This is a really interesting conversation about numbers in qualitative work I think about a lot. I’m deeply ambivalent if not skeptical of counting in qualitative work unless it’s a specific, discrete part of the broader project, which can be helpful. A brief thread. https://twitter.com/zra_research/status/1264929488506433539

Like I think it’s very helpful to do some sort of survey, or better, census of the field site and/or interview pool, letting people know important demographics, context, etc. But I’m very skeptical of claims like X happened Y amount of times in my field notes.

Our field notes aren’t capable of a representative sample of what happens in a field site with exceptions of meticulously crafted ethnographies in unique sites. But the bigger problem with ‘X happened Y times’ in qualitative work is it shifts the rhetorical edge to quant methods.

To some degree we have to trust the ethnographer or interviewer so the key piece of evidence is not a precise number of how often something happened but effective presentation of emblematic, powerful data with compelling interpretations. Great scenes and quotes are what we bring.

I just taught Swidler’s book Talk of Love (and I’ve written about it), so it’s on my mind. I don’t remember if she mentions a specific number of occurrences, but it’s certainly not the key point. What matters is her use of the interview transcripts to make important points.

Again because I just taught it, @JessicaCalarco’s book has sections where she explicitly counts kinds of interactions in classrooms or forms of discourse in certain demarcated interviews. That stuff is great! But it makes counting a tool rather the overarching metric of success.

As a reviewer, I never say “get rid of the counting!” to qualitative work that has it. But I gotta say most times it doesn’t really move me. I am already inclined to believer whoever this qualitative scholar is and sometimes too much counting seems unnecessarily defensive.

sorry for the typo above. And as always, thanks to @zra_research and @RavenclawSoc23 for getting me thinking about methods!