Practical Theology and Qualitative Research

This book examines methodologies of the social sciences and questions how they can enable the task of theological reflection. The authors begin by tracing the development of practical theology as a discipline and comment on current methodological practices, and trace the movement from practical theology as applied theology, ie., a discipline which simply takes data from the other theological disciplines (historical, systematic and biblical theology) towards a model which understands the practical theological task in terms of the theology of practice. The authors examine the relationship between qualitative and quantitative methods and highlight the significance of both for the task of practical theology. They also take the reader through the actual process of developing and carrying out a research project using the author s own research as case study examples.