This concise, applied, and very clearly written qualitative research methods book provides the reader with a background for understanding the uses of qualitative research in education. It's purpose is to examine its theoretical and historical underpinnings, and to provide the how-to's of doing qualitative research. This new edition places qualitative research within current debates about research methods and alternative ways of knowing. While the authors approach the subject from a sociological perspective, they also take care to reflect the many changes in conceptualization of qualitative research brought by post-structural and feminist thought.