Grounded Theory

This is a form of comparative analysis developed by some Chicago sociologists from the 1920s onward. Categorization of incidents and events begins tentatively, as if to test the robustness of the first level of understanding. Some incidents and events do not meet the criteria for placement in first-sweep categories. These items are retained and the categories reconsidered to see if all the items are justified in their inclusion. This process of iteration continues intermittently as new data are collected, and some of these new data are sought on the basis of absence and presence of items in the developing structure of categories. The aspiration is to devise, by analytic induction, a grounded theory of the action yet to be employed as a main methodology in ...