Grounded theory and membership categorisation analysis: Partner methodologies for establishing social meaning — A research example

SummaryIn this paper some of the limitations of grounded theory are demonstrated by examining the application of categories that arose in an empirical study of sexuality in special hospital settings (high security psychiatric hospitals). By looking in more depth at the ways in which the categories are applied and the meanings given to them by informants it is shown that grounded theory relies on a reconstructed logic. This logic is at once plausible but it requires a great deal of accommodative work if the meaningful behaviour of informants is not simply to be taken on ‘trust of interpretation’. In facing these limitations during the study the author was drawn to ethnomethodology and, in particular, membership category analysis (MCA) as an additional approach. By working through a case example it is shown how the values of informants and their meaningful behaviour can be reached through MCA analysis.