The Qualitative Portfolio at The Gerontologist: Strong and Getting Stronger

Over three and a half years ago, The Gerontologist (TG) made a significant and unprecedented commitment to promoting qualitative research when then-Editor-in-Chief Jim McAuley appointed an associate editor (Nancy Schoenberg) with expertise in qualitative design. Soon after this appointment, they co-authored a brief editorial (Schoenberg & McAuley, 2007), making public the journal’s commitment to publishing high-quality qualitative research and providing guidelines for both authors and reviewers. The recent appointment of Rachel Pruchno as Editor-in-Chief of TG provides an opportune moment to consider our past, current, and future commitment to publishing the most innovative, theoretically sound, and methodologically rigorous scholarly works from both the qualitative and the quantitative research traditions. In this editorial, we suggest how research using qualitative approaches may advance gerontological knowledge, discuss the growing presence of qualitative articles in TG, and offer expanded guidance for authors submitting qualitative and mixed methods manuscripts and reviewers assessing these works.