Qualitative research on family relationships

Abstract

Qualitative approaches are excellent ways to investigate family dynamics and family relationships. In the present study, we identify four goals in which qualitative methods benefit researchers: (1) obtaining family members’ meanings about family interactions and relationships; (2) acquiring family insiders’ views about relational processes and observing family interactions; (3) examining families within contexts; and (4) giving voice to marginalized families and family members. Qualitative methods often yield extraordinarily rich data and exceed quantitative approaches for achieving some research goals. We examine how qualitative research may enhance scholarship on family relationships, highlighting selected studies on structurally diverse families as examples.

Keywords

Diverse families ethnography family relationships grounded theory methods naturalistic inquiry phenomenology qualitative research research methods

Although trained as quantitative researchers, we increasingly use naturalistic, interpretive methods and mixed methods that include substantial qualitative components. This transition from quantitative-only to more methodologically ecumenical research came about primarily because the questions we asked and the insights we wished to gain increasingly were best addressed by qualitative or mixed-method designs. By expanding our investigative repertoire to include qualitative approaches, we have enhanced our pursuit of interesting and complex research questions.

Why qualitative research?

Many excellent essays have explored the reasons for doing qualitative family research (e.g., Allen, 2000; Ambert, Adler, Adler, & Detzner, 1995; Gilgun, 2012; Holstein & Gubrium, 1995; Manning & Kunkel, 2014). In this essay, we focus on our assessment of the primary benefits of qualitative methods for studying families: (1) exploring family members’ understandings and meanings about family interactions and relationships; (2) capturing relational processes; (3) examining families within contexts; and (4) giving voice to members of marginalized families

Exploring family members’ meanings

In most family research, individuals are asked to self-report behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs using researcher-developed questions in formats that often limit the range of responses. In contrast, qualitative interviews, consisting primarily of open-ended questions, allow individuals to explain in their own words what they think, feel, or believe about their family relationships. This is particularly critical when researchers seek to understand the meanings that family members attach to experiences, how they perceive and value their relationships, and what it feels like to be a member of the family—what phenomenologists call lived experience. For example, qualitative research approaches (Table 1) have provided insights into the lived experiences of stepfathers (Marsiglio, 2004), stepchildren (Afifi, 2003), gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer encyclopedia (GLBTQ) parents (Berkowitz & Ryan, 2011), children of GLBTQ parents (Goldberg, 2007a), low-income mothers (Burton & Hardaway, 2012), and gay men’s feelings about marriage (Connidis, 2012).

Table 1.

Exploring family members’ meanings and capturing family processes in selected studies of diverse families.

Authors	Purpose(s)	Qualitative approach	Data collection methods	Selected findings
Marsiglio (2004)	Meanings/processes	GTM	Stepdad interviews	Stepfathers who assumed father-like identities with their stepchildren engaged in “claiming” behaviors that facilitated children’s development
Afifi (2003)	Meanings/processes	“Interpretive”	Interviews of three stepfamily members	Both children and adults felt loyalty binds in stepfamilies; specific reactions to feeling “caught” differed depending on who felt caught
Goldberg (2007a)	Meanings/contexts/voice	Thematic analysis	Interviews of children of GLBT parents	Multiple motives for coming out about parents’ sexual orientation influenced when and with whom family information was shared
Goldberg (2007b)	Meanings/contexts/voice	Constructivist framework	Interviews of children of GLBT parents	Individuals felt more open and tolerant about sexual issues
Berkowitz and Ryan (2011)	Meanings/context/voice	Secondary analyses qualitative data sets	Interviews of GL parents	GL parents try to balance cultural norms and their needs to “queer” the heteronormative gender order when rearing children
Connidis (2012)	Meanings/context/voice	Case studies	Text analyses	Both interviews and memoirs yield rich information; strengths and weaknesses of the two qualitative methods are compared
Burton and Hardaway (2012)	Meanings/processes/contexts	GTM and ethnography	Interviews and observations	Low-income women did not try to coparent their partners’ children from prior unions; instead, they used a model of “othermothering” to support children
Moore (2008)	Processes/context	Ethnography	Interviews and observations	Black lesbian power relationships are negotiated and derived from control over children (for mothers) and finances (for stepmothers)
Weaver and Coleman (2005)	Meanings/processes	GTM	Stepmom interviews	Stepmothers’ role performance is influenced by the ideology of motherhood
Lareau (2000)	Processes	Ethnography	Interviews and observations	Fathers make useful contributions to children and mothers, but they are unreliable reporters of family life
Sharp and Ganong (2011)	Meanings/voice	Phenomenology	Interviews	Single women past the normative age to be married felt anxious and embarrassed about being alone

Note. GTM = grounded theory method; GLBT = gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; GL = gay and lesbian.

For instance, Manning and Smock (2005), demographers who generally study cohabiting using large samples, conducted a qualitative study of 115 cohabiters, in part because they wanted to explore the meanings cohabiting held for couples. They concluded that, “families are defined by individuals” (p. 1001) in ways that do not always match researchers’ definitions and this disconnection between family members and scholars could obscure what is really happening with cohabiting couples. By using a qualitative design, these researchers were able to discover the complexity of decision making and the underlying rationale for the complicated processes by which couples moved into and out of cohabiting relationships (Manning & Smock, 2005).

Capturing family members’ meanings using in-depth qualitative methods can help researchers develop stronger theory and build more germane bodies of knowledge. For instance, Weaver and Coleman (2005) asked, “What is it like to be a stepmother?” In their study using grounded theory, stepmothers described the challenges of being in “a mothering kind of role but not a mother” (p. 477). These stepmothers felt that the cultural ideology of motherhood influenced their interactions with stepchildren, and they described their ambivalence when caregiving children while concurrently taking care not to usurp mothers’ roles and responsibilities: “Part of me wanted to be a mother to them, but I knew I couldn’t. So it’s [stepmothering] something that you almost have to negotiate with them daily” (Weaver & Coleman, 2005, p. 486). The expectations, wants, and needs of other family members (i.e., fathers, mothers, and stepchildren) also influenced how stepmothers conceptualized their roles. Sometimes expectations were mixed. For example, a parent said:

He wanted me to take an active role … to correct them if they needed correcting.… But then if he disagreed on something with the kids, he’d say, ‘Yes, but they are my kids.’ That’s what makes being a stepparent kind of a strange role—you are, but you aren’t. (Weaver & Coleman, 2005, p. 488)

Capturing family processes

Theories of family relationships nearly always include family processes as critical components, so it is important for researchers to be able to assess relational dynamics. The most effective way to address the “practices, codes, beliefs, and traditions that shape what families do on a daily basis but that are often hidden from view” (Daly, 2003, p. 771) is through qualitative research. Qualitative methods are excellent for assessing family members’ rich descriptions of family processes and for observing those processes in natural settings such as homes.

Rich descriptions of processes

Quantitative researchers have reported that stepchildren benefit from having close relationships with parents and stepparents (e.g., King, 2006, 2007). We believe the question of how these close relationships are built and maintained is answered best with qualitative approaches. For instance, in-depth interviews of stepparents (Ganong, Coleman, Fine, & Martin, 1999) and stepchildren (Ganong, Coleman, & Jamison, 2011) have revealed that stepparents who actively attempted to bond with stepchildren before the remarriage by engaging in shared interests or by helping the stepchildren in some way, and who maintain those bonding efforts after remarriage are more likely to have good relationships than stepparents who do not engage in relationship-building strategies or who stop them after remarriage (Ganong et al., 1999). Moreover, positive step relationships are formed when stepchildren notice stepparents’ relationship-building efforts, perceive benefits to themselves and their families and decide to reciprocate with their own affinity-seeking behaviors (Ganong et al., 2011), processes that would be hard to capture using quantitative methods. Other qualitative studies of stepfamily processes have revealed how fathers and stepfathers work together to benefit children and family relationships (Marsiglio & Hinojosa, 2007) and how mothers facilitated or hindered the development of stepfather–stepchild relationships as children’s defenders, gatekeepers, mediators, and interpreters (Weaver & Coleman, 2010).

Naturalistic observations

Observing family interactions in homes and other settings can also yield rich data about family processes. Such observations often involve prolonged contact with families (e.g., ethnographic approaches that use naturalistic observations and prolonged engagement with in-depth interviews; Lareau, 2000). Observations in real-life settings, combined with family members’ accounts, provide potentially rich data that cannot be obtained using other methods. For example, Lareau (2000), who combined in-depth interviews of 12 families with intensive home observations, encouraged scholars to observe what family members do rather than rely solely on self-reports because self-reported father involvement did not match observed behaviors. Fathers were not reliable sources of information about family routines; what fathers did was important for children and mothers, but what they knew about their children often came from their wives.

Examining families within contexts

Qualitative approaches to family scholarship provide excellent ways to account for contexts. This is critical because family relationship researchers and major theories of family dynamics generally contend that families’ sociohistorical, geographic, and even physical contexts must be considered to understand family dynamics and relationships (Crosnoe & Cavanagh, 2010). Obtaining in-depth information about family members and families in context helps scholars move beyond building “correlation-rich and explanation-poor” bodies of knowledge (Lester, 2013, p.3). Burton and Hardaway (2012), in an investigation from the Three-City Study of 256 low-income, mostly unmarried mothers, used in-depth interviews and ethnographic participant observations to explore the phenomenon of othermothering. Cultural values, particularly among Latina and African American mothers, influenced how women thought about and enacted their roles as othermothers to partners’ children from prior unions. Unlike the White, middle-class stepmothers in Weaver and Coleman’s (2005) study, these women had cultural models of othermothering to follow, and they purposefully engaged in othermothering, which they saw as distinct from coparenting their partners’ children (Burton & Hardaway, 2012).

Moore (2008) used multiple methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, and participant observation to study 32 lesbian stepfamilies in which at least one adult was Black. She accounted for contexts in multiple ways, employing a variety of methods to locate participants in New York city, including recruiting from community events. Moore (2008) analyzed her data within U.S. cultural values about gendered power, feminist ideology, and the ideology of motherhood to make sense of how adult partners in Black lesbian stepfamilies made household decisions. Moore (2008) argued that in the absence of gendered scripts, power relationships are negotiated and derived from control over children (for mothers) and finances (for stepmothers).

Giving voice to marginalized families and family members

Researchers who study marginalized families (e.g., gay and lesbian families, postdivorce families, homeless families, and grandparents raising grandchildren) have employed qualitative methods to give voice to those who would otherwise not be heard (Allen, 2000). The primary purpose of these studies is to provide individuals on the fringes of society a venue to express their unique stories.

To some degree, most qualitative approaches give study participants more voice than are afforded in quantitative investigations. Some families are so marginalized that members are reluctant or afraid to reveal their family status to outsiders; qualitative research can offer these family members a chance to be heard. For example, Goldberg (2007a) asked adults raised by gay, lesbian, or bisexual parents to describe how they disclosed about their families to others, and she asked them to share what they thought about being reared in such families (2007b). Berkowitz and Ryan (2011) asked lesbian and gay parents to share concerns about their children’s gender identities, finding that parents attempt to strike a balance between securing gendered role models for children while also queering heteronormative biases their children encounter. These studies, designed to investigate lived experiences or family processes, provide examples of giving voice to family members. Feminist family scholars have a long tradition of conducting research that provides opportunities for women to express themselves (e.g., Sharp & Ganong, 2011). One subset of qualitative approaches that give voice to participants is called action research or participant action research (e.g., Marshall, Zaidman-Zaity, Domene, & Young, 2012), a collaborative process between the researcher and those who likely will benefit from the investigation.

Innovations

Unlike our “old school” graduate school training, today’s upcoming family and relationship researchers increasingly are being prepared to utilize a wide array of research methods, including qualitative approaches. This portends well for the future of scholarship on family relationships. In addition to classic approaches to qualitative scholarship (ethnographies, grounded theory methods, and phenomenology), with their well-honed traditions of methods and analytic strategies, in recent years, a number of new, innovative qualitative analytic methods have been developed.

For example, new interpretive analytic methods facilitate couple- and family-level studies when data are collected from partners or multiple family members (see Eisikovits & Koren, 2010 for dyadic analytic methods or Manning, 2013 for inventive multiadic approaches to analyzing multiple discourses). For scholars interested in family communication and relational dialectics theory, Baxter’s (2011) contrapuntal analyses elucidate strategies for examining the interplay between competing discourses and the construction of meanings in relationships. Other novel approaches include using complementary narrative methods in a single study (Connidis, 2012) and mapping relationship dynamics with situational maps (Khaw, 2012). Indeed, the future looks bright for qualitative family scholars.

Summary

Although scholars have long engaged in qualitative family research, these studies have been and continue to be a small minority of published work (LaRossa, Goldberg, Roy, Sharp, & Zvonkovic, 2013). However, there is growing acceptance and respect for qualitative research, and ample resources are available for learning about qualitative family study approaches. These include meta-synthesizing bodies of qualitative studies on specific family topics (e.g., Daly, 2007; LaRossa, 2005, 2012 and responses to this article in the same issue; Manning & Kunkel, 2014; see also a special issue of the Journal of Family Theory & Review, Vol. 4, No. 2). The National Council on Family Relations recently commissioned a task force to examine barriers to publishing qualitative research in leading family journals (LaRossa et al., 2013). Large qualitative data sets (e.g., Fragile Families Study; Three-City Study) present opportunities for secondary interpretive data analyses. Respect for qualitative approaches continues to grow.

That growth is important, as qualitative research methods are perfect for “nosy” scholars who are intensely curious about how and why families do the things they do. We want to observe, hear, and tell family stories, and qualitative research allows us to do so. Qualitative family research is sometimes messy and overwhelming. It requires tact and patience to collect data that move beyond the surface story to deeper underlying processes and meanings. It requires researchers to become immersed in data; we carry family stories in our heads for weeks and months until we can make sense of them in a coherent way. Qualitative methods are not unlike detective work: What is going on in this family? How is family process affecting what we see or hear? Answering such questions is as satisfying as solving a mystery. Finally, qualitative family researchers have to have keen interest in and respect for the family members in their studies. What we learn from many of them will stay with us forever: their quotes, insights, struggles, and triumphs. Just as great novels influence and affect readers, good family qualitative research also has the power to change how we think and feel about families.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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