Recommend a Qualitative Design - Psychology
Examples of Qualitative Designs to choose ONE from. Follow all instructions carefully
-Grounded Theory Approaches
-Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
-Discourse Analysis Approaches
-Narrative Analysis Approaches
Take on the role of a clinical psychologist treating clients for depression. You are interested in doing research on effective treatments for a chronic form of depression called dysthymia. In the DSM-5, it is referred to as persistent depressive disorder. Details regarding the disorder can be found in section 300.4(F34.1) of the DSM-5. In your review of the current materials attached, you find that most of the previous research on this disorder has been done using quantitative methods. Identify an aspect of this topic you feel should be studied using qualitative methods. Apply the scientific method to this research issue and develop a specific research question. Compare the characteristics and appropriate uses of various qualitative research designs and choose an appropriate qualitative design for this research question. Create a feasible research design that includes plans for the sample selection, data collection, and data analysis. Apply ethical principles to your design by explaining how this type of qualitative design may affect the participants in your study and how you will deal with sociocultural issues.
REFERENCES TO BE USED
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Frost, N. (2011). Qualitative research methods in psychology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. (This is the textbook references for the four attachments attached. Chapter 2: Grounded Theory Approaches,Chapter 3: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Chapter 4: Discourse Analysis Approaches, Chapter 5: Narrative Analysis Approaches) please use one of these Qualitative design.
16
C H A P T E R 2
Grounded Theory
Approaches
Sevasti-Melissa Nolas
Introduction
This chapter is about using grounded theory. It focuses on the development of grounded theory, the underlying assumptions of the approach and the ways it is
used in research. The chapter will cover theoretical as well as practical issues
relating to the use of grounded theory. The origins of grounded theory lie in the
micro-sociological tradition of research and, as such, each section has been written
with a view to relating that tradition to research topics in psychology. The chapter
begins with a background and history of grounded theory. It continues with a
discussion of the ontological and epistemological issues that underpin the grounded
theory approach. The chapter provides a detailed description of what one needs to
consider and do in carrying out a piece of grounded theory research. Examples and
refl ections on practice are given throughout, and ethics considerations are also
discussed.
History
Grounded theory is an approach used to study action and interaction and their meaning. It was developed by Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, two
American sociologists working at the University of California, San Francisco, in the
1960s. They developed the approach while studying the way in which health
professionals cared for the ill in American hospitals, and especially how they
managed the issues of death and dying. Their interest in the topic developed from
the observation that discussions of death and dying were at the time absent from the
American public sphere. They wanted to explore how that absence affected those
contexts in which death and dying occur and so their study explored how a social
issue (absence of public discussion on death) impacted on professional practice in a
clinical setting. The social issue they identifi ed was the lack of public discussion
around death and the process of dying. Awareness of Dying (1965) is now a seminal
text, as is The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967), which Glaser and Strauss
wrote to outline the research approach they were using.
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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Ontology 17
Glaser and Strauss continued to work together for a number of years before
developing separate intellectual trajectories. Glaser’s approach emphasises the
emergence of theory from the data without the imposition of the analyst’s conceptual
categories onto the data. Glaser’s work emphasises the opportunity grounded
theory offers for developing ‘formal theory’ (see, for example, Glaser, 2007). Strauss’s
take on grounded theory emphasised the symbolic interactionist roots of the
approach, which concentrate on the construction of meaning through everyday
interaction. Strauss, with Juliet Corbin (1990), wrote a detailed book on ‘how to do’
grounded theory, Basics of Qualitative Research, which is still widely used. Anselm
L. Strauss passed away in 1996 (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007: 5). Barney G. Glaser is still
writing and teaching on grounded theory, and runs workshops in a number of cities.
Since its early days, grounded theory has been developed by a number of Glaser
and Strauss’s students as well as others (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007). It is still a popular
approach for studying action and interaction and, although Glaser has always
maintained that it is or can be a mixed-method approach, it is frequently used for
qualitative research in areas such as nursing, social work, clinical psychology and
other helping professions.
Ontology
The ontological orientation of grounded theory has its roots in early sociological thought, pragmatism and symbolic interactionism (Star, 2007), which draw on
European (French) and North American social science at the end of the nineteenth
and turn of the twentieth centuries.
Grounded theory follows in the path opened by the founder of sociology, Emile
Durkheim, in espousing the idea that social facts exist and that the empirical study
of these facts constitutes a true scientifi c endeavour (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007: 22).
From the pragmatist tradition, we fi nd in grounded theory the idea that our under-
standing is built on consequences and not antecedents (Star, 2007: 86). This means
that knowledge is created retrospectively. This is in contrast to other philosophical
orientations that emphasise the prospective creation of models, which subsequently
await verifi cation. Like pragmatism, grounded theory also assumes the existence
of an objective reality, but one that is complex and consists of a number of
overlapping, complementary as well as contradictory perspectives (Star, 2007: 87);
grounded theory also draws our attention to action and interaction as meaningful
units of analysis in their own right. Action is created through the relationships
between people; it is treated as an ongoing, continuously unfolding social fact (Star,
2007: 90).
The way in which grounded theory understands action and interaction has its
roots in the symbolic interactionist tradition that emerged out of the Chicago School
of micro-sociology. According to symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; Stryker,
1981; Prus, 1996; Rock, 2001; Sandstrom, Martin & Fine, 2003), social reality is
intersubjective, it consists of communal life with shared linguistic or symbolic
dimensions that is also refl ective of those shared meanings. Refl exivity means that
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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18 Chapter 2 Grounded Theory Approaches
people are able to attribute meaning to their being and in doing so develop lines of
action. People are also able to take the perspective of the other (Mead, 1934).
Activities organise human group life. While we create meaning out of behaviour
intersubjectively, it is activities that organise human life. In turn we tend to spend a
good deal of time negotiating such activities and building relationships through
these activities. We are able to both accept and resists others’ infl uences and, as
such, activities are multidimensional, implying cooperation, competition, confl ict
and compromise. At the same time, the relationships we form say something about
the role and identities we create, as well as how our communities are organized.
Symbolic interactionism deals with process by thinking about human lived experi-
ences as ‘emergent or ongoing social constructions or productions’ (Prus, 1996: 17).
The emphasis in symbolic interactionism on action, interaction and activity has
been inherited by grounded theory and has led to the approach being adopted as a
preferred method for understanding practice in a number of disciplines and applied
settings.
Epistemology
When thinking about the epistemology underlying grounded theory it is common to categorise the various historical periods of grounded theory as
either positivist or constructivist. Certainly, as Bryant and Charmaz (2007: 50) point
out, Glaser and Strauss’s initial work (1967) espoused a number of positivist
assumptions about the existence of an objective reality that is unmediated by the
researcher’s or others’ interpretations of it. Later developments of grounded theory
that have taken their inspiration from social constructionism are more amenable to
a view of reality that is mediated through language and other forms of symbolic
representation (Burr, 1995). However, categorising grounded theory approaches in
this way, as either positivist or constructivist, is unhelpful because it risks missing
what is most useful and enduring about these approaches (Clarke, 2005; Bryant &
Charmaz, 2007). This section looks at key epistemological underpinnings of
grounded theory to help to determine the usefulness of each for designing and
carrying out grounded theory research.
The epistemology of grounded theory is essentially one of resistance to pre-
existing knowledge, and of managing the tensions between the empirical phenomena
and abstract concepts. Grounded theory’s various legacies play a key role here. In
symbolic interactionism, the distinction is made between knowing about a
phenomenon and being acquainted with a phenomenon (Downes & Rock, 1982:
37, cited in Van Maanen, 1988: 18). The shift of emphasis from knowledge about
something to acquaintance with a phenomenon has resulted in the creation of a
small niche within the discipline of sociology, not so much concerned with building
broad conceptual models but instead with creating understanding of ‘the vigorous,
dense, heterogeneous cultures located just beyond the university gates’ (Van
Maanen, 1988: 18–20). Grounded theory embodied this tradition when Glaser and
Strauss encouraged their students to challenge the ‘theoretical capitalism’ involved
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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Epistemology 19
in the fi ne-tuning of existing theories (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007: 17). The call to leave
armchair theorising behind also has implications for how research is conducted, but
we will return to this point in the next section, on method.
The tension between the empirical and the conceptual is managed through an
iterative process of data collection and analysis. Knowledge in grounded theory is
arrived at through this process. The approach relies on the analyst moving back
and forth between their empirical data and their analysis of it (Bryant & Charmaz,
2007: 1). In this process there are three distinct analytical practices employed
towards the creation of knowledge, as described below.
Constant comparison
Knowledge in grounded theory is derived through a process of constant comparison.
Comparison in grounded theory is not used to verify existing theory (see above).
Instead it is used to generate and discover new categories and theories by juxtaposing
one instance from the data with another (Covan, 2007: 63). Comparing and
contrasting instances in this way enables the analyst to look for similarities and
differences across the data in order to elucidate the meanings and processes that
shape the phenomenon being studied. Similarities can be grouped together into
categories. Categories are more abstract than initial codes, and begin to group
together codes with similar signifi cance and meaning, as well as grouping common
themes and patterns across codes into a single analytical concept (Charmaz, 2006:
186). Categories are then compared with each other to produce theory. Differences,
on the other hand, far from presenting a problem to the analyst, are treated as
opportunities to extend the analysis in order to account for the role that such
differences play in the phenomena under investigation. In fact, Glaser and Strauss
(1967) placed a good deal of emphasis on the value of analysing extreme cases that
might challenge, and therefore enrich, an emerging theory (Covan, 2007: 63). The
process of using extreme cases, or negative cases, to extend the analysis is called
theoretical sampling (see page 28).
Abduction
Reichertz (2007) defi nes abduction as ‘a cognitive logic of discovery’. It is a form of
inference used especially for dealing with surprising fi ndings in our data. It directs
the analyst to make sense of their data and produce explanations that make surprising
fi ndings unsurprising (Reichertz, 2007: 222).
Abduction is different to deduction and induction. Deduction subordinates the
single case into an already known rule or category, and induction generalises single
cases into a rule or category by focusing either on quantitative or qualitative
properties of a sample and extending them into a rule or category. Abduction, on
the other hand, creates a new rule or category in order to account for a case present
in the data that cannot be explained by existing rules or categories (Reichertz, 2007:
218–219).
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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20 Chapter 2 Grounded Theory Approaches
There are two strategies involved in abduction, both of which require creating
the conditions in order for abductive reasoning to take place (Reichertz, 2007: 221).
1 The fi rst is a ‘self-induced emergency situation’ (Reichertz, 2007: 221). This
means that in the face of not knowing what to make of a surprising fi nding,
rather than dwelling on the infi nite number of possibilities, the analyst
puts pressure on themselves to act by committing to a single meaning.
2 The second strategy is completely antithetical to the fi rst. It involves letting
your mind wander without any specifi c goal in mind, or what Pierce
(1931–1935), a key writer on abduction, called ‘musement’ (Reichertz,
2007: 221).
What these two quite antithetical strategies have in common is tricking the thinking
patterns of the conscious mind in order to create ‘an attitude of preparedness to
abandon old convictions and to seek new ones’ (Reichertz, 2007: 221).
Reflexivity
Refl exivity is not often associated with Glaser and Strauss’s original formulation of
grounded theory. Yet the impetus behind Awareness of Dying was deeply personal,
both men having experienced bereavement in the period preceding the study
(Bryant & Charmaz, 2007: 7; Star, 2007: 82). Lempert (2007: 247) notes that grounded
theory in its original formulations presumed that the researcher as a research
instrument was a ‘neutral knower’. Mruck and Mey (2007: 518) suggest that Glaser’s
emphasis on allowing theory to emerge means that there is little room for refl exivity
in Glaserean grounded theory, which would impose on that emergence. On the
other hand, Strauss and Corbin’s approach, rooted far more in symbolic
interactionism, takes the view that the researcher’s biography, and the sociocultural
infl uences therein, infl uence the researcher’s theories and interests (Mruck & Mey,
2007: 518).
Given developments in qualitative research methods in psychology and the
central role that refl exivity has played in those (Willig, 2000) we would encourage
a refl exive stance to grounded theory. The approach’s emphasis on action, including
that of the researcher(s), indicates that there is ample room for developing a refl exive
stance in grounded theory. Indeed, like Mruck and Mey (2007), I have in my own
teaching of research methods always put forward the view of research as a
continuous process of decision making (Marshall & Rossman, 1989: 23). Accordingly,
and at the very least, refl exivity is a way of making the research process less esoteric,
and more transparent and accountable to one’s colleagues and the public. It is
also a way of developing theoretical sensitivity (another staple of grounded theory)
of the context and processes one is researching. For instance, early experiences
of action research and my refl ection on the meaning and dynamics of those
experiences led me to formulate my own research project that looked at the gaps
between formal and informal discourses of action (Nolas, 2009; see Refl ection
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Methods 21
on Practice on page 37 of this chapter). In this regard, refl exivity plays an
epistemological role in opening a space for the creation of new knowledge.
Methods
Grounded theory’s focus is on action and interaction, and it is suitable for answering event-orientated questions such as ‘What is happening?’ (Glaser,
1978, cited in Bryant & Charmaz, 2007: 21). The symbolic interactionist tradition
lends itself to exploratory questions of how, while the emphasis on constant
comparison provides the tools for the more explanatory questions of why to be
answered.
In this process in grounded theory everything is considered to be data, though
notably, and because of the emphasis on building theory, data is certainly not
everything in a research project (Bryant & Charmaz, 2007: 14). This is because the
parameters of research design are drawn up according to the action or activity that
one is studying. Everything in relation to that action then becomes data. This is quite
a different approach to what many psychologists might be used to. In psychology
we tend to make strong demarcations between our theories, methods and data.
These boundaries are much more blurred in grounded theory, which is often des-
cribed as an iterative process of data collection, analysis and further data collec-
tion. We will deal with the practicalities of data collection and analysis in the next
section. Here we will explore the methods themselves, starting with a discussion of
theoretical sensitivity – a starting point, if there is such a thing, in grounded theory.
Theoretical sensitivity
Grounded theory begins with theoretical sensitivity, which is defi ned as ‘the
researcher’s ability to understand subtleties and nuances in the data’ (Singh, 2003:
310). For example, when Singh (2003; 2004) was researching attention defi cit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) her historical analysis of the ADHD literature and
her own immersion in the fi eld through participant observation in a clinical setting
and teaching at a primary school had sensitised her to a number of issues relating to
the study of ADHD. For instance, she observed that in the clinic setting fathers
tended to be less involved in issues relating to their child’s (mainly sons) diagnosis
and management of ADHD. She also found that articles that referred to ‘parents‘
and ‘children’ in relation to ADHD very often meant mothers and sons. As such, she
decided to sample and interview both mothers and fathers about their experiences
of being the parent of a child diagnosed with ADHD.
Ethnographic fieldwork
Like grounded theory, ethnography is also a boundary-spanning (Tedlock, 2003:
165) activity. It is an approach widely used in sociology and anthropology. With
some notable exceptions in social psychology (Jahoda, Lazarsfeld & Zeisel, 1972;
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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22 Chapter 2 Grounded Theory Approaches
Thomas & Znaniecki, 1996; Bradbury, 1999), cultural psychology (Cole, 1996) and
clinical psychology (Bloor, McKeganey & Fokert, 1988; Gubrium, 1992, both cited
in McLeod, 2001), for the most part the ethnographic approach is not widely used
in psychological research. Similarly, and as Timmermans and Tavory (2007) point
out, while grounded theory has its roots in ethnographic research, over time the link
between grounded theory as an approach to both data collection as well as analysis
has weakened considerably, making grounded theory ‘fi rst and foremost a systematic
qualitative data analysis approach’ (2007: 494).
There are two reasons to focus on ethnography when conducting grounded
theory research. On the one hand, it is the bedrock of the symbolic interactionist
tradition from which one form of grounded theory emerged. It broadens the scope
for collecting types of data that are not readily amenable to more common qualitative
research methods, such as cultural practices that we engage in with others that do
not always form part of our conscious or codifi ed knowledge – knowledge that is
communicated through language. These might include such things as the systems of
classifi cation that shape our work and everyday lives (Bowker & Star, 1999), how
village life is organised around an open psychiatric community keeping the sane
and the mad apart (Jodelet, 1991), or the ritual processes in the discourses that
surround death in contemporary Britain (Bradbury, 1999). It also provides us with a
useful framework of ‘fi eldwork’ for organising a range of data (such as documents,
letters, internet postings, news articles) that crop up in the process of and are related
to the activities being investigated. As such, there are a number of useful lessons that
can be drawn from thinking about data collection methods ethnographically.
Participant observation
Ethnographic fi eldwork relies on the researcher spending a considerable amount of
time in the context in which their research interests reside. This could be an
organisation or community, a network of people or any other relevant grouping. The
aim of the approach is to achieve an ‘intimate familiarity’ (Prus, 1996) with the
subject matter. Ethnographic studies are ‘naturalistic’ (Hammersley & Atkinson,
1995: 3) meaning that the researcher seeks to observe people and their interactions
as they occur, in situ. Observation here is in stark contrast to the usual meaning
found in psychology; its meaning lies much closer to the everyday activities of
noticing, paying attention to and taking note of particular situations or interactions
of interest in a purposeful manner. It frequently crosses over into participation of
various degrees as researchers apprentice themselves to the routines of others’ lives.
Such an approach is in contrast to experimental approaches to psychological
research where people are removed from their context and daily activities and their
behaviour is manipulated through experimental design. It is also different to
interviewing and focus groups, which while allowing participants to use their own
language and give meaning to discussion topics still brackets these moments of
recounting experience from the rest of daily life. It is also different to clinical uses of
observation, such as one-way mirrors, because its aim is not to compare actions
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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Methods 23
with, and the extent to which they deviate from, previously established norm.
Instead, observation in ethnographic research is a way of collecting contextual
information, inclusive of people’s interactions. It is largely unstructured by the
researcher and has to follow the rhythm of the situation or context. The researcher
is, depending on their prior familiarity with the research context, largely unaware of
the social norms but ends up learning about those by purposefully, but quite often
inadvertently, disrupting them with their presence.
Informal interviews
In the ethnographic process, informal interviews abound. They are part and parcel
of participant observation. The term ‘informal interview’ refers to unplanned
research-relevant or related conversations that might take place and which the
researcher records in their fi eldnotes after the event. Such interviews are much
closer to conversations and do not necessarily follow a structured or semi-structured
format. The interviews are often prompted by the researchers’ questions as they
try to fi nd out what is going on and why certain things are being carried out in
the way they are. They might also be prompted by individuals in the fi eld wanting
to communicate information to the researcher that they think might be relevant
to the study. Informal interviews can be individual interviews as well as group
interviews.
Formal interviews and focus groups
Interviewing can be regarded as the formalised method of interpersonal commu-
nication used for research. It is ‘essentially a technique or method for establishing or
discovering that there are perspectives or viewpoints on events other than those of
the person initiating the interview’ (Farr, 1982, in Gaskell, 2000: 38). There are a
number of excellent publications on the topic of interviewing (e.g. Kvale, 1996) and,
for this reason, I will not go into it in a huge amount of detail here. In outline, inter-
views have been described as a ‘purposive conversation’ (Kvale, 1996). The structure
and formality of interviews ranges from fully structured with standardised questions,
to semi-structured that include a few guide questions but are generally informed by
the interviewee, and completely unstructured in which the participant directs the
interview in its entirety. Similarly, focus group discussions are often organised
around topics but can equally involve structured activities, such as viewing videos
or pictures, or sorting through issues relevant to the research, as a way of engaging
participants, developing conversation and accessing views on and experiences of
the topic under investigation (see Gaskell, 2000).
Documents, archives
In psychological research we tend not to include documents in our data other than
perhaps as protocols for guiding our own action (e.g. research proposals, interview
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Frost, N. (2011). Ebook : Qualitative research methods in psychology: combining core approaches. ProQuest Ebook Central <a
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24 Chapter 2 Grounded Theory Approaches
topic guides). Yet if you think about psychology and its practices (experiments,
surveys, interviews, clinical interventions) as a socio-cultural activity you will fi nd
that documents play a central role in that practice. In clinical psychology, for
instance, manuals are a very important aspect of practice, especially if one is
interested in empirically testing the effi cacy of the therapeutic approach with which
one practises. Consider change practices in different types of organisations. These
are …
44
C H A P T E R 3
Interpretative
Phenomenological
Analysis
Pnina Shinebourne
Introduction
This chapter is about interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). IPA is an approach to qualitative research that explores in detail personal lived experience
to examine how people are making sense of their personal and social world. It tries
to understand what the world is like from the point of view of the participants. At
the same time, IPA acknowledges that this understanding is always mediated by the
context of cultural and socio-historical meanings. Therefore, the process of making
sense of experience is inevitably interpretative and the role of the researcher in
trying to make sense of the participant’s account is complicated by the researcher’s
own conceptions.
The fi rst part of this chapter presents the history of IPA, and shows how it has
evolved to take its place in psychological research. The theoretical underpinnings of
the approach are discussed, and this is followed by a consideration of the
epistemological and ontological frameworks IPA employs. A detailed presentation
of the stages involved in doing IPA follows, with illustrations taken from a study
exploring the experience of women in rehabilitation for their problems of addiction.
The chapter concludes with refl ections on using IPA.
History of IPA
IPA was fi rst used as a distinctive research method in psychology in the mid-1990s. Smith (1996) drew on theoretical ideas from phenomenology (Giorgi, 1995),
hermeneutics (Palmer, 1969), and on an engagement with subjective experience
and personal accounts (Smith, Harré & Van Langenhove, 1995). IPA is also infl uenced
by symbolic interactionism (Eatough & Smith, 2008). Symbolic interactionism pro-
vides a theoretical perspective with basic assumptions that people act on the basis
of the meanings that things have for them and that meanings emerge in the processes
of social interaction between people (Blumer, 1969). Thus, meanings are constructed
and modifi ed through an interpretative process that is subject to change and
redefi nition (Blumer, 1969). In this way ‘people form new meanings and new ways
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Ontology of IPA 45
to respond and thus are active in shaping their own future through the process of
interpreting meaning’ (Benzies & Allen, 2001: 544).
By combining insights from phenomenology, hermeneutic philosophy and
engagement with subjective experience, IPA proposes a middle way between dif-
ferent qualitative methods. In common with phenomenological psychology it offers
researchers an avenue to study subjective experiences and the meanings that people
attribute to their experience. In common with discursive psychology, IPA accepts
that the research process is fundamentally hermeneutic, with both researcher and
participants engaging in interpretative activities that are constrained by shared social
and cultural discourses.
This synthesis of ideas from different perspectives has led to the development of
a distinctive qualitative psychological methodology. As Willig (2008) contends, the
introduction of IPA into psychology has made phenomenological methodology
accessible to those who do not have a philosophical background. In addition, by
developing detailed descriptions of the analytic process, those new to IPA are
encouraged to use it in their own research (Willig, 2008).
Much of the early use of IPA was concerned with health and illness (for a recent
review of IPA’s use in health psychology see Brocki & Wearden, 2006). Other key
areas for IPA research are sex and sexuality, psychological distress, and issues of life
transitions and identity (for overviews of research in these areas see Smith, Flowers
& Larkin, 2009). As Smith et al. (2009) point out, issues of identity are intertwined
with most of the research in health and illness, sexuality and psychological distress.
They contend that, as IPA research often concerns topics of considerable existential
signifi cance, it is likely that the participants will link the specifi c topic to their sense
of self/identity.
Ontology of IPA
Although IPA is grounded in the experiential dimension in its concern with a detailed examination of individual lived experience and how people are mak-
ing sense of that experience, it ‘endorses social constructionism’s claim that
sociocultural and historical processes are central to how we experience and under-
stand our lives, including the stories we tell about these lives’ (Eatough & Smith,
2008: 184). In this respect it can be located at a centre-ground position between
experiential approaches such as descriptive phenomenology and discursive ap-
proaches such as discourse analysis. In the experiential approaches the focus is on
participants’ experiences and how they make sense of their experiences. The
discursive approaches are focused on language as a social action that is used to
construct and create the social world (Reicher, 2000).
The different qualitative methods are grounded in different epistemological
stances (Henwood, 1996; Willig, 2008). These vary signifi cantly, as ‘they have
different philosophical roots, they have different theoretical assumptions and they
ask different types of questions’ (Reicher, 2000: 4). However, there is considerable
overlap between qualitative methods (Lyons, 2007; Charmaz & Henwood, 2008;
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46 Chapter 3 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
Smith et al., 2009) and the distinction between the different approaches can be
conceived in terms of a continuum from the experiential to the discursive, and from
the empiricist to the constructionist (Lyons, 2007; Willig, 2008). With its focus on
content and systematic analysis of a text to identify themes and categories, IPA
shares some similarities with grounded theory (Willig, 2008). Through its concern
with meaning-making IPA also shares strong intellectual links with narrative analysis
(Crossley, 2007; Smith et al., 2009). Eatough and Smith (2006) maintain that ‘IPA
shares some common ground with Foucauldian discourse analysis [FDA], which
examines how people’s worlds are discursively constructed and how these are
implicated in the experiences of the individual’ (2006: 118–119).
In this respect IPA can be described as located at the ‘light end of the social
constructionist continuum’ (Eatough & Smith, 2006) in relation to discourse analysis.
Smith et al. (2009) suggest that ‘while IPA studies provide a detailed experiential
account of the person’s involvement in the context, FDA offers a critical analysis of
the structure of the context itself and thus touches on the resources available to the
individual in making sense of their experience’ (2009: 196).
Why do IPA?
IPA has been described as ‘an approach to qualitative, experiential and psychological research which has been informed by concepts and debates from three key areas
of philosophy of knowledge: phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography’ (Smith
et al., 2009: 11). IPA draws on each of these theoretical approaches to inform its
distinctive epistemological framework and research methodology.
Phenomenology is both a philosophical approach and a range of research
methods concerned with how things appear to us in our experience. Edmund
Husserl (1859–1938) initiated modern phenomenology at the beginning of the
twentieth century and since then it has become a major philosophical movement
that has impacted on many strands of contemporary philosophy (Zahavi, 2008).
Other phenomenological philosophers – namely, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-
Ponty – contributed to the philosophical perspective of a person as embodied,
embedded and immersed in the world in a particular historical, social and cultural
context (for a comprehensive overview of phenomenology see Moran, 2000).
Phenomenology as a research method draws on the phenomenological philosophy
initiated by Husserl. Although a number of diverse approaches have been developed,
the focus on subjective experience has remained a fundamental principle of all
phenomenologically informed research methods, including IPA (for a discussion of
various phenomenological approaches in psychology, see Langdridge, 2007).
Hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation, constitutes another major theoretical
underpinning of IPA. Historically, hermeneutics developed from interpretations
of biblical texts but was subsequently established as a philosophical foundation
for a more general theory of interpretation. Although phenomenology and herme-
neutics were developed as two separate philosophical movements, Heidegger
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Why do IPA? 47
(1962) presented hermeneutics as a prerequisite to phenomenology. According to
Heidegger, the meaning of hermeneutic resides in ‘the whole manner in which
human existence is interpretative’ (Moran, 2000: 235). Thus, Moran contends that:
Phenomenology is seeking after a meaning which is perhaps hidden by the
entity’s mode of appearing. In that case the proper model for seeking meaning is
the interpretation of a text and for this reason Heidegger links phenomenology
with hermeneutics. How things appear or are covered up must be explicitly
studied. The things themselves always present themselves in a manner which is
at the same time self-concealing. (Moran, 2000: 229)
In this view, interpretation is a necessary part of phenomenology because the
entity’s mode of appearing may conceal something that is hidden. The task of inter-
preting is therefore to engage in the dynamic of conceal/reveal, making manifest
what may lie hidden. In Heidegger’s conception, every interpretation is already
contextualised in previous experience in a particular context, as according to
Heidegger, human existence is fundamentally related to the world: human beings
are thrown into a world in a particular historical, social and cultural context
(Heidegger, 1962). From this perspective, understanding of events or objects in the
world is always mediated and constrained by already existing knowledge: ‘Interpre-
tation is grounded in something we have in advance’ (Heidegger, 1962: 191).
Heidegger recognises the danger that such preconceptions may present an obstacle
to interpretation (Smith et al., 2009) and, therefore, in interpretation priority should
be given to the new object rather than to one’s preconceptions. Interpretation is thus
envisaged as a dynamic process, an interplay between the interpreter and the object
of interpretation.
Idiography constitutes the third theoretical underpinning of IPA. An idiographic
approach aims for an in-depth focus on the particular and a commitment to detailed
fi nely textured analysis of actual life and lived experience (Smith et al., 2009). A
commitment to idiography is linked to a rationale for single case studies. Smith
(2004) suggests that a detailed analysis of a single case would be justifi ed when one
has a particularly rich or compelling case. A detailed single case study offers
opportunities to learn a great deal about the particular person and their response to
a specifi c situation, as well as to consider connections between different aspects of
the person’s account. It is also possible to consider a case study as a part of a larger
study involving a number of participants. The individual case can be used as a
starting point in the process of analytic induction, affording an opportunity for
working from the ground up by drawing together additional cases to move towards
more general claims. Perhaps the important point to consider is that the details of a
single case also illuminate a dimension of a shared commonality, as ‘the very detail
of the individual also brings us closer to signifi cant aspects of a shared humanity’
(Smith, 2004: 43).
IPA draws on each of these theoretical approaches to inform its distinctive
epistemological framework and research methodology, as described below.
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48 Chapter 3 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
■ IPA is phenomenological in its detailed examination of the personal lived
experience of practical engagement with the world and in exploring how
participants make sense of their experience. IPA acknowledges that the
understanding of an event or an object is always mediated by the context of
cultural and socio-historical meanings. The term lived experience is often
used ‘to encompass the embodied, socio-culturally and historically situated
person who inhabits an intentionally interpreted and meaningfully lived
world’ (Eatough & Smith, 2008: 181). In agreement with Heidegger’s views, IPA
considers phenomenological inquiry as an interpretative process. In this
view, interpretation is necessary because the entity’s mode of appearing may
conceal something that is hidden. Consistent with its phenomenological
underpinning, IPA is concerned with trying to understand what it is like from
the point of view of the participants. At the same time, a detailed IPA
analysis can also involve asking critical questions of participants’
accounts. Thus, interpretation can be descriptive and empathic, aiming to
produce ‘rich experiential descriptions’, and also critical and questioning
‘in ways which participants might be unwilling or unable to do themselves’
(Eatough & Smith, 2008: 189).
■ IPA is interpretative in recognising the role of the researcher in making sense
of the experience of participants. Smith (2004) refers to ‘double hermeneutics:
The participant is trying to make sense of their personal and social world; the
researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of
their personal and social world’ (2004: 40). The researcher’s point of access to
participants’ experience is through their accounts, usually obtained through
direct contact with participants. The concept of ‘double hermeneutics’ refers
also to the researcher’s own involvement through their own preconceptions
and ‘prejudices’, which may constitute an obstacle to interpretation (Smith,
2007) unless priority is given to the phenomenon under investigation.
Drawing on Ricoeur’s (1970) distinction between two strategies for
understanding meaning – namely, a hermeneutics of meaning recollection,
of empathic engagement, and a hermeneutics of suspicion, of critical
engagement – Smith (2004) has argued that both modes of hermeneutic
engagement can contribute to a more complete understanding of the
participant’s lived experience. However, ‘within such an analysis the empathic
reading is likely to come fi rst and may then be qualifi ed by a more critical and
speculative refl ection’ (Smith, 2004: 46). Smith et al. (2009) maintain that IPA
occupies a ‘centre-ground position’ whereby it is possible to combine a
hermeneutic of empathy with a hermeneutic of questioning ‘so long as it
serves to “draw out” or “disclose” the meaning of the experience’ (2009:
36), in contrast to employing a theoretical perspective imported from
outside the text. Larkin, Watts and Clifton (2006) contend that the strategies
chosen by the analyst ‘may be informed by prior experience and knowledge,
psychological theory, or previous research – provided that they can be
related back to a phenomenological account’ (2006: 116).
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Why do IPA? 49
■ IPA is idiographic in its focus on detailed examination of particular instances,
either in a single case study or in studies of a small group of cases. In such
studies the analytic process begins with the detailed analysis of each case,
moving to careful examination of similarities and differences across cases to
produce detailed accounts of patterns of meaning and refl ections on shared
experience. A single case study offers an opportunity to learn a great deal
about a particular person in a specifi c context, as well as focusing on different
aspects of a particular account. In addition, through connecting the fi ndings
to existing psychological literature, the IPA writer can help the reader to see
how the case relates to other relevant research. IPA is particularly suitable for
research where the ‘focus is on the uniqueness of a person’s experiences,
how experiences are made meaningful and how these meanings manifest
themselves within the context of the person both as an individual and in their
many cultural roles, for example as an MS or epilepsy sufferer, as a parent,
sibling, employee, student, friend, spouse’ (Shaw, 2001: 48). For example, in
health psychology, in order to understand the meanings and the signifi cance
of a particular condition for a person’s everyday life, the researcher may need
to gain access to in-depth accounts of individuals’ experiences. At the same
time, studies of several participants also highlight the shared themes and
concerns. In addition, the individual case can be used as a starting point in
the process of analytic induction, affording an opportunity for theory
development from the ground up by drawing together additional cases to
move towards more general claims.
Examples of suitable research include explorations of questions like:
■ How do people make decisions about taking a genetic test?
■ What is it like to experience anger?
■ What is it like to donate a kidney?
■ What is it like to be the carer for a person with Alzheimer’s?
■ How do couples make the decision to have children?
The approach to recruiting participants for an IPA study follows from the theoretical
account of the epistemology of IPA. This means that participants are selected
purposively. Purposive sampling refers to a method of selecting participants because
they have particular features or characteristics that will enable detailed exploration
of the phenomena being studied. Because the primary concern of IPA is with a
detailed account of individual experience, IPA studies usually benefi t from an
intensive focus on a small number of participants. Sample size can vary according
to the research question and the quality of the data obtained. In the studies reviewed
by Brocki and Wearden (2006) participant numbers vary from one to thirty, although
they point out that a consensus towards the use of smaller sample sizes seems to be
emerging. As discussed above, IPA also makes a strong case for a single case study,
which could be justifi ed when one has a particularly rich or compelling case. Smith
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50 Chapter 3 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
et al. (2009) suggest a sample size between three and six for undergraduate or
master’s-level IPA projects.
IPA researchers usually try to identify a homogeneous sample. With a small
number of participants it seems helpful to think in terms of a defi ned group of
participants for whom the research questions will be meaningful. Making a decision
on the extent of ‘homogeneity’ is guided by the focus of the study. An investigation
of a phenomenon that is rare (for example, living with a rare genetic disorder) may
in itself defi ne the boundaries of the relevant sample. Alternatively, with less specifi c
issues the sample may be drawn from a population with similar demographic or
socio-economic status.
IPA requires a data collection method that will invite participants to offer rich,
detailed, fi rst-person accounts of experiences. Semi-structured, one-to-one
interviews have been used most often, as they are particularly useful for in-depth
idiographic studies exploring how participants are making sense of experiences.
Such interviews enable the researcher and participant to engage in a dialogue,
modify questions and follow interesting aspects that come up during the interview
(for overviews of quality and concerns over the status and use of interview data see,
for example, Atkinson, Coffey & Delamont, 2003; Roulston, 2010). However, other
methods suitable for colleting rich verbal accounts have been used – for example,
diaries (e.g. Smith, 1999), focus groups (e.g. Flowers, Knussen & Duncan, 2001) and
email dialogues (Turner, Barlow & Ilbery, 2002).
It is helpful to envisage the interaction during interviews as a conversation, which
although guided by the researcher’s pre-prepared questions, opens up a space for
participants to provide detailed accounts of experiences guided by their own
concerns. During the interview, it may be more fruitful to follow unexpected turns
initiated by the participant’s accounts, rather than adhering to the specifi c questions
in the original sequence. As Smith et al. (2009) contend, ‘unexpected turns are often
the most valuable aspects of interviewing: on the one hand, they tell us something
we did not even anticipate needing to know; on the other, because they arise
unprompted, they may well be of particular importance to the participant’ (Smith et
al., 2009: 58).
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Why do IPA? 51
Arroll, M. & Senior, V. (2008) Individuals’ experience of chronic fatigue syndrome/
myalgic encephalomyelitis: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Psychology & Health, 23(4), 443–458.
Background
Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is a condition of
unknown aetiology that consists of symptoms such as fatigue, muscle and joint
pain, gastric problems and a range of neurological disturbances. Previous
qualitative research in the area of CFS/ME has focused on participants’ beliefs
about the cause of their illness and symptomatology, but the factors that infl uence
how individuals with CFS/ME perceive their symptoms have not been investigated
from a phenomenological epistemology. The authors contend that as CFS/ME
has a wide-ranging infl uence on individuals’ lives, investigating this condition
within the patients’ phenomenological experience will provide depth and detail
to our present understanding of CFS/ME.
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of two male and six female participants with ages ranging
from 35 to 67. The average length of time the participants had been living with
CFS/ME was 21.4 years, although this varied widely from 6 to 53 years.
Data collection
Semi-structured, one-to-one interviews consisted of a range of open-ended
questions, including prompts that allowed further elaboration of the topic under
discussion. The interview started with a broad question – ‘Can you please
describe to me how you became ill with CFS/ME?’ – and was followed by more
specifi c topics: the cause of CFS/ME, the effect on one’s life, the process of
diagnosis, and advice that one would give another individual who believed that
he/she might be suffering from CFS/ME. The duration of the interviews was
between 26 and 90 minutes, with an average interview lasting 40.8 minutes. The
interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Analysis
The transcripts were analysed using IPA. The analysis followed the staged process
described in Smith and Osborn (2003), fi rst for one transcript and then repeating
the procedures for each transcript. In the fi nal stage the superordinate themes
and sub-themes for the study as a whole were established. Six distinct themes
that illustrated the participants’ experience and perception of their symptoms
were identifi ed.
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52 Chapter 3 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
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Findings
The paper illustrates the shared themes but also the particular details of individual
participants’ experiences. In the present study, symptomatology and illness
course, interference with daily and working life, frequency of symptoms, external
information, diagnosis and treatment each played a part in the recognition of
individuals’ symptoms as CFS/ME. Although the interviewees stated that fatigue
was the predominant symptom of their illness, they listed a range of other
symptoms including pain, gastrointestinal problems, cognitive diffi culties and
sleep impairments. The narrative is constructed as a journey from the initial
experience of bodily sensations, through the disruption these symptoms imposed
on individuals’ lives. Trying to make sense of their experiences, participants
initially evaluated their symptoms in terms of known diseases. When the known
disease provided inadequate explanations of their …
66
C H A P T E R 4
Discourse
Analysis
Approaches
Amanda Holt
Introduction
This chapter is about approaches to discourse analysis. Discourse analysis is a methodological approach that aims to highlight the ways in which ‘knowledge’
is socially constructed. It aims to expose the implicit values and hidden assumptions
that underpin taken-for-granted knowledge – knowledge that legitimises existing
institutional practices that may be considered unjust. This chapter begins by briefl y
describing the historical and intellectual context of this methodology, and outlines
the assumptions about the world and the assumptions about psychological
knowledge upon which it is based.
The chapter then discusses two distinct theoretical approaches to discourse
analysis that are used in psychology: ‘Foucauldian discourse analysis’ and ‘discursive
psychology’. The chapter explores the commonalities between these two approaches
and considers the ways in which they might be combined. The latter part of this
chapter includes detailed descriptions of how to use discourse analysis. Examples
throughout the chapter illustrate the differences in the fi ndings reached by each
approach. Practical issues such as recruitment and sampling, data production,
analytical coding and presenting research are discussed. The chapter concludes
with a summary of some common research uses and applications.
History (or histories?)
It has been suggested that there are at least 57 varieties of discourse analysis (Burman & Parker, 1993). These are encompassed within a number of broad the-
oretical traditions that foreground language, such as social semiotics, ethnometho-
dology and conversation analysis (Gill, 2000). The method itself transcends subject
disciplines: you will fi nd it being frequently used in fi lm, media and cultural studies,
languages and literature, politics and law, the visual arts, as well as more traditional
social sciences such as sociology and criminology. Therefore, it is impossible to
provide a coherent narrative that can outline ‘the history of the method’.
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Ontology of the approach 67
However, within psychology, the 1970s is often pinpointed as the time when
many psychological researchers were drawn to the discourse analytic methods that
were already established within other subject disciplines. Furthermore, many
historical overviews of social psychology (e.g. Burr, 2003; Richards, 2009) suggest
this ‘turn to language’ was the outcome of an epistemological ‘crisis’, which resulted
in disillusioned social psychologists actively searching for alternative methodologies.
This disillusion was mainly fuelled by a dominance of experimental methods within
social psychology – methods that, in the endless quest to isolate ‘variables’, tended
to ‘bracket off’ the very social processes that social psychologists were interested in.
However, in the spirit of this chapter, which is attempting to encourage students to
question taken-for-granted assumptions, it is important to remember that this version
of history is one of many possible versions. Over time, it has managed to achieve
legitimacy as the history of discourse analysis in psychology. But this is not The
Truth. It is one truth of many ‘truths’. This is an important point, to which this chapter
will return.
Ontology of the approach
Discourse analysis is underpinned by a constructionist ontology. As such, it is at odds with, and attempts to challenge, the realism that underpins more
mainstream research methods (such as quantitative experimental methods). Such
mainstream realist methods tend to be based on the assumption that pre-existing
‘structures’ determine social life. Such structures might be assumed to exist ‘inside
our heads’ as more psychological paradigms, such as cognitivism, might suggest. Or
they might be assumed to exist ‘out there’ in the world, as more sociological
paradigms, such as Marxism, might suggest. In contrast, constructionist methodologies
(such as discourse analysis) make no assumptions about the social world, and
instead aim to expose and highlight the constructedness of these assumptions. They
also aim to question the implications of taking for granted such assumptions. (Hence
the term ‘post-structuralism’, a term that is often associated with an intellectual
approach that rejects, or challenges, the assumption of ‘pre-existing structures’!)
As well as making assumptions about the social world, mainstream realist
methods also make assumptions about being a person. That is, they take as their
(unquestioned) starting point an essential, rational and boundaried subject (or
person). While in our everyday interactions it is perfectly reasonable to draw on
common-sense assumptions about the world and the people in it, this does become
problematic if we do the same thing in our research and fail to ever question the
nature of what it is we are researching. One of the good things about constructionist
methodologies is that they won’t let us take for granted alleged ‘truths’ about the
world. And, once we start questioning these ‘truths’, and start seeing them as only
one of many possible ‘truths’, then we are liberated to consider alternative ways of
thinking about (or constructing) the world and the people in it. Constructionists
would argue that it is here where research can produce real change – rather than the
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68 Chapter 4 Discourse Analysis Approaches
superfi cial change that more realist research might produce (which, in the process,
leaves underlying fundamental ‘truths’ unquestioned and, therefore, still in place).
All of this means that one of the defi ning features of discourse analysis is the way
in which the questioning of taken-for-granted ‘truths’ is intrinsic to the research
question itself. That is, the research question should always aim to be looking to
uncover particular assumptions that we make about the world and to consider what
the effects of it might be (see the research example box).
Given the centrality of constructionism to discourse analysis, the potential for its
combination with other analytic methods will inevitably be shaped by the extent to
which those methods are also underpinned by constructionist ontologies. For
example, traditional grounded theory, such as that developed by Glaser and Strauss
(see Chapter 2), assumes a realist ontology in that the knowledge produced is
assumed to be grounded in the data that pre-exists the researcher looking at it.
However, Charmaz (2006) has developed a grounded theory more in keeping with
constructionist principles, with which discourse analysis methods would certainly
be compatible. Similarly, the more constructionist approaches to psychoanalysis are
also compatible with discourse analysis (for an overview, see Branney, 2007).
Nevertheless, in some cases it may be very useful to combine discourse analysis
with quantitative methods, if done appropriately. For example, a brief quantitative
survey that looks at ‘stop and search’ patterns among different ethnic groups may be
a useful precursor to interviewing police offi cers and using discourse analysis to
examine the ways in which they account for their seemingly discriminative practices.
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Jane Ussher’s (2003) research focused on women’s experiences of pre-menstrual
dysphoric disorder (PMDD), which was classifi ed as a psychiatric disorder in the
DSM-IV in 1994. However, her research question did not aim to explore whether
menstruation causes PMDD, as realist ontological paradigms (using experimental
methods) might dictate. Instead, Ussher aimed to expose this notion as one
particular and dominant ‘truth’. Therefore, she developed a research question
that asked: ‘What are the effects of this particular hegemonic truth for the women
who are the subjects of it?’ (i.e. for women whose experiences are medicalised
and consequently constructed as pathological). Ussher also aimed to explore
what possibilities for change may be enabled or disenabled by this particular
‘truth’ for the women in question. What this example shows is the way in which
Ussher’s decision of whether to investigate this issue through a constructionist
lens or through a realist lens is a political one, since each will have ‘effects’ by
either maintaining or disrupting the current ‘truth’.
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Epistemology: why do discourse analysis? 69
In relation to Ussher’s (2003) work, then, she wants to look at the ‘effects of’ a
‘medical discourse’ that is dominant enough to shape the way that women
understand their experiences. One could also speculate on the assumptions upon
which this discourse is founded: the idea of Cartesian dualism (i.e. the mind/body
split) and, within this, the idea that there is a causal relationship between biological
changes and psychological effects. These are only ideas, yet they have been talked
However, within the fi eld of discourse analysis itself, there have been a number
of discussions regarding the extent to which different approaches (e.g. Foucauldian
discourse analysis and discursive psychology) can be combined. This is something
to which this chapter now turns.
Epistemology : why do discourse analysis?
While realist approaches to social research view language as a means to access ‘The Truth’, constructionist approaches view language as constitutive of truth.
This means that it is through language that meanings are negotiated and ‘realities’
are produced. In effect, nothing pre-exists language. Thus, our knowledge about the
world is produced through the organisation of language and particular behaviours
(or ‘practices’) into particular discursive formations that comprise ‘discourses’.
Discourses serve to seemingly provide a coherent and credible ‘truth’. To take an
example, ‘cognition’ – and the internal structures on which it is assumed to be based
– does not pre-exist language: it is talked into being by the use of words such as
‘operation’, ‘perception’ and ‘higher/lower order processing’. It is also practised into
being through the performance of controlled laboratory experiments, through a
lecturer’s PowerPoint slide, which shows a fl ow chart with ‘memory’ at the top and
the categories of ‘episodic’ and ‘procedural’ underneath, through the writing and
publication of journal articles, and so on. That is, the way it is talked about and the
way things are done are organised into a specifi c formation which constitutes a
‘cognitive discourse’. Similarly, ‘social class’ – and the external structures on which
it is presumed to be based – does not pre-exist language.
Question
In what ways is a ‘discourse of social class’ talked into being and practised into
being?
It might help to think about the different ‘agents’ (e.g. social scientists –
including university students! – doctors, politicians) and ‘institutions’ – (e.g.
research institutes, social services, the police, mass media) that produce and
reproduce particular discourses of social class.
You might take this exercise a step further and think about which groups are
privileged by these discourses and which are disadvantaged (and in what
ways).
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70 Chapter 4 Discourse Analysis Approaches
into being to such an extent that they are taken for granted. They are also practised
into being by a woman visiting her doctor, or through the institutional practice of
classifying PMDD within the DSM-IV. The seemingly coherent and credible ‘truth’
that emerges from this medical discourse is that menstruation causes psychiatric
disorders. Such a ‘truth’ will have all sorts of implications for the women who are
subject to them, and the medical institutions that gain or lose from them. And the
fact that different groups of people gain or lose from the dominance of different
discourses means that when we are thinking about discourses, we also have to think
about power.
So, given the centrality of language to power relations in constructionist ap-
proaches, we need a research methodology that similarly foregrounds language and
power in social analysis. Discourse analysis does this, and two distinct approaches
have emerged within psychology – one that arguably foregrounds power, known as
Foucauldian discourse analysis, and one that arguably foregrounds language, known
as discursive psychology. It is to these two approaches that we now turn.
Foucauldian discourse analysis
Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) is an approach associated with the work of Ian
Parker (1992) and Burman and Parker (1993). It is derived from post-structuralism
and, in particular, from the work of Michel Foucault and his conceptions of power
(see Foucault, 1975/91; 1976/90; 1991). FDA aims to examine how ‘objects’ (things)
and ‘subjects’ (people) are constructed in discourse and to explore what the effects
of this might be for people who are subjected to them (hence the term ‘subjects’).
One of the key ideas in FDA is the notion of subject positions. This term refers to
the possible social locations that either afford or delimit particular ways of being a
subject. For example, if you recently experienced a burglary, a particular subject
position will have been made available to you: that of ‘victim’. Once this subject
position is taken up, a number of ways of being will be opened up to you (such as
access to victim support resources or eliciting sympathy from friends), but other
ways of being will be closed down (such as sleeping soundly for a few nights!). This
is one reason why there has been a movement to rename women who experience
sexual violence as ‘survivors’, rather than ‘victims’ – because the ‘discourse of
victimhood’ upon which the subject position of ‘victim’ is based enables some very
limiting and disempowering ways of being.
A further example of this can be found in Ussher’s (2003) work, discussed above:
the dominant medical discourse that ‘menstruation causes psychiatric disorders’
offers up very few subject positions to the women who experience bodily changes
beyond that of ‘ill, unstable or mad’ (2003: 142). Such a subject position may be
reinforced by (and may, in turn, reinforce) particular institutional practices, such as
doctors prescribing medication or psychological treatment to such women. Thus,
this subject position offers both rights (such as access to particular forms of
‘treatment’) and duties (such as permitting the medical regulation of one’s body). As
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Epistemology: why do discourse analysis? 71
this example illustrates, the subject positions offered may afford multiple and
contradictory experiences and practices, and these may need to be negotiated
carefully by the subject in question.
In order to enable analysis of this process, an FDA approach to data analysis asks
the data a number of questions:
■ How do subjects utilise particular discourses that are available to them to
construct their experiences?
■ What ‘subject positions’ are made available to subjects within the discourses
that are drawn upon?
■ How do subjects negotiate these subject positions?
■ What ways of being do these subject positions enable or delimit? The role of
power is particularly explored in this fi nal question: who wins from this
discursive process … and who loses?
Discursive psychology
A second approach within discourse analysis in psychology is commonly referred to
as discursive psychology (DP), and is associated with the work of Jonathan Potter
and Margaret Wetherell (1987; Wetherell & Potter, 1992). While FDA enables a
more macro-level analysis, DP takes analysis to a more micro-level by focusing
almost entirely on the immediate interactional setting that produces the data. In this
sense, DP is particularly concerned with the ‘action orientation’ of discourse in its
recognition that language is a social practice that has a performative function. In
many ways, it focuses in on the third of the four questions asked by FDA outlined
above (i.e. how do subjects negotiate subject positions, albeit specifi cally in the
context of the communicative setting?).
Potter and Wetherell’s infl uential Discourse and Social Psychology (1987) takes
particular interest in the role of accounts, which they identify as explanations
of behaviours that might be ‘unusual, bizarre or in some way reprehensible’ (1987:
74).2 Researchers working in this area (not all would necessarily identify as
being ‘discursive psychologists’) have suggested a number of verbal and non-verbal
rhetorical devices that may enable excuses and justifi cations in a speaker’s
explanation of their actions. These devices are fashioned from the speaker’s culturally
available linguistic resources. A summary of some of these devices can be found in
Table 4.1.
DP also identifi es wider cultural explanatory frameworks that are taken for
granted as ‘truths’. These are known as ‘interpretive repertoires’ and are similar in
2 That is not to suggest, of course, that accounts cannot be rather more ordinary than this, but the point is that
accounts nevertheless involve the negotiation of a subject position that is morally justifi able. The manoeuvres that
are made to get to such positions are of particular analytical interest to discursive psychologists (they also tell us
much about the moral context of the interaction).
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72 Chapter 4 Discourse Analysis Approaches
fl avour to the notion of ‘discourses’ used in FDA. However, Gill (2009) argues that
‘interpretive repertoires’ are perhaps more fl uid concepts in that they tend to be
more specifi c to the context of their use and are in a continual state of fl ux (in
contrast, the FDA concepts of a ‘medical discourse’ or a ‘consumer discourse’ are
more singularly encompassing and, as such, suggest greater rigidity).
The strength of a DP approach is its recognition that accounts will vary according
to their situational context. Therefore a focus on the immediate data-producing
setting is an important aspect of DP discourse analysis to illustrate how subject
positions are not only grounded in wider material and institutional power relations
(as an FDA approach would suggest) but are also ‘local, highly situated and
occasioned’ (Wetherell, 1998: 401). For example, in an interview setting where a
researcher asks a participant about her/his experiences, the participant will draw on
a specifi c set of linguistic resources that are tailored to the researcher, the
environment, the dialogue, the purpose of the interview, and so on.
Table 4.1 Rhetorical devices suggested by researchers interested in discursive analysis
Rhetorical
device
Example and function Reference
Active voicing He said ‘ don’t do that …’
Increases facticity of account, establishes objectivity
and rhetorical distance from account
Hutchby & Woof fi t t
(1998)
Contrasting
discourse
I was like this … now I’m like this …
Emphasises transition by listing competing
descriptions
Smith (1978)
Disclaimers I’m not being sexist but …
Disclaimers anticipate (and reject) potential negative
claims
Hewit t & Stokes
(1975)
Extreme case
formulation
It was ‘phenomenal’
Strengthens claims by taking claims /evaluations to
their extremes
Pomerantz (1986)
Use of passive
language
I found myself …
Precludes possibilities of agency and choice
Abell et al. (2000 )
Use of ‘realise’ An interactional resource that suggests authenticity Edwards (1997)
Temporal
markers
Then I … when you … fi rst I …
Marks temporal relationships between events (of ten
to signal developmental progression)
Shiffrin (1987)
Vague
descriptions
Vivid details can easily be undermined: vague
descriptions produce just enough material to sustain
action without opening to at tack
Pot ter (1996)
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Epistemology: why do discourse analysis? 73
In order to enable analysis of this process, a DP approach examines how dis-
cursive resources (including the use of rhetorical devices and interpretive repertoires)
are used to ‘do things’ in a particular context and to examine their particular effects.
In particular, the analytical process involves identifying such discursive resources in
a text and looking at how they vary, and how they are consistent across different
texts and within the same text (Potter & Wetherell, 1987).
Commonalities between Foucauldian discourse
analysis and discursive psychology
There are clearly commonalities between these two approaches to discourse
analysis. Both FDA and DP foreground the role of language in the construction of
social reality by ‘de-centring the subject’. They also both emphasise the importance
of refl exivity in the research process – that is, as a researcher you need to be ref-
lexively aware of how your own cultural, social, political, linguistic and episte-
mological location shapes your production of research knowledge. Refl exivity is
consistent with an epistemology which recognises that knowledge claims are
‘ideological, political and permeated with values’ (Schwandt, 2000: 198) and the
Identifying ‘ interpretive repertoires’ in the sex and relationships articles in a
UK women’s magazine
In her DP analysis of Glamour magazine sex and relationship advice articles, Gill
(2009) identifi es three interpretive repertoires that she claims serve to privilege
men and heterosexuality. These are the ‘intimate entrepreneurship’ repertoire,
which draws on the idea that a successful relationship (constructed as a ‘goal’) is
founded on strategy, planning and tactics (similar emotion-less ‘skills’ to those
deemed necessary in the western workplace). The ‘men-ology’ repertoire draws
on the importance of studying and learning about ‘what men want’ – in effect,
making relationship-building an educational project that requires expertise. The
third repertoire is ‘transforming the self’, which draws on notions of self-change,
particularly in the fi eld of sexual and bodily ‘confi dence’ and ‘attitudes’.
Gill argues that these three interpretive repertoires ‘intermingle and co-exist’
(2009: 361) in the same text and work together to perpetuate not only unequal
gender relations (in their promoting the servicing of men) and hetero-normativity
(it is always men who are the relationship goal) but also a neoliberal ideology in
the way that they impel women to survey and regulate their selves. However, as
Gill points out, by each drawing on notions of women’s agency, choice and
empowerment, the three interpretive repertoires work together to effectively
disguise the rather questionable overall message of Glamour magazine.
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74 Chapter 4 Discourse Analysis Approaches
refl exive process involves continual re-examination of initial analyses and an explo-
ration of alternative interpretations (Alvesson, 2002). It also means acknowledging
that the researcher’s interpretation is a privileged one that silences possible others,
and a consideration of the implications of this. However, while many researchers
(e.g. Finlay, 2003) suggest that the use of refl exivity in social research turns a potential
‘problem’ (of subjectivity) into an ‘opportunity’, the use of refl exivity is not un-
problematic. Its use has often been suggested as a way of hiding the lack of
democracy that characterises most kinds of social research – after all, it is the …
92
C H A P T E R 5
Narrative Analysis
Approaches
Cigdem Esin
Introduction
This chapter is about using narrative analysis. Like the other approaches described in this book, narrative analysis is an umbrella term that covers a plurality of
methods. The narrative analysis approach takes stories as the unit of analysis. The
stories are usually gathered from the accounts of participants and each approach
focuses on a different feature of the story. Features may be the structure (e.g. Labov,
1972), the content (e.g. Riessman, 1993; Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber, 1998) or
the performative function (e.g. Riessman, 1993; Mishler, 1995; Denzin, 2001), for
example. The chapter begins by describing the history of narrative analysis. It
illustrates its migration from other social science disciplines to psychology. It then
describes ontological and epistemological frameworks in which the different
methods of narrative analysis can be located. The chapter provides detailed des-
criptions of analytical models used in narrative research and discusses the appli-
cations of each approach. It provides guidelines for their use and highlights the
relevance of the research interview to this approach. Several research examples
illustrating use of the different models are included.
History of narrative research
There are two parallel academic moves in the history of social sciences in which narrative research can be located (Andrews et al., 2004). The fi rst is the humanist
tradition within western sociology and psychology. This tradition is person-centred;
it treats storytellers and listeners as unifi ed and singular. Researchers with humanist
approaches paid attention to individual case studies, biographies and life stories.
The second move emerged in connection with the postmodern ontology that
emphasises the role of multiple subjectivities in the construction of narratives.
Researchers in the second tradition are concerned with meanings produced
in narratives, including unconscious ones. They pay attention to social conditions
and power relations that shape the narratives (Squire, Andrews & Tamboukou,
2008: 3).
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Ontology 93
Different approaches to narratives and narrative analysis have developed within
these two traditions. The focus of narrative analysis was the linguistic structure and
content of narratives in the models located in the humanist tradition (e.g. Labov,
1972; Gee, 1991). The focus of analysis has shifted to the act of storytelling and
construction of narratives through interaction in the models situated in the
postmodern tradition (e.g. Riessman, 1993).
The use of narratives and narrative method in research positioned in both fi rst
and second moves has spread through a wide a range of social science disciplines
over the past three decades. A burgeoning literature on narrative and narrative
research practice has been published in various disciplines including sociology,
history, anthropology and folklore, and sociology of education. Psychology is one of
the disciplines in which the use of narrative methodological tools has gained
momentum since the early 1980s. However, the interest in the history of narrative
tradition in psychology can be traced back to the developments in studies of
personality and life-span development using biography and case studies at the
beginning of the twentieth century (Hiles & Cermák, 2008). The foundations for the
new fi eld of psychology were established by Theodore Sarbin’s Narrative Psychology:
The Storied Nature of Human Conduct, which was published in 1986. In the
introduction to this book, Sarbin argued that narrative analysis as a model of
contextualism could be used as a method in psychology in understanding human
action because narrative analysis considers the meaning of stories as created within
specifi c historical contexts. This approach also integrates the effect of time, place of
telling and audience into analysis. The fi eld of narrative psychology has been
developed with the contribution of multiple theoretical and methodological
perspectives on narrative and narrative methods (for examples see Emerson & Frosh,
2004; Hiles & Cermák, 2008).
Ontology
The assumptions that narrative analysis makes about the nature of social reality lie in the understanding and use of ‘narrative’ within this approach. The defi nition
of ‘narrative’ varies depending on the discipline and approach to narratives.
What is narrative?
Narratives are stories with a clear sequential order, that connect events in
a meaningful way for a defi nite audience. Story and narrative are often
used interchangeably. Sequence is necessary for narrative. A narrative
always responds to the question ‘And then what happened?’
Narratives are powerful forms of giving meaning to experience. Mattingly and
Garro argue that ‘narrative mediates between an inner world of thought-feeling and
an outer world of observable actions and states of affairs’ (2000: 1). Events do not
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94 Chapter 5 Narrative Analysis Approaches
present themselves as narratives. It is through the experience of an event that it
becomes a story. This means that the retelling of an event is always retrospective –
the narrator already knows the ending.
Narratives are seen as the vehicle through which we talk about our world, lives
and selves. Narratives do not simply express some independent, individual reality.
Rather they help to construct the reality within relationships between the narrator
and their external world. Narratives are produced in social interactions between
individuals; they are not privately created (Smith & Sparkes, 2008).
Atkinson, Coffrey and Delamont (2003: 117) argue that, although people
construct their own lives and those of others through biographical accounts, these
accounts do not tell us unmediated personal experience. While personalised over
time, stories are drawn from a limited repertoire of available narrative resources.
Somers (1994) calls them public narratives. These are ‘narratives attached to cultural
and institutional formations larger than the single individual’ (1994: 619). According
to Somers (1994), narratives should not be considered ‘natural’ or as springing from
the minds of individuals. People likewise are not free to fabricate narratives at will.
While producing narratives of their lives, individuals use public narratives available
in their culture. These public narratives are also used by people who listen to
individual stories. They function as common sources that facilitate the communication
between the storytellers and listeners.
Narrative analysis, therefore, perceives narratives as creative means of exploring
and describing realities, which are arranged and bound in time. While interpreting
the individual narratives, analysts take into account the individual and cultural
resources people use to construct their narratives, as well as the interpersonal or
organisational functions of narratives (Atkinson et al., 2003: 117). Narrative analysis
is not applicable to all research topics. If you intend to use narrative analysis in your
research, you need to remember that the focus of your analysis will be narratives/
stories. Topics suited to narrative analysis include various aspects of identity,
individual experiences of psychological processes, interpersonal and intimate
relationships, experiences of body, beauty and health.
Example research questions
What are generational differences in the experiences of teenage pregnancy?
How does masculinity infl uence the success of boys in education?
Does gender have a role in the transformation of ethnic identities?
How do former drug users construct the self in their narratives of rehabilitation?
Source: adapted from the dissertation proposals of fi nal-year Psychosocial Studies
students at the University of East London.
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Why do narrative analysis? 95
Approaches in narrative analysis differ on the core questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’
the stories under investigation are constructed and told. ‘What’ is told in stories is
also important in the analysis. As I will describe in the following paragraphs,
understanding the differences between epistemological approaches is the fi rst step
in narrative analysis as this will guide the narrative analyst in choosing the relevant
questions to ask the data.
There are two key epistemological approaches to narrative analysis: the naturalist
and the constructivist approaches (Gubrium & Holstein, 1997). ‘Naturalist’
approaches use rich descriptions of people in their natural habitats. For example,
this approach is applicable to research that aims to explore interpersonal relations in
specifi c conditions (e.g. trauma cases). ‘Constructivist’ approaches focus on how a
sense of social order is created through talk and interaction. These are useful to
consider how identities are constructed in various psychosocial contexts (e.g. in
education, in families), for example.
Why do narrative analysis?
Epistemology
Narrative analysis does not only function as a method through which researchers
explore how people remember, structure and story their experiences. It is also a
process that can lead researchers to understanding the complexities of human
selves, lives and relations. This means it is useful to illuminate both the individual
experiences and social processes that shape these experiences. Narrative analysis
provides the analyst with useful tools to integrate the individual details and
complexity in the construction of stories rather than analysing these stories under
predetermined categories (Andrews et al., 2004).
Narrative research enables researchers to see multiple and sometimes contra-
dictory layers of meaning, to reconstruct meanings through linking these layers, and
to explore and understand more about individual and social processes. By working
with narratives, researchers investigate multiple aspects in the construction and
function of stories.
Questions to explore the multiple functions
of stories (Riessman, 1993 ; Squire et al., 2008 )
How are stories structured?
Who produces stories?
By what means (e.g. discursive, performative) are stories constructed?
What are the socio-historical contexts in which stories are produced and
consumed?
How do stories work in these specifi c socio-historical contexts?
How are stories silenced and/or contested?
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96 Chapter 5 Narrative Analysis Approaches
Both naturalist and constructivist approaches are primarily concerned with
people’s lives and experiences. However, ‘while the naturalist view is that the
social world is in some sense “out there”, an external reality available to be
observed and described by the researcher, the constructivist view is that the social
world is constantly “in the making” ‘ (Elliott, 2005: 18). Therefore, understanding
the production of the social world, which shapes narratives, is central in the
constructivist approach.
The naturalistic and constructivist approaches ask different questions in the
process of understanding narratives. Table 5.1 lists the questions that each approach
asks while analysing narratives.
Table 5.1 Questions asked by the two approaches
Naturalist approach : focuses on
‘what’ questions
Constructivist approach : focuses on ‘how’ questions
What happened? How do story tellers make sense of their experiences?
What experiences have people had? How do story tellers talk about their experiences?
What did people do at that particular
time?
What does it mean to story tellers?
How do story tellers position themselves while telling
stories about their lives?
How are multiple stories told in the research context?
How does interpersonal and /or social interaction shape
the construction of stories?
The discursive positioning of storytellers and listeners is important in the
constructivist approach. Davies and Harre (1990: 46) argue that it is through
discursive practices that people position themselves. According to them, storytellers
draw upon both cultural and personal resources in constructing the present moment
in telling their stories. Narratives are constructed within a special conversation that
includes both their cultural resources and the interaction between the people who
are producing these narratives. A subject position incorporates both a conceptual
repertoire and a location. Having once taken up a particular position as one’s own,
a person inevitably sees the world from that position, and in terms of the particular
images, metaphors, storylines and concepts that are made relevant within the
particular discursive practice in which they are positioned (Davies & Harre, 1990:
46). ‘Positioning’ and ‘subject position’, in contrast, permit individuals to think of
themselves as a choosing subject, locating themselves in conversations according to
those narrative forms with which they are familiar, and bringing to those narratives
their own subjective histories through which they have learnt metaphors, characters
and plot (Davies & Harre, 1990: 51). In narrative analysis, it is important to identify
the positions from which storytellers construct their stories because these positions
are keys to understanding how various elements are put together in response to the
available cultural resources and interpersonal interactions.
Mishler (1995) draws a framework for understanding the variety of approaches
in narrative analysis. He offers a typology based on three aspects of narratives:
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How to do narrative analysis 97
representation, structure and contextual features. In this typology, Mishler (1995)
argues that some of the approaches focus on how the narrative represents the order
of actual event/episode. These approaches particularly aim to explore the tension
between the actual temporal order of events and the order in which these events are
retold. Other approaches may be more interested in the structure or form of the
narrative. These approaches aim to understand how a story is put together. The third
category of approaches focus on the cultural, social, psychological and interactional
contexts in which narratives are produced, told and consumed. While providing this
typology for narrative analysis, Mishler (1995) emphasises his concern that there is
no single ‘best’ way to analyse narratives, that narrative researchers need to pursue
their own approaches while being open to explore what they may learn from other
approaches.
The following section discusses how to do narrative analysis. It aims to provide
descriptions of some ways in which narrative research is conducted, and describes
commonly used analytical models. These models are shaped by the epistemologi-
cal approaches to narratives summarised in Mishler’s (1995) typology.
‘Narratives do not speak for themselves or have unanalysed merit; they require
interpretation when used as data in social research’. (Riessman, 2005: 2)
How to do narrative analysis
Narrative analysis considers how the narrator, the leading character of the told story, makes meaning of her/his life and/or experiences while telling their story.
The analyst makes a systematic interpretation of these meaning-making processes
by considering various aspects of the story being told.
Narrative analysis considers the structure, content and context of narratives.
While it is possible to analyse only one of these aspects, applications of narrative
analysis often integrate all of them. This is because it is important to understand the
narrative process through which meaning is created and mediated as whole. For
example, when narrative analysts choose to analyse the content of narratives, they
describe the structure and context as well, because the ways, time and context in
which stories are told shape their content.
As we have seen, narrative analysis refers to a family of methods. Each technique
interprets texts that have in common a storied form (Riessman, 2008: 11). Models of
narrative analysis offer different focuses and questions to analysts. Each model is
shaped by different yet connected theoretical discussions. Table 5.2 illustrates some
narrative analysis models.
Depending on the research questions and collected data, multiple models can
be combined so as to capture multiple layers in the construction of narratives (e.g.
Frost, 2009b). It should be noted that there are no strict guidelines that dictate to
narrative researchers how to apply these analytical models. Depending on the
interpretation of the model and specifi c research context, researchers apply each
model in varied ways.
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98 Chapter 5 Narrative Analysis Approaches
The following sections will fi rst briefl y discuss the data-gathering and preparation
processes in narrative research. Then they will summarise some of the main
analytical models and basic guidelines that can help narrative analysts to constitute
their own analytical path in working with narratives.
Sampling and recruitment
In common with other qualitative research approaches, sampling criteria are set by the researcher. The characteristics of research participants should be relevant to
the research questions and aims. The number of participants in narrative research
practice varies depending on the research topic. For example, for their research on
young athletes’ perceptions of self-ageing, Phoenix and Sparkes (2008) set the
criteria as age and involvement in team or individual sports, and selected 22 people.
It should be noted that narrative methods are not appropriate for research
conducted with a large number of respondents. The construction of rich, detailed
narratives within the research context is the key to a good narrative analysis.
Therefore, the number of participants is not a major concern. Narrative researchers
often tend to interview each participant multiple times so as to capture the changes
in the meaning-making processes in narratives. For example, in some oral history
Table 5.2 Modes of narrative analysis
Models of narrative analysis Focus of analysis
Structural model (Labov, 1972) The structure of stories
The ways in which in which stories are told
Thematic model (Riessman, 2008) The content of stories
The themes around which stories are told
Interactional /performative model
(Riessman, 1993; Mishler, 1995;
Denzin, 2001)
The contextual features that shape the construction of
narratives
How the meaning is collaboratively created through
interaction between story tellers and listeners
Problem-based question
Consider yourself a narrative researcher who plans research to explore
experiences of divorce among middle-aged men in London.
What will be your criteria for the selection of participants?
How many participants will you recruit for this research?
What is the best way to approach possible participants?
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Gathering data : narrative inter viewing 99
projects, narrative researchers work with fi ve participants. They conduct multiple
interviews with these participants over fi ve years.
Decisions about sampling and recruitment are not limited to setting criteria
about how research participants will be selected. The initial contacts and con-
versations about participation in research before the actual interview also need
care. Possible participants may be approached either by researchers themselves
or through gatekeepers. At this initial stage, it is explained clearly to potential
participants, who are interested in being part of the research, what the research is
about, what method(s) will be used to collect and analyse data, and how they are
expected to contribute to answer the research question(s).
Ethics
Ethical considerations need extra care in narrative research in which the research process itself is integrated into the analysis. Similar to other social science
research practice, researchers should follow the ethical guidelines of the university
and places where they recruit participants and conduct research. Confi dentiality
statements and information sheets should include detailed information about
research questions and aims as well as the rights of participants. You need to get
approval from the ethics board of your university before you start interviewing
participants. The written consent of participants should be secured.
As narrative research focuses on stories about people’s lives and selves, confi -
dentiality is of particular importance. Participants should be assured that personal
identifi ers will be removed or changed from the written data and presentations of
analysis. Sharing transcripts, analysis and publications with research participants is
common practice in narrative research. It is part of the conversation between
researchers and participants in the co-construction of narratives.
Researchers have obligations and responsibilities in considering the effects of the
research both on the participants and wider communities. Narrative research is no
exception. Critical and systematic refl exivity about all layers of the research process,
and the revelation of power relations between researchers and participants in
analysis and presentations are part of these responsibilities.
Gathering data : narrative interviewing
Narrative researchers from various disciplines analyse narratives that are elicited from a wide range of sources. However, interviews are central to much research
in social sciences. Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of
discussions about the variety of approaches to interviewing methods and how to
analyse interviews (see Elliott, 2005: 18). The link between in-depth interviewing
and narratives has been part of these discussions. Similar to semi-structured
interviews, narrative interviewing uses open, non-leading questions. Narrative
interviews give priority to the elicitation of participants’ stories with minimum
intervention from interviewers.
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100 Chapter 5 Narrative Analysis Approaches
In his book Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative (1986), Mishler (1986:
54–55) argues that interviews go beyond participants’ responses to interviewers’
questions within research contexts. Rather, the interview might be defi ned as a
game, which is constituted over a complex interaction of responses. This accumula-
tive process turns into collaborative meaning-making rather than simply imposing or
receiving the interviewer’s framework of meanings. Therefore, interviewing and the
analysis of interviews require ‘close attentiveness to what interviewers and
respondents say to each other, and how they say it’ (1986: 76). Interviews that
view the interviewing as a participatory site in which meaning is co-produced
by participants and interviewers are defi ned as ‘narrative interviews’ (Mishler,
1986).
Questions to be asked
Developing an interview schedule is one of the fi rst steps in narrative interviewing.
Although narratives can emerge in every kind of conversation, even in answers to
yes/no questions, certain open-ended questions are more suitable to receive
narrative responses. The narrative interview can begin with an open invitation: ‘Tell
me about your life …’ or ‘Tell me what happened … and then what happened.’ This
particular phrasing is less restrictive than a question such as ‘When did this event
happen?’ Narrative interviews can involve more topic-orientated, open-ended
questions such as ‘How did you decide to go for further education?’ or ‘Tell me
about your relationship with your parents.’
As Elliott (2005: 28–29) discusses, unlike the common expectation that narratives
emerge in the context of interviews naturally, there are situations when researchers
fail to get narratives from respondents. This is usually caused by problems with the
effectiveness of questions. These should be simple and straightforward. Listening to
participants’ responses is the key in narrative interviewing. Sometimes even a very
open-ended question may not help to produce narratives; events may be summarised
and given little signifi cance. Further questions that aim to encourage the participant
to unpack the layers of the story should be asked in interviews.
Interview interaction
Emerson and Frosh (2004: 26) argue that the power between the interviewer and
participants should be balanced well in interview practice. While interviewing
places the interviewer in a powerful position to ask …
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One thing you will need to do in college is learn how to find and use references. References support your ideas. College-level work must be supported by research. You are expected to do that for this paper. You will research
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3 The first thing I would do in the family’s first session is develop a genogram of the family to get an idea of all the individuals who play a major role in Linda’s life. After establishing where each member is in relation to the family
A Health in All Policies approach
Note: The requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. At a minimum
Chen
Read Connecting Communities and Complexity: A Case Study in Creating the Conditions for Transformational Change
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Use the bolded black section and sub-section titles below to organize your paper. For each section
Losinski forwarded the article on a priority basis to Mary Scott
Losinksi wanted details on use of the ED at CGH. He asked the administrative resident