This chapter reviews some of the major overarching philosophical approaches to qualitative inquiry and includes some historical background for each approach. Taking a “big picture” view, the chapter discusses postpositivism, constructivism, critical theory, feminism, and queer theory and offers a brief history of these approaches; considers the ontological, epistemological, and axiological assumptions on which they rest; and details some of their distinguishing features. In the last section, attention is turned to the future, identifying three overarching, interrelated, and contested issues with which the field is being confronted and will be compelled to address as it moves forward: retaining the rich diversity that has defined the field, the articulation of recognizable standards for qualitative research, and the commensurability of differing approaches.
When I was at Oxford in the 1950s, I encountered a situation in which I was forbidden by my religion (I was then a devout Catholic) to read one of the books on the curriculum, Paradise Lost.John Milton, his entire works, was on the Index of Forbidden Books. It was not, as you might suppose, because of the Protestant theology in Paradise Lost; it was because of Areopagitica, that mighty blast of the trumpet in favour of freedom of speech. Naturally the persecutors of Galileo felt vulnerable to the freedom of speech that promoted freedom of thought. Galileo lived long ago, but we are again living in an age of resurgent intolerance, amid demands from every side for respect for sectional belief systems, and attempts to silence exposure, mockery, discussion and dissent. The proposed creation of a criminal offence of inciting religious hatred is, I am afraid, part of this tsunami of attack on our tradition of free speech. The government's emollient description of the proposed Act tells us:
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