Integration or Assimilation? Locating Qualitative Research in Psychology

Though the debate over the validity of qualitative research and its existence within the field of psychology has somewhat diminished over the years, negotiations over its location and form continue. This article examines the pressure on qualitative researchers to acculturate and adapt in order to gain legitimacy and acceptance in a field dominated by quantitative research. We treat the emergence of qualitative methods as a form of contact between differing (research) cultures, with the concomitant adjustments and accommodations, and we utilize Berry's (1980, 2005 Berry, JW. 2005. Acculturation: living successfully in two cultures. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29: 697–712. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) typology of acculturation as a lens through which to examine these intercultural interactions. We examine, in particular detail, the experiences of qualitative researchers within counseling psychology, as that is the subdiscipline which has most explicitly defined itself as welcoming qualitative research. It is our view that qualitative researchers, within psychology in general, have adopted an acculturation strategy of assimilation rather than integration as defined by Berry (1980 Berry, JW. 1980. “Acculturation as varieties of adaptation”. In Acculturation: theory, models and some new findings, Edited by: Padilla, AM. 9–25. Boulder, CO: Westview. [Google Scholar]). We discuss the implications of this stance for the diversification of research methodologies in psychology.