Download or read book Using Biographical Methods in Social Research written by Barbara Merrill and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2009-06-04 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using Biographical Methods in Social Research provides an informative, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the nature and use of biographical methods, combining a consideration of theoretical issues with practical guidance. Barbara Merrill and Linden West consider important questions about what research is for, what makes it valid, to the practical business of interviewing, analyzing and writing up of biographical data. The authors draw on their sociological and psychological orientations to provide a truly interdisciplinary approach to the subject, and provide numerous examples of biographical research across the social sciences.
Download or read book The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Science written by Prue Chamberlayne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biographical research methods have become a useful and popular tool for contemporary social scientists. This book combines an exploration of the historical and philosophical origins of this important field of qualitative research with comparative examples of the different ways that biographical methods have been successfully applied internationally. Through these many illustrative examples of socio-biography in process the authors show how formal textual analysis, whilst uncovering hidden emotional defences, can also shed light on wider historical processes of societal transformation. Topics discussed include: *individual and linked lives *generational change *political influences on memory and identity *biographical work in reflexive societies *narrativity and empowerment in professional practice *ways of theorising and generalising from case-studies. Biographical Methods in the Social Sciences promotes debate and provides opportunities for students and researchers to widen their uses of narrative research.
Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods written by Pertti Alasuutari and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2008-02-25 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods is a must for every social-science researcher. It charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology, covering qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods in one volume. The Handbook includes chapters on each phase of the research process: research design, methods of data collection, and the processes of analyzing and interpreting data. The volume maintains that there is much more to research than learning skills and techniques; methodology involves the fit between theory, research questions research design and analysis. The book also includes several chapters that describe historical and current directions in social research, debating crucial subjects such as qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, how to judge the credibility of types of research, and the increasingly topical issue of research ethics. The Handbook serves as an invaluable resource for approaching research with an open mind. This volume maps the field of social research methods using an approach that will prove valuable for both students and researchers.
Download or read book Key Concepts in Social Research written by Geoff Payne and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2004-03-18 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: `This clearly written and user-friendly book is ideal for students or researchers who wish to get a basic, but solid grasp of a topic and see how it fits with other topics. By following the links a student can easily and efficiently build up a clear conceptual map of social research′ - Malcolm Williams, Reader in Sociology, Cardiff University `This is a really useful book, written in an accessible manner for students beginning their study of social research methods. It is helpful both as an introductory text and as a reference guide for more advanced students. Most of the key topics in methods and methodology are covered and it will be suitable as a recommended text on a wide variety of courses′ - Clive Seale, Brunel University At last, an authoritative, crystal-clear introduction to research methods which really takes account of the needs of students for accessible, focused information to help with undergraduate essays and exams. The key concepts discussed here are based on a review of teaching syllabi and the authors′ experience of many years of teaching. Topics range over qualitative and quantitative approaches and combine practical considerations with philosophical issues. They include several new topics, like internet and phone polling, internet searches, and visual methods. Each section is free-standing, can be tackled in order, but with links to other sections to enable students to cross-reference and build up a wider understanding of central research methods. To facilitate comprehension and aid study, each section begins with a definition. It is followed by a summary of key points with key words and guides to further reading and up-to-date examples. The book is a major addition to undergraduate reading lists. It is reliable, allows for easy transference to essays and exams and easy to use, and exceptionally clearly written for student consumption. The book answers the needs of all those who find research methods daunting, and for those who have dreamt of an ideal introduction to the subject.
Download or read book Using Biographical Methods in Social Research written by Barbara Merrill and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2009-06-04 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using Biographical Methods in Social Research provides an informative, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the nature and use of biographical methods, combining a consideration of theoretical issues with practical guidance as well as reflections on the personal experience of doing research. Barbara Merrill and Linden West consider important questions about who and what research is for and what makes it valid, alongside the practical business of interviewing, transcribing, analyzing and writing up of biographical data. The authors draw on their sociological and psychological orientations to provide a truly interdisciplinary approach to the subject, and provide numerous examples of biographical research across the social sciences. This book will equip students with all the skills necessary to undertake biographical research as well as to fully understand what they are doing and the assumptions they make about the nature of truth, knowledge, story telling and being human. It will be useful for students and researchers using biographical methods in a range of disciplines, including sociology, social policy, social psychology, health care and education.
Download or read book SAGE Biographical Research written by John Goodwin and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 1521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biographical research may take a range of forms and may vary in its application and approach but has the unified and coherent aim to give ′voice′ to individuals. The central concern of this collection is to assemble articles (from sociology, social psychology, education, health, criminology, social gerontology, epidemiology, management and organizational research) that illustrate the full range of debates, methods and techniques that can be combined under the heading ′biographical research′. Volume One: Biographical Research: Starting Points, Debates and Approaches explores the different biographical methods currently used while locating these within the history of social science methods. Volume Two: Biographical Interviews, Oral Histories and Life Narratives focuses on the more established, interview-based, biographical research methods and considers the analytical strategies used for interview-based biographical research Volume Three: Forms of Life Writing: Letters, Diaries and Auto/Biography considers the value of ′data′ contained within letters, diaries and auto/biography and illustrates how this data has been analyzed to reveal biographies and their social context. Volume Four: Other Documents of Life: Photographs, Cyber Documents and Ephemera focuses on the ′other′ human documents and objects, like photographs, cyber-documents (emails, blogs, social networking sites, webpages) and other ephemera (such as official documents) that are used extensively in biographical research.
Download or read book Biographical Research written by Brian Roberts and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the methodological and theoretical questions associated with the use of life stories, oral histories, personal narratives, autobiographies, and biographies, as they are incorporated into sociological, ethnographic, and narrative studies. The collection and interpretation of materials, the uses of biographical research, the interview relationship, the construction of the story, memory, and audience are all considered. Roberts teaches sociology at the University of Huddersfield. The book is distributed by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Using Biographical Methods in Social Research written by Barbara Merrill and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2009-05-18 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using Biographical Methods in Social Research provides an informative, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the nature and use of biographical methods, combining a consideration of theoretical issues with practical guidance as well as reflections on the personal experience of doing research. Barbara Merrill and Linden West consider important questions about who and what research is for and what makes it valid, alongside the practical business of interviewing, transcribing, analyzing and writing up of biographical data. The authors draw on their sociological and psychological orientations to provide a truly interdisciplinary approach to the subject, and provide numerous examples of biographical research across the social sciences. This book will equip students with all the skills necessary to undertake biographical research as well as to fully understand what they are doing and the assumptions they make about the nature of truth, knowledge, story telling and being human. It will be useful for students and researchers using biographical methods in a range of disciplines, including sociology, social policy, social psychology, health care and education.
Download or read book Researching Life Stories and Family Histories written by Robert Lee Miller and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1999-09-22 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: `A comprehensive, balanced and judicious treatment of biographical methods in social research, made all the more useful to students by its careful delineation of the practicalities involved′ - Raymond M Lee, Royal Holloway, University of London Specifically designed for those carrying out biographical, life history or family history research, this concise guide covers the methods and issues involved. The author demonstrates that biographical research is a distinctive way of conceptualizing social activity. The three main approaches to biographical and family history research are covered: - Realist - focused around grounded-theory techniques of interviewing; - Neo-positivist - more structured interview techniques; - Narrative - with emphasis on the active construction of life stories through the interplay between interviewer and interviewee. An invaluable introduction to the field, which contains much that will be of interest to the experienced practitioner, the book will be ideal for researchers in sociology, psychology, political science, social policy or anthropology.
Download or read book Social Research written by Bruce Curtis and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original, fresh and relevant this is a theoretically-informed practical guide to researching social relations. The text provides a mixed methods approach that challenges historical divisions between quantitative and qualitative research. It adopts a multidisciplinary approach to social science research, drawing from areas such as sociology, social psychology and social anthropology. Explicitly addressing the concerns of emergent researchers it provides both a ′how to′ account of social research and an understanding of the main factors that contextualize research by discussing ′why do′ social scientists work this way. Throughout the twelve comprehensive chapters procedural (how to) accounts and contextual (why do) issues are usefully applied to major themes and substantive questions. These key themes include: (1) Research design (2) The practices of research and emergent researchers: Beyond ontology, epistemology and methodology (3) The impact of technology on research (4) Putting the research approach in context. A superb teaching text this book will be relished by lecturers seeking an authoritative introduction to social research and by students who want an accessible, enriching text to guide and inspire them.
Download or read book Advances in Biographical Methods written by Maggie O'Neill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rooted in a long and diverse genealogy, biographical approaches have developed from a focus upon a single story, a ‘life story’ and personal documents (e.g. diaries), to encompass (more routinely) autobiographical secondary and archival research and analysis - as well as multi-media, arts based creative multi-sensory methods. Biographical Research and practices as part of human understanding helps people to make sense of what has been and what is happening in their lives, cultures, communities and societies. Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative Applications takes up these themes: theorising, doing and applying current advances in biographical methods. It demonstrates the momentum with which they areas are developing as a field of scholarship, especially in relation to creative innovations and applications, such as in new forms of interview and other practices, and debates on its interlinking with art, performance and digital methods.
Download or read book Understanding Social Research written by Jennifer Mason and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2010-12-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale′s book seeks to set out cutting-edge developments in the field of social research and to encourage students and researchers to consider ways of learning from different approaches and perspectives in such a way as to make their own research richer, more insightful and more rewarding. Social Researching brings together a wide variety of research methods - both qualitative and quantitative - to help students and researchers to consider the relative benefits of adopting different approaches for their own research work. The authors clearly identify the most appropriate methods for different research questions and also highlight areas where it might be fruitful to compliment different methods with each other or exploit creative tensions between them. The book is therefore a highly practical guide which also seeks to draw readers outside their methodological comfort zones. This book includes: - Critical coverage of issues in research design; - Expert experience in many methodological fields; - An overview of the many different ways to approach similar research problems; - Coverage of the tensions between different methodological approaches; - Examples of excellence in research design and practice; - An examination of how to turn methodological tensions into richer research practice. The methods covered include highly innovative, ′cutting-edge′ approaches and they are demonstrated in terms of their transferability between the different social sciences. This inter-disciplinary approach is complimented by a wide range of strategically chosen examples which demonstrate the authors′ pragmatic and creative take on research design.
Download or read book Walking Methods written by Maggie O'Neill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces and critically explores walking as an innovative method for doing social research, showing how its sensate and kinaesthetic attributes facilitate connections with lived experiences, journeys and memories, communities and identities. The book situates walking methods historically, sociologically, and in relation to biographical and arts-based research, as well as new work on mobilities, the digital, spatial, and the sensory. The book is organised into three sections: theorising; experiencing; and imagining walking as a new method for doing biographical research. There is a key focus upon the Walking Interview as a Biographical Method (WIBM) on the move to usefully explore migration, memory, and urban landscapes, as part of participatory, visual, and ethnographic research with marginalised communities and artists and as re-formative and transgressive. The book concludes with autobiographical walks taken by the authors and a discussion about the future of the walking interview as biographical method. Walking Methods combines theory with a series of original ethnographic and participatory research examples. Practical exercises and a guide to using walking as a method help to make this a rich resource for social science researchers, students, walking artists, and biographical researchers.
Download or read book Interpretive Biography written by Norman K. Denzin and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1989-09 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Interpretive Biography' combines one of the oldest techniques in the social sciences and humanities with one of the newest. Bringing in elements of postmodernism and interpretive social science, it re-examines the biographical and autobiographical genres.
Download or read book Social Causation and Biographical Research written by Giorgos Tsiolis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book extends debates in the field of biographical research, arguing that causal explanations are not at odds with biographical research and that biographical research is in fact a valuable tool for explaining why things in social and personal lives are one way and not another. Bringing reconstructive biographical research into dialogue with critical realism, it explains how and why relational social ontology can become a unique theoretical ground for tapping emergent mechanisms and latent meaning structures. Through an account of the reasons for which reductionist epistemologies, rational action models and covering law explanations are not appropriate for biographical research, the authors develop the philosophical idea of singular causation as a means by which biographical researchers are able to forge causal hypotheses for the occurrence of events and offer guidance on the application of this methodological principle to concrete, empirical examples. As such, this volume will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in biographical research and social research methods.
Download or read book Interpretive Social Research written by Gabriele Rosenthal and published by Göttingen University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a clear introduction to methods of data collection and analysis in the social sciences, with a special focus on interpretive methods based on a logic of discovering hypotheses and grounded theories. The chief methods presented are participant observation, open interviews and biographical case reconstruction. The special advantages of interpretive methods, as against other qualitative methods, are revealed by comparing them to content analysis. Empirical examples show how the methods presented can be implemented in practice, and concrete problems connected with conducting empirical research are discussed. By presenting individual case studies, the author shows how to apply the principle of openness when collecting empirical data, whether through interviews or observations, and she offers rules for analysis based on the principles of reconstruction and sequentiality.
Download or read book Research Methodologies for Auto biography Studies written by Kate Douglas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of short essays provides a rigorous, rich, collaborative space in which scholars and practitioners debate the value of different methodological approaches to the study of life narratives and explore a diverse range of interdisciplinary methods. Auto/biography studies has been one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines to emerge in the humanities and social sciences in the past decade, providing significant links between disciplines including literary studies, languages, linguistics, digital humanities, medical humanities, creative writing, history, gender studies, education, sociology, and anthropology. The essays in this collection position auto/biography as a key discipline for modelling interdisciplinary approaches to methodology and ask: what original and important thinking can auto/biography studies bring to discussions of methodology for literary studies and beyond? And how does the diversity of methodological interventions in auto/biography studies build a strong and diverse research discipline? In including some of auto/biography’s leading international scholars alongside emerging scholars, and exploring key subgenres and practices, this collection showcases knowledge about what we do when engaging in auto/biographical research. Research Methodologies for Auto/biography Studies offers a series of case studies that explore the research practices, reflective behaviours, and ethical considerations that inform auto/biographical research.
