FALL 2009 - archived course materials

Syllabus

DATE TOPIC READINGS (please read before class) SLIDES
Thu 8/27/09 What is Qualitative Research? intro
Tue 9/1/09 Components of Research Design - Becker, Epistemology of Qualitative Research (handed out in class, and available here)
- Haraway, Situated Knowledges [CR]

Optional:
- Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, Appendix 		research design
Thu 9/3/09 Sampling and Corpus Construction - Lofland and Lofland, Chap. 1-3
- Becker, 'Sampling' from Tricks of the Trade [CR]
- Bauer and Aarts, 'Corpus Construction' [CR] 		corpus construction
Tue 9/8/09, Thu 9/10/09 Observation, Participation, and Ethnography For Tuesday:
- The UC Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects the Belmont Report
- Lofland and Lofland, on logging data

For Thursday:
- Clifford, 'On Ethnographic Authority' [CR]
- Geertz, 'Thick Description' [CR]
- Rosaldo, 'Subjectivity in Social Analysis' [CR] 		participant-observation

ethnography
Tue 9/15/09 Discussion of Observation Exercise Notes on Subjectivity and Bias
Thu 9/17/09 Locating Fieldwork: Multi-Sitedness and Virtuality in Ethnographic Research - Marcus, 'Ethnography in/of the World System' [CR]
- Burrell, 'The Fieldsite as a Network' [CR]
- WRITING EXAMPLE: Turkle, 'TinySex and Gender Trouble' [CR] 		multi-sited and virtual ethnography
Tue 9/22/09 Discussion of Observation Exercise
Thu 9/24/09 Analysis Practices - Coding and Generating Themes - Charmaz, 'Invitation to Grounded Theory' and 'Coding in Grounded Theory Practice' [CR]
- Lofland and Lofland, chap. 9		 grounded theory
Tue 9/29/09 Analysis Workshop 1 [come prepared with your note cards]
Thu 10/1/09 After Analysis: Writing Up Based on Participant-Observation Work - WRITING EXAMPLE: Spitulnik, Zambian Radio Culture[CR]
- WRITING EXAMPLE: Hutchins and Klausen, Distributed Cognition in an Airline Cockpit [CR]
Tue 10/6/09 Analysis Workshop 2 [come prepared with your note cards]
Thu 10/8/09 Interviewing 1 - Introduction
[Assignment 1 Due]		 - Suchman and Jordan, 'Interactional Troubles in Face-to-Face Survey Interviews [CR]
- Kvale, 'The Interview as Conversation' [CR]
- Lofland and Lofland, on designing interview guides (Chapter 5, section III)
 interviewing
Tue 10/13/09 Workshop - Critique of Interview Techniques writing interview guides
Thu 10/15/09 Projective Interviewing - Harper, 'Talking about Pictures: a case for photo elicitation' [CR]
- Young and Barrett, 'Adapting Visual Methods: action research with Kampala street children' [CR]
- Gaver, 'Cultural Probes' [CR]		 interviewing
Tue 10/20/09 Focus Groups and Expert/Elite Interviews Required:
- Morgan and Krueger, 'When to Use Focus Groups and Why' [CR]
- Thomas 1995, 'Interviewing Important People in Big Companies' in the password-protected section.

Optional:
- Albreecht et al., 'Understanding Communication Processes in Focus Groups' [CR]
- Odendahl and Shaw, 2002Interviewing Elites in the password-protected section.
Thu 10/22/09 Discussion of Interviews
Tue 10/27/09 The Role of Document Analysis in Field-Based Research - Garfinkel, 'Good Organizational Reasons for 'Bad' Clinical Records [CR]
- WRITING EXAMPLE: Heath and Luff, 'Documents and Professional Practice' [CR]
 document and text analysis
Thu 10/29/09 Guest Speaker: Megan Finn, PhD student, School of Information
Tue 11/3/09 The Role of Image Analysis in Field-Based Research - Rose, Content Analysis [CR]
- Rose, Semiology [CR]		 image analysis
Thu 11/5/09 Operationalizing Theory in Technology Studies
[Assignment 2 Due]		 - WRITING EXAMPLE: Grint and Woolgar, 'Configuring the User: inventing new technologies' [CR]
- WRITING EXAMPLE: Cowan, 'The Consumption Junction' [CR]
 operationalizing theory
Tue 11/10/09 Ethics
[Assignment 2 Due]		 - The UC Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects the Belmont Report
- Thorne, "You Still Takin' Notes?" Fieldwork and problems of informed consent." [CR]
- de Laine, 'Ethical Dilemmas' [CR]		 ethics
Thu 11/12/09 Evaluating Qualitative Research - Bauer and Gaskell, 'Towards Public Accountability: beyond sampling, reliability, and validity' [CR]
- Kvale, 'The Social Construction of Validity' [CR]
- Jordan and Dalal, 'Persuasive Encounters: Ethnography in the Corporation' [CR]		 evaluation
Tue 11/17/09 Project Discussion and Thoughts on Writing Up - Lofland and Lofland, on writing up
- Kvale, improving research reports (course website)		 analysis pointers
Thu 11/19/09 Guest Speaker: Dan Perkel, PhD student, School of Information
Tue 11/24/09 Ethnographic Research for Technology Design - Dourish, 'Implications for Design' [URL] ethnographic research for design
Thu 11/26/09 Thanksgiving - NO CLASS
Tue 12/1/09 The Role of Recording Technologies in Data Collection - Nafus and Anderson, 'The Real Problem: Rhetorics of Knowing in Corporate Ethnographic Research' [CR]
- Hasbrouck and Faulkner, "Why are you taking my picture?" Navigating the Cultural Contexts of Visual Procurement [CR]
Thu 12/3/09 Discussion and Exercise
 - (reread) Becker, Epistemology of Qualitative Research. Available here.