Research Paradigms, Values, and Spouse Abuse

Abstract

This article invites dialogue on qualitative research strategies for understanding the social contextual and subjective complexities of interpersonal violence. The epistemological assumptions and practical challenges of qualitative methods are contrasted with traditional quantitative approaches. The authors assert that (a) the differences between the two approaches are not paradigmatic, in the Kuhnian sense of scientific revolutions; (b) there are important links, yet no necessary connections, between a feminist ethos in the social sciences and qualitative methods; (c) both qualitative and quantitative methodologists wish to increase the credibility of research findings, and may benefit from conceptual cross-fertilization; and (d) questions of values and politics in research on spouse abuse cannot be reduced to questions of methodology. Throughout, the article advocates both methodological diversity and rigor in the effort to understand spousal violence.