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| Author | Barney Glaser Anselm Strauss |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
Publication date | 1965 |
Awareness of Dying is a 1965 book ( ISBN 0-202-30763-8) by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss. In his 2007 article, sociologist Stefan Timmermans called the book "landmark". [1]
When Strauss came to the medical school of the University of California, San Francisco, he looked for an interesting subject that would also get the attention of medical people. Visiting hospitals, he discovered that dying was a highly problematic issue.
Strauss started field studies and six months later hired Glaser from Columbia University. Both researchers already had personal experience with the subject: Strauss had lost his mother and a friend in recent years, Glaser his father.
Strauss and Glaser suspected early on that the expectation of death by both the dying and the relatives were a key to understanding the interactions between those people. Their choice of hospitals and stations allowed them to compare various kinds of expectations. On a premature infant station, mortality was high but the patients were not aware of their impending deaths, while on an oncology station, dying was slow and differences in the awareness of dying were very pronounced. The typical situations were again different for emergency rooms and geriatrics or pediatrics departments.
Out of these field studies grew Awareness of Dying, a theory on the influence of awareness on the interaction with dying people. It differentiated between closed awareness, suspicion, mutual deception, and open awareness. The field studies had shown that the type of awareness had a significant impact on interaction — for instance, if patients were not aware of their dying, the nursing was often limited to the absolutely necessary in order to prevent open awareness.
The book was the first application of grounded theory.[ citation needed ] Only two years later did Glaser and Strauss publish The Discovery of Grounded Theory , a book on the methodology they developed while working on Awareness of Dying.
Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born American sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century".
Dying is the final stage of life which will eventually lead to death. Diagnosing dying is a complex process of clinical decision-making, and most practice checklists facilitating this diagnosis are based on cancer diagnoses.
Heiner Geißler was a German politician with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and a federal minister from 1982 to 1985.
Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology, sociology, communication studies, human geography, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.
Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This type of research typically involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, or observations in order to collect data that is rich in detail and context. Qualitative research is often used to explore complex phenomena or to gain insight into people's experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. It is particularly useful when researchers want to understand the meaning that people attach to their experiences or when they want to uncover the underlying reasons for people's behavior. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, communication studies, social work, folklore, educational research, information science and software engineering research.
Anselm Leonard Strauss was an American sociologist professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) internationally known as a medical sociologist and as the developer of grounded theory, an innovative method of qualitative analysis widely used in sociology, nursing, education, social work, and organizational studies. He also wrote extensively on Chicago sociology/symbolic interactionism, sociology of work, social worlds/arenas theory, social psychology and urban imagery. He published over 30 books, chapters in over 30 other books, and over 70 journal articles.
In micro-sociology, interactionism is a theoretical perspective that sees social behavior as an interactive product of the individual and the situation. In other words, it derives social processes from social interaction, whereby subjectively held meanings are integral to explaining or understanding social behavior.
Near-death studies is a field of psychology and psychiatry that studies the physiology, phenomenology and after-effects of the near-death experience (NDE). The field was originally associated with a distinct group of North American researchers that followed up on the initial work of Raymond Moody, and who later established the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) and the Journal of Near-Death Studies. Since then the field has expanded, and now includes contributions from a wide range of researchers and commentators worldwide. Research on near-death experiences is mainly limited to the disciplines of medicine, psychology and psychiatry.
Barney Galland Glaser (1930–2022) was an American sociologist and one of the founders of the grounded theory methodology.
Grounded theory is a systematic methodology that has been largely applied to qualitative research conducted by social scientists. The methodology involves the construction of hypotheses and theories through the collecting and analysis of data. Grounded theory involves the application of inductive reasoning. The methodology contrasts with the hypothetico-deductive model used in traditional scientific research.
Hildegard E. Peplau was an American nurse and the first published nursing theorist since Florence Nightingale. She created the middle-range nursing theory of interpersonal relations, which helped to revolutionize the scholarly work of nurses. As a primary contributor to mental health law reform, she led the way towards humane treatment of patients with behavior and personality disorders.
The Discovery of Grounded Theory is a 1967 book (ISBN 0-202-30260-1) by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss on grounded theory.
Theoretical sampling is a process of data collection for generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects codes and analyses data and decides what data to collect next and where to find them, in order to develop a theory as it emerges. The initial stage of data collection depends largely on a general subject or problem area, which is based on the analyst's general perspective of the subject area. The initial decisions are not based on a preconceived theoretical framework. The researcher begins by identifying some key concepts and features which they will research about. This gives a foundation for the research. A researcher must be theoretically sensitive so that a theory can be conceptualized and formulated as it emerges from the data being collected. Caution must be taken so as to not limit oneself to specific aspects of a theory; this will make a researcher blind towards other concepts and aspects of the theory. The main question in this method of sampling is this: what groups should the researcher turn to next in the data collection process, and why?
Alexey Andreevich Anselm was a Russian theoretical physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, director (1992–1994) of the B.P. Konstantinov Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI), member of: the Russian and American Physical Society, the executive committee of the Nuclear Physics Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the editorial board of the Russian journal “Yadernaya Fizika”.
Susan Leigh Star (1954–2010) was an American sociologist. She specialized in the study of information in modern society; information worlds; information infrastructure; classification and standardization; sociology of science; sociology of work; and the history of science, medicine, technology, and communication/information systems. She commonly used the qualitative methods methodology and feminist theory approach. She was also known for developing the concept of boundary objects and for contributions to computer-supported cooperative work.
Death trajectory refers to the pattern of dying when a patient is given a projected death date with limited or no medical recourse for the remaining existence of the individual's life. The death trajectory is dependent on the cause of death, whether it is sudden death, chronic illness, or the steady decline in health due to senescence (aging). Death trajectory is analyzed in two separate aspects: duration and shape. Duration refers to the period of time a patient has to live, which can be anywhere from imminent death to several months. Shape refers to how that duration is then graphed. In other words, the shape is "the course of dying, its predictability, and whether death is expected or unexpected".
Biographical research is a qualitative research approach aligned to the social interpretive paradigm of research. The biographical research is concerned with the reconstruction of life histories and the constitution of meaning based on biographical narratives and documents. The material for analysis consists of interview protocols (memorandums), video recordings, photographs, and a diversity of sources. These documents are evaluated and interpreted according to specific rules and criteria. The starting point for this approach is the understanding of an individual biography in terms of its social constitution. The biographical approach was influenced by the symbolic interactionism, the phenomenological sociology of knowledge, and ethnomethodology. Therefore, biography is understood in terms of a social construct and the reconstruction of biographies can give insight on social processes and figurations, thus helping to bridge the gap between micro-, meso-, and macro- levels of analysis. The biographical approach is particularly important in German sociology. This approach is used in the Social Sciences as well as in Pedagogy and other disciplines. The Research Committee 38 "Biography and Society" of the International Sociological Association (ISA) was created in 1984 and is dedicated "to help develop a better understanding of the relations between individual lives, the social structures and historical processes within which they take shape and which they contribute to shape, and the individual accounts of biographical experience ".
Medical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledge and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural effects of medical practice. The field commonly interacts with the sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies, and social epistemology. Medical sociologists are also interested in the qualitative experiences of patients, often working at the boundaries of public health, social work, demography and gerontology to explore phenomena at the intersection of the social and clinical sciences. Health disparities commonly relate to typical categories such as class and race. Objective sociological research findings quickly become a normative and political issue.
Awareness contexts refers to the varying levels of knowledge or suspicion that both patients and medical staff possess about the health status of the patient. The term is generally used in the context of terminally ill patients. It was "the first comprehensive sociological exploration of the process of dying", and it is credit with aiding activism improving the rights of terminally ill patients.
Kathleen Marian Charmaz was the developer of constructivist grounded theory, a major research method in qualitative research internationally and across many disciplines and professions. She was professor emerita of sociology at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, and former director of its Faculty Writing Program. Charmaz’s background was in occupational therapy and sociology. Charmaz’s areas of expertise included grounded theory, symbolic interactionism, chronicity, death and dying, qualitative health research, scholarly writing, sociological theory, social psychology, research methods, health and medicine, aging, sociology of emotions, and the body.