Emergent Themes

Emergent themes are a basic building block of inductive approaches to qualitative social science research and are derived from the lifeworlds of research participants through the process of coding. Inductive approaches exist within positivist, postpositivist, and social constructionist paradigms. Some qualitative researchers believe that emergent themes are part of the process that leads to generalizable theories of human society, whereas others use emergent themes to provide rich and detailed insight into the micro and meso levels of intersubjective experience. Themes emerge from the close analysis of any data source, including fieldnotes, ethnographic and reflective memos, interview transcripts, and various print, visual, and digital media.

To prepare to develop themes from research data, researchers often start by engaging with the data through interactive reading, which facilitates the analysts' connection with the data. An accompanying practice is memo writing, which may range from personal notes, to methodological observations, to analytic formulations, with their main purpose being to enrich subsequent analysis. Another practice involves a process of abstraction—creating categories from the complexity of the data. Researchers should avoid the temptation of forcing preestablished distinctions onto the data. Emergent themes must be grounded both empirically (in the data) and conceptually (linked to the wider analytic context).

The actual process of theming entails a bit-by-bit or line-by-line coding. As analysts group bits of data, they need to be “attentive” enough to allow redefinition, reduction, subdivision, or expansion of themes as the analysis proceeds. Emergent theming formalizes analytic connections among pieces of data but does not constitute the end of analysis. Having identified themes, analysts then must assemble them to establish substantive connections. Looking for patterns in the data, identifying regularities or irregularities, constitutes an important activity in making substantial connections.

Grounded theory, in both its positivist formulations (e.g., work by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss) and its constructivist reframing (e.g., work by Kathy Charmaz), is strongly committed to inductive analysis and emergent themes. Grounded theory encompasses a core set of analytic strategies beginning with open coding and followed by an iterative process between theoretical sampling and constant comparison of data among and within emergent categories. The goal is to reach saturation, a point at which no further insight can be gained through additional data analysis. Researchers engage in writing memos to explore emerging theoretical ideas that will facilitate the development of themes (also called conceptual models). There is disagreement as to the role of theoretical influence prior to the research process. In the strictest sense, themes may [Page 249]emerge from data regardless of researchers' theoretical biases so long as a grounded theory methodology is adhered to rigidly. This position has been critiqued by constructivist scholars who argue that theoretical bias is inevitable and, therefore, must be considered as themes are developed.