Professional Documents
Culture Documents
doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcr064
Advance Access publication May 22, 2011
*
Correspondence to Carolyn Oliver, School of Social Work, 2080 West Mall, The University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada. E-mail: carolyn@carolynoliver.com
Abstract
This article explores the potential for grounded theory to be adapted for use within a
critical realist paradigm. Critical realism can provide a solid philosophical framework
for social work research, but its lack of connection to a familiar research methodology
may be limiting its application. Grounded theory is one of the most widely used and
well-described methodologies in the social sciences. Its recent adaptation by constructivist and critical researchers demonstrates the ways in which concerns about the methodologys empiricism, individualism and focus on induction might be resolved to meet the
needs of critical realist inquiry. Critical realism and grounded theory then become highly
compatible, sharing a focus on abduction and commitment to fallibilism and the interconnectedness of practice and theory. Attending to evidence and meaning, individual
agency and social structure, theory-building and the pursuit of practical emancipatory
goals, the resulting approach is ideally suited to social work research.
Keywords: Critical realism, grounded theory, research approach, methodology
Introduction
Critical realism offers a solid philosophical base for social work research
(Houston, 2001), but, more than thirty years after the publication of its
seminal works (Bhaskar, 1978, 1986, 1989), it has had limited influence
on our discipline. This may be due to the inaccessible language of many
of its texts, written from a philosophy of science perspective and seemingly
disconnected from daily practice (Pratt, 1995). It may also be due to the lack
Carolyn Oliver is a social worker who researches and teaches in the child welfare field in
Vancouver, Canada.
Critical realism
Roy Bhaskar founded critical realism in the 1970s and this article draws primarily on his early works prior to the dialectical and spiritual writings that
many see as distracting from the philosophys core ideas (Potter, 2006).
A key feature of critical realism is the rejection of the epistemic fallacy
(Bhaskar, 1978, p. 36) which conflates reality with our knowledge of it.
To claim objective truth for ones statements is to lay ones cards on the
table, to expose oneself to the possibility of refutation. It is to make clear
one is talking about something . . . this makes it possible for others to
point out features of that something that are not as claimed, and hence to
disprove your opinion (Collier, 1994, pp. 13 14).
The reality envisaged by Bhaskar is a complex, multi-layered, multicausal web of interacting forces, much like that experienced in social
work practice. Bhaskar proposes that our social world operates in a
similar way to the natural world, where phenomena can be broken down
into progressively more basic stratified layers. A structure is the inner composition making each object what it is and not something else (Danermark
et al., 2002, p. 47). It is a particular combination of internally and necessarily
related objects that acts as a generative mechanism (Bhaskar, 1978) for
phenomena at a higher ontological level. All phenomena can be explained
in part by, but not reduced to, their underlying generative mechanisms. This
means that a clients abusive behaviour towards his spouse may be generated in part by his interrelated beliefs about power and control, which
may be generated in part by broader social discourses, which, in turn,
emerge from the intersection of oppressive political and economic structures. In our complex social world, multiple causal mechanisms, including
the interpretations of each situation made by each individual, constantly
interact with, negate and reinforce each other. Generative mechanisms
are neither determinative nor all-explaining. Our client may change his behaviour if any number of competing causal mechanisms (a social workers
Bhaskar would see the poverty, disability and violence experienced by our
clients not merely as part of their narrative or a function of our beliefs about
them, but as present whether or not we and our clients choose to acknowledge them. Critical realism presupposes an objective reality which exists
independently of our thoughts and whose discovery is one purpose of
knowledge acquisition. However, it also holds that all description of that
reality is mediated through the filters of language, meaning-making and
social context. It is impossible to step outside our own perspectivism and
so the gap between the real world and our knowledge of it can never be
closed. This does not imply that all beliefs are equally valid in the sense
that there are no rational grounds for preferring one to another
(Bhaskar, 1986, p. 72) or that we must descend to the abyss of relativism
(Taylor and White, 2001, p. 53) which threatens social works moral
purpose (Clark, 2006). While reality cannot be known for sure, it can be
described with better or worse, truer or less true, accounts. Our assessments
of our clients lives will never be our clients lives or capture all the nuances
of their experience, but most social workers can tell the difference between
a well-informed accurate account and its reverse. The obligation to search
for the account that comes closest to approximating and explaining what is
real provides the moral impetus for inquiry:
intervention? a newly found stake in the political system?) get in the way.
Rejecting simple linear causality, critical realism describes a social world
in which there are multiple opportunities for intervention and change.
What does this mean for knowledge? The continuous interplay of generative mechanisms and the looping relationship between ideation and reality
(Hacking, 1999) make our social reality shifting and unpredictable. All
knowledge must then be seen as tentative and fallible. This reflects the
ambiguity at the heart of a social work endeavour in which even the most
actuarial risk assessment tools fall short of providing predictive certainty
(Callahan and Swift, 2006) and good practice requires the humility to
listen to other perspectives and to abandon our own in the face of countervailing evidence. The best we can hope for is to uncover approximate evidence of tendencies rather than proofs allowing prediction as in open
systems counter-instances do not disprove the operation of a tendency,
since counter-tendencies exist and it cannot be predicted which will
prevail (Collier, 1994, p. 210). These tendencies reflect patterns that may
occur naturally or may be the result of mental models and social institutions
we develop to induce a state of quasi-closure on our reality. It is these
regularities that provide the stability on which we base judgements and
take action in an ever-changing world (Downward et al., 2002).
Critical realists seek vertical explanations which link events and experiences to their underlying generative mechanisms rather than their antecedent events and experiences. Bhaskar distinguishes between the empirical
domain, the actual domain of events occurring whether or not we experience them and the underlying real domain of structures generating those
events. We come to understand the real and actual domains by inferring
from their experienced effects. Social workers do this every time we
assess simply from a clients behaviour that she has suffered trauma; we
do not need to witness the traumatic event itself. Critical realism provides
a theoretical framework that allows this examination of rationally deduced
phenomena below the level of Humeian sense-data at which positivist and
post-positivist science traditionally stops. It allows the theorising to go
beyond what is immediately knowable but maintains an obligation to test
that theorising in the crucible of real-world experience and against competing theories. We must seek empirical evidence for any emergent ideas about
our clients trauma history to check whether this or alternative theories best
explains how she acts. The goal is the best available empirically supported
account that renders intelligible more of the phenomena in question than
competing explanations (Will, 1980).
Critical realism has an explicit emancipatory goal and provides a framework wherein surface appearances may be challenged by examination of
the structures that generate them: Social science does not only bring into
view beliefs, their falsehood and their causal relations with the social structure; it also reveals human needs, their frustration, and the relation of those
needs and that frustration to the social structure (Collier, 1994, p. 182). An
Grounded theory
Grounded theory is a research methodology whose purpose is the systematic development of theory. Originating with the work of Glaser and Strauss
(1967), it is now one of the most widely used qualitative methodologies in
the social sciences (Strauss and Corbin, 1997) and identified as particularly
relevant to social work (Gilgun, 1994). While there are significant differences in how grounded theory has evolved under different epistemological
paradigms, all approaches share core characteristics. The methodology
developed in reaction to the dominant deductive method of
mid-twentieth-century science, whereby hypotheses derived from theory
were tested empirically. Grounded theory aimed instead to develop new
theory inductively through a process of concurrent data collection and
analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The researcher immediately analyses
and codes incoming data (Glaser, 1978) and, in a process called theoretical
sampling, chooses new data sources for their potential to develop emergent
analytical insights. Memos written throughout the study capture the
researchers internal analytic dialogue, prompt reflexivity and become
further data for coding and analysis.
Early detailed coding of every data line or event is intended to break
open the data to consider all possible meanings (Corbin and Strauss,
2008, p. 59) and to move the researcher away from her preconceptions.
The researcher progressively links codes into higher-level categories or conceptual themes. This conceptual development relies on a process of constant comparative analysis whereby the researcher compares information
between and within categories to interrogate how the properties and dimensions of each category vary under different conditions (Glaser and Strauss,
1967). A researcher interested in the behaviour of abused children may
identify a group of references within her data that she codes avoiding
detection. Comparing each of these references to each other and to
other conceptual categories helps her to describe the circumstances in
which the participants take action to avoid detection, how, when and why
their actions to avoid detection vary and thus to describe in greater detail
the limits and use of the concept. The outcome of this progressively abstract
analysis is a description of the relationships between conceptual categories
and their synthesis into a theory explaining the maximum amount of variation within the issue of concern.
Retroduction
Retroduction is the central tool of critical realist inquiry. It means asking of
observed phenomena the transcendental question what must be true for
this to be the case? before abstracting potential causal mechanisms and
seeking empirical evidence for the abstractions (Bhaskar, 1986). It involves
the reflexivity about theoretical positioning and recurrent iterative movement between theory and evidence seen by many as central to social
work knowledge (Sheppard, 1998; Taylor and White, 2001). While it has
been proposed as a methodology in its own right (Sarre, 1987), a lack of
practice examples supports situating the retroductive technique within a
more familiar research approach.
The tension between retroduction and grounded theorys traditional
reliance on induction must be resolved before grounded theory can be
used as a critical realist methodology. Critical realists have objected that
causal mechanisms do not speak for themselves (which is one of the
stops when you dont think you have missed much of anything. You think
these are the most important elements. (Of course there are many others,
but they dont seem to make a difference to the stories you would tell)
(Clarke, 2003, p. 571). It is a small stretch from this to seeing saturation
as the point in a critical realist study at which the theory arising from
inquiry has, for the time being, greater explanatory power than its rivals.
The third requirement of a critical realist methodology is that it embraces
epistemic relativism or the idea that there are many ways of knowing. Critical realist studies have tended to use mixed-method approaches, typically
using statistical analysis to ascertain patterns or regularities in empirical
phenomena, and then qualitative inquiry to probe for depth explanation
(Kazi, 2003). However, an alternative strategy is to use multiple data collection and analysis approaches within the framework of grounded theory.
A central tenet of grounded theory is all is data (Glaser, 1998) and,
although it is commonly characterised as a qualitative methodology,
Glaser and Strauss (1967) perceived it to be a general method. It is entirely
possible for grounded theory studies to mix quantitative and qualitative
data (Fernandez et al., 2007; Glaser, 1999). Even wholly qualitative
studies typically use multiple data sources and combine interviews, observation and textual analysis. This enables triangulation for reasons that
appear contradictory within traditional paradigms but which become coherent when seen from a critical realist perspective (McEvoy and Richards,
2006). Triangulation can examine convergence on, and tentative confirmation of, a real tendency. At the same time, it offers more complete understanding by bringing together the information gained from different
perspectives and prompting interrogation of emergent contradictions
(Olsen, 2004).
points where realists part company with grounded theory), active thought
experimentation is needed before research even begins (Hart et al., 2004,
p. 166). Before constructivists redeveloped the method for their own
ends, grounded theorys ambivalence about any analytical slant that
might force the data through preconceived conceptual frameworks
(Glaser, 1998) made it ill-suited to a critical realism relying on theory to
propose generative mechanisms for observed phenomena. Most contemporary grounded theorists, however, now see the method as proceeding
either by a pattern of reverberating induction fostering deduction and so
forth (Glaser, 1998, p. 43) or by abduction. Abduction is not new to
grounded theory; it was described as the route to knowledge by Charles
Sanders Peirce, whose Pragmatist ideas heavily influenced early symbolic
interactionist strains of the methodology (Peirce, 1992). However, in their
efforts to develop a more flexible approach, constructivists have increasingly emphasised abduction as its key epistemological strategy. Abduction
entails considering all possible theoretical explanations for the data,
framing hypotheses for each possible explanation, checking them empirically by examining data and pursuing the most plausible explanation
(Charmaz, 2006, p. 188).
The shift from pure induction to abduction means that grounded theory
now typically accommodates researchers pre-existing theoretical knowledge, hunches and hypotheses as necessary points of departure
(Charmaz, 2006, p. 17) and building blocks for the development of more
abstract theory. The only caveat is that the researcher be transparent
about any starting position and consider it provisional, tentative and
likely to be replaced as inquiry proceeds (Corbin and Strauss, 2008).
Many grounded theorists are now explicit about the theories on which
they draw when proposing possible hypotheses for observed patterns and
relationships. Some draw on these theories in response to emergent patterns in their data, while others detach their conceptualisation entirely
from participants concerns, analysing for gender and identity issues even
if these issues are not important to participants (Clarke, 2009). Active
thought experimentation is increasingly acknowledged as central to the
design and conduct of grounded theory studies, as our findings are a
product of data plus what the researcher brings to the analysis (Corbin
and Strauss, 2008, p. 33).
Retroduction is simply abduction with a specific question in mind. A critical realist grounded theory would ask of the data what must be true for this
to be the case? or what makes this possible? and seek an explanation in
generative mechanisms at a deeper ontological level. This is no stretch
for a methodology that already encourages researchers to ask what are
the larger structural issues here and how do these events play into or
effect what I am seeing? (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Critical realist
studies draw on theory to seek all possible vertical explanations for a
phenomenon. It is this vertical analysis that would be the distinguishing
provide data for analysis, analytical perspectives from which to view the
data and the context for individual action.
The goal of critical realist grounded theory is explanatory theory tracing
the line of a tendency from its deepest known generative mechanism to its
realised effect in an open social system. Critical realists seek contextualised
explanations achieved by first describing and conceptualizing the properties and causal mechanisms generating and enabling events . . . and then
describing how different mechanisms manifest themselves under specific
conditions (Danermark et al., 2002, p. 76). This fits with grounded
theorys analytical process whereby the properties and dimensions of conceptual categories are developed through attention to context and the cognitive work of constant comparative analysis. The resulting theory answers
the critical realist question what works for whom in what circumstances?
(Pawson and Tilley, 1997, p. 210) and does double duty as a proximal
description of regularity in the real world and as a stabilising metaphor to
guide action (Downward et al., 2002). Grounded theory has long produced
these types of contextualised plausible accounts (Charmaz, 2006) whose
intent is to have practical consequences by providing a language for joint
action (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). The methodology moves the researcher
beyond the rich description and giving voice typical of other methodologies that only hold up a mirror to the experiences of others. It presents
the act of conceptualisation as potentially transformative as a theory can
alter your viewpoint and change your consciousness. Through it you can
see the world from a different vantage point and create new meanings of
it (Charmaz, 2006, p. 128). Thus, grounded theory embodies the intimate
relationship between theory and practice envisaged by critical realism:
the practical importance of theory is that a theory can reform a practice.
Theory is the growing point of a practice (Collier, 1994, p. 15).
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Dr Richard Sullivan, Dr Grant Charles and Dr Deborah
OConnor for your teaching and support.
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