Originally published 1992 What's Wrong With Ethnography? provides a fresh look at the rationale for and distinctiveness of ethnographic research in sociology, education and related fields. Relativism, critical theory, the uniqueness of the case study and the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research are all examined and found wanting as a basis for informed ethnography. The policy and political implications of ethnography are a particular focus of attention. The author compels the reader to re-examine some basic methodological assumptions in an exciting way.

Studies of human development have taken an ethnographic turn in the 1990s. In this volume, leading anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists discuss how qualitative methodologies have strengthened our understanding of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development, and of the difficulties of growing up in contemporary society. Part 1, informed by a post-positivist philosophy of science, argues for the validity of ethnographic knowledge. Part 2 examines a range of qualitative methods, from participant observation to the hermeneutic elaboration of texts. In Part 3, ethnographic methods are applied to issues of human development across the life span and to social problems including poverty, racial and ethnic marginality, and crime. Restoring ethnographic methods to a central place in social inquiry, these twenty-two lively essays will interest everyone concerned with the epistemological problems of context, meaning, and subjectivity in the behavioral sciences.

Practice and Research is an overview of Professor Ian Shaw's analysis of the complexity and challenges of the practice/research relationship in social work - a theme that has been the focus of much of his writing over his career. Introduced with a new essay that reflects on the 'serendipity, misfires and occasional patterns' in his work, the book is grouped into five sections. It covers the following themes, each of which is fully contextualized: ¢ Perspectives on Social Work Research ¢ Evaluation ¢ Qualitative Social Work Research ¢ Practice and Research ¢ The Receiving End: Service Users and Research This book has much to say about the relationship between social work practice and research and is a must-read for any social work student or practitioner.

Originally published 1992 What's Wrong With Ethnography? provides a fresh look at the rationale for and distinctiveness of ethnographic research in sociology, education and related fields. Relativism, critical theory, the uniqueness of the case study and the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research are all examined and found wanting as a basis for informed ethnography. The policy and political implications of ethnography are a particular focus of attention. The author compels the reader to re-examine some basic methodological assumptions in an exciting way.

This stimulating and refreshing study, written by one of the leading commentators in the field, provides novel answers to these crucial questions. "What's Wrong With Ethnography provides a fresh look at the rationale for and distinctiveness of ethnographic research in sociology, education and related fields, and succeeds in slaying a number of currently fashionable sacred cows. Relativism, critical theory, the uniqueness of the case study and the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research are all examined and found wanting as a basis for informed ethnography. The policy and political implications of ethnography are a particular focus of attention. The author compels the reader to reexamine some basic methodological assumptions in an exciting way", Martin Bulmer, London School of Economics.

Published in 1996, this book advocates and persuasively exemplifies a qualitative sociology of childhood, spoken repeatedly through children’s voices. After a long period of dormancy, interest in the sociology of childhood became a focus of attention and scholarly interest. Developments in practice by professionals working and learning in the fields of welfare, education, and youth and community studies have been paralleled by the emergence of specialist courses within sociology degrees. Yet the challenges raised by the sociology of childhood remain marginalised within the social sciences more generally. A Case of Neglect? provides an accessible reader and review of the field. Heard wherever possible through children’s and young people’s voices, it provides a penetrating insight into their understandings and experiences of their own and adults’ worlds. It also provides a readable and absorbing review of qualitative applications in the sociology of childhood, and a counter to the common reliance on evidence derived from quantitative approaches. The fieldwork applications range across the often hidden worlds of children’s and young people’s involvement in prostitution, their experience of abuse, black children’s experiences of social services, children’s school cultures, naturist children and childlessness. Always arresting and sometimes poignant, A Case of Neglect? works towards a sociology which is both of and for childhood. This book was originally published as part of the Cardiff Papers in Qualitative Research series edited by Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont and Amanda Coffey. The series publishes original sociological research that reflects the tradition of qualitative and ethnographic inquiry developed at Cardiff. The series includes monographs reporting on empirical research, edited collections focussing on particular themes, and texts discussing methodological developments and issues.

Five case studies combine structural and historical analysis of the moves of powerful social interests to dominate space, with an ethnographically grounded account of the tactics and strategies developed by various marginalized social groups to reclaim dominated space for their own uses. They include struggles of homeless people in Ann Arbor and Chicago, ethnic displacement in New York and among Mexican farm workers in California, and women in New Orleans. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.