Forum: Qualitative Social Research  

Henning Salling Olesen

The thematic issue presents a psycho-societal approach to qualitative empirical research in several areas of everyday social life. It is an approach which integrates a theory of subjectivity and an interpretation methodology which integrates hermeneutic e... see more

Henning Salling Olesen,Kirsten Weber

The article is a guided tour to Alfred LORENZER's proposal for an "in-depth hermeneutic" cultural analysis methodology which was launched in an environment with an almost complete split between social sciences and psychology/psychoanalysis. It presents th... see more

Thomas Leithäuser

Alfred LORENZER belongs to those few psychoanalysts, who did understand psychoanalysis not only in clinical therapy, clinical thinking and research but also as a social science. In the perspective of LORENZER the individual fundamentally could not be take... see more

Christine Morgenroth

The group discussion is a qualitative method perfectly suited for analyzing attitudes and opinions at the supra-individual level and tracing the process of how they emerge. Psychoanalytic group theories expand our understanding of group processes by addin... see more

Kirsten Weber

The article provides an example of psycho-societal analysis of work related learning. Initially a conceptual framework of learning and life experience is established drawing on Alfred LORENZER and Oskar NEGT, and the interactional development of psychoana... see more

Betina Dybbroe

Transformation of the welfare sectors challenge professional identities of care and welfare workers in Scandinavia. At the same time welfare and care workers take part in these changes and are changed in the psycho-social setting of the workplace. This ar... see more

Linda Lundgaard Andersen

The modern labour market has increasingly put the inner working life on the agenda. This stems from a number of societal changes: the knowledge society and its need of personalised competences and work investments in welfare services, the transformation f... see more

Wendy Hollway,Lynn Froggett

In this article, we draw on LORENZER's method in our analysis of a single case data extract derived from a research project generating data through the Tavistock Infant Observation tradition. The partial case analysis demonstrates our methodological appro... see more

Kristina Ackel-Eisnach,Caroline Müller

Communal engagement and co-operation in the field of education has become increasing important in the last few years. The goal is to expand the local educational landscapes by improving the quality of the educational programs. Therefore responsibilities, ... see more

Olga Galanova

It does not suffice to treat scandals only as supra-individual discourses on the macro level of  social communication. Rather we have to develop concrete methodical principles for the description of the practice of doing scandal in certain media. In ... see more

Pentti Haddington,Sami Frogell,Anna Grubert,Heidi Huhta,Pauli Jussila,Juha Kinnunen,Antti Korpela,Minna Lehto,Anna Marin,Juho Mäenpää,Lasse Mäkivuoti,Henna Raappana,Joonas Råman,Jaakko Saarela,Annariina Seppänen,Ilkka Suhonen,Johanna Vanhatapio,Lasse Vesisenaho

This article builds on GOFFMAN's work to study how pedestrians display their orientation to unusual events in public places. It focuses on the mobile and embodied conduct of those passing a smartmob event in which a performing group "froze" in a busy tran... see more

Maria Heckel,David Rester,Bernd Seeberger

In this article, we investigate the subjective significance of smell and taste for the elderly throughout the course of their lives. In a qualitative experiment 14 elderly people in four groups received selected smell and taste samples and were requested ... see more

Ronald Hitzler

Like dying and death, serious illnesses are catastrophes that befall human lives and relationships and radically call into question the tacit assumption that "things will go on like this for ever." As terrible as these catastrophes may be—not only for tho... see more

Laura Lane,Nancy Taber,Vera Woloshyn

This article explores our experiences with negotiating tensions when conducting research. As three female researchers in various stages of our academic careers, we describe our own reflexive accounts of the research process as we negotiated our roles and ... see more

Esperanza Morales-López

In this article I offer an analysis of professional speeches in a business context in which ideological proposals of an economic nature are defended, in particular, several speeches in which the Spanish Association of Renewable Energy Producers (APPA) res... see more

Charlotte Svendler Nielsen

The focus of this article is to give insights into how videography and phenomenological philosophy and methods (GENDLIN, 1997; TODRES, 2007; SHEETS-JOHNSTONE, 1999; VAN MANEN, 1990) are used in combination to explore how embodied learning as a phenomenon ... see more

Marina Richter

Transnational social spaces, as they are increasingly researched in various fields of scientific inquiry and specifically in the area of transnational migration, constitute a complex field of research. This complexity raises, apart from theoretical questi... see more

Marlen Niederberger,Michael Ruddat

Semi-structured interviews using interview schedules are quite common today in qualitative research. They are usually done in the form of face-to-face interviews. However, for some research questions, or under specific circumstances, telephone interviews ... see more

Kathryn Dawn Weaver,Kristine Martin-McDonald,Judith Spiers

The experiences of women with eating disorders and the meanings drawn from these experiences are largely hidden from health care professionals and thus are poorly represented in clinical and academic discourse. This study examined interpersonal relationsh... see more

Analia Elizabeth Leite Méndez,Jose Ignacio Rivas Flores,Pablo Cortés González,Claudio Nuñez

This article reports on the experience shared between an educative community of a primary school and a research group, both involved in the development of a project called "School Experience, Identity and Community. Researching Collaboratively in Order to... see more

Edward Tolhurst

The genesis and development of grounded theory method (GTM) is evaluated with reference to sociology's attempt to demarcate exclusive referents of inquiry. The links of objectivist GTM to positivistic terminology and to the natural scientific distinction ... see more

Jean-Francois Maheux,Wolff-Michael Roth

Qualitative research in education is organized and conducted around knowing something specific about teaching and learning: it is conducted in the search of knowledge. This attitude, LÉVINAS explains, poses an ethical challenge because it reduces the othe... see more

Susanne Bressan

How do extraordinary experiences, especially during childhood and adolescence, affect political attitudes? Most studies focusing on political movements only implicitly address the connection between biographical experiences and political attitudes. Moreov... see more

Kristina Hinrichsen

Classic Visual Anthropology has most recently undergone a shift in paradigm. The discipline is now increasingly focused on the collaboration between artists, anthropologists and ethnographers to surmount the rigid borders separating the fields of science ... see more

Rolf F.H. Schröder

Regional currencies have been in circulation in many parts of Germany for several years. The initiators of these projects consider these complementary monies as a significant contribution towards solving the social and ecological challenges of our time. T... see more

Rainer Schützeichel

"Professions" are work collaborations in which representatives of certain vocations address the life problems of "laypersons." In such relationships, adequate communication between representatives of the profession and laypersons is crucial in addressing ... see more