Ethnographic Method and

Grounded Theory

Ethnography

What is Ethnography?
Ethnography is the study of social interactions, behaviors, and perceptions that occur
within groups, teams, organizations, and communities. Its roots can be traced back to
anthropological studies of small, rural (and often remote) societies that were undertaken
in the early 1900s, when researchers such as Bronislaw Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-
Brown participated in these societies over long periods and documented their social
arrangements and belief systems. This approach was later adopted by members of the
Chicago School of Sociology (for example, Everett Hughes, Robert Park, Louis Wirth)
and applied to a variety of urban settings in their studies of social life.

The central aim of ethnography is to provide rich, holistic insights into people’s views
and actions, as well as the nature (that is, sights, sounds) of the location they inhabit,
through the collection of detailed observations and interviews. As Hammersley states,
“The task [of ethnographers] is to document the culture, the perspectives and practices, of
the people in these settings. The aim is to ‘get inside’ the way each group of people sees
the world.”

Features of Ethnographic research

1. People's actions and accounts are studied in everyday contexts, rather than under
conditions created by the researcher such as in experimental setups or in highly structured
interview situations. In other words, research takes place ‘in the field’.

2. Data are gathered from a range of sources, including documentary evidence of various
kinds, but participant observation and/or relatively informal conversations are usually the
main ones.

3. Data collection is, for the most part, relatively ‘unstructured’, in two senses. First, it
does not involve following through a fixed and detailed research design specified at the
start. Second, the categories that are used for interpreting what people say or do are not
built into the data collection process through the use of observation schedules or
questionnaires. Instead, they are generated out of the process of data analysis.

4. The focus is usually on a few cases, generally fairly small-scale, perhaps a single
setting or group of people. This is to facilitate in-depth study.

5. The analysis of data involves interpretation of the meanings, functions, and

consequences of human actions and institutional practices, and how these are implicated
in local, and perhaps also wider, contexts. What are produced, for the most part, are
verbal descriptions, explanations, and theories; quantification and statistical analysis play
a subordinate role at most.

The ethnographic method is called participant-observation. It is undertaken as open-

ended inductive long-term living with and among the people to be studied, the sole
purpose of which is to achieve an understanding of local knowledge, values, and
practices ‘from the “native’s point of view”. The task of the ethnographer is to
contextualize insight of local values and practices within wider local significations, and
to render them probable; to show how theirs is a meaningful alternative as a way of life.
That is the be-all and end-all of anthropology and, as such, central to disciplinary
identity.

By Fatima Shehzadi
Forms of Ethnography
There are different forms of ethnography: confessional ethnography; life history; feminist
ethnography etc. Two popular forms of ethnography are realist ethnography and critical
ethnography.

Realist ethnography
It is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists. Characterized by Van
Maanen (1988), it reflects a particular instance taken by the researcher toward the
individual being studied. It's an objective study of the situation. It's composed from a
third person's perspective by getting the data from the members on the site. The
ethnographer stays as omniscient correspondent of actualities out of sight. The realist
reports information in a measured style ostensibly uncontaminated by individual
predisposition, political objectives, and judgment. The analyst will give a detailed report
of the everyday life of the individuals under study. The ethnographer also uses standard
categories for cultural description (e.g., family life, communication network). The
ethnographer produces the participant's views through closely edited quotations and has
the final word on how the culture is to be interpreted and presented.

Critical ethnography
It is a kind of ethnographic research in which the creators advocate for the liberation of
groups which are marginalized in society. Critical researchers typically are politically
minded people who look to take a stand of opposition to inequality and domination. For
example, a critical ethnographer might study schools that provide privileges to certain
types of students, or counseling practices that serve to overlook the needs of
underrepresented groups. The important components of a critical ethnographer are to
incorporate a value-laden introduction, empower people by giving them more authority,
challenging the status quo, and addressing concerns about power and control. A critical
ethnographer will study issues of power, empowerment, inequality, inequity, dominance,
repression, hegemony, and victimization.

Procedures for conducting ethnography

 Determine if ethnography is the most appropriate design to use to study the

research problem.
 Then identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study. This group is one whose
members have been together for an extended period of time, so that their shared
language, patterns of behavior and attitudes have merged into discernible patterns.
  Select cultural themes, issues or theories to study about the group.
 For studying cultural concepts, determine which type of ethnography to use.
 Should collect information in the context or setting where the group works or
lives. This is called fieldwork. Types of information typically needed in
ethnography are collected by going to the research site, respecting the daily lives
of individuals at the site and collecting a wide variety of materials.
 From the many sources collected, the ethnographer analyzes the data for a
description of the culture-sharing group, themes that emerge from the group and
an overall interpretation.
 Forge a working set of rules or generalizations as to how the culture-sharing group
works as the final product of this analysis. The final product is a holistic cultural
portrait of the group that incorporates the views of the participants as well as the
views of the researcher. It might also advocate for the needs of the group or
suggest changes in society.

Ethnography, which is a method dedicated entirely to field work, is aimed at gaining a

deeper insight of a certain people's knowledge and social culture.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages of Ethnography
Ethnography's advantages are:

 It can open up certain experiences during group research that other research methods
fail to cover.
 Notions that are taken for granted can be highlighted and confronted.
 Provides comprehensive perspective
 Observes behaviors in their natural environments
 Accounts for the complexity of group behaviors, reveal interrelationships among
multifaceted dimensions of group interactions, and provide context for behaviors
 Helps to know more about other cultures
 Provide comprehensive perspectives.

Disadvantages of Ethnography

 Deep expertise is required: Ethnographers must accumulate knowledge about the

methods and domains of interest, which can take considerable training and time.
 Sensitivity: The ethnographer is an outsider and must exercise discretion and caution
to avoid offending, alienating or harming those being observed.
 Access: Negotiating access to field sites and participants can be time-consuming and
difficult. Secretive or guarded organizations may require different approaches in order
for researchers to succeed.
 Duration and cost: Research can involve prolonged time in the field, particularly
because building trust with participants is usually necessary for obtaining rich data.
 Bias: Ethnographers bring their own experience to bear in pursuing questions to ask
and reviewing data, which can lead to biases in directions of inquiry and analysis.
 Descriptive approach: Ethnography relies heavily on storytelling and the presentation
of critical incidents, which is inevitably selective and viewed as a weakness by those
used to the scientific approaches of hypothesis testing, quantification and replication.

BY AMBAR NOOR
Grounded Theory

What is Grounded Theory?

According to Charmaz:

"Grounded theory refers to a set of systematic inductive methods for conducting

qualitative research aimed toward theory development. The
term grounded theory denotes dual referents:

(a) a method consisting of flexible methodological strategies and

(b) the products of this type of inquiry.

Increasingly, researchers use the term to mean the methods of inquiry for collecting and,
in particular, analyzing data. The methodological strategies of grounded theory are aimed
to construct middle-level theories directly from data analysis. The inductive theoretical
thrust of these methods is central to their logic. The resulting analyses build their power
on strong empirical foundations. These analyses provide focused, abstract,
conceptual theories that explain the studied empirical phenomena.

Grounded theory has considerable significance because it

(a) provides explicit, sequential guidelines for conducting qualitative research;

(b) offers specific strategies for handling the analytic phases of inquiry;
(c) streamlines and integrates data collection and analysis;
(d) advances conceptual analysis of qualitative data; and
(e) legitimizes qualitative research as scientific inquiry. Grounded theory methods have
earned their place as a standard social research method and have influenced researchers
from varied disciplines and professions.

Grounded theory is quite different from the traditional model of research, where the
researcher chooses an existing theoretical framework, and only then collects data to show
how the theory does or does not apply to the phenomenon under study.
Grounded theory is a general methodology, a way of thinking about and conceptualizing
data. It focuses on the studies of diverse populations from areas like remarriage after
divorce (Cauhape, 1983) and Professional Socialization (Broadhed, 1983). The grounded
theory method was developed by two sociologists, Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss.
Their collaboration in research on dying hospital patients led them to write Awareness of
Dying in 1965. In this research they developed the constant comparative method, later
known as grounded theory method. There were three main purposes behind the
publication of The Discovery of Grounded Theory:
 1. Rationale of the theory to be grounded is that this theory helps close the gap
between theory and empirical research.
2. Helped in suggesting the logic of grounded theories.
3. This book helped to legitimize careful qualitative research. This was seen to be the
most important goal because, by the 1960s, quantitative research methods had
taken an upper hand in the fields of research and qualitative methods were not
seen as adequate methods of verification.
This theory mainly came into existence when there was a wave of criticism towards the
fundamentalist and structuralist theories that were deductive and speculative in nature.

By Samavia Shahid
GROUNDED THEORY METHODS

APPROACHES:
Grounded theory has 2 approaches:
 Systematic approach
 Constructivist approach
SYSTEMATIC APPROACHES:

Systematic approach had given by Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998). In

which they explain a process, action or an interaction on a topic. Researcher conduct
several interviews to collect intervening data to saturate the categories or find information
that continues to add to them until no more can find.
CONSTRUCTIVE APPROACH:

Constructivist approach had given by Charmaz (2005, 2006). In which

social constructivist perspective that includes emphasizing diverse local worlds, multiple
realities, and complexities of particular world, views and action.

SYSTEMATIC METHODS OF GROUNDED THEORY:

The Systematic methods of grounded theory are following:
 Research question
 Data collection
 Note taking
 Data analysis
 Memos and theoretical sampling
 Memoing
 Sorting
 Writing

Research question:
Will grounded theory answer your research question?
Grounded theory used when there are no existing theories or limited theory regarding the
process of interest.
For example:
No theories about the process of becoming a regular smoker while in high school
/college.
Data collection:
Data can be collected by many ways:
 One is by the interviews. In the interviews, we ask the typical questions
 Other ways by which we take data i-e documents, observations, audio-visual
materials.
 Take 20-30 interviews or sometimes 50-60 interviews for gathering enough
information to fully develop the model.
 Zigzag process
out to the field(gather information)
Into the field (analyze the data)
Back to the field (gather more information), then into the office and so far.
Constant comparative:
The process of taking information from data collection and
compare it to the emerging categories.

 Note taking:
After data collection, note down the key issues.

 Data analysis:
After collecting the data the step which comes is data analyze.
Category:

It represents a unit of information composed of events, happenings and

instances.
 Open coding
 Axial coding
 Selective coding
Open coding:
First stage is analysis. In which, read transcripts and determine different
categories that are in the category.
Second stage is constant comparative analysis. In which researchers constantly compare
data to the categories to determine consistency in coding the data.
Open coding finish when there are no new categories coming from the data.
In short, open coding finds the categories.
Axial coding:
Researchers use codes and memos to show how categories relate to each
other. It forms the theory. Researchers look for the categories that may be the central
phenomenon (central category about the phenomenon), casual conditions (categories of
conditions that influence the phenomenon), specific strategies (take action in response to
the core phenomenon), intervening conditions (broad and specific situational factors)
and consequences (the outcomes of the strategies).these categories connect with each
other.
Coding /logic paradigm:
Visual model to explain how the process works.
In short, it finds the link between the categories.
Selective coding:
Researcher writes a story about how the theory explains the core process. Overall
explanation of the theory.
In short, it finds the core category.

 Memoing:
Write down the ideas about the evolving theory throughout the process of open, axial and
selective coding. It may be tested for its empirical verification with quantitative data to
determine. It can be generalize to a sample and population. End of this point is the
generation of a theory as the goal of the research.

 Memos and theoretical notes:

The process of data collection and of analysis is usually ongoing throughout a grounded
theory study.

 Sorting:
It begins as soon as further data that emerge from the study add little to the emerging
theory

 Writing:
The report of guided by the sorting of data above ground theory.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF GROUNDED THEORY
Advantages
 It encourages systematic detailed analysis of the data and provides a method for
doing so.
 It gives researcher ample evidence to back up their claims.
 It is especially useful for describing repeated process e.g. the communication
process between nurses and patients or the communication process between
information system analysts and users.
 Theory is continually tested through constant comparison.
 Data collection is guided by theoretical sampling.
 Highlights the agency and the responsibility of the researcher.
 Potential to conceptualize systematic approach to data analysis.
 Provides for data depth and richness.
 Early data analysis.
 It allows the researcher to become immersed in the data at a detailed level.
 Bring data into focus and depth.
 Build theory i-e descriptive, abstract, and powerful.
 Helps us understand attitudes, cultures, meanings, and other non objective aspects
of situation.
 Good for complex problems with lots of parameters.
 Good where there is low degree of control (e.g. parameters)

Disadvantages
 First time users can get overwhelmed at the coding level.
 Open coding takes a long time.
 Tension between ‘’cookbooks’’ and ‘’emergence’’.
 It is not an easy method and time consuming.
 It can be confusing (e.g. difficult to create good research questions)
 It can be difficult to get access to a good case.
 Inadequate for comparing two thesis.
 Difficult to gain findings.
 Reviewing the literature without developing assumptions.
 Multiple approaches to GT.
 Limited Generalizability (“generalization is an act of reasoning that involves
drawing broad conclusions from particular instances that is making inference
about the unobserved based on the observed”. The issue of generalization is less
frequently discussed in qualitative research, and is considered complicated and
controversial.)
. From Aeman Hidayat
Differences Between Grounded Theory and Ethnography
Grounded Theory: Grounded theory is a methodology that involves developing theory through
the analysis of data.

Ethnography: Ethnography is the detailed and systematic study of people and cultures.

Purpose

Grounded Theory: Grounded theory aims to develop theories in relation to the collected data.

Ethnography: Ethnography aims to understand a particular culture or community.

Review of Literature

Grounded Theory: Researchers don’t consult literature before analyzing data since it may
influence their findings.

Ethnography: Ethnographers can consult literature before starting the field work.

Sampling

Grounded Theory: Theoretical sampling technique is used since it assists in developing theory.

Ethnography: Purposive sampling method is used since the study emphasizes on a particular
aspect of culture.

Similarities between Grounded Theory and Ethnography

Although, the two methodologies hold a number of differences; however, here we will also be
discussing about the similarities between the two methodologies. Firstly, in both methodologies,
the researcher studies the phenomenon in its natural context and uses a holistic approach to study
the phenomenon. Secondly, in both the methodologies more than one data collected approach is
adopted as it helps the researcher in providing multiple interpretations and also enhances the
accuracy and credibility of the research study. The third similarity between the two
methodologies is that; the researcher presents the reports from the perspective of participant who
have experienced the phenomenon in the natural setting. Excerpts from the interviews, stories of
participants are added to the report which enhances the overall richness of the research findings.

In conclusion it can be said that selection of one of these two methodologies is dependent on the
research questions of the study and the on the basis of similarities and differences discussed in
this article.
GT is very suitable if you have unlimited access to your sample or data site. In GT you collect
data, analyze it, formulate a "theory", go back to the field and test it by collecting more data, then
analyze and theorize again. You repeat the cycle until you reach saturation and this marks the
end of your research and you reach a theory which is grounded in the data. So the sample
selection is different, it is theoretical meaning you choose the sample that could help your theory
and allow the multiple iteration. The analysis is this case has to start without priori lists and you
can learn more about GT by referring to Karen Locke "Grounded Theory in Management
Research" 2005, which is a relatively easy read as opposed to Glasser or Strauss and Corbin.
Good luck

 Grounded theory and ethnography are useful in qualitative studies in various social
science fields. They are both systematic and inductive approaches in exploring
cultural phenomena. However, grounded theory is firmly based on symbolic
interaction with a new theory as an end result while ethnography has several forms
with more holistic views. The following discussions further tackle such distinctions.

Philosophical Perspective

Grounded theory is greatly influenced by symbolic interaction which seeks to gain more
knowledge about the world by looking into how humans interact, specifically with the
use of symbols such as language. On the other hand, ethnography is more holistic in
approach and is not often assessed regarding philosophical standpoints.

General Aim

The general aim of grounded theory is to study emerging patterns which lead to a theory
while that of ethnography is to gain rich and holistic generalizations of a group’s
behavior and their location.

Proponent

Grounded theory is credited to American sociologists, Barney Glaser, and Anselm

Strauss while ethnography’s concept development is attributed to Gerhard Friedrich
Muller while the first known modern ethnographer is Bernardino de Sahagun.

Forms

Grounded theory has no distinct forms while ethnography has several which includes life
history, feminist, and confessional; two of its common forms are realist and critical.

Methods
The usual steps in grounded theory research are data collection and review, theme
coding, categorizing codes, and theory conceptualization while those of ethnography are
population identification, theme selection, ethnography type specification, data collection
and analysis, and generalizations.

Advantages

The advantages of grounded theory include high ecological validity, novelty, and
parsimony. Regarding ethnography, the benefits include addressing unpopular or ignored
issues, and providing avenues for ethnographer’s creativity.

Disadvantages

The criticisms of grounded theory include its being misunderstood as a “theory”, its
vague notion of being “grounded”, and some have misgivings regarding its claim to
develop inductive knowledge. The disadvantages of ethnography include the risk for bias
since the ethnographer’s intuitions are tapped, its long duration and high cost since it may
take time to establish trust with the participants, and some groups may be difficult to
access.

BY FATIMA SHEHZADI

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