The Use of Grounded Theory within 'Feminist' Research.

A four-stage feminist research project investigating European Social Fund (ESF)-funded vocational training for unemployed women used the grounded theory approach. Stage 1 involved the formation of the research questions and design. Steps included the ontological, epistemological, and methodological positioning of the researcher. Stage 2 was the case study with the "workers" of an ESF-funded training program in Britain (United Kingdom). A process of inductive coding was used for the analysis of the transcripts of loosely structured interviews. Two categories for considering the achievements of the training project were generated--immediate or future aims and intentions of each group involved. In stage 3, a search of legislative and policy documents was conducted. A benefit of the grounded theory approach was that it directed the research toward analysis of secondary data. Stage 4 was analysis of the labor markets. Again, a benefit of the approach was the way in which the research was directed outwards. Labor market data were analyzed historically, occupationally, and hierarchically to understand the position of women within the labor market and the relevance of the training to past, present, and projected labor market trends. At this stage in grounded theory, it was necessary to consider the entire research process by going back to the data, looking again at the emergent categories from each stage, and identifying the dominant relationship that emerged. The dominant relationship was the discourse of equal opportunities. (YLB)