Grounded Theory

Development of the Grounded Theory Method

The originators of grounded theory, Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss (1967), sought to develop a systematic set of procedures to analyze qualitative data. They intended to construct theoretical analyses of social processes that offered abstract understandings of them. Their first statement of the method, The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967), provided a powerful argument that legitimized qualitative research as a credible methodological approach, rather than simply as a precursor for developing quantitative instruments. At that time, reliance on quantification with its roots in a narrow POSITIVISM dominated and diminished the significance of qualitative research. Glaser and Strauss proposed that systematic qualitative analysis had its own logic and could generate theory. Their work contributed to revitalizing qualitative research and maintaining the ethnographic traditions of Chicago school sociology. They intended to move qualitative inquiry beyond descriptive studies into the realm of explanatory theoretical frameworks, thereby providing abstract, conceptual understanding of the studied phenomena. For them, this abstract understanding contrasted with armchair and logico-deductive theorizing because a grounded theory contained the following characteristics: a close fit with the data, usefulness, density, durability, modifiability, and explanatory power (Glaser, 1978, 1992; Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

Grounded theory combined Strauss's Chicago school intellectual roots in pragmatism and symbolic interactionism with Glaser's rigorous quantitative methodological training at Columbia University with Paul Lazarsfeld. Strauss brought notions of agency, emergence, meaning, and the pragmatist study of action to grounded theory. Glaser employed his analytic skills to codify qualitative analysis. They shared a keen interest in studying social processes. They developed a means of generating substantive theory by invoking methodological strategies to explicate fundamental social or social psychological processes within a social setting or a particular experience such as having a chronic illness. The subsequent grounded theory aimed to understand the studied process, demonstrate the causes and conditions under which it emerged and varied, and explain its consequences. Glaser and Strauss's logic led them to formal theorizing as they studied generic processes across substantive areas and refined their emerging theories through seeking relevant data in varied settings.

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