The Chicago School and the qualitative approaches: methodological terms and concepts

Abstract

The Chicago School of Sociology is usually regarded as crucial in the development of the qualitative techniques of research. Moreover, it is widely accepted that it played a rather hegemonic role in American sociology during the 1920’s and 1930’s, using the American Journal of Sociology as the main tool for the dissemination of its empirical research, and its theoretical and methodological approaches. However, those who have studied the history of the sociological methods in detail, contest that those developed by the Chicagoans were truly qualitative in the current sense. Taking into account this problematic issue, this article explores, by reviewing articles published in the above-mentioned Journal during the 1920’s, the uses and meanings attached to terms usually regarded as denotative of a qualitative approach: case study, fieldwork, field research, participant observer, among others.