HISTORY OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

History of qualitative research

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What´s Qualitative Research?

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In the third phase, which spanned from the 19th to the early 20th century, American ethnographers focused their attention on American Indians, perceiving them as primitive and representative of a particular "other."

In the stage called colonial ethnography, which spanned the 17th to 19th centuries, reports and studies on ethnic groups by Western explorers, missionaries and colonial officials were filed in local/national church records. Most of these early writings were addressed to global civilization.

Vidich and Lyman point out that qualitative research had its beginnings in the work of early ethnographers in the 17th century, in which researchers observed the customs, practices and behaviors of "primitive" societies in order to understand the other.

Between the early 20th century and the 1960s, the religious beliefs of black, Asian and European immigrants in the United States generated concern among U.S. citizens, who feared for the future development of Protestant society. To address this demographic challenge and understand the numbers by denomination, nationality and race, statistical surveys were conducted. The intent to incorporate these groups into Protestant communities resulted in the first qualitative community analysis led by W. E. B. Du Bois, known as "The Philadelphia Negro."

As with other areas of the social sciences, health sciences, and humanities, qualitative research from the mid-1980s onward was influenced by poststructuralism and postmodernism. The historical analysis developed by Vidich and Lyman suggests that the history of qualitative research is based on the ways in which researchers have defined social research in terms of their values, hopes, religious beliefs and political and/or professional ideologies.

Debating and challenging the processes of assimilation and amalgamation, post-1960s (1950-1980) ethnographies and ethnographers included Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans seeking to take control of the study of their own groups. Attention shifted away from how to measure assimilation and acculturation, as identified by Park in the earlier phase, toward a consideration of a range of other topics, including the importance of individual character.