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Key Concepts in Ethnography
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Key Concepts in Ethnography



November 2008 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
At last, an accessible, authoritative, no-nonsense guide to the key concepts in one of the most widely used methodologies in social science: Ethnography.

Key Features
  • Addresses and summarizes the basic and related issues in ethnography that are covered nowhere else in a single text
  • Examines topics like 'sampling' and 'generalizing' as well as embracing new fields such as virtual, visual and multi-sighted ethnography
  • Discusses time-honored themes such as key informants, access, participant observation and rapport are here as well as key contemporary issues such as reflexivity, writing, and ethics
  • Presents each concept comprehensively yet critically, with relevant examples
This is not quite an encyclopedia but far more than a dictionary. This outstanding teaching and research resource is comprehensive yet brief. It is small and neat, easy to hold and flick through, and it is exactly what students and researchers have been waiting for.

 
Access
 
Analysis
 
Asking Questions
 
Case Study
 
Chicago School
 
Coding
 
Computer Software
 
Covert
 
Critical Ethnography
 
Ethics
 
Feminist Ethnography
 
Fieldnotes
 
Focus Groups and Group Discussions
 
Generalisation
 
Going 'Native'
 
Grounded Theory
 
Holism
 
Inductive and Deductive
 
Insider Ethnographies
 
Interpretivism
 
Interviews and Conversations
 
Key Informants and Gatekeepers
 
Malinowski
 
Multi-sited and Mobile Ethnographies
 
Participant Observation
 
Participant Observer Oxymoron
 
Positivism
 
Postmodern Ethnographies
 
Rapport
 
Realism
 
Reflexivity
 
Sampling
 
Team Ethnography
 
Time
 
Virtual Ethnography
 
Visual Ethnography
 
Writing
 
Where to find other ethnographic concepts

This is a very attractive and welcoming text that is extremely lucid, engaging and often humorous. The author manages to pack the text with many, many relevant examples from key ethnographies, as well as drawing upon her own research experiences and writings. This book is very student friendly which is a major advantage and has found a niche in tone, approach and content; I will refer to it in my own work and teaching.

Paul Willis
Professor of Social/Cultural Ethnography, Keele University

Good source for topic area

Norma Barran
Department of Nursing, University of Teesside
January 27, 2016

Gets to th eheart of the topic

Ms Ursula Curwen
Department of Sociology & Social Work, Edge Hill University
November 21, 2013

Recommended for those undertaking research in organisations with an ethnographic slant

Ms Hazel Messenger
Business School, London Metropolitan Uni (North Campus)
June 17, 2013

An excellent, easy to use text that students can both read and refer to with ease.

Mr Simon Bishop
Science, Technologyand Health, University Campus Suffolk
January 24, 2013

useful as an overview to the practice of ethnography, including within an education sphere.

Ms Babs Anderson
Education , Liverpool Hope University
January 24, 2013

This is a wonderful textbook! If only all introductory texts were written a clearly and as informatively. I would recommend this book to anyone studying an introductory course in ethnography.

Professor Paul Hackett
Marketing Communication Dept, Emerson College
October 25, 2012

An excellent introduction to ethnography for final year undergraduate and also postgraduate students

Mr Iain Jones
Faculty of Education, Newman University College
July 19, 2012

An excellent introductry tex for students about to engage in an ethnographic study

Ms Catherine O'Neill
Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
May 22, 2011

Karen O'Reilly's Key Concepts in Ethnography is the perfect introductory guide for students embarking on qualitative research for the first time. Its brief entries manage at once to clearly delineate a particular core aspect, school or tendency in ethnography and to direct the reader to further study. This should be of aid to the ethnographic novice in their navigating what is a theoretically complex and changing methodological field.

Dr Patrick Turner
Department of Education, London Metropolitan University
May 6, 2011

Sample Materials & Chapters

Introduction PDF

Chapter One PDF


For instructors

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