, as it draws on elements of both "sides" of these discussions. Equally important is the way it draws on students' experiences both within and outside the sociology curriculum to create a position from which to discuss literature reviews, the nature of research questions, the scope of research, and the kind of conclusions we can draw in qualitative sociology.

I begin the heart of the course, methodological strategies and techniques, on firmly sociological ground. Since face-to-face, in-depth interviewing has a very rich tradition in qualitative sociology (Fontana and Frey 2003; Vidich and Lyman 2000), it is an obvious entry point into this aspect of the course. I emphasize the richness and depth of the data that interviews generate. To underscore the performance aspect of the interviewing process, I draw on dramaturgical theory in sociology (Goffman 1959), which emphasizes the way we present self-images to manage the impressions of others. However, I also draw on communication theory that shows how we can build rapport through effective communication (Berg 2004). This allows me to show that scholars outside of sociology examine the process of interviewing as its own enterprise. By acknowledging the independent scrutiny the technique faces, I reinforce the validity of the technique and the data it generates.

Like interviews, ethnographies have a rich tradition in sociology (Vidich and Lyman 2000). When I begin this unit, I emphasize the many ways that sociologists have used field studies to generate powerful explanations of social events and phenomena, using well-known examples of motorcycle gangs (Hooper and Moore 1990), Little League baseball (Fine 1987), and mental hospitals (Goffman 1961). While such examples are most important and relevant in framing the sociology that comes from ethnographic research, 1 also rely heavily on the notion of thick description from the noted anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973), which often captures the goals and results of ethnography most effectively for students.

I next address case studies and focus groups, which are strategies that are less established in qualitative sociology than interviews and ethnographies. Consequently, I draw on exemplary work in other disciplines to fully expose their potential. Case studies have a long history in sociology, but their potential remains largely untapped (Feagin, Orum, and Sjoberg 1991), especially outside of organizational sociology. Sociological case studies of organizations reinforce the guiding principles of the strategy effectively, particularly the holism they demand, but students searching for such scholarship invariably find high quality and useful case studies by scholars who study management and leadership.

Focus groups, like case studies, are increasingly producing very good work in sociology (Trepagnier 2001), but the most readily available examples of their use are in marketing and advertising research. While I do not always favor examples from outside of my discipline over distinctly sociological research, the applied emphases they often have are effective introductions to the scope and use of both case study research and focus groups. I encourage students to engage with this research and examine what sociology can do with such research approaches, expanding their sociological imaginations in the process. Moreover, I would be negligent if I did not exploit the career implications of both case studies and focus groups: their "real world" applications engages some students readily, particularly those who aspire to a business, agency, or bureaucratic career after graduation.

Similarly, my discussions of unobtrusive research in sociology draw on work in and out of sociology to help students understand the potential sociological applications of methods that do not involve direct observation of humans. In doing this, I find common ground with actuarial research and the biographical sources (Denzin 1997) that sociologists can use, such as diaries. I also cross disciplinary boundaries when I show how content analysis in mass communication research may effectively address sociological questions (Shields 1999). More pointedly, I cross disciplines to show how historical archives, such as those housed in the Oral History of Appalachia center at Marshall University, can be an important source of sociological data, showing that the document research strongly associated with history may expand what sociology can--and perhaps should--to. These discussions come at a time when students are willing to explore how sociology can differently use methods that have much stronger connections with other disciplines. Moreover, at this point students are often open or even excited about examining topics with which other disciplines engage, learning to substitute or incorporate a sociological viewpoint into other modes of thought. In these processes, many students become open to challenging their own notions of sociology's limits, which ultimately makes them stronger sociology students.

The final section of the course deals with analysis of data and writing results, where I address semiotic approaches (Manning 1987), but emphasize grounded theory approaches (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Lincoln 1990). These approaches have very firm footing within sociology, but I do not ignore how other disciplines also rely heavily on them. Most importantly, the terms "grounded theory" and "qualitative methods", in any discipline, are becoming increasingly interchangeable. I acknowledge this influence to show, broadly, that sociology and sociological research is influential in the academic community generally. More subtly, but no less importantly, it is my way of showing that if we use other disciplines to grow internally, we have a responsibility to offer something in return.

An end-of-term evaluation

At the end of any term, I evaluate where students are at the end of the course relative to where they were at the beginning. Ideally, at the end of the term students will know how to do good research, beginning with a research question and ending with an empirical, analytical paper. This ideal matches the goals of most research methods textbooks, regardless of qualitative or quantitative orientation (Babbie 2004; Berg 2004, Miles and Huberman 1994), as well as the curriculum needs of my department. The course often reaches this ideal, as assignments show that over three quarters of my students leave the course with a set of tools for data gathering and analysis, with a fundamental understanding of how to do qualitative research. At worst, exam performance indicates that most students are better able to read and evaluate qualitative research than when they began the course and understand the logic of inquiry, whether qualitative or quantitative, better than when they started.

These are methodological goals. In addition, I want students to respect the potential of qualitative research in sociology, and hope that some will find opportunities to do it. I hope that they are more actively engaged with the discipline than when they started the term, and that some are more intellectually curious. I also hope they are better sociology students. These successes would represent a qualitatively different set of positive aspects for the course.

In various feedbacks, including student evaluations and working at the graduate level with former undergraduate students, I've found that some positive or even ideal aspects of this course derive from actively trying to engage students with qualitative methods, regardless of discipline, while continually reinforcing how such approaches can become good sociology. I meet students at a different point than others may meet them, exposing them to ideas that other courses may not. By combining established sociology with quality work outside the discipline, I allow students a chance to draw on their work both inside and outside of the sociology curriculum, giving them more than I could by relying on either sociology or qualitative methods alone. While some of my colleagues might argue that sociology alone is enough for the course, I cannot argue with the results of adding additional perspectives.

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Harold E. Dorton, Texas State University

Harold Dorton, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Texas State, where he teaches qualitative methods, popular culture, social psychology and theory.