In this part of the summary we will look at some of the philosophical ideas that have shaped the practice and development of qualitative research.

What is positivism?

In the early nineteenth century, positivism was the modern scientific outlook replacing the dominant supernatural ways of thinking about the world. It became a comprehensive view of the nature of science and the relationships between the various sciences. Between 1920 and 1930 the most influential version of positivism developed, called logical positivism or logical empiricism. This movement took natural science as the only model for inquiry and knowledge.

What were the consequences of physics being logical positivisms model for science?

Logical positivism generally took physics as its model for science, which had several consequences.  First of all, scientific knowledge was seen as general and abstract in form. It consisted of laws that capture relations operating across all times and places. Historical change and cultural variation were treated as mere appearances that could be explained only by analysis of underlying, universal causal relations. Secondly, all knowledge had to be grounded in sense experience that is subjected to methodical control. This showed itself in rigorous measurement of phenomena, the use of experimental control variables to test hypotheses, and explicit procedures (procedural objectivity).

What is empiricism in relation to positivism and what were its consequences?

Empiricism was central to positivism and referred to a refusal to extend knowledge claims beyond those that could be fully supported by evidence of this kind. Knowledge was thought to only be available at the level of the description of physical behavior, causing any appeal to intentions, attitudes, thoughts, social institutions, etc., to be beyond the reach of analysis. If analysis was possible, it had to be limited to questions for which the necessary kind of evidence would be available. Speculation had to be avoided at all times.

What is interpretivism?

Interpretivism argues that if we want to study the social world well, we need to use our human capacity to understand other human beings. This human capacity refers to factors such as empathy, shared experience, and culture. The social world cannot completely be explained in the same way as the behavior of physical objects can be explained. People actively interpret their environment and themselves and the way in which they do that is shaped by the culture in which they live. Distinctive cultural orientations influence what people believe and what they do. Without understanding peoples interpretations it is impossible to understand why people do what they do, and why certain institutions exist and why they operate the way they do. To be able to understand this, procedural objectivity cannot be used and instead we must draw upon our own social experience and capacity for learning.

What is ‘the critical tradition’?

The critical tradition doesn’t only identify causal patterns or document other people’s perspectives and practices, but also evaluates the phenomena it studies. This tradition states that other cultures can only be understood within the framework of a global theory that locates them in a wider social system and/or a larger process of historical development that has been well theorized. They say that people’s behavior will need to be explained by factors outside of their awareness, because they awareness will have been distorted by social processes. The researchers from this tradition are mostly interested in forms of social division surrounding gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and disability. Their research is usually geared to serving political goals and operates within a framework of political assumptions.

What is constructionism?

Constructionism tends to refer to a range of different ideas, but to begin with two core assumptions can be identified:

• Rejection of any idea that cognition, or even perception, is a process whereby objects and their characteristics, existing in the world, impress themselves upon our understanding. Perception and cognition are active processes in which anything apparently ‘given’ is actually a product of processes of selection and construction.
• These processes are socio-cultural in character. Different cultures generate different experiential worlds and knowledge. It may never be possible to completely understand other people, or even oneself. Multiple, incommensurable interpretations are often generated and often also exist within the same contexts.

Why does constructionalism involve a re-specification of the goal of scientific inquiry?

Constructionalism states that the character and content of any knowledge reflects the nature of the construction process, including the characteristics of the researcher. Knowledge can then never completely correspond with the intrinsic character of a set of independently existing objects. The task of scientific inquiry can then no longer be to document the features of such existing object, because they simply owe their existence and their ‘character’ to the constitutive processes that generated them. Instead, the focus of the study must be those processes themselves. An example is to look at character traits. Instead of examining them as if they were intrinsic to their personalities, constructionalists would examine the discursive practices through which people are characterized as something.

How does constructionalism view social phenomena and social worlds?

Constructionalists don’t believe that social phenomena are constructed through the perceptual and cognitive dispositions of people who each individually and independently make sense of their environment. Instead, social worlds are viewed as being constructed through shared processes of communication and social interaction. These processes are constitutive of the character of social phenomena, instead of the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of individuals.

What is social constructionism?

Social constructionism examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. Human beings are said to rationalize their experience by creating models of the social world and share and reify these models through language. Two examples of how social constructionism relates to qualitative research are given. Firstly, a focus on studying the methods or practices through which people collectively construct their shared worlds. Secondly, all researchers are implicated in the processes whereby social phenomena are constructed and they cannot escape this.

Which factors can be identified that played a role in the upcoming of constructionism?

• The work of the philosopher Thomas Kuhn. He laid and emphasis on the social and cultural character of natural science research. He denied there being a process of logically derived knowledge from empirical evidence. Instead, new knowledge relies upon concepts shared within research communities existing in particular times and places, concepts that are open-ended in character but anchored by exemplary studies recognized as such by the relevant community. Natural scientific knowledge gradually accumulates, with errors being corrected and new discoveries adding to further knowledge.
• The movements of twentieth-century thought referred to as structuralism and post-structuralism. Structuralism implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. One idea central to structuralism is that signs are not natural in character, but matters of cultural convention and arbitrary. All reality is constructed in and through social and discursive practices.

Concluding remarks on the methodological philosophies that have shaped qualitative research

• Positivism was a major influence on quantitative research, thought it also shaped qualitative work as well.
• Interpretivism has been among the most important sets of ideas underpinning qualitative enquiry. It stresses cultural difference while insisting that understanding can take place across cultures. Some forms of interpretivism proposed an alternative conception of rigorous inquiry to that ascribed to natural science by positivism, while other forms rejected any idea of reliance on methods (especially scientific methods).
• Critical philosophy shares some features with positivism and interpretivism, but differs in its emphasis on the need for a comprehensive theoretical framework, explicit social critique and inevitability of political engagement.
• Constructionism recommends the careful documentation of how particular social phenomena are culturally or interactionally constructed in particular places at particular times. Some more radical forms of Constructionism turn the notion of construction back on qualitative research itself, saying that the accounts it produces can claim no more epistemic authority than any others.