The previous chapter has described the different traditions of qualitative
research and the particular 'school' of research that forms the backcloth to
this book. It also described the main defining features of qualitative research
and, in this second chapter, we consider what these features bring to social
enquiry.
We begin the chapter with an overview of the different functions of qualitative
research in addressing the types of research questions that arise in
social research. There is then some discussion of the roles of different qualitative
research methods in investigating and portraying social phenomena.
The final section describes ways in which qualitative research can be used in
harness with statistical enquiry.