ANALYSIS OF QUALITATIVE DATA
EXPANSION BOX 4
Three Variations of the
Illustrative Method
- Case clarification.A theoretical model used to illu-
minate or clarify a specific case or single situation,
making the case more understandable by applying
theory to it.
- Parallel demonstration.Juxtapositioning of multiple
cases (i.e., units or periods) to show that the same the-
ory holds across multiple cases. Paige (1975) used par-
allel demonstration in a study of rural class conflict. He
first developed an elaborate model of conditions that
cause class conflict and then provided evidence to
illustrate it from Peru, Angola, and Vietnam.
3.Pattern matching.This method matches the obser-
vations from one case with the pattern or concepts
derived from theory or other studies. It allows for
partial theory falsification; it narrows the range of
possible explanations by eliminating some ideas,
variables, or patterns from consideration.
finding evidence to illustrate an empty box using one
case does not build a generalized explanation, which
requires evidence from numerous cases.
Domain and Scheme Analysis
Cognitive anthropology, which studies relations
between human culture and thought, has con-
tributed greatly to qualitative data analysis. It treats
cultures as mental creations or the cognitive orga-
nization of the physical, material world. Cognitive
anthropologists study how people understand and
organize material objects, events, and experiences.
They note that we make sense of reality based on
cognitive categories and that we order events, mate-
rial life, and ideas based on cultural categories.
Cognitive anthropology seeks to discover and doc-
ument the rules of behavior or logical systems of
thought that we use. To do this, it outlines what
people see as culturally expected or appropriate in
various situations more than what people actually
do. Cognitive anthropology is part of a broader type
of data analysis and theorizing that identifies how
people or institutions classify and categorize the
world, often implicitly. Such classifications then
“take on a life of their own” to organize human
experience (see Bowker and Leigh-Star, 1999).
Early cognitive anthropologists asked people
to arrange colors and plants into categories or to
organize relatives into kinship systems. This helped
the anthropologists to discover the organizing prin-
ciples that underlie human social behavior. Cogni-
tive anthropology evolved from studies in the
1950s–1960s (called “ethnoscience”) to the study
of “folk models” or “domains” in the 1970s, and it
later evolved to “scheme analysis.”Schemasare
abstract entities and unconscious models of the
world that we use to organize experience. In scheme
analysis, we do not view the parts of a culture as
either material or symbolic; rather we see culture as
being composed of many parts. These parts are not
static or integrated into a single whole; instead, we
apply schemes to organize the parts. Schemes are
cognitive units, such as prototypes, propositions,
and cognitive categories. We can analyze the parts
of culture to see whether they are shared, examine
how they are distributed across people, and look for
how the schemas relate to behaviors.
The anthropologist Spradley (1979a, 1979b)
developed domain analysis. We will examine this
system for qualitative data analysis in this section.
For Spradley, the basic unit in a cultural setting is a
cultural domain, an organizing idea or concept.
The data analysis system focuses on analyzing
domains. Later we can combine domains into tax-
onomies and broader themes that provide us an
interpretation of a cultural scene or social setting.
Cultural domains have three parts: a cover
term, included terms, and a semantic relationship.
The cover termis simply the domain’s name.
Included termsare the subtypes or parts of the
domain. A semantic relationshiptells how the
included terms fit logically within the domain. For
Domain analysis A method of qualitative data analy-
sis that describes and reveals the structure of a cultural
domain.
Cultural domain A cultural setting or site in which
people regularly interact and develop a set of shared
understandings or “miniculture” that can be analyzed.
