learn to use charmazian grounded theory with data from the

Learn to Use Charmazian

Grounded Theory With Data From

the Southern Oral History Program

© 2019 SAGE Publications, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

This PDF has been generated from SAGE Research Methods Datasets.

Learn to Use Charmazian

Grounded Theory With Data From

the Southern Oral History Program

Student Guide

Introduction

This example transcript introduces Charmazian grounded theory, an analytic

approach whereby researchers develop theory from data. That is, it begins with

an inductive phase that generates codes, condensed topics applied to textual

segments. Inductive reasoning refers to adopting a data-driven approach rather

than using a predetermined theory to guide our reasoning. The initial codes,

called open codes, are later elevated to higher level categories that are treated

deductively as we examine additional data to see whether these codes fit. Hence,

we collect data and review them closely, gradually drawing conclusions from what

we observe.

What Is Charmazian Grounded Theory?

Grounded theory originated in the 1960s with the work of sociologists Barney

Glaser and Anselm Strauss, but it has since been modified to include other

approaches such as a constructivist approach, developed by sociologist Kathy

Charmaz (Charmaz, 2014). Constructivism (here defined similarly to

constructionism) is a worldview positing that reality is co-constructed among

individuals in any given encounter. That is, we are always in the midst of a fluid,

negotiated reality. Reality as a construction shifts and takes different forms in each

individual’s interaction with others. This paradigm suggests that the researcher

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of 19 Learn to Use Charmazian Grounded Theory With Data From the Southern

Oral History Program

cannot be removed from the research encounter but is invariably a part of it. This

does not mean that researchers should impose their values onto an encounter

but that an attempt to listen and learn is perpetually shaped by the researcher’s

presence and analytic contribution.

Constructivist grounded theory is well suited to studies interested in actions,

processes, and interactions such as being transgender, becoming a soldier, or

becoming an immigrant. Though grounded theorists might embark on a literature

review, they do not rely on a conceptual framework to direct data collection or

analysis. Any topics gleaned from a literature review are “sensitizing concepts,”

not definitive codes (Charmaz, 2014, p. 30). Researchers are instead interested in

working inductively from the data. Inductive reasoning means that we begin with

data rather than with predetermined constructs. Constructivist grounded theory

typically involves intensive, in-depth interviewing but can be done with other

data types such as focus groups or personal diaries, as long as these data

provide rich narratives and sufficient evidence of a process. Researchers in this

tradition do not distinguish between a collection phase and analysis phase; rather,

analysis begins during early data collection with the researchers’ first thoughts and

hunches.

Grounded theorists use codes—condensed topics applied to pieces of data—to

take stock of what the data suggest about our research questions. Coding is a

generative process that focuses on a close reading of data in order to capture

the participants’ assumptions, insights, and rationales. Initially, researchers work

with open codes—inductive codes based on the language of the data—and

apply many codes to small pieces of data to identify, as best possible, the

insights and perceived world of the participant. This process may be done line

by line (for a subset of data), but researchers may choose sentences or other

contextual units as well. In making sense of process, initial codes are sometimes

gerunds—“ing” words that capture meaningful action or behavior (Charmaz, 2014)

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such as surrendering to loss or becoming disillusioned.

In open coding, hundreds of codes might be generated across the first several

transcripts. The inquiry then moves to focused coding, a shift from an abundance

of codes to targeted precision. In focused coding, the researcher selects open

codes that best fit the explicit and implicit meaning of the data (Charmaz, 2014)

to further develop conceptually. More specifically, we discern which codes have

the most analytical “reach” and apply them to the rest of the data as they are

collected (Charmaz, 2014, p. 141). Focused codes are developed in memos

where researchers elaborate upon their theoretical implications. This is a critical

step to understanding what a topic may contribute dimensionally to other codes.

Additional data become territory that we examine with the lens of our focused

codes. We continue theorizing the data in moving from constructing focused

codes to developing what we call “theoretical categories” or concepts. Examples

of theoretical concepts are limit, range, intensity, mutual effects, reciprocity, and

mutual dependency. These categories are not necessarily applied to quotations

per se but are developed in memos that refine how they fit the data across

participants.

Throughout the coding process, researchers use constant comparison. As they

proceed with coding, they review and compare quotations that seem to belong to

the same code or category. In taking on this task, we see that there are variations

within the code and are thereby able to discern its properties. This allows for

theoretical refinement but also forces us to stay close to the data, not to over-

interpret based on a still underdeveloped understanding of a code. As a mode

of rigor, constant comparison makes room for us to achieve a higher level of

abstraction (Charmaz, 2014) and can be used in generic qualitative approaches

as well. It is a means of precision and a way to avoid drift—losing our definitional

sense of a code over time because we have forgotten how it has been applied.

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Constructivist grounded theory often has a central category. Charmaz discusses

a central category as one that “made explicit what I had sensed and understood

but had not conceptualized” (2014, p. 146). The purpose of a central category

(or categories) is that it forces researchers to conceptualize what they have been

hearing across participants and across codes. It is a category that remains in

the foreground as others become supporting entities in the background. In other

versions of grounded theory, there are several primary categories but not a central

one.

Constructivist grounded theory attempts to make sense of a process from the

ground up, from the textured data to increasingly abstract theoretical codes and

categories. We do not anticipate what the theory will look like; we instead attend

to understanding how and whether the process unfolds. The data drive which

questions we ask, but examples include inquiry as to which contexts activate the

process, keep it in place, or destabilize it? These questions invite us to consider

structure, how processes and individuals are situated, and what processes look

like in motion—actions, reactions, and interactions. Because grounded theory

builds upon levels of abstraction, it uses constructed categories as provisional

concepts to be further refined by returning to the data. This means that

researchers do not just move forward into abstract territory, they also go backward

into the data itself. This is abduction—the shift from induction to deduction.

Researchers carefully examine the constructed categories and seek evidence

grounded in the data to establish links between abstractions and the data. They

also seek negative instances and incorporate these instances into more

overarching constructs. This conceptual elaboration increases the credibility and

reach of the theory. Because theory building is intended to explain a process,

researchers create products, such as diagrams, that condense their constructed

categories. A diagram helps show how the process functions across time or in

relation to types of participants.

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Theorists conclude their efforts when additional data do not offer refinement of the

theoretical categories, when additional data do not develop the category. This is

what we refer to as theoretical saturation, which signals a kind of closure, though

the theory will develop as others examine it perhaps using other methods, such

as surveys, scales, or other qualitative methods.

Illustrative Example: Being a Community Leader After a Hurricane

This example presents a constructivist grounded theory based on an interview of

a pastor, Bruce Allen, who served as a community leader after Hurricane Floyd in

Grifton, North Carolina, USA (1999). The interview activates a narrative showing

how a community leader such as Allen assists in recovery efforts in a region where

various degrees of property loss and damage were evident.

Research question: How do individuals experience living through a

hurricane?

The Data

The example uses a subset of data from the Southern Oral History Project

at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “Voices After the Deluge.”

Though this data collection was not conducted as grounded theory per se, the

interviewer does probe topics related to processes such as recovery and the

sustained aftermath of the flooding. The illustrative interview in this example

module is with Pastor Bruce Allen (May 31, 2001). In the dataset as a whole,

researchers conducted interviews (1999–2003) with numerous individuals—flood

victims, rescue workers, relief workers, ministers, farmers, farm workers, small-

business owners, environmental monitors, and political leaders. Topics include the

loss of human lives; disruptions to community; political response to the disaster at

local, state, and national levels; and public health and environmental issues.

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Analyzing the Data

In the first phase of analysis, open coding, we applied inductive codes to

fragments of the data—phrases, sentences, and other small textual units. In

this phase, we generated over 100 codes. Note that some of these codes are

somewhat theoretical, such as “secondary loss,” while others are less so. Note

also that some open codes are expressed as gerunds—“ing” words in order to

capture behavior and actions. Open codes invite us to generate many topics that

we can later review and cull as we attempt to become more focused on building

theory.

Example of Open Coding

The following example shows how numerous open codes were initially applied to

fragments of data.

Allen: I have to rely on other people who know specifics. How to get in touch with social security, how to get

in touch with FEMA, how to get in touch with these other—I don’t know. I’ve only been here three years, and I

don’t know how to get them in touch with those specific groups of individuals who can help them in specific

ways. My way of ministering to them is, again, primarily the passive counseling, which is giving them an

opportunity. We have groups who gather together once a month at our church, and they sit around in a circle.

For a long time all they did was cry. They would cry for an hour, and we’d reach out and hold their hand and

allow them to talk about what they were talking about. After a while—when I say after a while, I mean

months—they begin to smile a little bit. Some of them began to see that they were going somewhere. What I

primarily do is give them an opportunity to talk in a way where they are affirmed and loved and welcomed

and where they, in a group session at least, realize that they are not alone. Everyone in that circle can sit

there and nod their head and say, “I know what you are going through because I am going through that as

well.” That’s primarily what I do, and that’s what I feel that I’m led to do is to help them in counseling them

and helping them emotionally deal with what they’re going through—not to give them answers because I

don’t have the answers they need. Others can give them those answers, but what I can do is give them the

comfort they need to get through emotionally.

Managing

bureaucracy

Serving as a

liaison for

social

services

Creating

space for

support

groups

Crying as

therapy

Cycles of

sadness

Witnessing

crying

Delayed

expression

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of positive

emotions

Validating

others’

feelings

Experiencing

empathy

Experiencing

a mission

Providing

comfort, not

answers

In moving from open coding to focused coding, we selected codes that we

discerned would have the largest analytical reach. For example, codes such as

crying as therapy and providing comfort, not answers are perhaps too nuanced

to use in further coding. Other codes, such as experiencing empathy suggest a

greater analytic reach. The focused codes we decided upon were:

• acting on impulse

• active counseling

• attached to place

• avoiding burnout

• becoming desensitized to loss

• cannot undo what’s been done

• collective evaluating

• embodying loss

• empathy fatigue

• experiencing empathy

• experiencing survivor’s guilt

• gutting a house

• helplessness

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• holistic approach

• house vs. home

• managing bureaucracy

• objects of heightened value

• pride in community

• remembering vs. trying to forget

• resilience

• secondary loss

• sensory overload

• strategies for clean-up

• stuck means wallowing in that junk

• “things are out of control”

• transformed settings

• trying to control the chaos

• turning a corner

• unacknowledged normal

• vanishing home

• “we had been told”

Note that other researchers might use a different set of focused

codes—somewhat different language than we use here—but their codes would

share characteristics with ours and would likely capture notions of dealing with

emotions and an unpredictable environment.

Example of Focused Coding

As we review additional data, we would apply focused codes constructed after

the first phase of open coding. The following is an interview with Jenny, another

survivor. Rather than starting over with open coding, we instead use the focused

codes to see whether they have “reach” in other data. However, if new data

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suggest other topics, we would examine how they fit with the current codes.

Focused codes are typically applied more broadly, not just to a line or sentence.

Voices From the Deluge: Interview With Jenny

Memo Writing

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Memos are fertile ground for making sense of a focused code and defining

it based on nuanced accounts in the data. Memos can also be a place for

comparisons—comparing quotations, comparing transcripts, comparing codes. In

making comparisons, you will begin thinking across data. In doing so, your ideas

will become more theoretical. You will start explaining the variation in the data,

such as the different trajectories of those who lost property in the flood and those

who did not. Memos do not have to be conclusive; they are a place to sustain

inquiry and work through uncertainties as you gather more data and work toward

more solid evidence for theoretical connections.

Moving From Focused Codes to Categories

In developing theory, we construct increasingly abstract concepts that capture a

coherent theory. One technique to accomplish this is to elevate focused codes

to categories. A category is a higher level concept that helps tie together other

codes. Here is an example on a code memo for becoming desensitized to loss.

Memo Excerpt: Becoming Desensitized to Loss

When Allen cleans out the first house, he cries “long and hard.” By the

third house, he becomes so immune that he does not cry anymore.

Allen says that after a while you have to “harden yourself to a point, but

hopefully not so much that you get where you don’t care.” In dealing

with other volunteers, he comments on how they have to deal with

“sorrow and junk … seven days a week, far too many hours during the

day—I could look into their eyes and tell that they were shell-shocked.”

This sensory overload is related to becoming desensitized—a process

in which individuals reduce or eliminate undesirable emotional reactions

to the emerging chaos. The volunteers’ attempts to care too much has

led to burnout. Non-volunteers have a perhaps different path to

desensitization. One man says, “You know what, these people drive by

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this stuff all day long.” He said, “After a while … you just sort of look over

it.” When the landscape has been transformed into a region with trailers

still laying on their sides and homes that have been abandoned for

over a year, scars still evident after almost eighteen months, individuals

become accustomed to a new reality. Becoming desensitized to loss

seems to follow a trajectory from becoming aware of desensitization to

resisting the desensitization or surrendering to it. Allen resists burnout

because “there’s just something in me. I need to be involved. I want to

be involved in whatever way I can.” While others look “over” the chaos,

Allen continues to look “at” it.

In addition to elaborating on the code becoming desensitized to loss, the memo

allows us to build more theoretical ideas, such as becoming aware of

desensitization, resisting desensitization, and surrendering to desensitization. In

other words, we begin to see not just the meaning of a code but a trajectory that

we can further theorize.

In revisiting focused codes, researchers can move to grouping codes into clusters

to understand more fully the conceptual link among them. Clustering can show

relationships among attitudes and actions, contexts and actions, and actions and

consequences. For example, those who were not “flooded out” have a different

experience from those who were, but both groups experience a kind of emotional

saturation. Those who still have their homes might transition to feeling

desensitized whereas those who lost their homes might need to tell their story

over and over in order to reach acceptance of loss. Meanwhile, caregivers and

volunteers have their “batteries recharged” by active community engagement.

Theoretical Sampling

As we construct categories in our analysis, we might need further evidence for

how they fit a theory. For this reason, we would typically move to theoretical

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sampling, a form of sampling where we collect additional data to refine a category,

rather than sampling for a demographic characteristic. In this study, for example,

we would be interested in sampling for the category desensitized to the loss of

others and explore how and why others stop assisting in clean-up efforts. Our

objective here is to further elucidate the trajectory from sensitized to desensitized

to see whether and how individuals accepted loss and resolved their

circumstances.

Theoretical Coding

Theoretical codes elevate focused codes to a higher conceptual level. For

example, when we think more fully about desensitization and the repeated

attempts of clean-up, we see the routinization of a number of actions. For

example, when one survivor tells Allen that he wants to “‘show you the

photographs,’ and he told the story, and I know it was the thousandth time he

told that story,” he is aware that individuals do not just act, they perform the

same actions over and over. Hence, routinization of recovery becomes a possible

theoretical code. It is not a code that can be applied to a particular quotation.

Rather, it is a more abstract concept inscribed in the text. As Allen discusses

evidence of desensitization to loss and destruction and his own efforts to resist

desensitization, we see the change over time of how individuals—caregivers

as well as others—manage difficult emotions. As actions are repeated with

systematic regularity, we see the routinization of recovery efforts, such as the

monthly “Flood Talks.”

Another theoretical code is experiencing liminal spaces. Though Allen is a pastor

and has offered his church as a shelter, the spaces he describes evocatively

are the homes of those who are flooded out. These are spaces transitioning

from houses to increasingly vacant spaces. The house is a physical space where

objects no longer stay put. In flooded houses everything floats. “A chair that may

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have been in the bedroom might be all the way down the hall, and the refrigerator

might be against the back door. It’s amazing how everything floats. So there’s no

guarantee that you’ll find what someone was looking for where it should be.” In

addition to the destabilized atmospherics, the objects in these settings take on a

new meaning. When everything but a single Christmas ornament has been ruined,

it takes on special value. “It just—that was her only possession except the clothes

on her back. It was horrible.” Even those who have built back their homes call it

their “house” but no longer their “home” because their home is gone. “Their home

is gone because their friends are gone and the community is gone.”

Presenting Results

The data from “Voices After the Deluge: Oral History Investigations of the Great

North Carolina Flood” at the Southern Oral History Program provide detailed

accounts on recovery efforts from numerous individuals who lived through

Hurricane Floyd in Eastern North Carolina. The example interview activates a

wide array of topics, including being attached to one’s home, collective grieving,

conflicted emotions, embodying loss, and what it means to stay stuck or to move

beyond one’s loss. However, the final report would theorize on the most relevant

topics by virtue of a central or core category and related theoretical categories. A

grounded theory analysis might also present a diagram of the theory. A diagram

is a visual product of the analysis that highlights a process in terms of the

constructed theoretical categories.

The following is an example of a condensed grounded theory report based on

the example interview. A fully developed theory would incorporate analyses of

additional transcripts in order to solidify the focused codes and refine categories

after reaching theoretical saturation, the point at which conceptual relationships

among categories have been sufficiently demonstrated. It would not be unusual

to interview 30–50 participants for a fully developed grounded theory study. If you

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happen to take issue with any of the claims in the following report, note what kind

of data you would need to collect to solidify these claims. This would point to the

path of theoretical saturation.

Coping With Ontological Insecurity: A Constructivist Grounded

Theory Analysis

Liminality is the quality of disorientation that occurs between states or settings,

such as when one setting is transitioning to another. To occupy a liminal space is

to seemingly inhabit both sides of a boundary or to be between what once was

and what will become. In the context of flooding after a hurricane, the liminality is

not only disquieting, it makes physical reality itself seem unstable. The following

diagram shows how coping with ontological insecurity is evident in liminal spaces

where a reliable setting has become an ambiguous one, a place imbued with the

tension between one’s control and environmental chaos.

For example, one woman said she slept with her clothes on all night “because

she couldn’t bear to get undressed. She said, ‘I know it’s going to flood again. I

know it’s going to flood again.’” This kind of hypervigilance suggests concern that

a once-reliable world is transitioning to one that is increasingly unpredictable. For

those who lost possessions or who were entirely flooded out, telling their story

over and over is important, as if they are trying to nail down a reality that has been

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destabilized. Of a man who shows Allen his photographs, the minister says, “I’m

sure he told the story to everyone he saw.”

In one encounter, Allen picks up a jewelry box that falls apart in his hands.

That was very difficult to handle—to try your best to hold something

together and it fell apart. That was a very difficult thing for me to deal

with. Other than photographs that was the most difficult thing for me was

putting those rings in that box and just picking it up and having the box

fall apart.

That Allen lingers on this moment is telling—objects themselves are no longer

functioning as one would expect. These cumulative accounts suggest an

experience of ontological insecurity—how reality itself seems to no longer be

reliable. Floors buckle when walked upon, furniture disintegrates, and hats stored

under beds are submerged in water. Allen has little to say about the

unacknowledged normalcy that preceded Floyd. It is almost as if he was unaware

of his surroundings, as if pre-Floyd is a now distant reality, and the new surreal

liminality has left survivors scrambling to take control of destabilized settings.

Different trajectories are evident in this liminal space of ontological insecurity.

Those who were not flooded out decide whether to be passively or actively

involved in relief efforts. As a community leader, Allen is dynamically involved,

but his emotional labor is palpable (“I cried long and hard as I cleaned out the

first house”). To manage the challenging terrain of counseling, he uses strategies

for helping others as well as himself, such as distinguishing between active and

passive counseling. His own trajectory moves from heightened sensitivity to a

wiser state of acceptance. He realizes that cleaning out a house is really “gutting”

it, not only a way of moving forward but a way of creating order out of the liminal

uncertainty. He moves through heightened sensitivity and displays of emotion in

the immediate aftermath of the flooding to a more sustainable empathy after he

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sees that the community has “turned a corner.” “I cried somewhat after the second

house. By the third house, I had become so immune to it I didn’t cry anymore.” His

sense of pride in his church, volunteer network, and community is evident as is his

sense of empowerment.

Some people in the community stop being involved in relief efforts, while others

have no choice but to work through the chaos of their new reality. Those who

“drive by this stuff all day long” become desensitized to the turmoil. The

routinization of their new lives is now geared toward pragmatics—trying to forget

rather than inhabiting the reverent space of remembering and incremental healing.

The emotional labor involved in engaging the loss of others is not easily

sustainable, but it is what Allen attempts to do in his long-term efforts to cope with

the ontological insecurity of post-Floyd.

Review

Constructivist grounded theory focuses on building theory regarding a process

from qualitative data, often interview data, but other types of data can be used.

It is an abductive endeavor. This means that we begin working in an exploratory

fashion in an open coding phase, but after we determine focused codes and

higher-level categories, we begin working deductively to see whether and how

these categories fit other data. The product of a grounded theory can include a

diagram showing the theory’s components, how they work together, and how they

account for variation of the process under examination.

You should know:

• How constructivist grounded theory is used

• How open coding and focused coding are used

• How to report the results of a constructivist grounded theory

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Reflective Questions

1. The paragraph below is from another transcript, Jenny’s interview.

Begin using open codes to generate topics specific to her account.

Jenny: Hands have been the biggest asset that anybody—if you’ve

ever been flooded, hands are what a person needs. They need

financial stuff, too. But in the very beginning those hands--. You don’t

even know what you need financially but you know you need hands

because your mind is working so much faster than your hands can

keep up. And it was like every morning when we left here, we left this in

a mess. We had no vehicle. We didn’t have time to go buy a vehicle. I

was driving my nephew’s car. And we finally-. For weeks—I don’t know

how many weeks after—we finally went to see if we could get Aaron a

truck. I know the man from Safeway Chevrolet. Aaron called him and

he let us use that little white truck. And then we went back down and

bought this little red truck that was their parts truck. As a matter of fact,

we went that morning to buy me a car. And I was just overwhelmed.

And I said, “Aaron, I don’t need a car. You need a truck.” So we bought

the little truck Safeway had let us use. And when Aaron came from

around the back of the shop, he was grinning from ear to ear. And I

said, “What is it, Aaron?” And he said, “I bought two trucks.” He said,

“They’re going to sell this little parts truck here. And I bought it, too.”

2. Review the open codes that you have just applied to text. Which of

these codes seem to have the most potential for application to other

data?

3. Are your data suitable for constructivist grounded theory? That is, were

your data collected in such a way that participants could elaborate on

their rationales and feelings regarding a process?

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4. How can you maximize an inductive frame of mind—suspending your

assumptions and biases as you begin the open-coding phase?

Reference

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks,

CA: SAGE.

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