ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by analysing theoretical concepts and their relationship to the methods used in the research, and proceeds to consider issues such as: employing group discussions and interviews; conducting a participant observation study; action research; and the policy implications of the study for the two teams involved. Research is too often dominated by a theoretical structure which fails to take account of those aspects of practice which conflict with the structure. The impossibility of defining rigid boundaries within and between the categories described on the tables became evident during the field observation of social workers. The idea of emancipatory interests is of itself problematic. In interviewing users of the social services, the methodological aim was to give them some recorded, independent time and space to put their view of the service offered them. Walker suggests choosing to use qualitative methods '.may reflect limitations in the state of the quantitative art or a philosophical stance that quantification is inappropriate'.
