The Science of Qualitative Research

Introduction; Part I. The Objective Study of Subjectivity: 1. Paradigms of inquiry; 2. The qualitative research interview; 3. The analysis of qualitative research interviews; 4. Hermeneutics and the project for a human science; 5. Qualitative analysis reconsidered; Part II. Ethnographic Fieldwork the Focus on Constitution: 6. Calls for a new interpretive social science; 7. The social construction of reality; 8. Constitution as ontological; 9. The crisis in ethnography; 10. Studying ontological work; Part III. Inquiry with an Emancipatory Interest: 11. Qualitative research as critical inquiry; 12. Emancipatory inquiry as rational reconstruction; 13. Social science as participant objectification; 14. Archaeology, genealogy, ethics; 15. A historical ontology of ourselves.

Martin Packer is Associate Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and at the University of the Andes in Bogota. He received his BA at Cambridge University and his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He has previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan. His research has explored interactions between neonates and their mothers, early childhood-peer relations, conflict among adolescents and the way schools change the kind of person a child becomes. Packer is co-editor of Entering the Circle: Hermeneutic Investigation in Psychology (with Ritch Addison) and Cultural and Critical Perspectives on Human Development (with Mark Tappan) and author of The Structure of Moral Action and Changing Classes: School Reform and the New Economy. He is one of the founding co-editors of the journal Qualitative Research in Psychology and has published articles in American Psychologist, Educational Psychology, and Mind, Culture & Activity.

"The sweep of the material is breathtaking. Few writers will be familiar across the whole range of theorists covered here! The Science of Qualitative Research should be made compulsory reading for students beginning a course in the social sciences, or entering a postgraduate and/or graduate research program in any discipline." - Andy Blunden "In this critical mapping of the history of qualitative inquiry, Martin Packer soars majestically through an expansive epistemological terrain. Dissecting dualist contradictions he challenges us to take up the radical potential of post-modern approaches and revel in the emergent, co-constituted, interpretivist nature of the project. This extraordinary text manages to be both scholarly and accessible while offering a vision of a moral, emancipatory and transformative way of doing research." - Linda Finlay, the Open University, UK "This book is badly needed in the behavioral and social sciences. Indeed, it should be required reading for any serious student of methods or methodologies. It is a veritable tour de force of the prominent figures, difficult problems, and imperfect solutions besetting the various modes of inquiry. Qualitative research was intended to cure many of these ills, but, as Packer so cogently argues, the hidden dualism of this investigative approach has prevented it from realizing its full potential, leading us to ignore or misunderstand not only important modes of inquiry but also vital forms of life. With this penetrating analysis as backdrop, Packer then reforges qualitative research as he demonstrates fresh ways of studying life and living, all in elegant, crystal clear, and accessible prose." - Brent D. Slife, Brigham Young University "...interesting, well written, and very informative... Researchers interested in the science of qualitative research will find this an important read... Highly recommended..." - P.J. Venturelli, Valparaiso University, CHOICE "...The title of the book will draw readers.