Description:
This book illuminates the problems and perspectives of qualitative research and offers researchers a comprehensive overview of the various types of .
Brief description: Martyn Hammersley is Professor of Educational and Social Research at the Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning at The Open University. He has carried out research in the sociology of education and the sociology of the media. However, much of his work has been concerned with the methodological issues surrounding social enquiry. He has written several books, including: Reading Ethnographic Research (1991); What's Wrong with Ethnography? (1992); The Politics of Social Research (1995); Taking Sides in Social Research (1999); Educational Research, Policymaking and Practice (2002), Questioning Qualitative Inquiry (2008), and Methodology, Who Needs It? (2011).
Review Quotes:
"Qualitative research has become a vast and complex approach to understanding social life, riddled with diversity and debate. Martyn Hammersley has, in this short text, managed to introduce all of this complexity and diversity without baffling the reader. It is an inspiring and exciting text, full of relevant examples illustrating the diversity of qualitative research today. Written by an undoubted authority in the field, this accessible book should whet the appetite of any would-be qualitative researcher." --Karen O'Reilly, Professor of Sociology, University of Loughborough
"This is a well written, authoritative text on qualitative research, written by a leading scholar in the field. The style is accessible without being patronizing; it deals with both methodology and research practice; it provides helpful definitions and typologies; it gives a sense of both the distinctiveness and diversity of qualitative approaches to social research. I enjoyed reading it. I think it will have a broad appeal to those new to qualitative research, to students and to those working within the field. In that sense it manages to be both introductory and thought provoking." --Amanda Coffey, Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, UK