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Notes on Editors and Contributors

EDITORS

Uwe Flick, is Professor of Empirical Social and Nursing Research (Qualitative Methods) at the Alice Salomon
University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany and Adjunct Professor at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland at St. John’s, Canada. Research interests are qualitative methods, social representations and
health. He is author of several books and articles on qualitative research including An Introduction to
Qualitative Research (Sage, Second edition, 2002) and The Psychology of the Social (Cambridge University
Press, 1998).

Ernst von Kardorff, is Professor of the sociology of rehabilitation at Humboldt University in Berlin. Research
interests are living and coping with chronic illness, the role of partners and volunteer organizations and quali-
tative methods. Publications include, with C. Schönberger, Mit dem, kranken Partner leben (Living with a Chronically
Ill Partner) (Opladen, 2003).

Ines Steinke, Dr. Phil. works in industry in areas such as market- and marketing psychology and usability and
design-management research and teaching in qualitative research, general psychology and youth research.
Publications include: Kriterien qualitativer Forschung. Ansätze zur Bewertung qualitativ-empirijscher Sozial-
forschung (Criteria of Qualitative Research: Approaches for Assessing Qualitative-Empirical Social Research)
(Weinheim, 1999).

CONTRIBUTORS

Bauer, Martin, Ph.D., born 1959, Lecturer, Department of Social Psychology and Methodology Institute,
London School of Economics. Research interests: New technologies, qualitative methods, social representa-
tions, resistance in social processes.

Bergmann, Jörg R., Prof. Dr., Dipl.-Psych., born 1946, University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Sociology. Research
interests: Qualitative methods, new media, communication in everyday life and in complex work situations.

Böhm, Andreas, Dr. phil., born 1955, Federal Office of Health, Brandenburg. Research interests:
Epidemiology, children’s health, qualitative methods.

Bohnsack, Ralf, Prof. Dr. rer. soz., Dr. phil. habil, Dipl. Soz., born 1948, Free University of Berlin, Faculty of
Education and Psychology. Research interests: Qualitative methods, sociology of knowledge, youth research,
deviance.

Bude, Heinz, Prof. Dr. phil., born 1954, University of Kassel and Hamburg Institute of Social Research.
Research interests: Research on generations, exclusion and entrepreneurs.

Denzin, Norman K., Prof., Ph.D., born 1941, College of Communications Scholar, Distinguished Research
Professor of Communications, Sociology, Cinema Studies and Humanities, University of Illinois, Institute of
Communications Research. Research interests: Cultural studies, interpretative research, media and ethnic
groups.

Eberle, Thomas S., Prof. Dr., born 1950, Sociological Seminar, University of St Gallen (Switzerland).
Research interests: Phenomenological sociology, sociology of knowledge, sociology of culture.
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x NOTES ON EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Erzberger, Christian, Dr. born 1956, Society for Innovative Social Research and Social Planning (GISS),
Bremen. Research interests: Quantitative and qualitative methods in empirical social research, analysis of
sequential patterns, evaluation.

Fischer-Rosenthal, Wolfram, Prof. Dr., born 1946, University of Kassel, Faculty of Social Work. Research
interests: Qualitative case reconstruction (of biographical structures), sociology of knowledge, analyses of
interactions (especially of professional activities).

Fleck, Christian, ao. Univ. Prof., Dr. phil., born 1954, University of Graz. Research interests: Sociology of
science, history of empirical social research and of institutions of social sciences.

Gildemeister, Regine, Prof. Dr. phil. habil., Dipl. Soz., born 1949, Institute of Sociology, Eberhard-Karls-
University of Tübingen. Research interests: Mode of social construction of gender, sociology of professions,
qualitative methods.

Harper, Douglas, Prof. Ph.D., born 1948, Duquesne University, Chair and Professor, Sociology Department;
Co-Director: Center for Social and Public Policy. Research interests: Visual sociology, sociology of culture,
sociological theory.

Hermanns, Harry, Prof. Dr. rer. pol., born 1947, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. Research interests:
Study reform, especially multimedia-based learning, qualitative methods.

Hildenbrand, Bruno, Prof. Dr. rer. soc., born 1948, Institute of Sociology, Friedrich Schiller-University of
Jena. Research interests: Structure of professional activities (in therapy and in children’s and adolescents’ ser-
vices), change of structures in rural areas, case reconstructive methods in social sciences.

Hitzler, Ronald, Prof. Dr., born 1950, Chair of General Sociology, University of Dortmund. Research inter-
ests: Phenomenology, dramatological anthropology, hermeneutic sociology of knowledge.

Honer, Anne, Dr., born 1951, Faculty of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz. Research interests:
Sociology of knowledge and culture, phenomenology, ethnography/qualitative research.

Hopf, Christel, Prof. Dr., born 1942, Institute for Social Sciences, University of Hildesheim. Research interests:
Methods of empirical research, especially qualitative methods, research on socialization, political sociology.

Kelle, Udo, Dr., born 1960, Institute of Interdisciplinary Gerontology, University of Vechta. Research interests:
Methodology of empirical research, sociological theory of action, life course research, especially sociology of ageing.

Knoblauch, Hubert, Prof. Dr., born 1959, Institute for Sociology, Technical University of Berlin. Research
interests: General sociology, sociology of religion and knowledge, qualitative methods.

König, Hans-Dieter, Prof. Dr. phil., born 1950, freelance psychoanalyst in Dortmund, teaches sociology and
social psychology at the University of Frankfurt/Main. Research interests: Psychoanalytic research into culture
and biography, theory of socialization, methods of hermeneutic research.

Kowal, Sabine, Prof. Dr., born 1944, Apl. Professor of General Linguistics, esp. Psycholinguistics, Technical
University of Berlin, Institute for Linguistics. Research interests: Conversation analysis, transcription, rhetoric.

Lincoln, Yvonna S., Prof., born 1944, Program director of the Higher Education Program, Texas A&M
University, Faculty of Educational Administration. Research interests: Higher education administration and
leadership, qualitative research methods, program evaluation.

Lindner, Rolf, Prof. Dr. phil, Dipl. Soz., born 1945, Professor of European Ethnology, Institute for European
Ethnology, Humboldt-University of Berlin. Research interests: Ethnology of the city, science research, cultural studies.
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NOTES ON EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xi

Luckmann, Thomas, Prof. Ph.D., born 1927, University of Konstanz, Research interests: Sociology of knowledge,
phenomenology, communication.

Lüders, Christian, Dr., born 1953, Deutsches Jugendinstitut, Director of the Department ‘Youth and Youth
Support’. Research interests: Qualitative research, children’s and adolescents’ services, social pedagogy.

Marotzki, Winfried, Prof. Dr. habil., born 1950, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg. Research inter-
ests: Qualitative research, theory of education (philosophy of education), Internet research.

Matt, Eduard, Dr. rer. soc., born 1955, lives and works in Bremen. Research interests: Sociology of youth,
criminology, sociology of knowledge and culture.

Mayring, Philipp, Prof. Dr., born 1952, Institute of Psychology, University of Klagenfurt/Austria. Research
interests: Qualitative methods (content analysis, evaluation), developmental psychology (gerontology), educa-
tional psychology (emotion and learning, virtual media), mixed methodologies.

Meier, Christoph, born 1963, Fraunhofer Institute of Work Economics and Organisation, Stuttgart.
Research interests: Tele-cooperation, team development in distributed organizations, analysis of (technically
mediated) processes of communications, qualitative methods (ethnography, conversation analysis).

Meinefeld, Werner, apl. Prof. Dr., born 1948, Institute of Sociology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Research interests: Epistemology, methods of empirical research, university research.

Merkens, Hans, Prof. Dr., born 1937, Free University of Berlin, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Institute
for General Education. Research interests: Youth research, organizational learning and development of orga-
nizational cultures, educational institutions.

Métraux, Alexandre, Dr. phil., born 1945, Member of the Otto Selz Institute at the University of
Mannheim. Research interests: History of sciences, especially brain and nerves research between 1750 and
1950, epistemology, research on scientific media.

Nadig, Maya, Prof. Dr. phil., born 1946, Professor of Ethnology, Bremen Institute for Cultural Research,
Faculty of Cultural Sciences at the University of Bremen. Research interests: Ethnopsychoanalysis, gender rela-
tions, cultural identity and transcultural processes.

O’Connell, Daniel C., Prof., born 1928, Prof. of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Loyola University of
Chicago. Research interests: Temporal organization of speaking, transcription, dialogue.

Ohlbrecht, Heike, Dipl. Soz., born 1970, Institute for Rehabilitation, Humboldt-University of Berlin.
Research interests: Qualitative methods, family sociology, coping with chronic illness in adolescence.

Parker, Ian, Prof., Ph.D., BA (Hons.), born 1956, Professor of Psychology, Manchester Metropolitan University,
Discourse Unit, Department of Psychology and Speech Pathology. Research interests: Marxism, language,
psychoanalysis.

Reichertz, Jo, Prof. Dr., born 1949, Professor of Communication, University of Essen. Research interests:
Qualitative research, sociology of knowledge in the context of text and image hermeneutics, sociology of
culture.

Reichmayr, Johannes, Prof. Dr. phil., born 1947, Lecturer in Psychology, esp. Psychoanalysis. Institute for
Psychology, Department of Social Psychology at Faculty of Cultural Sciences of the University of Klagenfurt.
Research interests: Ethnopsychoanalysis, history of the psychoanalytic movement..

Rosenstiel, Lutz von, Prof. Dr. Dr. hc., born 1938, Institute for Psychology, University of Munich. Research
interests: Leadership, socialization in organizations, motivation and volition.
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xii NOTES ON EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Rosenthal, Gabriele, Prof. Dr., born 1954, Professor of Qualitative Methods at the Georg-August University
of Göttingen, Center for Methods in Social Sciences. Research interests: Interpretative sociology, biographical
research, sociology of families.

Schmidt, Christiane, Dr. phil., born 1951, University of Hildesheim, Institute for Applied Linguistics.
Research interests: Subjective coping with experiences with (networks of) computers, evaluation of Internet-
based seminars, qualitative methods of observation and interviewing.

Soeffner, Hans-Georg, Prof. Dr., born 1939, University of Konstanz, Chair of General Sociology. Research
interests: Sociology of culture, anthropology of culture (communication, knowledge, media, religion, law).

Willems, Herbert, PD Dr. phil., M.A., Dipl. Päd., born 1956, currently Professor of the Sociology of Culture
at the Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen. Research interests: Sociological theories and methods, everyday
culture, mass media.

Winter, Rainer, Prof. Dr., born 1960, psychologist (Diplom) and sociologist (M.A., Dr. phil., Dr. habil.),
Professor of Media- and Culture Theories, University of Klagenfurt. Research interests: Sociological theories,
sociology of globalization, qualitative methods, media and culture analysis.

Wolff, Stephan, Prof. Dr., born 1947, University of Hildesheim, Institute for Social Pedagogy. Research
interests: Applied organization research, qualitative methods, cultural anthropology.
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Preface
Qualitative research is a growing and ever more diverse field. The continuous
development of new approaches, new methods and new techniques results in a
wider and wider diversity in the literature – in books, in journals and on the
Internet. Students, as well as experienced researchers, will find it increasingly
difficult to keep up with these developments and with the range of methodological
alternatives available for doing their own research projects. The Companion to
Qualitative Research seeks to highlight and illustrate connections, common ground
and differences in the heterogeneous developments of qualitative research. It
intends to give readers a representative overview of the current landscape of
qualitative research with its epistemological roots, its main theoretical principles, its
methodological bases and the development of its procedures, and also to offer an
impression of trends for further development. To achieve this, themes from current
debates in the German- and English-speaking worlds have been brought together,
so that the Companion takes a wider, international perspective on qualitative
research with authors from Continental Europe, Britain and North America.
At the outset, the Companion presents examples of how qualitative research
operates in action, using descriptions of the research style of various scholars who
have had major impacts on this field or are particularly instructive in their way of
doing research. This first part of the book is intended to explain the unique
contribution that qualitative research has made to the acquisition of achieving
knowledge in the social sciences, to theory construction and to methodology.
The theory of qualitative research is explained by presenting the most important
background theories, which are illustrated using examples from selected areas of
interest for qualitative research. Issues of methodology and qualitative research are
central to the next part of the Companion, where issues of research design,
epistemology and evaluation of methodological procedures and results are
outlined.
The major part of this Companion is devoted to the presentation of the most
important methods currently used for doing qualitative research. Practice in the
collection and interpretation of qualitative research data therefore occupies a
central place in the book.
The concluding part looks at qualitative research in context. Contributions are
included on research ethics, on teaching and on the application of qualitative
research, as well as critical reflections on the status and future prospects of
qualitative research.
This Companion is intended for students of a variety of disciplines where
qualitative research is applied. For this reason, we have appended a separate
part on resources which includes recommendations for further reading from
introductory works and classic textbooks of qualitative research, and also offers lists
of journals and current Internet sources. The Companion is also intended for those
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xiv P R E FA C E

who teach social sciences and, finally, should also be a useful reference work for
qualitative researchers in universities and in professional practice. It is not intended
to replace a course book of qualitative research. Nor should it be seen as a ‘recipe
book’ to be used as the sole aid in setting up a concrete piece of research. It seeks,
rather, to provide orientation, background knowledge and reflection and to give
information about current trends and developments. Each contribution offers
suggestions for further reading.

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our warmest thanks to all the authors for their contributions
and for their willingness to rewrite and revise them.
Also, we would like to thank the people who have supported the development
of this book over the years, especially Michael Carmichael and Patrick Brindle at
Sage and Burghard König at Rowohlt.

Uwe Flick, Ernst von Kardorff and Ines Steinke