The Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis

[This paper was originally published in Social Problems, 12(1965), pp. 436-45 and later as Chapter V in Glaser, B.G. & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies fro qualitative research. New York: Aldine DeGruyter.]

Barney G. Glaser, Ph.D.

Currently, the general approaches to the analysis of
qualitative data are these:

1.) If the analyst wishes to convert qualitative data into
crudely quantifiable form so that he can provisionally test a
hypothesis, he codes the data first and then analyzes it. He
makes an effort to code “all relevant data [that] can be brought to
bear on a point,” and then systematically assembles, assesses and
analyzes these data in a fashion that will “constitute proof for a
given proposition.”i

2.) If the analyst wishes only to generate theoretical ideasnew
categories and their properties, hypotheses and interrelated
hypotheses- he cannot be confined to the practice of coding first
and then analyzing the data since, in generating theory, he is
constantly redesigning and reintegrating his theoretical notions
as he reviews his material.ii Analysis with his purpose, but the
explicit coding itself often seems an unnecessary, burdensome
task. As a result, the analyst merely inspects his data for new
properties of his theoretical categories, and writes memos on
these properties.

We wish to suggest a third approach to the analysis of
qualitative data- one that combines, by an analytic procedure of
constant comparison, the explicit coding procedure of the first
approach and the style of theory development of the second. The
purpose of the constant comparative method of joint coding and
analysis is to generate theory more systematically than allowed
by the second approach, by using explicit coding and analytic
procedures. While more systematic than the second approach,
this method does not adhere completely to the first, which
hinders the development of theory because it is designed for
provisional testing, not discovering, of hypotheses.iii This method
of comparative analysis is to be used jointly with theoretical
sampling, whether for collective new data or on previously
collected or compiled qualitative data.

Systematizing the second approach (inspecting data and
redesigning a developing theory) by this method does not
supplant the skills and sensitivities required in generating
theory. Rather, the constant comparative method is designed to
aid the analyst who possesses these abilities in generating a
theory that is integrated, consistent, plausible, close to the dataand
at the same time is in a dorm clear enough to be readily, if
only partially, operationalized for testing in quantitative
research. Still dependent on the skills and sensitivities of the
analyst, the constant comparative method is not designed (as
methods of quantitative analysis are) to guarantee that two
analysts working independently with the same data will achieve
the same results; it is designed to allow, with discipline, for some
of the vagueness and flexibility that aid the creative generation of
theory.

If a researcher using the first approach (coding all data first)
wishes to discover some or all of the hypotheses to be tested,
typically he makes his discoveries by using the second approach
of inspection and memo-writing along with explicit coding. By
contrast, the constant comparative method cannot be used for
both provisional testing and discovering theory: in theoretical
sampling, the data collected are not extensive enough and,
because of theoretical saturation, are not coded extensively
enough to yield provisional tests, as they are in the first
approach. They are coded only enough to generate, hence to
suggest, theory. Partial testing of theory, when necessary, is left
to more rigorous approaches (sometimes qualitative but usually
quantitative). These come later in the scientific enterprise (see
Chapter X).

The first approach also differs in another way from the
constant comparative method. It is usually concerned with a few
hypotheses couched at the same level of generality, while our
method is concerned with many hypotheses synthesized at
different levels of generality. The reason for this difference
between methods is that the first approach must keep the theory
tractable so that it can be provisionally tested in the same
presentation. Of course, the analyst, using this approach might,
after proving or disproving this hypotheses, attempt to explain
his findings with more general ideas suggested by his data, this
achieving some synthesis different levels of generality.

A fourth general approach to qualitative analysis is “analytic
induction,” which combines the first and second approaches in a
manner different from t he constant comparative method.iv
Analytic induction has been concerned with generating and
proving an integrated, limited, precise, universally applicable
theory of causes accounting for a specific behavior (e.g., drug
addiction, embezzlement). In line with the first approach, it tests
a limited number of hypotheses with all available data, consisting
of numbers of clearly defined and carefully selected cases of
phenomena. Following the second approach, the theory is
generated by the reformation of hypotheses and redefinition of
the phenomena forced by constantly confronting the theory with
negative cases, cases which do not confirm the current
formulation.

In contrast to analytic induction, the constant comparative
method is concerned with generating and plausibly suggesting
(but not provisionally testing) many categories, properties, and
hypotheses about general problems (e.g., the distribution of
services according to the social value of clients). Some of these
properties may be causes, as in analytic induction, but unlike
analytic induction, others are conditions, consequences,
dimensions, types, processes, etc. In both approaches, these
properties should result in an integrated theory. Further, no
attempt is made by the constant comparative method, unlike
analytic induction, is more likely to be applied in the same study
to any kind of qualitative information, including observations,
interviews, documents, articles, books, and so forth. As a
consequence, the constant comparisons required by both methods
differ in breadth of purpose, extent of comparing, and what data
and ideas are compared.

Clearly the purposes of both these methods for generating
theory supplement each other, as well as the first and second
approaches. All four methods provide different alternative to
qualitative analysis. Table I locates the use of the approaches to
qualitative analysis and provides a scheme for locating additional
approaches according to their purposes. The general idea of the
constant comparative method can also be used for generating
theory in quantitative research. Then one compares findings
within subgroups and with external groups (see Chapter VIII).

Table I. Use of Approaches to Qualitative Analysis
(cannot be shown, see PDF Version)

The Constant Comparative Method

We shall describe in four stages the constant comparative
method: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category, (2)
integrating categories and their properties, (3) delimited the
theory, and (4) writing the theory. Although this method of
generating theory is a continuously growing process- each stage
after a time is transformed into the next- earlier stages do remain
in operation simultaneously throughout the analysis and each
provides continuous development to its successive stage until the
analysis is terminated.

Comparing incidents applicable to each category. The
analyst starts by coding each incident in his data into as many
categories of analysis as possible, as categories emerge or as data
emerge that fit an existing category. For example, the category of
“social loss” of dying patients emerged quickly from comparisons
of nurses’ responses to the potential deaths of their patients.
Each relevant response involved the nurse’s appraisal of the
degree of loss that her patient would be to his family, his
occupation, or society: “He was so young,” He was to be a doctor,”
“She had a full life,” or “What will the children and her husband
do without her?”v

Coding need consist only of noting categories on margins, but
can be done more elaborately (e.g., on cards). It should keep track
of the comparison group in which the incident occurs. To this
procedure we add the basic, defining rule for the constant
comparative method: while coding an incident for a category,
compare it with the previous incidents in the same and different
groups coded in the same category. For example, as the analyst
codes an incident in which a nurse responds to the potential
“social loss” of a dying patient, he also compares this incident,
before further coding, with others previously coded in the same
category. Since coding qualitative data requires study of each
incident, this comparison can often be based on memory. Usually
there is no need to refer to the actual note on every previous
incident for each comparison.

This constant comparison of the incidents very soon starts to
generate theoretical properties of the category. The analyst starts
thinking in terms of the full range of types or continua of the
category, its dimensions, the conditions under which it is
pronounced or minimized, its major consequences, its relation to
other categories, and its other properties. For example, while
constantly comparing incidents on how nurses respond to the
social loss of dying patients, we realized that some patients are
perceived as a high social loss and others as a low social loss, and
that patient care tends to vary positively with degree of social
loss. It was also apparent that some social attributes that nurses’
combine to establish a degree of social loss are seem immediately
(age, ethnic group, social class). While some are learned after
time is spent with the patient (occupational worth, marital
status, education). This observation led us to the realization that
perceived social loss can change as new attributes of the patients
are learned. It also becomes apparent, from studying the
comparison groups, under what conditions (types of wards and
hospitals) we would find clusters of patients with different
degrees or social loss.

As categories and their properties emerge, the analyst will
discover two kinds: those that he had constructed himself (such
as “social loss” or “calculation” of social loss); and those that have
been abstracted from the language of the research situation. (for
example, “composure” was derived from nurses’ statements like “I
was afraid of losing my composure when the family started crying
over their child.”) As his theory develops, the analyst will notice
that the concepts abstracted from the substantive situation will
tend to be the current labels in use for the actual processes and
behaviors that are to be explained, while the concepts constructed
by the analyst will tend to be the explanations.vi For example, a
nurse’s perception of the social loss of a dying patient will affect
(an explanation) how she maintains her composure (a behavior)
in his presence.

After coding for a category perhaps three or four times, the
analyst will find conflicts in the emphases of his thinking. He will
be musing over theoretical notions and, at the same time, trying
to concentrate on his study of the next incident, to determine the
alternate ways by which it should be coded and compared. At this
point the second rule of the constant comparative method is: stop
coding and record a memo on your ideas. This rule is designed to
tap the initial freshness of the analyst’s theoretical notions and to
relieve the conflict in his thoughts. In doing so, the analyst should
take as much time as necessary to reflect and carry his thinking
to its most logical (grounded in the data, not speculative)
conclusions. It is scheduled routine covering the amount to be
coded per day, as there is in predesigned research. The analyst
may spend hours on one page or he may code twenty pages in a
half hour, depending on the relevance of the material, saturation
of categories, emergence of new categories, stage or formulation of
theory, and of course, the mood of the analyst, since this method
takes his personal sensitivity into consideration. These factors
are in a continual process of change.

If one is working on a research team, it is also a good idea to
discuss theoretical notions with one and more teammates.
Teammates can help bring out points missed, add points they
have run across in their own coding and data collection, and
crosscheck his points They, too, being to compare the analyst’s
notions with their own ideas and knowledge of the data; this
comparison generates additional theoretical ideas. With clearer
ideas on the emerging theory systematically recorded, the analyst
then returns to the data for more coding and constant
comparison.

From the point of view of generating theory it is often useful
to write memos on, as well as code, the copy of one’s field notes.
Memo writing on the field note provides an immediate
illustration for an idea. Also, since an incident can be coded for
several categories, this tactic forces the analyst to use an incident
as an illustration only once, for the most important among the
many properties of diverse categories that it indicates. He must
look elsewhere in his notes for illustration for his other properties
and categories. This corrects the tendency to use the same
illustration over and over for different properties.

The generation of theory requires that the analyst take apart
the story within his data. Therefore when he rearranges his
memos and field notes for writing up his theory, he sufficiently
“fractures” his story at the same time that he saves apt
illustrations for each idea (see Step 4). At just this point in his
writing, breaking down and out of the story is necessary for clear
integration of the theory.

Integrating categories and their properties. This process
starts out in a small way; memos and possible conferences are
short. But as the coding continues, the constant comparative
units change from comparison of incident with incident to
comparison of incident with properties of the category that
resulted from initial comparisons of incidents. For example, in
comparing incident with incident we discovered the property that
nurses constantly recalculate a patient’s social loss as they learn
more about him. From then on, each incident bearing on
“calculation” was compared with “accumulated knowledge on
calculating”- not with all other incidents involving calculation.
Thus, once we found that age was the most important
characteristic in calculating social loss, we could discern how a
patient’s age affected the nurses’ recalculation of social loss as
they found out more about his education. We found that
education was most influential in calculations of the social loss of
a middle-aged adult, since for a person of this age, education was
considered to be of most social worth. This example also shows
that constant comparison causes the accumulated knowledge
pertaining to a property of the category to readily start to become
integrated; that is, related in many different ways, resulting in a
unified whole.

In addition, the diverse properties themselves start to
become integrated. Thus, we soon found that the calculating and
recalculating of social loss by nurses was related tot heir
development of a social loss “story” about the patient. When
asked about a dying patient, nurses would tell what amounted to
a story about him. The ingredients of this story consisted of a
continual balancing out of social loss factors as the nurses
learned more about the patient. Both the calculus of social loss
and the social loss story were related to the nurse’s strategies for
coping with the upsetting impact on her professional composure
of, say, a dying patient with a high social loss (e.g., a mother with
two children). This example further shows that the category
becomes integrated with other categories of analysis; the social
loss of the dying patient is related to how nurses maintain
professional composure while attending his dying.vii Thus the
theory develops as different categories and their properties tend
to become integrated through constant comparisons that force the
analyst to make some related theoretical sense of each
comparison.

If the data are collected by theoretical sampling at the same
time that they are analyzed (as we suggest should be done), then
integration of the theory is more likely to emerge by itself. By
joint collection and analysis, the sociologist is tapping the fullest
extent the in vivo patterns of integration in the data itself;
questions guide the collection of data to fill in gaps and to extend
the theory- and this also is an integrative strategy. Emergence of
integration schemes also occurs in analyses that are separate
from data collection, but more contrivance may be necessary
when the data run thin and no more can be collected. (Other
aspects of integration have been discussed in Chapter II.)

Delimiting the theory. As the theory develops, various
delimiting features of the constant comparative method begin to
curb what could otherwise become an overwhelming task.
Delimiting occurs at two levels: the theory and the categories.
First, the theory solidifies, in the sense that major modifications
become fewer and fewer as the analyst compares the next
incidents of a category to its properties. Later modifications are
mainly on the order of clarifying the logic, taking out nonrelevant
properties, integrating elaborating details of properties into the
major outline of interrelated categories and –most importantreduction.

By reduction we mean that the analyst may discover
underlying uniformities in the original set of categories or their
properties, and can then formulate the theory with a smaller set
of higher level concepts. This delimits its terminology and text.
Here s an illustration which shows the integration of more details
into the theory and some consequent reduction: We decide to
elaborate our theory by adding detailed strategies used by the
nurses to maintain professional composure while taking care of
patients with varying degrees of social loss. We discovered that
the rationales which nurses used, when talking among
themselves, could all be considered “loss rationales.” The
underlying uniformity was that all these rationales indicated why
the patient, given his degree of social loss, would, if he lived, now
would be socially worthless: in spite of the social loss, he would be
better off dead. For example, he would have brain damage, or be
in constant, unendurable pain, or have no chance for a normal
life.

Through further reduction of terminology we were also
discovering that our theory could be generalized so that it
pertained to the care of all patients (not just the dying ones) by
all staff (not just nurses). On the level of formal theory, it could
even be generalized as a theory of how the social values of
professionals affect the distribution of their services to clients; for
examples, how they decide who among many waiting clients
should next receive a service, and what caliber of service he
should be given.

Thus, with reduction of terminology and consequent
generalizing forced by constant comparisons (some comparisons
can at this point be based on the literature of other professional
areas), the analyst starts to achieve two major requirements of
theory: (1) parsimony of variables and formulation, and (2) scope
in the applicability of the theory to a wide range of situations,viii
while keeping a close correspondence of theory and data.

The second level for delimiting the theory is a reduction in
the original list of categories for coding. As the theory grows,
becomes reduced, and increasingly works better for ordering a
mass of qualitative data, the analyst becomes committed to it. His
commitment now allows him to cut down the original list of
categories for collecting and coding data, according to the present
boundaries of his theory. In turn, his consideration, coding, and
analyzing of incidents can become more select and focused. He
can devote more time to the constant comparison of incidents
clearly applicable to this smaller set of categories.

Another factor, which still further delimits the list of
categories, is that they become theoretically saturated. After an
analyst has coded incidents for the same category a number of
times, he learns to see quickly whether or not the next applicable
incident points to a new aspect. If yes, then the incident is coded
and compared. If no, the incident is not coded, since it only adds
bulk to the coded data and nothing to the theory.ix For example,
after we had established age as the base line for calculating social
loss, no longer did we need to code incidents referring to age for
calculating social loss. However, if we came across a case where
age did not appear to be the base line (a negative case), the case
was coded and then compared. In the case of an 85-year-old dying
woman who was considered a great social loss, we discovered that
her “wonderful personality” outweighed her age as the most
important factor for calculating her social loss. In addition, the
amount of data the analyst needs to code is considerable reduced
when the data are obtained by theoretical sampling; thus he
saves time in studying his data for coding.

Theoretical saturation of categories also can be employed as
a strategy in coping with another problem: new categories will
emerge after hundreds of pages of coding, and the question is
whether or not to go back and re-code all previously coded pages.
The answer for large studies is “no”. The analyst should start to
code for the new category where it emerges, and continue for a
few hundred pages of coding, or until the remaining (or
additionally collected) data have been coded, to see whether the
new category has become theoretically saturated. If it has, then it
is unnecessary to go back, either to the field or the notes, because
theoretical saturation suggests that what has been missed will
probably have little modifying effect on the theory. If the category
does not saturate, then the analyst needs to go back and try to
saturate it, provided it is central to the theory.

Theoretical saturation can help solve still another problem
concerning categories. If the analyst has collected his own data,
then from time to time he will remember other incidents that he
observed or heard but did not record. What does he do now? If the
unrecorded incident applies to an established category, after
comparison it can either be ignored because the category is
saturated; or, if it indicates a new property of the category, it can
be added to the next memo and thus integrated into the theory. If
the remembered incident generates a new category, both incident
and category can be included in a memo directed toward their
place in the theory. However, if it becomes central to the theory,
the memo becomes a directive for further coding of the field notes
and for returning to the field or library to collect more data.

The universe of data that the constant comparative method
uses is based on the reduction of the theory and the delimitation
and saturation of categories. Thus, the collected universe of data
is first deliminated and then, if necessary, carefully extended by a
return to data collection according to the requirements of
theoretical sampling. Research resources are economized by this
theoretical deliminating of the possible universe of data, since
working within limits forced the analyst to spend his time and
effort only on data relevant to his categories. In large field
studies, with long lists of possibly useful categories and
thousands of pages of notes embodying thousands of incidents,
each of which could be coded a multitude of ways, theoretical
criteria are very necessary for paring down an otherwise
monstrous task to fit the available resources of personnel, time,
and money. Without Theoretical criteria, delimiting a universe a
collected data, if done at all, can become very arbitrary and less
likely to yield an integrated product; the analyst is also more
likely to waste time on what may later prove to be irrelevant
incidents and categories.

Writing theory. At this stage in the process of qualitative
analysis, the analyst possesses coded data, a series of memos, and
a theory. The discussions in his memos provide the content
behind the categories, which become the major themes of the
theory later presented in papers or books. For example, the major
themes (section titles) for our paper on social loss were
“calculating social loss,” “the patient’s social loss story,” and “the
impact of social loss on the nurse’s professional composure.”

When the research is convinced that his analytic framework
forms a systematic substantive theory, that it is a reasonably
accurate statement of the matters studied, and that it is couched
in a form that other going into the same field could use- then he
can publish his results with confidence. To start writing one’s
theory, it is first necessary to collate the memos on each category,
which is easily accomplished since the memos have been written
about categories. Thus, we brought together all memos on
calculating social loss for summarizing and, perhaps, further
analyzing before writing about it. One can return to the coded
data when necessary to validate a suggested point, pinpoint data
behind a hypothesis or gaps in the theory, and provide
illustrations.x

Properties of the Theory

Using the constant comparative method makes probably the
achievement of a complex theory that corresponds closely to the
data, since the constant comparisons force the analyst to consider
much diversity in the data. By diversity we mean that each
incident is compared with other incidents, or with properties of a
category, in terms of as many similarities and differences as
possible. This mode of comparing is in contrast to coding for crude
proofs; such coding only establishes whether an incident indicates
the few properties of the category that are being counted.

The constant comparison of incidents in this manner
tends to result in the creation of a “developmental” theory.xi
Although this method can also be used to generate static theories,
it especially facilitates the generation of theories of process,
sequence, and change pertaining to organizations, positions, and
social interaction. But whether the theory itself is static or
developmental, its generation, by this method and by theoretical
sampling, is continually in process. In comparing incidents, the
analyst learns to see his categories in terms of both their internal
development and their changing relations to other categories. For
example, as the nurse learns more about the patient, her
calculations of social loss change; and these recalculations change
their social loss stories, her loss rationales and her care of the
patient.

This is an inductive method of theory development. To make
theoretical sense of so much diversity in his data, the analyst is
forced to develop ideas on a level of a generality higher in
conceptual abstraction than the qualitative material being
analyzed. He is forced to bring out underlying uniformities and
diversities, and to use more abstract concepts to account for
differences in the data. To master his data, he is forced to engage
in reduction of terminology. If the analyst starts with raw data,
he will end up initially with a substantive theory: a theory for the
substantive area on which he has done research (for example,
patient care or gang behavior). If he starts with the findings
drawn from many studies pertaining to an abstract sociological
category, he will end up with a formal theory pertaining to a
conceptual area (such as stigma, deviance, lower class, status
congruency, organizational careers, or reference groups).xii To be
sure, as we described in Chapter IV, the level of generality of s
substantive theory can be raised to a formal theory. (Our theory
of dying patients’ social loss could be raised to the level of how
professional people give service to clients according to their
respective social value.) This move to formal theory requires
additional analysis of one’s substantive theory, and the analyst
should, as stated in the previous chapter, include material from
other studies with the same formal theoretical import, however
diverse their substantive content.xiii The point is that the analyst
should be aware of the level of generality from which he starts in
relation to the level at which he starts in relation to the level at
which he wishes to end.

The constant comparative method can yield either discussion
or propositional theory. The analyst may wish to cover many
properties of a category in his discussion or to write formal
propositions about a category. The former type of presentation is
often sufficiently useful at the exploratory stage of theory
development, and can easily be translated into propositions by
the reader if he requires a formal hypothesis. For example, two
related categories of dying are the patient’s social loss and the
amount of attention he receives from nurses. This can easily be
restated as a proposition: patients considered a high social loss,
as compared with those considered a low social loss, will tend to
receive more attention from nurses.

Endnotes

i Howard S. Becker and Blanche Geer, “The Analysis of Qualitative Field Data”
in Richard N. Adams and Jack J. Preiss (Eds.), Human Organization Research
(Homewood, Ill.:Dorsey Press, Inc., 1960), pp.279-89. See also Howard S. Becker,
“Problems of Inference and Proof in Participant Observation,” American
Sociological Review, (December, 1958), pp. 652-60; and Bernard Berelson, Content
Analysis (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. 1952), Chapter III, and p. 16.

ii Constantly redesigning the analysis is a well-known normal tendency in
qualitative research (no matter what the approach to analysis), which occurs
through the whole research experience from initial data collection through coding
to final analysis and writing. The tendency has been noted in Beck and Geer, op.
cit., p. 270, Berelson, op. cit., p. 125; and for an excellent example of how it goes
on, see Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free
Press of Glencoe, 1957), pp. 390-392. However, this tendency may have to be
suppressed in favor of the purpose of the first approach; but in the second
approach and the approach presented here, the tendency is used purposefully as
an analytic strategy.

iii Our other purpose in presenting the constant comparative method may be
indicated by a direct quotation from Robert K. Merton- a statement he made in
connection with his own qualitative analysis of locals and cosmopolitans as
community influentials: “This part of our report, then, is a bid to the sociological
fraternity for the practice of incorporating in publications a detailed account of
the ways in which qualitative analysis actually developed. Only when a
considerable body of such reports are available will it be possible to codify
methods of qualitative analysis with something of clarity with which quantitative
methods have been articulated.” Op. cit., p. 390. This is, of course, also the basic
position of Paul F. Lazarsfeld. See Allen H. Barton and Paul F. Lazarsfeld, “Some
Functions of Qualitative Analysis in Social Research,” in Seymour M. Lipset and
Neil J. Smelser (Eds.), Sociology: the Progress of a Decade (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1961). It is the position that has stimulated the work of Becker and
Geer, and of Berelson, cited in Footnote 1.

iv See Alfred R Lindesmith, Opiate Addiction (Bloomington: Principia, 1947), pp.
12-14; Donald R. Cressey, Other People’s Money (New York: Free Press of
Glencoe, 1953), p. 16 and passim; and Florian Znaniecki, The Method of Sociology
(New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1934), pp. 249-331.

v Illustrations will refer to Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss, “The Social
Loss of Dying Patients,” American Journal of Nursing, 64 (June, 1964) pp. 119-121.

vi Thus we have studies of delinquency, justice, “becoming,” stigma, consultation,
consolation, contraception, etc.; these usually become the variables or processes
to be described and explained.

vii See Glaser and Strauss, “Awareness and the Nurse’s Composure,” in Chapter 13
in Awareness of Dying (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1965).

viii Merton, op. cit., p.260

ix If the analyst’s purpose, besides developing theory, is also to count incidents for
a category to establish provisional proofs, then he must code the incident.
Furthermore, Merton has made the additional point, in correspondence, that to
count for establishing provisional proofs may also feedback to developing the
theory, since frequency and cross-tabulation of frequencies can also generate new
theoretical ideas. See Berelson on the conditions under which one can justify
time-consuming, careful counting; op. cit., pp.128-134. See Becker and Geer for a
new method of counting the frequency of incidents; op. cit., pp. 283-87.

x On “pinpointing’ see Anselm Strauss, Leonard Schatzman, Rue Bucher, Danuta
Ehrlich and Melvin Shabshin, Psychiatric Ideologies and Institutions (New York:
Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), Chapter 2, “Logic, Techniques and Strategies of
Team Fieldwork.”

xi Recent calls for more developmental, as opposed to static, theories have been
made by Wilbert Moore, “Predicting Discontinuities in Social Change,” American
Sociological Review 29 (1964), p. 322; Howard S. Becker, Outsiders (New York:
Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), pp. 22-25; and Barney G. Glaser and Anselm
Strauss, “Awareness Contexts and Social Interaction,” op. cit.

xii For an example, see Barney G. Glaser, Organizational Careers (Chicago: Aldine
Publishing Co., 1967).

xiii “…the development of any of these coherent analytic perspectives is not likely
to come from those who restrict their interest exclusively to one substantive
area.” From Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes of the Management of Spoiled Identity
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963), p. 147. See also Reinhard Bendix,
“Concepts and generalizations in Comparative Sociological Studies,” American
Sociological Review, 28 (1963), pp. 532-39.