Standards in 2002 and again in 2008 (Drisko, 2013).
A universal definition of  does not exist. The literature of social science and applied professional fields, such as interpretive, naturalistic, constructivist, ethnographic, and fieldwork are variously employed to designate the broad collection of approaches that are simply qualitative research (Hunt, 2004). Qualitative research approaches allow researchers to connect with people in deeply personal ways that enable the persons being researched to express the rich meanings of their thoughts, actions, and events in their lives. The two main types of qualitative methods, in-depth interviews and observation, brings researchers into close contact with the lived experiences of the people being researched. These interactions frequently involve personal topics that can evoke powerful emotions for both the researcher and informants. These evocative situations provide researchers the opportunity to explore the deep meanings of the phenomena as well as develop new theories and understandings that have rich and nuanced dimensions. Therefore, the knowledge gained is not only information that passes through the central processors of the brain, but also arises from our hearts and deeply held emotions. Therefore, understandings gained via the engagement of heart and mind have an immediate potential to connect to the hearts and minds of audiences. This immediacy can be beneficial to persons who are members of social work constituencies such as maltreated children, poor people of colour, homeless families, people with mental illnesses and frail elderly who are disenfranchised from the political system and whose voices are regularly suppressed within the arenas where their fates are debated and shaped: public opinion, legislatures, and social service agencies (Gilgun & Abrams, 2002).
The commitment of qualitative social work practice to the empowerment of the disenfranchised population is commendable. Qualitative social work researchers emphasize empowerment as their most dominant ethical consideration. Yet, empowerment is often an exclusive ethical principle. The exclusiveness of the empowering research trend can be understood from two contemporary perspectives: the nature of social work and the lack of a specific code of ethics and training in ethics for qualitative social work researchers. Most social work is not basic research. Instead, social work is an ideology committed discipline in which practitioners and researchers have a duty to promote justice and improve welfare. The concept of empowerment allows social work researchers, particularly qualitative researchers, to work towards these goals via their research. Furthermore, by empowering research participants and related populations, social work researchers can bridge a gap that might exist between their value commitments as social workers and a lack of training on research ethics. Therefore, empowerment offers social work researchers the opportunity to be ethical according to current mainstream thinking in social work. The trend to em