ABSTRACT
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Grounded analysis is a general methodology for inducing or deriving theory from an analysis of the patterns, themes, and common categories underlying observational data while the analyst holds to a minimum the predisposition to particular theoretical interests (e.g., Creswell, 1998; Strauss, 1987; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). This approach was initially developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss as part of a field study based on their observations of the ways that hospital staff members handled dying patients. Their pioneering book, Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967), laid the foundation for major ideas about grounded analysis used today and became a procedural guide for numerous qualitative researchers claiming the use of the method to legitimate their research. Their collaboration in this project and in devising the method almost defies probability because of the vast differences in their training and orientation. Strauss, trained in sociology at the University of Chicago, was steeped in the traditions of urban ethnography, symbolic interactionism, and pragmatism in the work of scholars such as Everett Hughes, George Herbert Meade, Herbert Blumer, Robert Park, W.I. Thomas, and John Dewey (Strauss, 1987; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Glaser, on the other hand, was the student of Paul Lazersfeld at Columbia University, a German émigré from The Frankfurt School who is credited with innovating quantitative methods in sociology and introducing the analysis of massive databases of societal data (Strauss, 1987).
