Feminist Research Practice
A Primer
- Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber - Boston College, USA
Supplements
The companion website contains chapter-specific PowerPoint slide presentations which offer assistance with lecture and review preparation by highlighting essential content and features from the book.
“The text’s combination of feminist focus and practical method guidance can be invaluable for truly engaging qualitative research students in their research concepts and tasks.”
—Jeanne Bickford, University of California, Irvine
“The volume features great examples to which students can relate. References to popular culture (e.g., Law and Order) and insightful stories from the field are a wonderful means of keeping students’ attention and reinforcing the continuing relevance of feminist methods. The volume also balances coverage of theoretical and epistemological concerns with practical techniques and tips. The writing style is engaging and the technical terminology is clearly defined.”
—John P. Bartkowski, University of Texas at San Antonio
“Chapter 8 on the practice of feminist focus groups provides new insights along with critique of a type of methodology that is rarely addressed in feminist methodologies texts or courses. The examples are very helpful. New researchers would appreciate the examples of processes and questions...”
—Karen T. Keifer-Boyd, The Pennsylvania State University
This book is very useful for students wanting to further their knowledge and understanding in feminist research and practice. The chapters are clearly written with theoretical insight of qualitative methods and an interpretivist approach to critical thinking in research.
Did not put this research in context to others
This excellent book gives students who are intererested in feminist research an excellent grounding
This is a good introduction to the subject; accordingly, I have placed this book on my "Recommended" reading list.
This book is a book recommended to students, but not adopted because enough students are not able to apply this clearly to their work. It requires detailed contextualization for use, which is done individually with students who would benefit from it.
A well organised, engaging and insightful book suitable for feminist research studies. Particularly liked the 'feminist approaches to in-depth interviewing', and 'what is feminist ethnography' chapters.
This is a comprehensive text regarding feminist research practice, and as such provides a good introduction to, and oversight of these methodologies.
What's New in the Second Edition?
The second edition of The Practice of Feminist Research brings a stellar group of new and returning scholars with newly revised chapters from the first edition as well as completely new chapters that cover some cutting edge research methods. All chapters highlight the latest scholarship by a range of interdisciplinary scholars who bring together feminist issues and methods in the service of answering a range of complex issues that deeply impact the diversity of women's lives.
New Chapters to the 2nd Edition
We have added a number of new and timely chapters to the 2nd edition that provide additional sets of analytical insights and research tools in the service of getting at complex and global issues. We have added two new feminist theoretical chapters by leading scholars in feminist theory. Chapter 2, Feminist Empiricism and Standpoint Theory and Chapter 3, Feminist Postmodernism, Poststructuralism and Critical Theory provide cutting edge insights into the range of foundation issues feminist research grapple with, namely: How do we know what we know? Who gets to know? What theoretical lenses provide a window into subjected knowledges of women and other oppressed groups? What does it mean to take the standpoint of the most oppressed? This edition also includes a new chapter on Ethics and Feminist Research (Chapter 4) that covers a range of issues that are often not discussed in standard methods textbooks. This chapter explores the range of power and authority issues in social research and extends the discussion of ethics beyond "informed consent" issues to address the range of conundrums researchers face across any given research project. Another new chapter, The Feminist Practice of Action and Community Research (Chapter 6 ), provides a set of analytical tools and methods that demonstrate how to specifically promote social change for women and other oppressed groups. This chapter provides strategies for including research respondents more directly into the research process as well. Another new chapter Feminist Media Research (Chapter 9), provides a set of analytical lenses and tools to engage with issues that deal with the growing influence of social media—twitter, facebook, etc. A new chapter on The Feminist Practice of Program Evaluation (Chapter 11), provides a feminist lens onto how to conduct an evaluation with the goals of social transformation and social change. The concluding new chapter, Putting it all Together: Doing Your Feminist Research Project, (Chapter 13), provides the researcher with a "hands on" step by step guide for conducting feminist research together with an in-depth example to follow that helps to solidify the concepts, ideas and methods practices discussed throughout this book.
Each book chapter provides students with in-depth examples as guides to learning a specific method with the inclusion of more graphics throughout the chapters. We also provide a set of insightful discussion questions that are meant to be moments of reflection whereby students have an opportunity to put together what they have learned throughout the chapter and apply this learning to other research contexts. Each chapter also includes online resources for students to follow-up on a specific method and its practice in other research contexts.
All new and returning chapters to this second edition have been revised to include the latest scholarship and feminist perspectives into a given research method. In addition, we have expanded a discussion of the impact of new technologies, such as online technologies which include online surveys, ethnographies and interviews and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of employing these technologies with given methods practices. In addition, we have included a discussion of ethics throughout each of the methods chapters. Each methods chapter contains a discussion of the basic "how-to" of analysis, interpretation, and writing up of a given methods practice.
