An award-winning book that takes us "inside the lives of NFL players to show why so many wind up in dire straits after their time on the field" ( New York Post).2016 Best Book Award, North American Society for the Sociology of SportIn this book, two social scientists team up with former linebacker and University of Wisconsin athletic director George Koonce to put a human face on the realities of life after professional football, exploring t...

The social constructionist perspective has revolutionized the way that social scientists investigate social problems. Constructing Social Problems (Spector and Kitsuse [1977] 2001) offered the guiding statement of the approach, which both transformed and revitalized the sociology of social problems, propelling it into a quarter century of exciting and innovative empirical research. John Kitsuse and Malcolm Spector challenged conventional approaches to the field; they insisted on t...

This book, about involuntary commitment proceedings, focuses on interpretive practice at the nexus of legal, psychiatric, and practical reasoning. It describes the interactional dynamics through which legally and psychiatrically warranted decisions are publicly argued, negotiated, and justified.

Analyzing Narrative Reality offers a comprehensive framework for analyzing the construction and use of stories in society. This centers on the interplay of narrative work and narrative environments, viewed as reflexively related. Topics dealing with narrative work include activation, linkage, composition, performance, collaboration, and control. Those dealing with narrative environments include close relationships, local culture, status, jobs, organizations, and intertextu...

"Constructionist Controversies" reviews the substantial contributions to social problems theory that have been made by social constructionist theorists and examines debates about the future of this perspective. Intended for the student, the volume provides a succinct formulation of all the major issues of social constructionism by contributors who are well recognized within the field for the strength with which they articulate their own widely varied viewpoints.

Narrative research has become increasingly popular in the social sciences. While no part of the process is easy, researchers often struggle to make sense of data that can seem chaotic and without a discernable pattern. This book shows how to analyze stories, storytelling, and stories in society, bringing together a variety of approaches to both texts and narrative practice under one cover.

The second edition of this landmark volume emphasizes the dynamic, interactional, and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. Contributors highlight the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. The book begins with an overview of the history and conceptual transformations of the interview, which is followed by chapters that discuss the main components of inter...

"The book provides an academic basis for discussion and development of active interviewing methods. . . . The ideas raised. . . will be interesting and valuable to those involved in developing new methodologies in qualitative research and interviewing."--Helen Masey in Social Research Association NewsThe interpretive turn in social science has taken the interview and turned it upside down. Once thought to be the pipeline through which information was transmitted from a pass...

Constructing the Life Course offers a social constructionist perspective on personal experience through time. The text shows the variety of ways people use life course imagery in their everyday lives and makes a useful addition to family studies or gerontology courses.

Designed for novice as well as more experienced researchers, Reason & Rigor presents conceptual frameworks as a mechanism for aligning literature review, research design, and methodology. The book explores the conceptual framework—defined as both a process and a product—that helps to direct and ground researchers as they work through common research challenges. Focusing on published studies on a range of topics and employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, the u...

This book provides invaluable guidance for thinking through and planning a qualitative study. Rather than offering recipes for specific techniques, master storyteller Robert Stake stimulates readers to discover "how things work" in organizations, programs, communities, and other systems. Topics range from identifying a research question to selecting methods, gathering data, interpreting and analyzing the results, and producing a well-thought-through written report. In-depth examples from a...

Qualitative Research Methods is a comprehensive, all-inclusive resource for the theory and practice of qualitative/ethnographic research methodology.Serves as a “how-to” guide for qualitative/ethnographic research, detailing how to design a project, conduct interviews and focus groups, interpret and analyze data, and represent it in a compelling mannerDemonstrates how qualitative data can be systematically utilized to address pressing personal, organization...