The New Language of Qualitative Method - Softcover

Gubrium, Jaber F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019509994X ISBN 13: 9780195099942

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 1997

Synopsis

In recent years scholars and researchers in all disciplines have moved away from traditional quantitative methods of research to more qualitative methods which emphasize questions of meaning and interpretation. Considering research methodologies as a set of idioms, The New Language of Qualitative Method examines alternate vocabularies for conveying social reality. It offers a new theoretical view which reintegrates the traditional emphasis on the whats of social life with a contemporary understanding of the hows and whys. The text considers the basic presumptions, objectives, and research questions of four major research traditions: naturalism, ethnomethodology, emotionalism, and postmodernism. Using illustrations from classic texts, it shows how each idiom supplies a unique perspective on empirical reality. The text then examines the risks and rewards of each approach, offering a vision of a renewed language of inquiry that accommodates both traditional and contemporary concerns. Striving for balance, the authors not only contend with issues from alternate perspectives, but provide a basis for rapprochement between research traditions that have often remained isolated from each other. They also demonstrate how each approach may be used for research on family, aging, deviance and social problems, and organizations and institutions. Written in an accessible and engaging style, The New Language of Qualitative Method can be adopted in courses across the social sciences, and may also be used by a broad spectrum of qualitative researchers.

About this title

Product Description

A new approach to the research of social life problems which aims to combine quantitative methods with modern qualitative methods, which emphasize questions of meaning and interpretation.

Review

Gubrium and Holstein have done us a service in revisiting and updating hte ontological and epistemological assumptions of varieties of qualitative research...will be valuable for postgraduate courses in the philosophy of social research and qualitative methods. A book which attempts to bring qualitative methods into contemporary debates about epistemology is to be recommended, and it offers considerable material to enable the reader to evaluate their own form of qualitative research practice. - Barbara Harrison. Sociology. Vol 32. 1998.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019509994X
• ISBN 13: 9780195099942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256