Abstract
The “core business” of data analysis in the discursive interview is the interpretation of the interview transcripts with the aim of reconstructing the “meanings” contained in the texts (in this case, the collective representations). However, the process of data evaluation is much more comprehensive and can be roughly divided into three phases.
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Notes
- 1.
In view of the effort involved, one should be cautious with excessive forms of transcription that are in no way required for the interpretation, but instead are used to demonstrate some kind of (pseudo-)scientificality.
- 2.
The definitions given here are only to be understood as working definitions. The processes of “understanding” and “interpreting” have received a great deal of attention in the social sciences in general and in qualitative research in particular, and have been repeatedly redefined in different ways (see, among others, Danner 2006; Graumann et al. 1991; Hitzler 1993; Ricoeur 1972; Soeffner 1989). Likewise, different interpretive systems or hermeneutics have been developed (cf. among others Hitzler and Honer 1997; Jung and Müller-Dohm 1993; Soeffner 1979).
- 3.
This is the essential difference to, for example, literary interpretations. In the case of literary interpretations, the creative contribution of the interpreter is of greater importance, which is why very different interpretations of the same text are possible and deviations or new interpretations are desirable.
- 4.
This seems to me to be the rather common use of the terms “reconstruction” and “reconstructive”, which are usually not further explicated, but nevertheless often used to distinguish reconstructive from other qualitative methods.
- 5.
This circularity finds expression in the metaphor of the “hermeneutic circle” (cf. Danner 2006, p. 60 ff.).
- 6.
This is of course especially true for grounded theory, for which Glaser and Strauss (1967, p. 105 ff.) regarded the “constant comparative method” as fundamental for the development of theories close to the subject. Therefore, it is quite correct to see comparison as a core heuristic principle of grounded. On the other hand, it should not be overlooked that comparisons as a methodological procedure have clearly moved into the background in the (self-)representations of Grounded Theory Methodology and, in some cases, are no longer addressed at all (see, among others, Breuer et al. 2018; Charmaz 2014; Dey 1999; Strauss 1991; Strübing 2008).
- 7.
It should be self-evident that when coding answers, these are not separated from the questions or stimuli, because responses cannot be understood without the associated question. Nevertheless, “question-free” coding and citation of answers seems to be very common.
- 8.
In addition, text passages can be compared both within the same text source (e.g. an interview transcript) or across text sources (comparison of identically coded text passages from different text sources). For contrasting interpretations aiming at social meaning, cross-text comparisons are especially important.
- 9.
For an analysis of collective representations with discursive interviews, it is not the bearer of a representation but the collective representations that constitute the “case” to be reconstructed. In this sense, one could also speak of contrasting of cases. However, since this usually refers to comparisons of already analysed research units, the form of interpretation of the Discursive Interview is referred to here only as contrasting (without case).
- 10.
The “reference problems” to which the individual derivations refer are for the most part already apparent from the topics set by the guide. In addition, the respondents can of course also refer to new phenomena not anticipated in the guide or redefine reference problems. In addition to the collective representations and derivations, therefore, the problems of reference (as perceived by the interviewees) must also be reconstructed to some degree.
- 11.
On synoptic comparison, cf. also Kelle and Kluge (1999, p. 56). Synopsis is the systematic comparison of texts in order to be able to recognize differences more easily (e.g. synopses of legal texts) or to uncover a common “generative” structure (classically: synoptic gospels of the “New Testament”). The latter is also the primary goal of contrastive analysis here.
- 12.
Sampling strategies such as “theoretical sampling”, on the other hand, are an previous process in which systematic variations can only be made at the level of the units of inquiry (respondents). As with comparisons at the level of codes or code groups (categories), comparisons here are not a means of interpretation, but a separate (non-interpretative) step in the analysis.
- 13.
This corresponds roughly to the procedure of “axial coding” of the Grounded Theory Methodology ( Strauss 1991, pp. 56 ff., 101 ff.). Unlike the “coding paradigm”, however, the focus here is primarily on the thematic proximity and hierarchizations of codes. Causal and other relationships between codes, on the other hand, are of rather little importance for the reconstruction of collective representations.
- 14.
Nevertheless, there may also be singular codes that do not fit into any group and have no relationships to other codes. These may, but must not indicate a coding deficit.
- 15.
Such basic attitudes are of course difficult to plan, but should always be considered. If one is occupied with too many other things, one should perhaps refrain from interpreting.
- 16.
There are many software programs to support qualitative data analyses, which differ only slightly (cf. Kelle 2002, among others).
- 17.
The two main exceptions here are conversation analysis and the rather “context-skeptical” stance of objective hermeneutics (cf. Oevermann 1997; Wernet 2000, p. 21 ff.), i.e. two methodological directions that are not exactly known for a particular affinity with interview methods. In international and linguistic discourses, too, questions of defining and differentiating context(s) have long been neglected. Clark and Carlson therefore also speak of context as a “conceptual garbage can” (1981, p. 314), a characterization that is still almost proverbial today.
- 18.
- 19.
Thus, Heritage (1984, p. 242) can be agreed with when he states that “the significance of any speakers communicative action is doubly contextual in being both context-shaped and context-renewing”. But this also means that contexts are only partly – and probably to a much lesser extent – generated or modulated in the situation of text production.
- 20.
The first position has been advocated mainly by discourse analysts, the second is a widely shared and often emphasized view among conversation analysts. For example, Wolff (1986, p. 67) states, “Context is regarded in a conversation analytic perspective as a performance of the conversation or its participants. It is not the context of the conversation, but the context in the conversation that is of conversation analytic interest.”
- 21.
However, proposals such as those of Stenvoll and Svensson (2011), which are based on a procedural strategy, are promising here. They propose a stage model of textual contextualization that does not limit it to participant contexts. Specifically, they distinguish three types of contextualization cues, namely explicit, implicit and indirect. This form of contextualisation seems to be more advanced because it does not confine the interpreters to a passive role, but above all because contexts can also be obtained here in contrasting textual analyses. At the same time, this makes it clear that contextualizations that go beyond participant and situation contexts do not have to be derived “deductively”.
- 22.
A more comprehensive consideration of external contexts, on the other hand, may become necessary if the reconstruction of collective representations is carried out in conjunction with a discourse analysis ( Keller 2014). In this case, the extended need for contextualization results from the discourse-analytical requirements.
- 23.
The term real type was first used by Eucken (1947, pp. 68 ff.; 418 ff.) in deliberate juxtaposition to Weber’s ideal type, but is much less common today than the ideal type term. The distinction made here between real (empirical) and ideal (theoretical) types largely follows Eucken’s distinction.
- 24.
The term typology is restricted here to ideal types, so the prefix “ideal” is not necessary here.
- 25.
Typologies may consist of logically interdependent ideal types in which the single ideal types are meaningfully related to each other, as is often the case especially in antagonistic-complementary typologies (such as dichotomous class models) or in stage models. However, interdependent ideal types will be the exception, because such relations between ideal types will often not be achievable.
- 26.
Becker’s concept of “constructed types” (Becker 1959, p. 155 ff.) and the considerations of Barton and Lazarsfeld (1979) were also influential for the reception of type concepts in qualitative social research. One of the earliest qualitative works to explicitly perform ideal type construction was by Gerhardt (1984, 1986). On the history of the reception and application of type concepts in social research, see especially Kluge (1999).
- 27.
Kluge (1999) and Kelle and Kluge (1999), for example, give only extremely vague indications of why types are formed in qualitative social research, namely “in order to grasp complex social realities and contexts of meaning and to be able to understand and explain them as far as possible” ( Kelle and Kluge 1999, p. 75). The usefulness of type concepts for different forms of scientific analysis (i.e. also for the interpretation and classification of qualitative research results) is hardly disputed; however, it does not justify why types (of all things) should be aimed at as a result of qualitative-empirical research. Kluge (1999, p. 51 ff.) also presents in great detail different uses of the concept of type in qualitative social research. However, such conceptual explications are obviously fruitless and only show that the concept of type (with different prefixes) is used almost arbitrarily in qualitative social research.
- 28.
Przyborski and Wohlrab-Sahr (2014) also come to this assessment, according to whom “the construction of ideal types should not be understood primarily as a result of research, but above all as a method of research” (2014, p. 379). However, it does not logically follow from the correct statement that ideal types are a heuristic instrument that they cannot be developed empirically from research results.
- 29.
In principle, classifications can also be derived from real type sets, whereby real type sets can be regarded as incomplete classifications. Insofar as the real types were obtained through empirical research, however, this would be disappointing as a result, to say the least. This is because classifications can be formed further with less effort from simple combinations of features.
- 30.
This may sound more abstract and complicated than it is in actual interpretation and analysis processes. A purely fictitious example: In a study of collective representations of unemployment (cf. also the brief description by Brenke and Peter 1985 in Sect. 1.3), real types such as “unemployed people are lazy”, “unemployment can affect anyone”, “unemployment is normal in a globalised world”, etc. could be the (subject-related) result of interpretative-reconstructive analyses. The consequence of further analytical confrontations with these real types could then be more abstract and consistent ideal types such as perhaps “victimization of social situations” or “economic fatalism”. Such ideal types would then generally not be exactly matched by any single derivation (of unemployment). In order to prove useful, however, they would have to be able both to “better” explain the field under investigation and to be successfully applied to other subject areas (e.g. collective representations of other social or individual situations such as poverty, education or health).
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Ullrich, C.G. (2022). Analyzing Discursive Interviews. In: The Discursive Interview. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38477-7_4
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