Martha S. Feldman

Gaining access is a critical part of doing research, not only because one must 'get in' in order to gain information, but also because the quality of access affects what information is available to the researcher. Despite its importance, the literature on qualitative methods has not yet provided an extensive treatment of this issue. Gaining Access fills the void by offering useful, prescriptive advice on how to successfully enter different field settings for interviewing and observation. The detailed methodological guidelines presented by the authors are reinforced in a set of case studies by expert researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds on a wide variety of formal and informal settings, from working with ethnic minorities in Bosnia to studying prisons, sex workers, welfare offices, and the clergy. This book will provide useful ideas to experienced qualitative researchers as well as invaluable advice to novices conducting their first study.

Gaining access is a critical part of doing research, not only because one must "get in" in order to gain information, but also because the quality of access affects what information is available to the researcher. Despite its importance, the literature on qualitative methods has not yet provided an extensive treatment of this issue. Gaining Access fills the void by offering useful, prescriptive advice on how to successfully enter different field settings for interviewing and observation. The detailed methodological guidelines presented by the authors are reinforced in a set of case studies by expert researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds on a wide variety of formal and informal settings, from working with ethnic minorities in Bosnia to studying prisons, sex workers, welfare offices, and the clergy. This book will provide useful ideas to experienced qualitative researchers as well as invaluable advice to novices conducting their first study.

"Presented in a clear, understandable format, this book provides a broad . . . comparative starting point for researchers considering various techniques for interpreting data." --Choice Analyzing and interpreting the mounds of notes you have accumulated from the field can be daunting tasks. Sometimes it's unclear which analytic strategy will best answer the questions that first drew you into the field in the first place. This brief volume outlines four key interpreting strategies for dealing with qualitative data: ethnomethodology, semiotics, dramaturgical analysis, and deconstruction. The author examines the strengths and weaknesses of each strategy and shows you when to use them. In addition, each technique is applied to a single data set to illustrate potential differences in results. Strategies for Interpreting Qualitative Data is an ideal tool for teaching students to analyze and interpret qualitative data. Professionals involved in qualitative methods, sociology, anthropology, and nursing will find assistance in this volume.

In this lively and, ultimately, disturbing study of policy analysts who are employed in bureaucracies, the author finds a startling paradox. The analysts know that the papers they so painstakingly prepare will not be used; as one analyst remarked, "Either it won't get done in time, or it won't be good enough, or the person who wanted it done will have left and no one will know what to do with it, or the issue will no longer exist." Yet the analysts continue to work at producing these papers. The means of producing information is at the heart of the paradox. The process systematically produces information that is difficult to use directly in decision-making. Yet analysts can do little to alter the constraints of the process. They continue to produce papers because it is their job, they value doing it, and it is their major means of influencing policy. In so doing they make a unique, though indirect, contribution to policy making. Drawing on eighteen months of observation and participation in the work of the policy office of the U. S. Department of Energy, the author fully investigates the conditions that create the paradox and the positive as well as the negative implications of the process of information production in organizations.