In "Writing and Reviewing Manuscripts in the Multidimensional World of Qualitative Research" (LaRossa, 2012), the author expressed the hope that, by sketching a cognitive map of the writing and reviewing process, authors and reviewers for the "Journal of Marriage and Family" ("JMF") would be better able to communicate with each other about the…

Qualitative manuscripts occupy a multidimensional world and can vary by their "latitude" (where they are with respect to the humanities and sciences), "longitude" (where they are with respect to the length and number of data excerpts), and "altitude" (where they are with respect to the level of theorizing). In this article, I discuss these 3…

Among the different qualitative approaches that may be relied upon in family theorizing, grounded theory methods (GTM), developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, are the most popular. Despite their centrality to family studies and to other fields, however, GTM can be opaque and confusing. Believing that simplifying GTM would allow them to be…

Using historical and content analysis, the role of qualitative family research is examined. Results indicated it generally is ignored by contemporary social scientists. The argument is made that qualitative as well as quantitative research is indispensable to the progress of family social science. (Author/BL)