Editorial The Positive Contributions of Quantitative Methodology to Social Work Research: A View From the Sidelines

suggestion was made that he and I prepare editorials outlining our views on the merits of the research approach that is largely seen as contrasting with the one we professionally use most often and is reflected in the journals we, respectively, edit. He has prepared his essay on the merits of qualitative research, and it will appear in the journal I coedit, Qualitative Social Work, and mine appears within the pages of Research on Social Work Practice (RSWP). Like the qualitative health researchers, Miller and Crabtree, I am prepared to ‘‘hold quantitative objectivisms in one hand and qualitative revelations in the other’ ’ (2005, p. 613)— ‘‘‘hold’ ’ not as something I possess but as better enabling a close examination and understanding. Critical understanding of the merits of this or that research methodology requires being insider and outsider, member and stranger, white coa