Becoming a Researcher: A Research Companion for the Social Sciences

Chapter 1 Introduction

What sort of book?
Writers’ voices
Making a Reading
Themes
Structure

Part 1 - Distinguishing Data - Constructing text

Chapter 2 The Logic of Enquiry

Finding a Place to Stand
The Nature of the Social
Positivism and Social Values
Reflexivity
The Logic of Enquiry

Chapter 3 Talking with people - Interviewing

Introduction
The broad schema
Interview texts as ‘ resource’
Interviews as social action
Power and process in the interview
Knowledge and Power
Questions and Design

Chapter 4 Knowing with Numbers- Questionnaires

Introduction
Quantification as Scientific Inquiry
The Questionnaire as Scientific Apparatus
Constructing the Respondent / Reader
Theoretical structuring
Deconstruction Using Questionnaires

Chapter 5 Being There - Observation

Introduction
Action in the Field
From Action to Data
From Data to Report
Conclusion

Part 2-Dicing with data – Deconstructing text

Chapter 6 Breaking Down Data – Routes to Interpretation

Introduction
From Field to Text
Dicing with Data
Perhaps not...?
Complex Realisms
Interpretivist Repertoires
Reflexivity and Representation

Chapter 7 Worrying at Words – Discourse Analysis

Introduction
Transcripts and Summaries
Critical?
Uncritical?
Reference Outside the Text: Circularity of Argument
Thought and Language: More Circularity
Generalizing
Spotting Features
Discourse Analysis and Researcher Identity

Chapter 8 Pulverizing Policy – Deconstructing Documents

Policy and Process
Deconstructing the Text
The Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Curriculum
Analysing Key Documents
The QCA Draft Guidance

Part 3 -Data with Destiny - Reconstructing Text

Chapter 9 Writing Research – Authoring Text

Writing and the Real
Art and Science
Writing the Real
Qualitative Empiricism
Epistemology
Language and the Real: Writing and Postmodernism
Audience
Reading
Intertextuality Form and Genre
Knowledge

Chapter 10 The Selfish Text – Research and Identity

The Late Modern Self
Narrating the Self
Postmodern Selves: Agency and Determinism
Identity and Social Theory
Culture and the Global Perspective
The Democratization of Research

Chapter 11 Methods and Methodology

What is Methodology?
Methodology, the Research Process and Identity
Methodology and Legitimacy – Identity and Narrative
A Way Forward for Social Research?
P.S.

This innovative book combines what most books separate: research as practical activity and research as intellectual engagement. It clarifies and makes explicit the methodological issues that underlie the journey from initial research idea to the finished report and beyond.

The text moves the researcher logically through the research process and provides insights into methodology through an in-depth discussion of methods. It presents the research process as an engagement with text. This theme moves through the construction of text in the form of data and the deconstruction of text in analysis. Finally the focus moves to the reconstruction of text through the re-presentation of the research in the report. Following through each of these stages in turn, the chapters consider either a practical issue or a group of methods and interrogate the associated methodological concerns. In addition, the book also addresses the rarely explored issues of the researcher as writer and researcher identity as core elements of the research process.

The book provides a range of insights and original perspectives. These successfully combine practical guidance with the invitation to consider the problematic nature of research as social practice. It is an ideal reference for those embarking on research for the first time and provides a new methodological agenda for established researchers.