Multi-perspectivity in Qualitative Research – Approaches, Methodological Challenges, and Insights

14:45 -15:45 (Azores timetable)

Qualitative research often studies complex situations and issues which are experienced in very diverse perspectives from various angles. For example, what happens when homeless adolescents need medical help, how do they and professionals experience these needs? What happens when people with different cultural backgrounds seek help for their addictions? How do their experiences and their therapists’ interpretations fall apart? What happens when young adults with a chronic condition want to maintain their social everyday lives and their peers have differing views on this condition?
Understanding these processes of doing social problems asks for methodological approaches addressing various levels. Methodological challenges then refer to taking this variety of levels and perspectives into account while working with various methods in one study. In the methodological discussions about these challenges, keywords such as using multiple methods, mixing methods as well as pluralist research and triangulation emphasize different aspects. In a qualitative study, using various methods such as expert interviews and other forms of interviewing for vulnerable groups of patients in one project or applying the same methods to various target groups (for example chronically ill adults and their peers) are alternatives in analyzing the multi-perspectivity of a complex issue. Quality issues in designing multi-perspective qualitative research arise such as how to maintain the researchers’ methodological standards and at the same time being open for the specific cases and their differences? I will discuss these issues using examples from my earlier and current research for locating them in the context of current trends and challenges for qualitative research in general.

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Uwe Flick is Senior Professor of Qualitative Research in Social Science and Education at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. As a trained psychologist and sociologist and after completing his PhD from the Freie Universität Berlin, he held positions as Professor at Technical University Berlin (psychology), Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin (nursing and social work research), and at the University of Vienna, Austria (political sciences). His main research interests are qualitative methods, social representations in the fields of individual and public health, vulnerability in fields like youth homelessness or (forced) migration. He is author of An Introduction to Qualitative Research (7th ed, 2023, Sage), Doing Interview Research (2022, Sage), Introducing Research Methodology (3rd ed, 2020, Sage), Doing Grounded Theory (2018, Sage) and editor of several SAGE Handbooks (of Qualitative Data Analysis, 2014; of Qualitative Data Collection, 2018; and of Qualitative Research Design, 2022). In 2019, Uwe Flick received the Lifetime Award in Qualitative Inquiry at the 15th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. His current research is on peer relations of chronically ill young adults and their role in coping with the diseases and their impact on everyday lives under chronical conditions.