Lynn Butler-Kisber - Qualitative Inquiry: Thematic, Narrative and Arts-Informed Perspectives

Thematic, Narrative and Arts-Based Perspectives

Second Edition

This book is intended for graduate students at all stages in the qualitative inquiry process, and other researchers who are in search of ways to match the best possible perspectives and approaches to their research focus and questions. It will be helpful for professors involved in graduate supervision, as well as for other researchers in the field.

The content of the book emerged from my own research and graduate supervision and was shaped more specifically from my 20 years of teaching qualitative inquiry courses to graduate students in the Faculty of Education at McGill University. For 15 years I have been teaching a course entitled Interpretive Inquiry, which over the years has included a rich cross-section of students from dietetics, education, epidemiology, geography, law, nursing, physical and occupational therapy, and social work. It is a course that I proposed and developed because of a need expressed repeatedly by graduate students for a broader exposure to a variety of inquiry approaches and perspectives, and a more in-depth look at how to implement them.

The chapters which follow should help researchers from different disciplines to choose and match their inquiry approaches with their research questions, beliefs and assumptions, communicative abilities and passions (Patton, 2002), and defend the work they are doing. While a good number, but not all, of the examples contained in the chapters are drawn from my experiences with graduate students who are from education, the processes involved have been used effectively by researchers/graduate students in other areas (for example in criminology, epidemiology, geography, law, and social work) and I believe have currency regardless of the discipline.

Doing, reading and writing qualitative research are part of the same complex science and art. Each is an act of inquiry that aims at making meaning of the world. Although people often perceive these dimensions as discrete and disconnected, these three acts are interrelated and require many of the same skills, approaches, and attitudes. In each, we construct meanings, understandings, and interpretations about others behaviors or interpretations of events. (Brizuela, Stewart, Carrillo, & Berger, 2000, p. xi)

This book focuses on various approaches to inquiry and at the same time grounds these in the appropriate perspective(s) so that a researcher can argue convincingly for the approach taken, and explain clearly, rigorously, and convincingly how this has been done. It attempts to move away from the dichotomy that separates methods from the overall inquiry process, and to show the overlap and complexities that exist when trying to situate a study within a particular perspective. It provides the theoretical underpinnings that guide the various forms of inquiry including the newer, burgeoning arts-based approaches in qualitative work, and discusses some of the salient issues such as ethics, challenges, representation, and assessment criteria, and suggests strategies for addressing them. However, the main thrust of the book is to examine carefully a range of inquiry approaches, from the older, more traditional thematic approaches to the many and varied artful inquiry approaches that are helping to push the boundaries of research. It provides an overview that shows rather than just tells what is available for conducting the work. This book demonstrates how to choose these approaches appropriately and, most importantly, explains with examples how to rationalize and carry out the processes.

A reasonable question that should be addressed when writing the second edition of a book is, what has been changed. I will briefly outline the changes that have been made to update the work and to respond to helpful suggestions that were made when the 2010 edition was reviewed before work on the second edition commenced.

lays out the landscape of qualitative inquiry. It traces the evolution of qualitative research, gives an overview of world views and discusses the importance of situating oneself epistemologically and ontologically in the research process. It presents a typology for thinking about qualitative research on which this book is based, and outlines how the book is organized and the rationale for this. It concludes with a section on how I situate myself in my research.