Qualitative Social Research
Qualitative Social Research
Contemporary Methods for the Digital Age
- Vivienne Waller
- Karen Farquharson
- Deborah Dempsey
SAGE Publications Ltd
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Vivienne Waller, Karen Farquharson and Deborah Dempsey 2016
First published 2016
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015938457
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4462-5883-5
ISBN 978-1-4739-1355-4 (pbk)
Editor: Jai Seaman
Assistant Editor: James Piper
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About the authors
Vivienne Walleris a Sociology Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, with research interests in the areas of knowledge, the environment and technology, as well as research methods more generally. Viv holds a PhD in Sociology from Australian National University, and a BA and a BSc from the University of Melbourne. Prior to entering academia, she worked as a consultant conducting social research and in policy and evaluation areas of the Australian government.
Karen Farquharsonis Associate Dean (Research & Engagement) and Associate Professor of Sociology at Swinburne University of Technology. She is a sociologist with research interests in the areas of sport, race and the media, and on issues of belonging and social inclusion more generally. Karen holds PhD and MA degrees in Sociology from Harvard University, and a BA in Social Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She was also the recipient of a Fulbright International Dissertation Research Fellowship to South Africa.
Deborah Dempseyis Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Swinburne University of Technology. She holds a BA and MA from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from La Trobe University. Debs research interests are in the sociology of families, relationships, personal life and ageing, particularly relatedness in the era of assisted reproductive technologies and the socio-legal aspects of same-sex relationships. Before becoming an academic, Deb conducted social research in the community and social marketing sectors.
Preface
The idea for this book was born out of our enthusiasm for teaching together on an undergraduate course in Qualitative Research Methods. Although there are many excellent textbooks on the market, there were none that quite met our students needs. It was serendipitous to be then approached by SAGE to write this book.
Many of the examples we use in this book are based on our own experiences as researchers as well as those of our research students. When combined, this experience is vast. Viv first became a social researcher working in policy and evaluation areas of the Australian government. She then worked as a social research consultant and in market research before finding her home in academia.
Karen started off in public health before moving into sociology. Her PhD looked at race relations in post-apartheid South Africa. This was followed by a stint examining tobacco control policy for a non-government organization, and then a position as a lecturer in sociology.
Debs interest in doing qualitative social research began in the community services sector when she was a project worker in a womens crisis service. While completing her PhD on lesbian and gay parented families, she worked in a university research centre and for a commercial social research and marketing company before joining the sociology group at Swinburne.
Reflecting our varied backgrounds in academic, commercial, community and government research settings, this book will, we hope, be useful to students and other academic researchers, as well as practitioners working beyond university settings.
Acknowledgments
Writing this book together has been intellectually stimulating as we clarify our ideas through debating them with each other. It has also been a lot of fun, especially the conversations over fine meals during our writing retreats.
We would like to thank the many people at SAGE who have assisted us: Chris Rojek, for initiating the project and getting it off the ground; Jai Seaman and Lily Mehrbod for their helpful editorial advice; and all of the production staff who made the publication process such a smooth one. We would also like to thank the many people who have been on research teams with us over the years, and our own research students who continually inspire and challenge us with their ambitious projects. Some of the research discussed in this book was conducted as part of Australian Research Council Projects (DP0451524, LP077215 and LP110100063). We would like to thank our colleagues at Swinburne University and elsewhere for their support, and the support of Swinburne University for qualitative research.
We would also thank all the people who have been participants in research that we have conducted over the years. It is our hope that this book will go some small way to promoting useful and ethical research.
On a more personal note, we each thank our friends and families for their ongoing love, care and support.
