Qualitative Research Practice: Concise Paperback Edition

Front Cover
Clive Seale
SAGE, 2007 - Psychology - 534 pages
`This comprehensive collection of almost 40 chapters - each written by a leading expert in the field - is the essential reference for anyone undertaking or studying qualitative research. It covers a diversity of methods and a variety of perspectives and is a very practical and informative guide for newcomers and experienced researchers alike' - John Scott, University of Essex

`The best ways in which to understand the issues and processes informing qualitative research is to learn from the accounts of its leading practitioners. Here they come together in what is a distinctive and wide-ranging collection that will appeal to postgraduates and social researchers in general' - Tim May, University of Salford

`This excellent guide engages in a dialogue with a wide range of expert qualitative researchers, each of whom considers their own practice in an illuminating and challenging way. Overall, the book constitutes an authoritative survey of current methods of qualitative research data collection and analysis' - Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey

This concise paperback edition of the best selling handbook, Qualitative Research Practice, is particularly aimed at the student reader. The chapters are written by leading, internationally distinguished qualitative researchers who recount and reflect on their own research experiences as well as others, past and present, from whom they have learned. It demonstrates the benefits of using particular methods from the viewpoint of real-life experience. This is also a good philosophy for students to adopt in planing research work: to begin from a practical conception of the research process and to treat a book like this as an opportunity to learn a valuable craft.

From the outside, good research seems to be produced through practitioners learning and following standard theoretical, empirical and procedural formats. But from the inside we learn that qualitative research (like other forms of scientific endeavour) is also a biographical engagement, rendering its scholarly and practical contributions in its own terms. Standards take on practical meaning as the distinct activities of qualitative research resonate throughout the enterprise, complicating its accountability to itself and to others. In an authoritative yet accessible manner, Qualitative Research Practice reveals the special features of this engagement, teaching us that qualitative research is as much a craft and practice as it is a way of knowing.

Presenting a comprehensive examination of contemporary and traditional varieties of qualitative research practice, Qualitative Research Practice will be an invaluable resource for advanced students and researchers in any discipline. It is an essential and definitive guide to the major forms of qualitative methods in use today, written by leaders in the relevant fields of research practice.

 

Contents

ENCOUNTERING METHOD
13
Oral History
34
Biographical Research
48
Focus Groups
65
Grounded Theory
80
ANALYTIC FRAMEWORKS
95
Feminist Approaches
113
The Foucaultian Framework
129
Working Qualitatively and Quantitatively
282
Secondary Analysis of Archived Data
297
Reanalysis of Previously Collected Material
314
The Internet as Research Context
328
Documents
345
Visual Methods
361
QUALITY AND CREDIBILITY
377
Five Misunderstandings about CaseStudy Research
390

Ethnomethodology
139
Conversation Analysis
153
Discourse Analytic Practice
168
Critical Discourse Analysis
185
FIELD RELATIONS
203
Ethical Issues
218
Working in Hostile Environments
236
Politics Research and Understanding
249
CONTEXT AND METHOD
265
Sampling Representativeness and Generalizability
405
Working with Key Incidents
427
ComputerAssisted Qualitative Data Analysis
443
AUDIENCES APPLICATIONS
461
Action Research
478
Lessons Learned
491
The Globalization of Qualitative Research
507
Index
521
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Clive Seale has been Professor of Sociology (or Medical Sociology) at Goldsmiths and Queen Mary’s (both University of London) and Brunel University. His work has concerned communication in health care and death in modern society. He has published extensively on research methods. His books include Constructing Death: the sociology of dying and bereavement (Cambridge University Press, 1998), The Quality of Qualitative Research (Sage, 1999), Media and Health (Sage, 2003) and Gender and the Language of Illness (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010, with Jonathan Charteris-Black). Recently, he has turned to fiction, publishing a novel, Interrogating Ellie (Cloiff Books, 2015) using the pen name Julian Gray. He is currently writing another novel.

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