Book Review: Being Barney Glaser

Paul Dowling, University of London Grounded Theory: the philosophy, method, and work of Barney Glaser. Vivian B. Martin & Astrid Gynnild (Eds). 2011. Boca Raton. BrownWalker Press. I was a little taken aback when Astrid Gynnild asked me to review this work for Grounded Theory Review. As I explained, I have been impressed by a lot of what Glaser and Strauss and Glaser writing alone have said to me about sociological research, I teach methodology at masters and doctoral levels and always recommend these works to my students, encouraging them, where appropriate, to adopt...

Deciphering Unwritten Rules

Anna Sandgren, Jönköping University Abstract The aim of this study was to develop a classic grounded theory of patients, relatives and nurses in palliative cancer care. Data from three earlier studies conducted in palliative care were analyzed. “Deciphering unwritten rules” emerged as the pattern of behavior through which patients, relatives and nurses are dealing with the uncertainty of how to act and behave in palliative cancer care. Deciphering means finding out what the rules mean and trying to interpret them and this can be done consciously or unnoticed. Deciphering...

Editorial

Astrid Gynnild Editor I am delighted to introduce the first issue of the Grounded Theory Review as an open access journal. This means that from now on, all academic articles provided by the journal are freely accessible online, including the archives. As an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed methodological journal, the Grounded Theory Review serves a broad academic community across continents. We are committed to the worldwide dissemination and advancement of classic grounded theory methodology, and similar to an increasing number of academic journals, we support a free...

Stop. Write! Writing Grounded Theory

Barney G. Glaser The message in this book, the dictum in this book, is to stop and write when the Grounded Theory (GT) methodology puts you in that ready position. Stop unending conceptualization, unending data coverage, and unending listening to others who would egg you on with additional data, ideas and/or requirements or simply wait too long. I will discuss these ideas in detail. My experience with PhD candidates is that for the few who write when ready, many do not and SHOULD. Simply put, many write-up, but many more should. And yet writing is taken for granted, since...

Classic Grounded Theory to Analyse Secondary Data: Reality and Reflect...

Lorraine Andrews, Agnes Higgins, Michael Waring Andrews, and Joan G. Lalor Abstract This paper draws on the experiences of two researchers and discusses how they conducted a secondary data analysis using classic grounded theory. The aim of the primary study was to explore first-time parents’ postnatal educational needs. A subset of the data from the primary study (eight transcripts from interviews with fathers) was used for the secondary data analysis. The objectives of the secondary data analysis were to identify the challenges of using classic grounded theory with...

Guest Editorial, Themed Section

Cheri Fernandez University of Windsor As I have supervised or read numerous theses and dissertations and completed countless reviews of manuscripts that purport to do grounded theory, I have been struck by the confusion about what exactly grounded theory entails. In this themed section focusing on constructivist (constructionist) grounded theory, we strive to describe constructivist grounded theory, provide an exemplar of this research, and point out the differences between constructivist grounded theory and classic grounded theory. When grounded theory first emerged as a...