ABSTRACT
Qualitative research confronts a context heretofore unknown in the history of the American research university. Qualitative research has developed two sets of criteria: methodological and data based. The neoliberal political climate itself appears to be inimical to qualitative research. This is especially true in education, and in sociology, where some departments are simply being eliminated, or combined with other disciplines not necessarily amicable toward the disciplinary paradigms or practices of sociology. Qualitative research, however, never hides behind aggregated numbers, directing itself instead to portray in-depth pictures of actual individuals who operate under various veils of oppression. In conventional research, the research community determined the structure of rigor criteria, while the federal government and the Belmont Commission determined ethical research criteria. In interpretivist or constructivist research, however, the criteria for rigor and ethics are deeply connected.
