2025年11月7日、CR community of practice（CoP）の研究会で、CR・看護研究会実装版（CRN）事務局の荒居康子博士とともに、現在の活動とCR版M-GTAについて発表しました。
CoPは、ニュージーランドのAngela Davenportさん（ 看護学）、オーストラリアのCatherine Hastingsさん（社会学）、Karen Sheppardさん（教育学）が中心となって運営している研究会で、CRの実装に興味関心を持つ研究者や院生が月に1回集まって互いに研究発表をしています。
質問を受けることで課題が明確になり、CR版M-GTAのさらなる構築へ向けて意欲が沸きました！
以下が発表の要約です。
Hazuki Kajiwara: Activities of the Critical Realism Nursing Study Group in Japan – What Is CR-Based M-GTA?
In recent years, interest in critical realism (CR) has gradually grown in Japan. The first introductory volume on CR written by Japanese scholars is currently in press, and translations of key works—including Alderson (2021) and Bhaskar & Hartwig (2016)—are also underway.
Inspired by my participation in the Community of Practice (CoP) meetings, I launched a Japanese-speaking online study group in collaboration with colleagues in nursing science in October 2024. In this presentation, I will introduce our activities and provide an overview of the new CR research methodology that we are currently developing: CR-based Modified Grounded Theory Approach (M-GTA).
In Japan, my doctoral supervisor, sociologist Yasuhito Kinoshita, developed his own qualitative methodology, the Modified Grounded Theory Approach (M-GTA). It has gained wide acceptance, particularly in the fields of nursing, healthcare, and social welfare, and the M-GTA study group now has more than 600 members. However, in his later years, Kinoshita became increasingly aware of the methodological limitations of qualitative research. After encountering CR in 2015, he felt it opened up new possibilities for his approach and began studying CR with great enthusiasm. He then conceptualized a CR-based version of M-GTA and completed roughly half of a textbook manuscript. Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly from heart failure in 2023.
Members of the CR Nursing Study Group are now working to complete the remaining chapters and bring his vision to fruition. In this presentation, I will outline the essence of CR-based M-GTA, which remains a work in progress, and situate it within the broader landscape of emerging CR scholarship in Japan.
Yasuko Arai: Family carers’ care-related resignation
I focused on family carers’ care-related resignation as my PhD thesis, and I am going to submit it to the Journal of Critical Realism. So please give me an honest and harsh opinion.
Also, Hazuki Kajiwara will present the CR-based M-GTA, and I employed this method, so this is going to be a good example to deepen the discussion.
Aim: To generate hypotheses about Japanese family carers’ resignation by describing single carers of their elderly parents.
Method: A modified grounded theory approach based on critical realism was employed. Specifically, analysis utilizes a dual inquiry framework. This approach, consisting of the practical question and the universal question, has been proposed as a concrete method for exploring the unobservable real domain (Kinoshita, 2022). First, the study will focus on the empirical domain employing M-GTA with the practical question: “why do some single carers living with their older parents give up paid employment to care for them and continue to care in Japan?”. Building on the description of the individual’s experience, the analysis goes onto the inquiry about generative mechanisms with the universal question of “why do children care for their elderly parents?”. Carers leave their jobs due to their ongoing care responsibilities; therefore, care-related resignation is considered a consequence. Moreover, one of the underlying causes of care-related resignation can be understood as the mutual interaction between elderly parents and their adult child carers, which corresponds to the answer of the universal question, “why do children care for their elderly parents?”. Understanding the interaction between elderly parents and their adult child carers also leads to the consideration of necessary family carer supports rooted in mutual respect and understanding.
Results: 15 participants were involved. The process of giving up paid employment begins with single cohabiting children taking on care responsibilities【because they are my parents】. This results in【care and work conflict】 , and then they【shift gears of life priorities】 and resign with ‘minimum financial prospects’. The process of continuing care involves discovering 【the work involved in caring for a life】 for the 【ageing parent】 during which they find the parent’s condition changes in response to their actions.
Conclusion: Based on love and requiring a highly ethical act of protecting life, caregiving tends to increase the centripetal force of the relationship. Thus, as the hypothesis, it is proposed that together with the social structure, this characteristic of family carers is thought to be another major resonating power that maintains the status quo.