Qualitative Research Methods: Premises, Principles, and Historical Foundations

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key methodological premises, principles, and historical foundations of qualitative research from the lecture materials.

Erving Goffman

An eminent ethnographer born in Mannville, Alberta, known for his concepts of total institutions, stigma, self-presentation, and frame analysis, whose methodological approach emphasized physical and ecological penetration into field settings.

First Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The methodological premise that achieving a deep understanding of studied life requires entering into the experience from the inside rather than merely describing it from the outside.

Second Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The premise that meanings matter, requiring researchers to understand what things mean to participants in order to render their actions, intentions, and personal struggles comprehensible.

Third Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The premise stating that significant meanings are often liminal, unstated, unacknowledged, or silenced, as key social processes are frequently tacit rather than explicitly stated.

Fourth Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The premise that actions make taken-for-granted meanings visible, directing study toward specific occasions and moments that structure naturalized behavioral routines.

Fifth Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The premise that relationships between meanings and actions are dynamic and reciprocal, forming a dialectic where actions impart meaning and available social meanings shape actions.

Sixth Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The principle that the questions asked of the empirical world shape the answers obtained, as research problem frameworks, interview phrasing, and theoretical standpoints dictate what is observed or overlooked.

Seventh Premise of Qualitative Inquiry (Charmaz)

The concept that truths are relative, multiple, and subject to redefinition based on differing researcher standpoints, value frameworks, and emerging empirical evidence.

Intimate Familiarity

A foundational principle of qualitative inquiry articulated by Herbert Blumer, requiring researchers to gain a level of knowledge and understanding that deeply penetrates the studied phenomenon and its daily rhythms.

Respect for Research Participants

A qualitative research principle stating that acknowledging and honoring participants' fundamental humanity and treating them with dignity supersedes research objectives and institutional regulations.

Extant Theoretical Perspectives

Established theoretical frameworks used as sensitizing starting points for empirical scrutiny and field exploration, rather than as static endpoints for automatic application.

Constructionist Renderings

Analytical descriptions that account for how participants construct phenomena under specific conditions, while remaining faithful and accurate to the empirical world.

Fidelity to the Phenomenon

The achievement of accuracy, thoroughness, and completeness in qualitative research by excavating implicit meanings and gathering a full range of observations.

Mechanical Methods

The rigid, automatic application of qualitative research recipes, which should be replaced by flexible methodological tools, persistence, and creative learning tailored to the setting.

Marker Event

A significant turning point or incident (such as an auto accident or diagnosis) that brings tacit meanings to light and helps construct an interpretive understanding of an individual's life trajectory.

Bronislaw Malinowski

A pioneering anthropologist whose public depiction of fieldwork in Argonauts of the Western Pacific presented an innocent, detective-like search for native customs, but whose personal account revealed power asymmetries and alienation.

Malinowski's Diary

A posthumously published personal journal (1967) that unmasked the power imbalances, boredom, frustration, and alienation experienced during fieldwork, contrasting with idealized ethnographic reporting.