Karen O'Reilly is Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University. She has taught and applied qualitative research methods for many years in several countries. For her research, she has spent over 20 years on and off living amongst and learning from British people who move abroad in search of a better way of life. Sociologically this has informed work on a broad range of themes, including: ethnicity, identity and community; nations and nationalism; home and belonging; social exclusion; the informal economy; tourism-related migration; and friends and networks. Her main interests remain in the fields of contemporary forms of mobility and their implications for sociological problems, and ethnographic and grounded theory methods. Karen is author of Ethnographic Methods (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2012); Key Concepts in Ethnography (Sage, 2009); and International Migration and Social Theory (Palgrave, 2012). In Ethnographic Methods she has specifically drawn attention to the compatibility of grounded theory approaches with ethnographic analysis. [Karen O'Reilly's web page]
The course is designed for those wanting to understand and to apply the grounded theory approach to the collection and analysis of qualitative data. The course is also relevant to those using other methods (eg. ethnography, interviews, creative methods) who wish to understand the logic and application of Grounded Theory and how it might relate to their own work. It will provide a step-by-step guide to those new to the field as well as explicating the philosophical underpinnings and development of the approach. Because grounded theory is essentially an inductive approach, the course is most suitable for those who have not yet begun, or are in the early stages of, data collection. However, those with previously-collected data will also find the course useful for application at the analysis stage as well as for future projects. We will be mainly referring to the approach developed by Strauss and Corbin and, more recently, by Kathy Charmaz, and will draw on examples from the fields of social science. However, the course takes a broad-brush approach to grounded theory and to the ways in which it might be relevant at various stages of a project rather than trying to force participants to fit a given model.
The course is applied and practical. Participants will (in groups) employ techniques of initial open, focused, and theoretical coding; memo writing; and development of categories.
Course objectives: By the end of the course participants should: understand the philosophical underpinnings of the grounded theory approach; have a critical awareness of relevant forms of data collection; understand and be in a position to apply iterative-inductive research design; be equipped to record observational and interview data and analyse them using techniques of coding and memo writing; understand the logic of theoretical sampling; take a critical and creative approach to the relationship of grounded theory to other methodologies; and have a critical awareness of the role of theory in research informed by a grounded theory approach.
The course is introductory but intensive, rapidly taking participants from a beginner's to an advanced level. Some prior familiarity with qualitative methods and a background knowledge of philosophy of social science is required. Participants should be aware that the practical decisions to be made when considering grounded theory in their research are necessarily theoretically-informed and will vary with each practitioner's orientation. The course aims to equip participants with the knowledge required to make those decisions for themselves in practice.