Qualitative approaches to research in psychology and the social sciences are increasingly used. The variety of approaches incorporates different epistemologies, theoretical traditions and practices with associated analysis techniques spanning a range of theoretical and empirical frameworks. Despite the increase in mixed method approaches it is unusual for qualitative methods to be used in combination with each other. The Pluralism in Qualitative Research project (PQR) was developed in order to investigate the benefits and creative tensions of integrating diverse qualitative approaches. Among other objectives it seeks to interrogate the contributions and impact of researchers and methods on data analysis. The article presents our pluralistic analysis of a single semi-structured interview transcript. Analyses were carried out by different researchers using grounded theory, Foucauldian discourse analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis and narrative analysis. We discuss the variation and agreement in the analysis of the data. The implications of the findings on the conduct, writing and presentation of qualitative research are discussed.K E Y W O R D S : mixed methods, pluralism, qualitative research, rigour, subjectivity, transparencyPluralism in qualitative research: the impact of different researchers and qualitative approaches on the analysis of qualitative data This article builds on the first author's previous work (Frost, 2006(Frost, , 2009) on exploring the use of within-method pluralistic approaches to qualitative research. We present findings from a study that was developed to explore acrossmethod pluralistic approaches to qualitative research, the Pluralism in Qualitative Research (PQR) study. The study employed four data analysts to use one of four widely used qualitative analysis techniques to analyse one semistructured interview transcript. The four qualitative analysis methods employed were grounded theory (GT), interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) and narrative analysis (NA). These were chosen because they reflect four of the more commonly used approaches to qualitative research in the social sciences and are the particular areas of analysis specialized in at several of the institutions from which the research assistants were recruited. One purpose of our study was to explore what meanings could be made from the same data analysed by four different people using four different analytical lenses. To examine this in detail we also studied the researcher impact on the data analysis and our findings in this area are presented in this article.Before introducing the study in more detail we develop the concept of pluralism in qualitative research and briefly outline the four approaches that were used in the study.
Pluralism in qualitative researchQualitative research encompasses a wide range of approaches and also encompasses the mixing of those approaches (e.g. Dicks et al., 2006;Moran-Ellis et al., 2006). There is a range of advice about which metho...
Progress in the implementation of children's participation rights in England is reviewed and situated within a broader agenda of social change. The article argues that much of the energy for 'change for children' has resided within a governance pathway across policy, practice and research. An alternative perspective is offered by re-connecting children's rights debates to those of social movements and asking whether childhood publics are possible, what they might look like and where they might be found. It is concluded that a cross-national and longitudinal perspective grounded in everyday life is likely to provide a more nuanced understanding of change for children.
The dismantling of the welfare state across the United Kingdom (and indeed a number of other Western industrialised democracies, such as Canada and the United States) and the reductions to welfare provisions and entitlements are having a detrimental impact on women's equality and safety. Towers and Walby argue that the recent cuts to welfare provision in the United Kingdom, particularly for women's services, could lead to increased levels of violence for women and girls. This paper makes the argument that female victims of domestic abuse experience violence on two levels: first, at the intimate/personal level through their relationship with an abuser and, second, at a structural level, through the state failing to provide adequate protection and provision for women who have experienced violence in intimate relationships. Using a specific example of post-violence community services delivered to both the children of women who have experienced domestic violence and the women themselves, this paper draws on empirical research carried out in 2010–2011 with London-based third-sector and public sector organisations delivering the Against Violence and Abuse Project ‘Community Group Programme’. We argue that the lack of services for women involved in, or exiting, a violent relationship can amount to state-sanctioned violence, if funding is withheld, or indeed, stretched to breaking point.
The paper offers an analytical exploration and points of connection between the categories of activism, childhood and everyday life. We are concerned with the lived experiences of activism and childhood broadly defined and especially with the ways in which people become aware, access, orient themselves to, and act on issues of common concern; in other words what connects people to activism. The paper engages with childhood in particular because childhood remains resolutely excluded from practices of public life and because engaging with activism from the marginalized position of children’s everyday lives provides an opportunity to think about the everyday, lived experiences of activism. Occupying a space ‘before method’, the paper engages with autobiographical narratives of growing up in the Communist left in the USA and the historical events of occupying Greek schools in the 1990s. These recounted experiences offer an opportunity to disrupt powerful categories currently in circulation for thinking about activism and childhood. Based on the analysis it is argued that future research on the intersections of activism, childhood and everyday life would benefit from exploring the spatial and temporal dimension of activism, to make visible the unfolding biographical projects of activists and movements alike, while also engaging with the emotional configurations of activists’ lives and what matters to activists, children and adults alike.
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