Applying Theory to Educational Research by For beginning researchers, theory can be one of the most stimulating - yet daunting - aspects of academic work. This book provides educational researchers with an accessible introduction to the process of selecting and applying theories in their own work.
Theoretical Frameworks in Qualitative Research by This book brings together some of today's leading qualitative researchers to discuss the frameworks behind their published qualitative studies. They share how they found and chose a theoretical framework, from what discipline the framework was drawn, what the framework posits, and how it influenced their study. Both novice and experienced qualitative researchers are able to learn first-hand from various contributors as they reflect on the process and decisions involved in completing their study. The book also provides background for beginning researchers about the nature of theoretical frameworks and their importance in qualitative research; about differences in perspective about the role of theoretical frameworks; and about how to find and use a theoretical framework.
Reason and Rigor by Exploring the conceptual framework that helps direct and ground researchers, this is a practical book that presents conceptual frameworks as a mechanism - process and product. The authors discuss a conceptual framework as both a guide and a ballast for empirical research with specific questions and strategies for exploring what is already known about a given topic or question. In the second edition two new chapters have been added; chapter 3 focuses on how conceptual frameworks are conceptualized and developed, profiling Angela Duckworth's seminal work on grit. The chapter addresses the question on the minds of graduate students preparing for the dissertation process: how do I get started? A second published work (along with Margaret Beale Spencer's featured in chapter 7) that utilizes quantitative methods and brings the book into greater balance in terms of methodological focus. Chapter 8 is the second new chapter and provides a student's perspective on the role of conceptual frameworks in the research process from beginning to end. Many more visuals have been included which assist in illustrating key ideas and relationships providing a clear roadmap for the reader, combined with a thorough updating of the relevant research.
Qualitative Research by This book helps readers understand what the authors call "criticality" in qualitative research by communicating the foundations and processes of qualitative research with clarity and simplicity while still capturing its complexity. Packed with real-life examples of questions, issues, and situations that stem from the authors' and their students' research, the book humanizes the qualitative research endeavour, illustrates the types of scenarios that arise, and emphasizes the importance of actively considering paradigmatic values throughout every stage of the research process. In every chapter, the authors illustrate the qualitative research process as decidedly ideological, political, and subjective using themes of criticality, reflexivity, collaboration, and rigor.
Bourdieu: the Next Generation by This book will give unique insight into how a new generation of Bourdieusian researchers apply Bourdieu to contemporary issues. It will provide a discussion of the working mechanisms of thinking through and/or with Bourdieu when analysing data. In each chapter, individual authors discuss and reflect upon their own research and the ways in which they put Bourdieu to work. The aim of this book is not to just to provide examples of the development of Bourdieusian research, but for each author to reflect on the ways in which they came across Bourdieu's work, why it speaks to them (including a reflexive consideration of their own background), and the way in which it is thus useful in their thinking. Many of the authors were introduced to Bourdieu's works after his death. The research problems which the individual authors tackle are contextualised in a different time and space to the one Bourdieu occupied when he was developing his conceptual framework. This book will demonstrate how his concepts can be applied as "thinking tools" to understand contemporary social reality. Throughout Bourdieu's career, he argued that sociologists need to create an epistemological break, to abandon our common sense - or as much as we can - and to formulate findings from our results. In essence, we are putting Bourdieu to work to provide a structural constructivist approach to social reality anchored through empirical reflexivity.