The rise and relevance of qualitative research

The article discusses the development of social research in advanced economies and relates the rise of qualitative research to social changes. The paper suggests that partly, qualitative research emerged because some of the articles formerly classified as ‘non‐empirical’ or ‘theoretical’ gave way to an increasing share of articles classified as qualitative. In addition, the rise of qualitative inquiry meant that the everyday reality which produces statistical relationships between the variables of quantitative analysis is given more attention. Since the rise of qualitative research has primarily taken place at the expense of non‐empirical or theoretical rather than quantitative articles, one can argue that it has contributed to an overall systematization of social research. Overall, qualitative inquiry simply carries on one aspect of social science, the mission to study ‘the social body,’ the practices that make up social institutions and produce the regularities reflected in statistical relations.