Single Contributions

Single contributions can be submitted at any point in time. We are interested in reports from empirical studies and in contributions, dealing with the theory, methodology and application of qualitative research. Innovative ways of thinking, writing, researching and presenting are especially welcome.

For reports from empirical research, design and methods must be introduced in a way readers are able to understand how the results had been generated, i.e., authors should describe why they decided on the respective sampling, data collection, and data analysis method, and how the methods had been used in the research process. Authors are additionally encouraged to provide data as well as more detailed information about the research process; e.g., field notes or details of coding procedures in the case of grounded theory methodology. If data, lengthy transcript excerpts, etc. are provided, then it is necessary to assure the editors that data protection/privacy standards have been adhered to

Before submitting, please visit the Submission Preparation Checklist.

FQS Debates

FQS Debates aim to support the continual and controversial discussion of issues, important for qualitative researchers.

Section Editors: Franz Breuer, Paul Eisewicht, Thomas Etzemüller, Margarethe Kusenbach, Jo Reichertz, Margrit Schreier, Dirk vom Lehn, Hella von Unger, Nicole Weydmann

• Quality of Qualitative Research
• Qualitative Research and Ethics
• Teaching and Learning Qualitative Methods
• We Are Talking About Ourselves! Exploring How Social Scientists Work
• Ethnography of the Career Politics (closed)
• Social Constructionism (closed)

Before submitting, please visit the Submission Preparation Checklist.

FQS Interviews

With FQS 5(3), published in September 2004 we opened the rubric FQS Interviews. In this rubric we publish interviews with individuals engaged in qualitative research, as FQS aims to contribute to a vivid and transparent exchange beyond disciplinary/national frontiers.

You are cordially invited to recommend possible interviewees or to realize an interview after consulting the Section Editors: Günter Mey, Robert Faux.

• Information for Conducting and Documenting Interviews
• List of Interviews

Before submitting, please visit the Submission Preparation Checklist.

FQS Reviews

In FQS Reviews we publish reviews of books, book series, films, CD-ROMS and on-line journals that contribute  areas neglected by today's journal market. FQS is an international and interdisciplinary forum that supports the ideal of lively, enthusiastic, and discursive social sciences, fueled by discussion and debate. Therefore, the goal of FQS Reviews is not only to inform about new publications, but also to ignite dialog among researchers in the wider field of qualitative social research.

• Review of Media Units

Before submitting, please visit the Submission Preparation Checklist.

Section Editors: Günter Mey, Robert Faux

FQS Conferences

In the section FQS Conferences we provide important space for reports on conferences, workshops, symposia, and meetings of working groups. The goals of FQS Conferences closely adhere to the concept of FQS. Our hope is that the conference reports will provide current information and contribute to a lively, discussion-driven social science. In regard to this, it is necessary to go beyond merely providing the dates during which a conference was held, and to meaningfully discuss the content of presentations, and the issues that may have emerged, thus allowing for the initiation of new dialogs between researchers in qualitative social research.

• Information on Conference Reports

Before submitting, please visit the Submission Preparation Checklist.

Section Editors: Günter Mey, Robert Faux

FQS Debate: Quality of Qualitative Research

FQS Debate: Qualitative Research and Ethics

FQS Debate: Teaching and Learning Qualitative Methods

How do students in the social sciences learn (about) qualitative research methods and methodology—and how can such methods be taught? Under what conditions, in what ways, and by what means? How do students experience classes on this topic, and what do instructors think? What is the role of textbooks in this process, and how and where does a more personalized form of instruction enter the picture? What role does context play? ... It is questions of this kind that we intend to be addressed in the Debate on Teaching and Learning Qualitative Methods.

Of course there is no such thing as a or the qualitative method. Instead, we are faced with a wide range of rather heterogeneous methods and approaches that have been summarized under the heading of "qualitative." Quite plausibly there is also some heterogeneity concerning the ease with which these methods and approaches can be taught or learnt. Some methods have been standardized to a greater extent, and there exist rules for how and when they are to be applied—while others demand a greater degree of intuition and personal "artistry." And there may be variation in the extent to which the person of the researcher shapes methodical procedure and process. Taking this variation into account may in turn require specific methods of instruction, socialization procedures, and the like.

These considerations may be of special importance when it comes to teaching and learning (about) qualitative compared to quantitative methods. Do qualitative methods require a more personalized kind of instruction, a closer relationship between student and instructor (or should we say "mentor")? Is this an area where qualitative and quantitative methods differ? At least this has frequently been assumed to be the case and has in fact (from an outside perspective) been held against qualitative methods and methodology—in the sense of reproaching qualitative methods with a lack of objectivity  or reliability, and of questioning their scientific credibility and reputation.

On the other hand, empirical studies of the processes and steps involved in scientific research (in recent traditions of the sociology and ethnology of science) have shown that the practice of quantitative, natural science types of method and methodology also varies considerably with locale and lab group. Even elementary research methods may be applied in very different ways across labs. Here, too, learning about methods is clearly not achieved by reading a textbook, but (in addition) by watching an instructor and by participating in the practice of lab work. Under special circumstances, even mature researchers have shown to visit labs in other countries to learn about how to make an experiment work.

In other words, is the difference in teaching and learning (about) qualitative and quantitative research methods a difference in prejudice more than in practice? Is the difference between qualitative and quantitative "schools" in the humanities and social sciences a question not of the role and importance of personal characteristics of the researcher, but of the attention that is accorded to these personal elements in the research process and the extent to which they are reflected upon?

Learning (about) qualitative methods should not be a rite performed in secret in the close community between mentor and student! In this debate, we are concerned with laying open, bringing to attention, and discussing such procedures, concepts, and personal experience, relating them back to the various methods and approaches (qualitative "schools"), academic disciplines, institutional and curricular environments and conditions, and the like. What are the conditions under which qualitative methods are taught and studied—both inside universities and outside, in lectures, seminars, or lab projects, in mandatory or in optional classes? What are the disciplines and programs where the demand for instruction in qualitative methods can be met? How is this achieved? And where is this not the case? What do students do if no guided instruction is available in their own institutional context? How do the conditions compare across academic disciplines and internationally? Does the so-called Bologna process (i.e., the attempt to streamline institutional structures by creating comparable BA and MA programs across Europe) have an effect on the conditions under which qualitative methods are taught in the social sciences? In this, we are naming only a few of the pertinent issues.

Thus, we would herewith like to present and moderate a forum that is open to perspectives, reports, and suggestions from a variety of areas and actors—for all questions related to the area of teaching and learning (about) qualitative research methods.

For questions, please contact the Section Editors: Franz Breuer, Margrit Schreier, Nicole Weydmann.

Articles Published

FQS Debate: We Are Talking About Ourselves!

FQS Debate: We Are Talking About Ourselves!

Cultural and social scientists are interested in analyzing the lives of others. In so doing, they specifically do not limit their perspective to the surfaces, but see the pinnacle of their art in entering and illuminating the backstage of social representation. Regarding their topics, however, they have long been silent about themselves. In this new FQS Debate, which replaces the Debate on Ethnography of the Career Politics, we take up Francis BACON's much-hailed dictum but deliberately turn it around: "Of ourselves we speak!" is our motto.

The purpose of this debate is to scrutinize not only the social backstages of others but also our own. For both are inextricably linked in the processes of knowledge production. With an increasing interest in the social studies of the social sciences, a deliberate estrangement of our own scientific culture has begun more recently in the field of qualitative social research, see also FQS 3(3) and FQS 4(2). This has opened up a line of investigations dedicated to the creation of an empirically supported reflexivity in qualitative research. In this way, some of the dynamics of social and cultural science work already were made visible in qualitative social research and beyond. However, much remains in the dark.

In this FQS Debate, we, the editors, invite authors to conduct empirical explorations of cultural and social science work, including their own. We hope to see not only classic scientific-analytical articles, but also autoethnographic narratives, fictionalized reports, videos, clever polemics, graphics, and drawings; and we are open to alternative forms of presentation.

Authors may choose between two different forms of publication:

1. Contributions in FQS format, which go through a peer-review process, and
2. Contributions in moderated blog format. This format includes the option of anonymous authorship, which should, for example, enable the discussion of power issues in academia. It is still in preparation. We are planning to make it available in August 2021.

In both formats, we would like to see an open, lively, critical and respectful culture of debate in which the authors refer to each other. We are interested (in the broadest sense) in qualitative studies of all social and cultural science research traditions, regardless of their concrete disciplinary or methodological location. Explorations of inter- and transdisciplinary work contexts are specifically welcome.

In particular, we invite contributions in three interrelated areas of study. They are to be understood as suggestions and contributions to the debate that go beyond these are also welcome.

1. Explorations of Cultural and Social Scientific Research

The production of knowledge in the cultural and social sciences involves numerous stages, from the selection of topics, methods, and teams to the publication and reception of results. Cultural and social scientists initiate, maintain and terminate research relationships. They produce, process, interpret, share, archive, lose, and discard data. They interpret and discuss their work in research teams, reflect, write notes, memos, comments and essays, read, and edit. The list goes on. Exploring the many facets of knowledge production in detail has great potential for science studies (where the focus—until recently—was on the natural sciences), but also for cultural and social science research itself. First of all, the envisioned debate may help increase the level of reflection. It creates an empirical basis that may raise awareness for details of knowledge production in concrete research projects. Furthermore, it may make visible which aspects of cultural and social science work—that up to now have not (or not sufficiently) been reflected upon methodically and methodologically—are epistemologically effective and should therefore be subject to methodological reflection. Last but not least, a qualitative investigation of work in the cultural and social sciences also has great potential for the teaching of methods, because it shows which elements of the research process should be emphasized in the classroom—especially when they have not, or only marginally, been addressed in methodological textbooks so far.

Possible questions in this area include:

• Who produces cultural and social scientific knowledge and how does it come about?
• Which actors, practices, materialities, and institutional contexts are relevant?
• In which places do cultural and social scientific knowledge emerge, and how do these geographies or architectures translate themselves into knowledge?
• How do cultural and social scientists mobilize their extra- or preacademic resources (networks, habitus, experiences from paid or voluntary work, travel, etc.) in concrete research projects?
• How do they reflect, justify, and use methodologically dubious but epistemologically productive dynamics and events in the research process?
• How can we use these insights for the methodology and teaching of cultural and socio-scientific research processes?

2. Explorations of Cultural and Social Scientific Career Policies

Here we would like to stimulate self-reflection on the scientific field in regards to its dynamics, work and careers with which difficulties and with which practices do cultural and social scientists establish and assert themselves in the scientific endeavor? This also means: What does failure (which is even more concealed and hushed up) look like? What constitutes failure? What form does failure take?

• How do social scientists align biography and business, i.e., how do they fit everyday life, life plans, partnerships and scientific ambitions into the requirements of the scientific business?
• Which strategies of advancement, attention generation and self-protection do they choose? How do they act to indicate their own position? How do these dynamics (re-)shape one's own scientific work/interests/topic choices?
• How do new forms of life (e.g. commuter existences or globalized careers) shape intellectual work? How is intellectual exchange organized, how does it possibly suffer when researchers constantly or often are on the road? Do (video) conferences replace the former continuity of on-site reading circles and colloquia?
• How do cultural and social scientists deal with power situations? What role do conflicts play in the production of knowledge?
• How do cultural and social scientists present themselves? What role does their appearance play for their own reputation? Were there situations in one's own or an observed career in which performance was decisive?
• What role does gender, social origin and migration background play? Can language skills hinder (dialect) or promote (active English) reception?
• What do forms of communion look like at institutes? Does the coffee kitchen and the evening pub still have meaning? How are positions in (informal) social processes balanced? How are conflicts defused, channeled, rendered civil? and Does increasing mobility possibly fuel conflicts due to non-presence?

3. Explorations of Cultural and Social Science Scholarly Communication

As authors of scientific publications, cultural and social scientists face specific writing challenges for different academic and non-academic publics. It is necessary to bring about communicative translation performances to appropriately depict which field-immanent and represent them in (scientifically) legitimate modes of presentation and argumentation. For successful scientific careers it is becoming increasingly relevant to have the competence for engaging in scientific communication that resonates in and with different public spheres. The writing process resembles a complex assembly of practices, which we want to investigate in this debate.

Although the performativity of ethnographic texts is now often cited as a quality criterion for the presentation of qualitative research results, it is not discussed in terms of concrete knowledge products such as articles in journals, ethnographic monographs, or graduate theses. In the production of various written formats, it is again up to the authors to make deliberate decisions concerning: the selection and fit of the targeted peer-review journal or other, (including non-academic) publication venues, regarding the basic textual-aesthetic composition (non-fit/fit with established standards of presentation); the choice of stylistic as well as theorizing framework; the representation of field actors in relation to the mapping of social-structural explanations; the type and extent of the thematization of the (for example ethnographic) self for the production of researcher credibility; the types of argumentative persuasion; the chosen degree of generalization; and so on.

Possible questions in this area include:

• How do cultural and social scientists produce texts for different publics? And what role do the chosen genres/representation modes (feuilleton, interviews, storytelling, science slam, etc.) play? What resonances, relations to each other, and pitfalls can be observed?
• Which (il-)legitimate modes of thematization and tabooing of field-involvement can be reconstructed?
• Which topics and actors are (not) represented in cultural and social science work, for example in the field of social inequality, and why? Which social narratives are thereby potentially reproduced?
• What do authors experience in formulating and receiving feedback regarding the ethnographic writing and reception, for example in journalistic formats, but also in peer review contexts?
• How does the follow-up communication of different actors take shape in response to the science communication conducted?

Forms of Contributions and Modes of Participation

The qualitative investigation of cultural and social science research processes and their academic actors requires methodological self-reflexivity and distance of the investigators from their field involvements. Against this background, we facilitate participation in different genres, as outlined above.

Please send your contribution as text, video, blog entry, drawing, photograph, etc. to: Franz Breuer, Thomas Etzemüller,  Jo Reichertz, Wolff-Michael.