SOME QUALITATIVE FIELD RESEARCH PARADIGMS
    Naturalism
    Ethnomethodology
    Grounded Theory
    Case Studies and the Extended Case Study Method
    Institutional Ethnography
    Participatory Action Research

    This section of the chapter will introduce you to some of the paradigms that structure qualitative field research.  Each is based on specific assumptions about the nature of the research situation.

    Naturalism is an old tradition in qualitative research.  The earliest field researchers operated on the positivist assumption that social reality was "out there," ready to be naturally observed and reported by the researcher as it "really is."  Ethnomethodology, which was introduced in Chapter 2, views "reality" as socially constructed and aims to discover how people make sense of their collective experience. Grounded theory is intentionally inductive, with a commitment that theories are to be generated from observations, which researchers are encouraged to make with as fews preconceptions as possible.  Social researchers often speak of case studies, which focus attention on one or a few instances of some social phenomenon, such as a village, a family, or a juvenile gang. The extended case study method uses cases to reveal weaknesses or shortcomings in existing theories, seeking to improve the theories in the process.  Institutional ethnography begins with detailed information about the experiences of individuals in society--particularly women or other minorities--as a way to reveal the institutional structures that shape those experiences.  Participatory action research addresses the issue of power-relations between researchers and subjects, with the aim of putting the subjects in the driver's seat.  The aim is to empower ordinary people to use the potentiols of social research to solve the social problems they experience.