Preview of the Chapters
The first part of this book provides readers with an overview of the nature of—and assumptions, methods, and tools common in—qualitative research studies. The remaining three parts of this text focus on fourteen distinct, rich, and varied qualitative methodologies. Part Two is a grouping characterized by its discipline-specific roots, reflecting approaches that come from the recognized areas of biography, history, anthropology, and a variation of ethnographic research, autoethnography, which employs two distinct disciplines. Part Three of the book contains chapters reflecting approaches that further blend recognized areas of research. In Part Four, the reader is provided with five chapters that address methodologies characterized by their emancipatory qualities. In each of these chapters, emphasis is given to critical theoretical issues of social justice.
This text's chapters represent forms of qualitative research ranging from well-known designs to newer, emerging formats. Each approach is presented to prepare the reader, as a consumer of qualitative studies, to critically evaluate both the authenticity and the usefulness of a given methodology. As a concise reference source, Exhibit 1.1 contains a short summary of Chapters Two through Eighteen.
CHAPTER SUMMARIES
- Chapter Two: Ethics in Qualitative Research in Education and the Social Sciences
The chapter presents guidelines for protecting research study participants and conducting ethical research with the goal of enhancing social justice.
- Chapter Three: Grounded Theory
Chapter Three provides a guiding framework for most qualitative research. This chapter emphasizes conducting research from the ground up (inductively) to construct meaning and middle-range theories.
- Chapter Four: Methodology, Methods, and Tools in Qualitative Research
The chapter gives an explanation and review of methods and instruments commonly used to collect data in qualitative studies, including face-to-face observation and in-depth interviewing.
- Chapter Five: Biography and Life Story Research
The methodology discussed in this chapter employs a biographical framework from a psychological perspective for the purpose of developing a narrative or constructing theories about a person's life.
- Chapter Six: Mystery Solved: Detective Skills and the Historian's Craft
Chapter Six outlines strategies used to understand the past, employing data collection, analysis, and interpretation to fill gaps in historical knowledge.
- Chapter Seven: Ethnographic Research
Ethnographic research documents the beliefs and practices of a particular cultural group or phenomenon in its natural environment from the perspective of insiders.
- Chapter Eight: Trekking Through Autoethnography
Chapter Eight illustrates how the use of dense descriptions of the researcher's own experiences in a culture allows for a better understanding of the culture and the individual.
- Chapter Nine: Narrative Inquiry: Stories Lived, Stories Told
Narrative inquiry research seeks ways to understand and represent experiences through the stories that individuals live and tell.
- Chapter Ten: Case Study Research
Case study research uses descriptions of programs, events, or other phenomena to construct a complete portrayal of a case for interpretation and possible action.
- Chapter Eleven: Arts-Based Research
Chapter Eleven discusses the application of principles and procedures derived from visual, literary, and performance-based arts to conduct studies or analyze social phenomena in the manner of an artist or art critic.
- Chapter Twelve: Practitioner Action Research
Chapter Twelve outlines research in which practicing professionals collect data for individual or group self-reflection and improved practice.
- Chapter Thirteen: Program Evaluation
Program evaluation develops case study descriptions but also renders judgments of worth about studied phenomena, with an emphasis on social or educational programs.
- Chapter Fourteen: Preliminary Considerations of an African American Culturally Responsive Evaluation System
The chapter offers a research approach and model for culturally responsive evaluation studies, particularly for use in majority African American settings.
- Chapter Fifteen: What Makes Critical Ethnography “Critical”?
Critical ethnography uncovers and explicates power and oppression, with the goal of working toward greater equity and justice for marginalized groups.
- Chapter Sixteen: Feminist Research
Feminist research consists of a family of research strategies that explore women's practices in order to better understand and address their lived experiences.
- Chapter Seventeen: Reclaiming Scholarship: Critical Indigenous Research Methodologies
The chapter describes research methodologies grounded in anticolonialism, with an emphasis on relationships among the researcher, the topic, and indigenous communities
- Chapter Eighteen: Democratizing Qualitative Research
Chapter Eighteen offers a deliberative democratic research framework structured for situations in which strong, conflicting values and interests are present, negotiated, and incorporated into the study's results
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- What characteristics might distinguish biographical and life story research from historical investigations in this text?
- At this point, what is your understanding of, and reaction to, arts-based inquiry as an approach to research?
- In your own words, how would you explain emancipatory research studies, and why might they offer important perspectives?