Gaining qualitative perspective: A career interview with Roy Ruckdeshel

Abstract

Qualitative Social Work has a tradition of publishing career interviews of distinguished social worker scholars who have been influential in conservations on qualitative inquiry. This career interview with Roy Ruckdeschel, an American social worker who held a faculty position at St. Louis University for 38 years, blends his personal, professional, and intellectual biography. It is based on an extended career interview with Professor Ruckdeschel and on his scholarly writing. Starting with his working class background and conservative Lutheran education, the article traces his advanced education decisions which were shaped by coming of age during a particularly turbulent era of American history. This included escalating American involvement in the Viet Nam War and widespread racial and civil unrest in major U.S. cities. Ruckdeschel studied both social work and sociology, choices largely driven by a quest for “rigor.” Although he started his career as a classic survey researcher, he was quickly disillusioned by its lack of attention to interpersonal interaction and context. As Ruckdeschel’s scholarship matured, he argued for a “qualitative perspective” as a way of melding theories of social action with strategies of qualitative inquiry. It was a synthesis that became a life philosophy influencing his understanding of research, practice, and university politics. In 2002, Ruckdeschel accepted Ian Shaw’s invitation to launch a new journal, Qualitative Social Work, in order to create an institutional home for scholars who choose a qualitative path but were largely shut out of mainstream social work institutions. Ruckdeschel offers advice for those who follow a qualitative life path.