Editorial Board

Udo Kelle

Udo Kelle studied (after briefly testing the field of medicine) in Hannover, Bielefeld and Bremen sociology and psychology. In Bremen he had the classical training in quantitative research methods (i.e. test theoretical, experimental and statistical orientation) and worked for some years as a statistics tutor. The traditional quantitative orientation soon seemed inadequate for a subject oriented social science research. Under Ansgar Weymann he got to know the symbolic interactionism and the Chicago School as the "alternative classic" in social science methods and made the experience in (an initially quantitative) evaluation project studying the de-hospitalisation of chronic mentally ill persons, that participatory observation brought much more valid understandings about social processes than technically sound questionnaires.

The special research department 186 at the Universität Bremen, at which he, as a research assisstant, built-up the area of Methodology Development between the years 1989 and 1997, proved to be for him an ideal field for connecting the two different methodological traditions, since many of the projects implemented by the study of lives both qualitative and quantitative methods. In cooperation with projects researching the life stories of welfare recipients and of delinquent youths, the analysis of the biographies of young blue-collar workers and older women, he developed methodical concepts for data surveying and analysis, but also strategies for combining qualitative and quantitative social research. During sebatticals, especially as Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University Surrey in the Wintersemester 1996/97, where he worked closely with Nigel Fielding, he learned to appreciate the pragmatic style of the English and American colleagues in dealing with basic methodical questions. Presently, he is trying (with some success) to implement this pragmatism in the dicussions on the worth of qualitative methods in the social sciences. As one of the few methodicians with a qualitative interest focus who was accepted in the (strongly quantitative-oriented) section "Methods of the empirical social research", he is making the effort to adequately represent all of the qualitative methods, and is at the same time working in the newly founded work group "Qualitative methods in empirical social research".

But his special interest is the methodological and theorical explanation of qualitative research methods: His dissertation "Empirically grounded theory development" (1994, 2. edition 1998) was the first monography that dealt with the importance of qualitative social research in the context of analytical scientific theory and the critical rationalism. In a number of German and English papers in journals and textbooks, he deals with the various strategies for analysing qualitative data, with questions of validity in the context of qualitative research and with the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Furthermore, he contributed to the current discussions on methodological aspects of decision-theoretical perspectives with a number of articles. His newest publication encompasses a monographie on Typologie (together with  Susann Kluge) and a contribution to the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods.

In 1993, Udo Kelle organised the first international conference on computer usage in the qualitative social research. An often cited handbook for this area was the result of this symposium. Today he is a member of the editorial board for the journal "Sociological Research Methods", the journal "Handlung-Kultur-Interpretation" and the books-series in "New Technologies for Social Research" (Sage Publications). Furthermore, he belongs to the International Advisory Board for various handbooks for qualitative social research (among others for the soon to appear publication "Handbook of Qualitative Research" by Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba, and for the handbook on ethnographic methods by Lyn Lofland, Sarah Delamont und Paul Atkinson which which is to appear in the year 2000).

Currently, he is teaching  (quantitative and qualitative) research methods at the "Institut für Interdisziplinäre Gerontologie" at the University in Vechta. His research interests are still in the methodology of qualitative social research and decision-theoretical standpoints. More specifically, he is currently working on the question as to how structures of social action can be adequately reconstructed with the help of various causality concepts through qualitative and quantitative methods.These considerations are practically applied in empirical studies of care giver burden, i.e. persons who must care for relatives in need.

Published in FQS:

• Udo Kelle (2005). "Emergence" vs. "Forcing" of Empirical Data? A Crucial Problem of "Grounded Theory" Reconsidered. FQS 6(2)

• Udo Kelle (2001). Sociological Explanations between Micro and Macro and the Integration of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. FQS 2(1)

• Udo Kelle (2000). Review Note: Clive Seale (1999). The Quality of Qualitative Research. FQS 1(3)

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Udo Kelle

Institut für Soziologie
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Ketzerbach 11
35032 Marburg, Germany

Phone: +49 / 6421 / 282-4584, - 282-4588 (Sekr.)

E-mail: Kelle@staff.uni-marburg.de

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© 1999-2008 Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research
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