Understanding Complexity: A Gift of Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

While the efficacy of quantitative inquiry is obtained by limiting the variables of interest, the success of researchers in doing so necessarily simplifies their object of inquiry. Though understanding complexity is not exclusive to qualitative inquiry, qualitative methods are notably suited for grasping the complexity of the phenomena we investigate. By not prespecifying what they will attend to, and by virtue of the relatively extended amount of time they devote to exploring their phenomena, qualitative inquirers have practically no limit to what they can uncover. This is illustrated with a sampling of data collected to study the play of ethnicity in a high school that serves an ethnically diverse population.