PPHA 35578

Qualitative Methods for

International Policy and
Development
Dr Mareike Schomerus
TAs: Kairvy Grewal and Sunny Anand
Monday/ Wednesday 4.30 – 5.50 pm
Welcome to the first week of the quarter

•Today’s question:
•What is this course about and who are the
people taking and teaching it?
What makes for a good day?

qA great coffee
qTime to read
qHanging out with friends
qGood weather
What would you like people to know about
you?
qWhere I’m from
qWhat I’m studying
qMy main interests
qWith what adjectives I describe my
identity
Françoise Héritier:
The Sweetness of
Life (2017)
‘…feeling your heart beat fast, weighing up arguments, testing the weight of a melon,

seeing a childhood friend again, digging up buried memories (my God, yes, that’s how it

was!), taking your time over choosing some small thing (and deciding on important things

in haste), following the flight of a single swallow among a flock of others, watching a cat

from above when it doesn’t know you’re watching it, laughing up your sleeve, waiting for

the twilight hour, watering your plants and talking to them, appreciating the touch of fine
leather or a peach or someone’s hair, studying the background of the Mona Lisa or the

filigree effects of Vlaminck in detail, feeling pleasure at the sound of a voice, setting off

for wherever the fancy takes you, staying in the dusk and doing nothing…’
Get up, find someone whose top is of a
similar colour to yours and ask them:

What is your sweetness/ saltiness of life?

How does it make for a good day?

What is one thing you’d like people to know about you?

What did you learn about your peers?

What did you learn about yourself?

What did you learn about qualitative research?

And… how do you pronounce your name?
Ma-rye-kah (she/ her)

www.transformingdevelopment.org
Meet Kairvy and Sunny
So, what is this course about?
• equip students with the knowledge and practical skills needed to conduct and interpret
qualitative research and evaluate the strength of the empirical findings
• sensitize students to different knowledge philosophies so that they are able to recognize
how different types of policy-relevant knowledge are created, and how such knowledge
can be utilised to assess claims regarding the strength of evidence;
• equip students with skills needed to critique qualitative research for its rigour and assess
trade-offs between quantitative and qualitative research;
• introduce students to a range of qualitative research methods and assess their applicability
to different research questions;
• familiarize students with examples of qualitative studies on issues relevant to international
development policy.
• By the end of the course, students will be able to
• evaluate the rigour of qualitative research;
• compare applicability of different types of qualitative research for different research
questions and purposes;
• recognize the role of qualitative research in public policy and analyse policy
implications of qualitative research findings;
• design a qualitative research project and apply qualitative research methods.
What is qualitative research?
• Qualitative inquiry represents a legitimate mode of social and human science
exploration, without apology or comparisons to quantitative research. (Creswell
and Poth, 2018)
• I will define qualitative methods broadly to include (potentially) any social science
analyses that do not involve tests of statistical significance (e.g., regressions of
various kinds)…. I’ve suggested that qualitative methods are an empirical
approach to social science research that involves collecting and analyzing a lot of
data, is broadly generalizable through theoretical concepts and mechanisms, can
engage in both theory generation and theory testing, and mostly involves
studying words, but often includes numbers, too. (Rubin, 2021)
• In a strict sense, there is no such thing as “qualitative research.” There is no single
research practice, perspective, attitude about data, or approach to social science
that all scholars who have used that term to describe their work follow. (Small
and McCrory Calarco, 2022)
What is important?
• Qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make
sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
Creswell and Poth (2018)
• But good qualitative methods are empirical in the sense that they involve the
systematic collection and analysis of data. (Rubin, 2021)
• Qualitative research does a variety of tasks really well—answering “how” and
“why” questions, resolving puzzles, describing new trends in rich detail, identifying
causal mechanisms, unpacking complex processes, and constructing taxonomies
and typologies. But there’s something else that qualitative research excels at: It
can be really compelling. (Rubin, 2021)
• While quantitative research arguably remains dominant in social science debates
on important social problems, over the past two decades qualitative scholarship
has dramatically shaped how scientists, policy makers, and the public think about
inequality, poverty, race and ethnicity, gender, education, health, organizations,
immigration, neighborhoods, and families. (Small and McCrory Calarco, 2022)
What role does the researcher have?
• Qualitative research is a situated activity that locates the observer in
the world. Qualitative research consists of a set of interpretive,
material practices that make the world visible. These practices
transform the world. Creswell and Poth (2018)
• But the real power of qualitative methods lays in textured
descriptions. (Rubin, 2021)
• Instead, what interviewing and participant observation distinctly
share is that the researcher not only collects but also produces the
data, such that the data collector is explicitly in the data themselves.
(Small and McCrory Calarco, 2022)
How is it presented and evaluated?
• The final written report or presentation includes the voices of participants, the reflexivity of the
researcher, a complex description and interpretation of the problem, and its contribution to the
literature or a call for change. Creswell and Poth (2018)
• For example, how does a particular group or population make sense of [something interesting
that happens to them]? Why did a particular group [do this anomalous thing]? How was this state
or organization able to [do this really bad thing]? (Rubin, 2021)
• Given the core strengths of in-depth interviewing, the method should be assessed primarily on
whether the researcher effectively elicited how people understand themselves and their
circumstances. Given the strengths of participant observation, it should be evaluated primarily on
whether the ethnographer effectively observed social phenomena in their context. (Small and
McCrory Calarco, 2022)
• Exposure, cognitive empathy, ‘Given the core strengths of in-depth interviewing, the method
should be assessed primarily on whether the researcher effectively elicited how people
understand themselves and their circumstances. Given the strengths of participant observation, it
should be evaluated primarily on whether the ethnographer effectively observed social
phenomena in their context.’ (Small and McCrory Calarco, 2022)
 It’s about you.

But not in the way it sounds.

It’s about a particular perspective on the world and on how we know it.
One that seeks experience over a/b answers.
It’s about accepting contradiction and murkiness over certainty. It
appreciates that there are differences of experience.
It’s about a conversation on an experience and what the best way is to
represent it.
It’s about bringing yourself and then parking your ego.
It’s also about leaving comfort zones in different ways.
What does this mean for teaching?
Other things
• Name tents
• My voice
• Setting up the course in the system
• Grading
• Absences/ Covid/ Zoom
• Our contract in class and outside class
• Communication
•
Contact
• Who? Kairvy for content, Sunny for logistics
• Canvas
• mareikeschomerus@uchicago.edu (but there’s this email problem)
• Office hours
• Mareike: Keller 3049
• Monday 6 – 7.30pm
• Tuesday 2 – 4pm
• Kairvy Grewal: tbc
• Sign up sheet under ‘Announcements’ on Canvas – please be
considerate (reliable and reasonable J )
• Tips on how to best use office hours
Readings: Tools
• Creswell, John W. & Cheryl Poth (2018) Qualitative inquiry and research design:
choosing among five approaches. 4th ed. .Washington, D.C.: Sage.
• Lareau, A. 2021. Listening to people: A practical guide to interviewing, participant
observations, data analysis, and writing it all up, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press.
• Rubin, A. T. 2021. Rocking qualitative social science: An irreverent guide to
rigorous research, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.
• Small M. L. & McCrory Calarco, , J. 2022. Qualitative Literacy: A guide to
evaluating ethnographic and interview research, Oakland, CA, University of
California Press.
Readings: Delving into Qualitative Worlds
• Duneier, M. 1992. Slim’s Table: Race, Respectability and Masculinity, Chicago, The
University of Chicago Press.
• Humanizing dry topics
• Querying big ideas and big personalities
• Health and well-being
• Secure and just societies
• Cities and communities
• The extraordinary ordinary
• Insights and ideas
• Framing
Your Learning Journey
• Week 1 (March 20): Substance
• Week 2 (March 27): Mindset
• Week 3 (April 3): Questioning
• Week 4 (April 10): Encountering
• Week 5 (April 17): Asking
• Week 6 (April 24): Embedding
• Week 7 (May 1): Analysing
• Week 8 (May 8): Telling
• Week 9 (May 15): Using
 Assignments and Assessment
• Short assignments graded (30%): There will be two (very) short graded
assignments. These are designed to support students in working towards their
final research paper, but they will be graded as stand-alone contributions.
• Due dates for short graded assignments: April 21, May 12
• Research paper (45%): The final research paper of no more than five pages in
length will consist of an outline of the research question; research design with
brief justification of case selection, theoretical approach (including brief literature
overview) and methods; preliminary insights from sample interviews and
suggested policy-relevant preliminary findings. A detailed template will be
provided. Students should endeavour to discuss their approach with me at least
once during office hours.
• Due date: May 24
• Class Participation 25% (15% attendance and class participation; 10%
assignments marked as ‘participation’): Students are expected to attend lectures
and actively contribute to seminar discussions, maybe at times taking the lead in
the discussions. In addition, 10% of the participation grade will be drawn from
four short weekly assignments that are marked as ‘participation’. These will not
be individually marked, but used to provide an insight into students’ engagement
with the class material. Due dates: Participation assignments: March 31, April 14,
April 28, May 5
Assignments
• Assignment 1 (participation): Who am I? March 31
• Assignment 2 (participation): What do you want to know? April 14
• Assignment 3 (graded): Research Blueprint, April 21
• Assignment 4 (participation): Refining your interview approach,
April 28
• Assignment 5: Coding your data (participation), May 5
• Assignment 6 (graded): abstract, May 12
• Assignment 7 (graded): Final paper, May 24
Research Paper
• Thinking like a qualitative researchers, finding a research question/
topic, getting used to meandering data collection, practising your
questioning, observing, listening to debates, analysing qualitative
data qualitatively, writing up a qualitative piece of research
• We start with a topic of interest, understand relevant theories,
develop a question, identify those who can talk about it, develop a
framing from the data.
• Interview three people—but interview them twice!
 Part 1: Foundations Part 2: Research design
(weeks 1, 2, 3) (weeks 4, 5, 6)
Scheduling Emphasis on reading Your assignments will start
and class work. to focus on your research
design. In week 5, you have
to identify three
interviewees and confirm
by week 6 that they are
available. It’s a good idea
to make sure you schedule
interviews with people for
week 7/8. In week 5, we
will also have a (very local!)
field trip) on April 19.
Part 3: Data
collection, analysis,
write up
(weeks 7, 8, 9, 10)
Week 7 and 8 should
be your interview
weeks: schedule two
interviews with each
of your three
respondents, one
week apart. Week 9
could be devoted to
analysis and week 10
to write up, with your
final assignment due
on May 24.
Field trip: ‘See Your Course Readings’
• Possible times:
• (April 19)
• 11am – 1pm
• 1 – 3pm
Research questions for this week:

Today’s research question:

•What is this course about and who are the
people taking and teaching it?
Spiral reflection and spark files
• This I never knew:
• This surprised me today:
• This makes no sense:
• This is a good idea:
• This I want to look up:
• This terrifies me:
• Don’t forget to buy groceries on the way home!
• This I want to read:
• This person I want to talk to:
• This reminds me of…
• Maybe I could…
Today’s research question
• How can qualitative research create a relationship with policy?
Where are you in this process?
The researcher brings to the inquiry certain philosophical assumptions.
These are stances taken by the researcher that provide direction for
the study, such as the researcher’s view of reality (ontology), how the
researcher knows reality (epistemology), the value-stance taken by the
inquirer (axiology), and the procedures used in the study
(methodology).
These assumptions, in turn, are often applied in research through the
use of paradigms and theories (or, as we call them, interpretive
frameworks).

Creswell and Poth (p. 18)

From the podcast, what did you learn about
the ontology, epistemology, axiology and
methodology of Freakonomics?

• view of reality (ontology)

• how the researcher knows reality (epistemology)
• the value-stance taken by the inquirer (axiology)
• procedures used in the study (methodology)

Hobbes, M. & Shamshiri, P. 2022. Podcast: If Books Could Kill:

Freakonomics. Freakonomics.
 What is a fact?
What is an example of a fact?
•How would you define a ‘fact’?
•If you have a fact in mind, why do you believe
this fact?
What is a fact about inequality in the world? *
• ONE in five of the world’s population – 1.25 billion people – is
undernourished.
• CHILDREN living in poverty are three times more likely to suffer
mental illness than children from wealthy families.
• THERE are 27 million slaves in the world.
• MORE than 150 countries are known to use torture.
• TEN languages die out every year.
• TWO million girls and women are subjected to genital mutilation
every year.
*according to the book 50 Facts about the World (Williams, 2004)
What is knowledge?

‘Researchers are respectful co-constructors of knowledge. Ethical practices

of the researchers recognize the importance of the subjectivity of their own
lens.’(Creswell and Poth, p.33)
GDP

Democratic Republic of the Congo:

Between 2004 – 2013: 3-4%

growth in GDP/ capita per year

Percentage of people in poverty

over the same period?
What makes policymakers listen up?
Nancy from Batavia
In August 2020, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood
helped Batavia resident Nancy Bell deliver a family
keepsake to her family, which had been lost in the mail for
many weeks. The Congresswoman understood the personal
value of the package and Nancy's frustrations with recent
postal service changes. In just two weeks, Congresswoman
Underwood informed Nancy that the package would be
delivered that very day.

"On the morning of August 17, I received a call from

Congresswoman Underwood's office asking if the
package was delivered. It had not. Within an hour she
called me back and said it was in Cohasset, MA and
would be delivered that very day! Hurray! It took 4 weeks
and 4 days to be delivered. Not acceptable. With all her
office has to deal with each and every day, they reached
out to find a ‘little act of love' for a grandmother and her
granddaughter. Thank you for all you do, no matter how
big or small, for all your constituents!"
Anchoring: Shared goals and existing scholarship
 SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-
being for all at all ages
• 3.8 Achieve universal…access to quality essential health-care services
and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential
medicines and vaccines for all.
- Why might this goal be unachievable (in the Chicago context)?
- What are some angles on the goal you know are challenging (in
the Chicago context)?
- Who are people in Chicago who might be particularly badly
affected if the goal is not reached (in the Chicago context)?
- What do you want to know about how people experience the
reality of the goal’s ambition (in the Chicago context)?
- What might a policy maker want to know about the challenges?
3.8 Achieve universal…access to quality essential
health-care services and access to safe, effective,
quality and affordable essential medicines and
vaccines for all.
Readings:
• Irwin, Neil (2017 (March 17)) What if Sociologists Had as Much Influence as Economists?
The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/upshot/what-if-sociologists-
had-as-much-influence-as-economists.html)
• Rubin, A. T. 2021. Rocking qualitative social science: An irreverent guide to rigorous
research, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.
• Chapter 2. What exactly are qualitative methods?
• Chapter 4. On Belay: Connecting your work to an anchor
• United Nations 2015. Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development (A/RES/70/1), New York, NY, United Nations.
• Delving into qualitative worlds: Humanizing dry topics
• Singh, Abhigyan, Alex T. Strating, N. A. Romero Herrera, Hylke W. van Dijk & David V.
Keyson (2017) Towards an ethnography of electrification in rural India: Social relations
and values in household energy exchanges. Energy Research & Social Science 30: 103-
115.
Today’s research question
• How can qualitative research create a relationship with policy?
Spiral reflection and spark file