The Intellectual Roots of Grounded Theory By Jane F. Gilgun The Intellectual Roots of Grounded Theory When Norman Denzin (2010) changes his mind about grounded theory (GT), you know something important has happened. More than 40 years ago, Denzin (1997) tried GT at the urging of Anselm Strauss. “Pretty soon, I had more GT than fieldnotes,” he said. He found that his efforts distanced him from the children in daycare who were the focus of his then current research. Denzin said, “I had failed at grounded theory.” Soon after he “became a critic of grounded theory” (p. 1). His failure did not affect his relationships with Strauss. For instance, he worked with Strauss and Alfred Lindesmith on several editions of Social Psychology (1999). In 2010, Denzin came out as an enthusiastic promoter of a particular form of GT: collaborative, constructivist, and critical. Forty years earlier, during his first attempts to use GT, Denzin appears to have been caught up in the “trees” of GT; in other words, the technicalities of GT swamped him. He followed instructions that Strauss delivered in person about the constant comparative method, comparisons across field sites, and the search for emerging concepts, indicators of concepts, and links to theory (Denzin, 1997). By 2010, Denzin saw that GT does not have to be about technicalities, but researchers can use it as an adaptable and open-ended approach to developing understandings of human situations. When researchers view GT this way, the goal is to listen, hear, and understand what others are saying and doing, in their own terms as much as possible. Its open-endedness permits researchers to adapt it to their own particular methodologies and conscious and unconscious biases. In short, there are many ways to do GT. Recently, Denzin adapted GT to serve his commitment to social justice issues in research that includes researcher collaborations with participants, the importance of local knowledge, and, once the research is completed, advocacy for social change. The Roots of GT This view of GT is consistent with its roots in the Chicago School of Sociology, where professors such as W.I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, & Robert Park urged their