This exciting new book brings together contributions from world-leading scholars as well as younger researchers and focuses on cutting-edge issues related to the practice of qualitative research in the field. It provides a forum for contributors to discuss the issues and processes which inform qualitative research in its various forms as based on fieldwork experiences.In achieving this in an accessible manner to both practicing students and researchers, it seeks to enable a dialogu...

What are the critical gaps in thinking about reflexivity and social research?How is reflexive practice shaped by the contexts and cultures in which researchers work?How might research practice respond to twin demands of excellence and relevance in the knowledge-based economy?Thinking reflexively about the inter-relationships between social research and societal practices is all the more important in the so-called knowledge economy.Developing reflexive practi...

Reflexivity – the critical examination of how we see the world – is integral to good research practice. From this state-of-the-art, accessible tour of its history and contemporary relevance, readers will learn of its importance to social research and to society generally. The text introduces a host of influential thinkers and their key ideas on reflexivity, and incorporates examples from a range of disciplines and research settings. Drawing on the authors’ extensive experience of real rese...

Cities and the Knowledge Economy is an in-depth, interdisciplinary, international and comparative examination of the relationship between knowledge and urban development in the contemporary era. Through the lenses of promise, politics and possibility, it examines how the knowledge economy has arisen, how different cities have sought to realise its potential, how universities play a role in its realisation and, overall, what this reveals about the relationship between politics, cap...

This is an accessible introduction to the philosophy of social research which relates philosophical ideas to actual research practice. The book makes effective use of illustrations from the UK, US and Europe to examine specific problems and broader issues. The book is intended for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in social research methods within sociology, social policy, politics, social psychology, human geography; philosophy of social science and social theory courses; and as a pe...

This text successfully bridges the gap between theory and methods in social research, bringing understanding of the dynamics of social relations.

Although education researchers have drawn on the work of a wide diversity of theorists, a number of these have been of particular significance to education. While the likes of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, John Dewey and Paulo Freire influenced previous generations of educational theorists, much of the more contemporary theory building has revolved a

The book guides the student through the research process relevant to the completion of a social work dissertation.

In Management Research the authors provide a stimulating and critical overview of the key theoretical debates on research paradigms and methodologies, demystifying the process and providing invaluable insights into the politics and practice of research.Conceived by Chris Grey as an antidote to conventional textbooks, each book in the ‘Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap’ series takes a core area of the curriculum and turns it on it...

Foucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy. By focusing on some of the ways Foucault has been placed in relation to educational questions or questions about education, Ball highlights the relationships between Foucault’s concepts and methods, and educational research and analysis. An introductory chapter offers a brief explanation of some of Foucaul...

Andrew Sayer undertakes a fundamental critique of social science's difficulties in acknowledging that people's relation to the world is one of concern. As sentient beings, capable of flourishing and suffering, and particularly vulnerable to how others treat us, our view of the world is substantially evaluative. Yet modernist ways of thinking encourage the common but extraordinary belief that values are beyond reason, and merely subjective or matters of convention, with little or nothing to...

Is language sexist? Do women and men speak different languages?Gender, Language and Discourse uniquely examines the contribution that psychological research - in particular, discursive psychology - has made to answering these questions. Until now, books on gender and language have tended to be from the sociolinguistic perspective and have focused on one of two issues - sexism in language or gender differences in speech. This book considers both issues and develops the idea ...