Using a Qualitative Approach

¶ … negative life outcomes for inner city children, in terms of their physical, psychological, emotional, and social growth. My research will attempt to determine the extent to which crime, lack of strong public schools, the prevalence of single-mother households, and other environmental conditions have an impact upon child development. My dissertation will take a qualitative, grounded theory approach. In the grounded theory approach, a theory about the study participants' experience is created inductively, rather than deductively. In other words, I will interview my study subjects and by coding their responses to semi-structured inquiries, I will develop a theory based upon those responses regarding the experiences of childhood development in inner cities.

My subjects will be drawn from schools which are located within urban areas and have had challenges regarding student academic performance and dropout rates. Students, parents, and teachers from these representative communities will be interviewed. With the grounded theory approach, "as the researcher begins to gather data, core theoretical concept(s) are identified. Tentative linkages are developed between the theoretical core concepts and the data. This early phase of the research tends to be very open and can take months" (Trochim 2006). Although the variables I will initially be focusing on pertain to crime rates, schooling, and parenthood, it is possible, using this approach that other significant variables may emerge to which I should be open. Unlike a quantitative method, where the variables are already determined before the researcher has begun, the qualitative method is more flexible in this regard.

The qualitative method also allows subjects to speak for themselves to a greater degree. Rather than subjecting research subjects to a questionnaire with limited responses, semi-structured interviews allow research subjects to offer their unique, personal perspective to the researcher. Quite often, when research has been conducted on disenfranchised members of society, there is a tendency to objectify them and to now allow the subjects' ground's eye view of their circumstances from a personal perspective infiltrate the work. A qualitative approach because of its focus on narrative vs. statistical analysis, is better apt to allow for individual voices to be heard.