Author
Lyn Richards

Pub Date: 11/2009
Pages: 256

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Lyn Richards
Title: Wedding Work

Author: Áine M. Humble, Department of Family Studies and Gerontology, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Setting up the project
With my training in Family Studies, I'm interested in relationship dynamics, and from a feminist perspective, I am particularly interested in how gender influences such dynamics. In a previous study (Humble, Zvonkovic, & Walker, 2008 [PDF- 109 KB]), which was based on my dissertation, I interviewed newly (heterosexual) married couples about how they planned their weddings, focusing on how they "constructed gender" during the work involved in the planning of this ritual - it is very much "work" for some, not so much for others. In this work, I identified three types of couples: (a) traditional (bride plans the wedding on her own or with other women), (b) transitional (bride and groom talk about how they planned the wedding together, but more specific details suggest otherwise), and (c) egalitarian (bride and groom plan the wedding together). During one interview, a bride who had a stressful experience with the wedding planning commented, "I hope nothing ever comes between (my husband) and I, but if I'm ever in a situation where I have to, or where I'm going to get married again, I'm eloping." This led me to think, "Hmmm, do brides and grooms really do things differently when they remarry, and if so, what accounts for this?" I set out to explore how the categorizations seen in my first study might be represented in a group of remarried couples, carrying out a directed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) informed by the gender perspective (Ferree, 1990; Thompson, 1993). But finding couples to interview wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. In the rest of this section, I will talk about sampling issues and the challenges of putting together my sample. [More...]

The data
As Richards and Morse (2007) note, data is not "collected" but rather is "made" through an interactive process occurring between researchers and participants. I made my data through in-depth, semi-structured interviews carried out with 28 participants (husbands and wives from 14 couples). Although I talk about "couples" and describe most of my findings in a dyadic manner, I did interview wives and husbands separately so that I could obtain their individual perspectives on how their wedding planning had played out. Verbatim transcribing resulted in 799 pages of text that were imported into MAXQDA software for analysis. However, several problems occurred with transcription before I could even analyze the data, and I will briefly describe these problems. I will also provide links to several documents used during this stage (i.e., interview guide, transcription guide, and letter to participants for reviewing their transcripts). [More...]

Working with data
Good data management is key for any study, and I kept track of the various aspects of my study through a folder system, which was set in place prior to the start of the study. I followed a data management system that I use for every study I conduct - I find it easier to locate files if I have a standardized procedure. I will link to a screenshot of what this looks like. Having a process for protecting key documents is also very important. I backed up documents in several ways. I managed my data through the use of MAXQDA 2007, the latest version of MAXQDA software at that time. I will provide links to screen shots and descriptions showing how this qualitative data analysis (QDA) program assisted with data management and the first stage of data analysis. As already stated, I used a directed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) to explore the transferability of a previously developed conceptualization (three couple categorizations of wedding planning in newly married couples) to a new context (wedding planning in remarried couples), which implies a deductive style of qualitative analysis. However my analysis still included inductive processes; Daly (2007) describes how qualitative research can be abductive - a combination of induction and deduction. To begin, I used the same inductive processes from my first study (Humble et al., 2008 [PDF- 109 KB]), particularly open/initial coding (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1990; also referred to as topic coding by Richards & Morse, 2007) and constant comparison (Charmaz, Strauss & Corbin). I will admit that I did consider transferring all of the codes from the first study to the second study. I actually tried this but gave up very quickly - after about five minutes! - realizing that I was much more comfortable working from an inductive approach at this stage in the analysis. I then followed up with a more deductive approach as I examined the data through the lens of the conceptualization (traditional, transitional, and egalitarian couple categories) developed in the first study. Finally, I created a qualitative matrix (Richards, 2005) to explore if there were any patterns between individuals' experiences with planning their first weddings and their most recent weddings. The rest of this section describes these techniques in more detail. [More...]

Analysis processes
As stated in the previous section, I used similar data analysis techniques as my first study, but after I had done this, my results still felt incomplete. I felt that I still needed more verification of the findings, and from a theoretical standpoint, I was still considering what distinguished each of the couple categories from each other. I followed my instinctual nose, as Morse (2000) calls it, to explore other ways of looking at the data. I used a rank order comparison (Curtis et al., 2001), using the Attributes table and Code Matrix Browser tools available in MAXQDA. I also used a new visual tool called TextPortraits to become more sensitized to what was represented in the data. I will provide links for screen shots and brief descriptions of these to help you understand how they work. This multifaceted approach to data analysis was very helpful in identifying two blind spots I had in my analysis, as I will later describe. I will provide references and links to other articles where more detail is provided about how I carried out my analysis. Finally, I will note how through the process of coming to learn how much MAXQDA had to offer, I developed a keen interest in how qualitative software both contributes to and influences data analysis. [More...]

Reporting the project
I am happy to say that reporting the project was an easy and interesting process. When I set out to write a paper (PDF-139 KB) based on this study, I knew the perfect journal to submit it to: The Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. However, as I prepared my manuscript, one small detail arose. I will talk more about this, but suffice to say, my advice to researchers is talk to the journal editors and see what leeway they will give in terms of a journal's submission criteria. Additionally, as I was doing my analysis and writing this paper, I realized that "there was a second paper inside of me" - I do not know how else to describe this, but it was a very exciting realization. As a result of my experience with the data analysis, I decided to write a paper that was more methodologically focused. As Richards (2005) notes, we often lack the space in our published work to talk about the actual analysis, what we actually did with the data, and I wanted to share my insights and experiences with others. Thus, in the week immediately following the completion of my first article, I birthed a second article, becoming a proud new parent to a manuscript submitted to the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. I will talk more my decision to submit to these journals and my experiences in doing so in the rest of this section. [More...]

List of References