Historical Context

Qualitative research addresses specific psychosocial and cultural issues in context. Context refers to the external characteristics of the situation to be studied that are situated outside the individual, group, or even institution or community that are the focus of interest. Historical context refers to past conditions, which influence the present. Most social scientists would agree now that individual behavior is shaped by broader social, economic, political, and physical factors that interact with psychological characteristics in specific place and time. To understand these broader factors, which are influential in the present, it is important to know how they evolved and what shaped them.

The historical context refers to political, social, environmental, and cultural decisions or events occurring over time that can be described and linked to the situation under study. Political decisions might include policies that promote warfare, attempt to control population migration, eliminate of social welfare benefits, or decide to move or amalgamate a neighborhood hospital or to introduce a school voucher program—policies that all would have significant consequences for people with limited incomes or for those attempting to improve their life circumstances by crossing national borders to wealthier areas or whose efforts to improve their health and educational status are impaired. A critical perspective on historical context would examine those factors that have, over time, contributed to current situations marked by disparity, discrimination, or stigma. It would be impossible, for example, to ignore [Page 393]the history of slavery, plantation life, and manufacturing when considering the circumstances confronting impoverished African American families in the rural areas of the United States or in inner-city neighborhoods in the Northeast or Midwest. Understanding the differences, for example, in migration history and struggles of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans from the Mexican–U.S. border areas calls for understanding the political and economic history of the U.S. relationship with each of these countries, as well as understanding local differences in economic and other factors that may plan a role in these immigrants' current status.

Social conditions might include population decentralization as a consequence of neighborhood redevelopment or the transformation of clubs and bars from moderate cost to expensive, thus shifting the nature of the clientele with implications for social relationships among former and current users. Environmental history might include the development of large urban garbage dumps and unsuccessful efforts to remove them or the history of the environmental conditions promoting high rates of asthma. And cultural history might include the history of migration and resettlement of people of distinct national origins and stories about their efforts to preserve and reconstruct their lives through festivals, music, storytelling, dance, and other cultural manifestations.

Researchers who examine historical context must find ways of bounding the period of time they are considering. These ways may differ depending on whether researchers are considering relatively recent shifts, as in the case of illegal drug trends or the consequences of the destruction of public housing in Chicago, or long-term trends, as in the case of institutionalized discriminatory practices directed toward specific groups of minority students such as African Americans or Native Americans. Information on historical context may be found in archives, written histories, oral narratives of older residents and recent arrivals, and on the internet. As with any historical research, references and sources must be cross-checked and cross-validated before they are recorded as accurate. And, as with other forms of research, the theoretical perspectives, values, and biases of the researcher guide the reconstruction and portrayal of history and should be transparent.

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