Contextualising grounded theory
Essentially, grounded theory has its origins in symbolic interactionsim, a paradigm
which holds that individuals engage in a world that requires reflexive interaction as
averse to environmental response. Accordingly, behaviour is goal driven, evolving
from social interaction that is highly symbolic in itself. This behaviour involves
various forms of communication, both verbal and non-verbal and the notion of symbols
is intrinsic to the perspective (Schwandt, 1994). Nonetheless, while symbolic
interactionism was a key school within sociology particularly during the 1950s and
1960s, there were few guidelines for using its concepts to conduct research. Much of the
work evolving from this paradigm was also emerging at a time when qualitative
research was under attack for lacking “scientific” procedures and rigour. Consequently
there was recognition of the need for a methodology that could track and validate the
process of theory building.
During this period two American sociologists, Barney Glaser, who was trained at
Columbia University New York and was heavily influenced by the formal theorising of
Paul Lazarsfeld, Paul Merton, and Herbert Hyman, and Anselm Strauss, a scholar