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BOOK REVIEW
Constructing grounded theory. A practical
guide through qualitative analysis
Kathy Charmaz, 2006, 208 pp. London: Sage. ISBN
2005928035
This is a very useful book on constructing grounded
theory for both untrained and more experienced
researchers, which we warmly welcome and recom-
mend to colleagues and students on different uni-
versity levels. The different steps of grounded theory,
from data collection to analysis of qualitative data,
are clearly described and discussed in the book. We,
i.e. the authors of this review paper, have all used the
grounded theory method in our recent doctoral
theses in medicine, psychology, public health, and
odontology, respectively. We were grateful for the
possibility to read and learn from this excellent new
book, which fills a gap in the existing arsenal of
qualitative method books. Constructivist grounded
theory has emerged as a promising approach be-
tween positivism and postmodernism with an as-
sumption that multiple realities exist rather than
‘‘one and only real reality’’. Our aim is also to give
the readers of the International journal of qualitative
studies on health and well-being*QHW a brief sum-
mary of the content of the book, chapter by chapter.
Chapter 1. An invitation to grounded theory
This chapter gives an excellent review of the
historical development of grounded theory. Charmaz
shows her reflective respect for earlier grounded
theory researchers combined with introducing her
newer constructivist approach to grounded theory.
Glaser and Strauss talked about a grounded theory
as separated from the observer, whereas Charmaz
argues that, just as the world, grounded theories are
constructed by subjects. Construction of grounded
theories is influenced by interactions between the
people involved in the research process. Charmaz’
social constructivist perspective assumes that
grounded theories are interpretative descriptions of
the studied world rather than exact pictures of it.
Her perspective relies on the pragmatist philosophi-
cal tradition informed by symbolic interactionism.
Grounded theory methodology is viewed as flexible,
but systematic, guidelines for collecting and analys-
ing data. When analysing data, the researcher asks
himself/herself what occurs in the specific setting and
what the lives of the participants are like. The
researcher further asks what sense the participants
make of their own statements and actions and what
analytic sense that can be made of it all. The analysis
generates categories that are made more and more
abstract as data are gathered to refine the emerging
theory. In grounded theory, codes and analytic
categories are constructed from data and not de-
duced from established but ‘‘ungrounded’’ theory.
Important criteria for evaluating a grounded theory
study are presented in terms of credibility, origin-
ality, resonance and usefulness. Charmaz stresses
that without passion, curiosity, openness and care,
no advanced knowledge will be constructed. Accord-
ing to Charmaz, the engagement of the researcher
combined with the constant comparative method
constitutes the core of grounded theory.
Chapter 2. Gathering rich data
Charmaz guides the reader through different tools
for gathering data and she explores benefits and
limits for each tool. The methods exhaustively and
instructively discussed are ethnographic methods,
intensive interviewing, and textual analysis in rela-
tion to grounded theory. Practical guidelines are
given concerning each of the methods that are of
valuable help for researchers when gathering rich
data for a grounded theory study. Some questions
that need to be focused before entering data collec-
tion are also stressed by Charmaz: What do we want
to study? Which research problem might we pursue?
Which tools will help us to proceed? How do we
gather rich data? Rich data goes beneath the surface
of social and subjective life. Thus, according to
Charmaz, an inquiring mind, persistence and an
innovative data-gathering approach can bring a
researcher into new worlds and in touch with rich
data. Rich data will give the researcher a solid
material for building a significant analysis.
According to Charmaz, the grounded theory
adventure starts as the researcher enters the field
where data will be gathered. The researcher steps
forward from his/her disciplinary perspective with
a few tools and provisional concepts. From this
first step, a grounded theory journey may take
several varied routes, depending on where the
researcher wants to go and in what direction the
analysis takes him/her. Charmaz means that ‘‘quali-
tative’’ researchers have (at least) one great advan-
tage over ‘‘quantitative’’ colleagues. The former can
add new pieces to the research puzzle or conjure
entire new puzzles while gathering data and that can
even occur late in the analysis. The flexibility of
International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being. 2006; 1: 188�192
ISSN 1748-2623 print/ISSN 1748-2631 online # 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17482620600881144
qualitative research permits the researcher to follow
leads that emerge during the simultaneous process of
data collection and data analysis. It is stressed that
during the entire process of collection and analysis of
data the researcher’s critical view is essential. Char-
maz states: ‘‘By studying your methods, you will
improve both your methodological skills and the
quality of data. Subsequently, your scrutiny may lead
you to realize later that collecting another kind of
data with a different method may answer questions
in your emerging analysis. For large projects such as
theses, several data-gathering approaches may be
necessary in order to answer the research questions
raised’’ (p. 35).
Chapter 3. Coding in grounded theory practice
In this chapter, Charmaz deals with coding or as she
calls it ‘‘the bones of theory’’. In an encouraging
fashion, she states that the logic of ‘‘discovery’’
becomes evident as the researcher begins to code
data. In other words coding in grounded theory aims
at discovering what the theoretical meaning of data
might be. Coding for theoretical meaning contrasts
grounded theory from mere sorting or sifting which
is the usual purpose of qualitative coding. The
substance of theoretical meaning immanent in data
could be illustrated by the result from coding data
line-by-line or incident-by-incident, which then can
be compared with the impression the grounded
theorist once got from just reading field-notes or
an entire interview as one narration. The handicraft
of coding line-by-line, word-by-word or incident-by-
incident simultaneously also helps the researcher to
free him/her from the temptation to merge with the
world-view of the informants in the sense that this
world-view is not questioned. Simultaneously, Char-
maz underlines that being critical or asking questions
does not mean being critical of informants but
having a critical stance towards data. Data should
be anticipated, or acted upon, asking analytic ques-
tions and this process should be stamped by that the
researcher both stops in order to ask questions to
data and simultaneously adopts a stance of speed
and spontaneity. While coding, unexpected ideas,
that is codes, might emerge. Data and codes should
be compared to each other and then codes stemming
from one section of data could be used to explore
and throw light upon other sections of data.
Charmaz leans towards Glaser and argues that in
coding gerunds are preferable to nouns since ger-
unds reflect process and not topic. Gerunds lend us
a sense of action or sequence. She further recom-
mends grounded theorists to have an open mind
when looking at data and in a humorous fashion she
quotes Dey (1999, p. 251) who states, ‘‘There is a
difference between having an open mind and an
empty head’’. This means that in chapter 3 the
question of preconceptions is also thoroughly dealt
with. Preconceived conceptions should not be feared
but instead serve as a starting-point for looking at
data. A subsection of chapter 3 is named ‘‘Wrestling
with preconceptions’’. Regarding preconceptions,
Charmaz recommends that the researcher becomes
familiar with the phenomenon that he/she studies
including in-depth knowledge of the people that
contend to the phenomenon. The researcher’s un-
derstanding must at the same time move him/her
beyond what the participants take for granted. This
in turn forces the researcher to wrestle with the
participants’ frames of reference and his/her own at
the same time.
In the subsection on preconception, Charmaz
especially and importantly warns researchers of
using theoretical extants as intention and motivation
and ascribe these to the experiences of the infor-
mants. She emphasizes that researchers do not know
what other people think. Instead, the context of a
statement from a participant might be more of
interest to a grounded theorist than the statement
itself. A researcher busy coding ought to ask a
question about why a participant makes a certain
statement in a certain context. If the researcher
interprets the unstated purpose of a participant
telling him/her something this might illuminate a
research question’s implicit meaning. Making com-
parisons between what people say and what they do
also mean grounding interpretations on implicit
meaning in data. Charmaz comes to the researcher’s
aid regarding sources of failure when trying to make
use of data. She recommends that researchers
consider for example the possibilities of having
coded on a too general level or having used codes
to summarize instead of analysing data. Also in this
respect, chapter 3 constitutes great help to both the
novice and the experienced grounded theorist.
Chapter 4. Memo-writing
Charmaz gives memo-writing high priority in the
process of constructing a grounded theory and gives
the reader insight into why it is important to write
memos during the entire research process. Memo-
writing is, according to Charmaz, the pivotal step
between data collection and the draft. When the
researcher gets an idea, he/she is encouraged to
pause and to write a memo: ‘‘It prompts you to
analyze your data and codes early in the research
process’’ (p. 72). The methods of producing memos
are well illustrated and several examples are given in
the book that helps the reader to understand the
proposed techniques. Memos explicate analytic
notes, fill out categories and allow the researcher to
make comparisons between data and data, data and
Book review 189
codes, and so on. Charmaz gives an example of how
noting suffering in a memo, exploring the relation-
ship between suffering and moral status, led her to
construct the category ‘‘suffering as a moral status’’
and also guided an abstract analysis of this category
that stayed close to the data.
There are differences between formal, bureau-
cratic memo-writing, e.g. in business communica-
tion, and writing memos in a grounded theory study.
In a grounded theory study, it is important that
memos be produced spontaneously rather than
mechanically. Writing memos in grounded theory
is based on the researcher’s analytic purpose and
should be done using unofficial language for perso-
nal use or as Charmaz says, ‘‘I wrote the memo to
catch my fleeting ideas about the code and to probe
data, not to share with you’’ (p. 80). The methods of
memo-writing are divided into two types, ‘‘early
memos’’, which record what is happening in the
data, fill out codes and direct further data collection
and ‘‘advanced memos’’, which are used in describ-
ing how categories emerge and in making compar-
isons. Charmaz suggests that the untrained
researcher starts with prewriting exercises. Two
pretraining techniques that can be used are cluster-
ing and free writing. The notion that memo-writing
is essential in constructing a grounded theory is well
explored in the book. Chapter 4 gives the reader an
excellent direction in how to produce memos in
different phases of the research process.
Chapter 5. Theoretical sampling, saturation,
and sorting
Theoretical sampling is one of the fundamental
strategies when conducting a grounded theory study.
Charmaz gives rich descriptions, both concretely
and illustratively, of how theoretical sampling should
be understood and performed in a grounded theory
study. Here, it is easy to agree with Charmaz*she
essentially follows earlier central grounded theory
ideas about theoretical sampling. She also gives
several examples, which will help the more inexper-
ienced researcher to understand the logic of theore-
tical sampling. Although authors of grounded
theory-papers claim they have sampled theoretically,
there is often too little information about how it is
actually done. Alternatively, the theoretical sampling
may not follow the logic of grounded theory.
Charmaz means that the usual misunderstandings
are that theoretical sampling addresses initial re-
search questions, reflects population distributions,
finds negative cases and continues until no new data
emerge. She argues that the purpose of theoretical
sampling is to obtain data to explicate emerging
categories, advance the analysis of tentative cate-
gories and ‘‘directs where to go’’. Theoretical sam-
pling also aims at improving the analysis through
specifying properties of categories, increasing preci-
sion of categories, distinguish between categories,
providing data to move from description to analysis,
making analysis more abstract and generalizable,
grounding conjectures, clarifying and explicating
analytic links between or among categories, identify-
ing variations in a process and, finally, increasing the
parsimony of theoretical statements. Thereby Char-
maz clearly explains that theoretical sampling is
‘‘more than follow up intriguing earlier codes’’.
Based on the constructivist view of grounded theory,
Charmaz briefly discusses how the researcher can
influence the directions in theoretical sampling. The
researchers understanding and interest have pivotal
importance for these decided directions. Therefore,
the directions and decisions taken should be expli-
citly described and discussed in a grounded theory-
paper. But this is not an easy issue and Charmaz
only gives limited guidance here.
Theoretical saturation is another crucial, and often
criticized, concept in grounded theory. Charmaz
explicates her standpoint, and refers to other re-
searchers views of the concept of saturation. In line
with Glaser, Charmaz holds the idea that saturation
is not the same as repetition of the same events or
stories, rather ‘‘the conceptualisation of comparisons
of these incidents which yield different properties of
the pattern, until no or new properties of the pattern
emerge. This yields the conceptual density that when
integrated into hypotheses make up the body of the
generated grounded theory with theoretical comple-
teness’’ (Glaser 2001, p. 191). Alternatively, in the
words by Charmaz, ‘‘categories are ‘saturated’ when
gathering fresh data no longer sparks new theoretical
insights, nor reveals new properties of these core
theoretical categories.’’ Charmaz also points to pro-
blems of small sample size in relation to saturation in
a grounded theory study. ‘‘A study of 25 interviews
may suffice for certain small projects but invites
scepticism when the author claims are about, say,
human nature or contradict established research’’ (p.
113). She also points at how sorting and diagram-
ming data can be helpful in the theoretical develop-
ment of analysis by providing logic for organizing
data. This also implies that the researcher has to
describe carefully how the process of analysis has
proceeded. Charmaz also discusses the criticized
conditional/consequential matrix developed by
Strauss and Corbin (1990) with the purpose to help
researchers to move their thinking from micro social
structures into meso- and macro-level conditions and
consequences. In a credible manner, Charmaz con-
cludes that this predefined structure, in line with
similar other ‘‘coding families’’ suggested by, e.g.
Glaser (1978), may be helpful in organizing data.
190 Eva Brink et al.
Chapter 6. Reconstructuring theory in
grounded theory studies
The aim of a grounded theory study is to create a
theory and ‘‘the potential strength of grounded
theory lies in its analytic power to theorize how
meanings, actions, and social structures are con-
structed’’ (p. 151). Charmaz draws firm lines be-
tween positivist and interpretive inquiry, i.e. between
objectivist and constructivist modes of grounded
theory. She points out different definitions of theory
and of what a theory should be or not be in her
opinion. Charmaz uses examples from her own study
on changing identity during long-term sickness.
According to constructivist grounded theory, she
argues that a theory should emphasize understanding
rather than explanation. The theory is dependent on
the researcher’s interpretation of the data and the
data received from the participants concern their
interpretations of their lifeworlds. The theory is
contextually situated in terms of time, place culture
and situation. According to the objectivist grounded
theory, the result is not influenced by the researcher,
who is neutral; rather the result represents objective
facts from a ‘‘real’’ reality. However, this approach is
criticized by Charmaz. Charmaz also criticizes many
other grounded theorists and argues that the majority
of the published grounded theory work is of descrip-
tive rather than of theoretical kind. The researchers
are coding for themes instead of coding for actions
and thereby theory generation is most often lacking
Chapter 7. Writing the draft
Charmaz states that ‘‘writing qualitative research is
an ambiguous process’’ (p. 153). Therefore, she tries
to give hands-on advices on how to write a draft.
Writing, reading, and rewriting are essential compo-
nents in this process, according to Charmaz. Instead
of preparing a text for a given purpose, Charmaz
means that the author should create a draft with all its
components and decide later where and how to
publish. Writing should be looked upon as a con-
tinuation of the discovery process where the author
allows ideas to emerge, after which he/she can
construct a draft. It is suggested that sections cover-
ing material and the discovered theory is written first,
and that the author starts on introduction and
conclusions after that. The rational for this approach
is the same as before*to be able to be broad sighted
and not limited in any way. In writing, effort should
also be made to find arguments for the theory. It is
essential to catch the reader’s interest in the study
and its results, and the arguments should not only
make the reader interested but also make him/her
accept the writer’s viewpoints. It may be difficult to
find and to formulate the arguments, but the writer
can often find the arguments right in front of him/her,
embedded in the analysis. One important part in
writing is the process where the author refines the
theory. The author is advised to go over categories
and subcategories; do they follow the argumentation
and what power do they have? Categories should not
be too general or too obvious. Subcategories should
not be considered included until they are evident in a
way that they can actually serve as explicit headings
that explain new ideas. If they do not fit this purpose,
the author is advised to collapse subcategories, and to
condense descriptions. The draft and its description
of categories and subcategories should be obvious
and clear to attract the reader.
A draft also includes a literature review and a
theoretical framework. Here, Charmaz advises the
author to study the audience, to look at the journal
where the study should be published, to learn more
about standards and expectations. Preferable, a
literature review should not only be summarizing
important findings, but also serve as an argumenta-
tion for the report as such. The literature review is
also the right place to disclose gaps in existing
knowledge and to position the author’s study in a
wider context. In the theoretical framework, the
author is encouraged to inform on specific arguments
in the report rather than on the entire project. The
author puts the concepts and theoretical codes to
work in the theoretical framework and thus helps the
reader to locate the report in relevant disciplines and
discourses. One way to walk the fine line is to ask for
critique on the report from close colleagues. Con-
structive critique helps the author to identify vague
statements, over-generalizations, logic gaps, etc. This
kind of help is inevitably useful as it helps the author
to go over the report again, to improve it and to have
a more mature manuscript when it is time for
submission to a scientific journal.
Chapter 8. Reflecting on the research process
In this last chapter, Charmaz is looking back on the
steps taken in ‘‘the grounded theory journey’’ de-
scribed in the earlier chapters of the book. Questions
also arise about what stands at grounded theory and
when the method is evolving. She states that the
researcher is part of what he/she studies, not separate
from it, and that the core of the grounded theory
method is the use of the constant comparative
method as well as the researcher’s engagement.
Charmaz concludes that the strength of grounded
theory method lies in its flexibility. She assumes that
grounded theory must not necessarily be tied to a
single epistemology or a specific theoretical perspec-
tive. According to Charmaz, as researchers, we can
use grounded theory methods as a tool ‘‘without
subscribing to a prescribed theory of knowledge or
Book review 191
view of reality’’ (p. 178). In her book on a con-
structivist mode of grounded theory, Charmaz
attempts to bring the Chicago school of grounded
theory back into the foreground in an attempt to
enrich the current discussion of the method.
References
Dey, I. (1999). Grounding grounded theory. San Diego: Academic
Press.
Glaser, B. G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity. Mill Valley, CA:
Sociology Press.
Glaser, B. G. (2001). The grounded theory perspective: Conceptua-
lization contrasted with description. Mill Valley, CA: The
Sociology Press.
Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research:
grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA:
Sage.
Eva Brink
Department of Nursing, Health and Culture,
University West, Sweden
Lotta Dellve
Department of Public Health and
Community Medicine,
The Sahlgrenska Academy at Goteborg
University, Sweden
Ulrika Hallberg
Nordic School of Public Health, Goteborg,
Sweden
Kajsa Henning Abrahamsson
Department of Periodontology, Institute
of Odontology,
The Sahlgrenska Academy at Goteborg
University,
Goteborg, Sweden
Gunilla Klingberg
National Orofacial Resource Centre for
Rare Disorders
The Sahlgrenska Academy at Goteborg
University, Sweden
Kerstin Wentz
Department of Internal Medicine,
Sahlgrenska University Hospital/Molndal,
Molndal, Sweden
192 Eva Brink et al.
