Historical and epistemological context of the development of qualitative research in psychology. Part 1

Abstract

The key characteristics of qualitative research in psychology are identified on the basis of analysis of historical logic of their development. The interdisciplinary nature of the development of qualitative methodology in social sciences and the wrongfulness of the definition of qualitative research as an opposition to the quantitative one are discussed. The intellectual sources of qualitative methodology, their implicit development within the framework of the socio-cultural anthropology, psychoanalysis and symbolic interactionism are considered. Special attention is given to the ways in which these trends conceptual ideas are realized in modern research practice.