1st Edition

Pulling Back the Curtain on Qualitative Research

By William Thompson, Mica Thompson Copyright 2023
220 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

220 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

220 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

In Pulling Back the Curtain on Qualitative Research, the authors maintain that for sociologists the entire world is a laboratory. Seldom do they attend social gatherings without observing people and their interaction in a systematic and intellectually curious way. Regular trips to the grocery store, church services, and engagement with social media all open the door to sociological questioning... Read more

Preface

Acknowledgments

  1. Designing and Conducting Qualitative Research
  2. Striving for Objective and Unbiased Qualitative Research
  3. Visiting the Old Order Amish in Oklahoma and Kansas: Case Studies
    William E. Thompson
  4. Working on a Beef Slaughter Assembly Line
    William E. Thompson
  5. Portraying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus at a Shopping Mall
    William E. Thompson
  6. Studying Morticians and Funeral Directors
    William E. Thompson
  7. Interviewing Topless Dancers
    William E. Thompson
  8. Riding With Modern American Motorcyclists
    William E. Thompson
  9. Performing a Content Analysis of Motorcyclists and the Media
    William E. Thompson
  10. Studying Kindergarten
    Mica L. Thompson
  11. Pumping Iron in the 1980s and Working Out in the Twenty-First Century
    William E. Thompson and Mica L. Thompson
  12. Conducting Qualitative Research in the Age of Disenlightenment

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Biography

William E. Thompson is a professor emeritus of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA. He was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was the first member of his family to receive a high school diploma. He received his bachelor’s degree from Northeastern State University, a master’s degree from Missouri State University, and a Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University. Professor Thompson has authored and co-authored more than 50 articles in professional journals, including several reprinted in sociology textbooks and readers. Thompson also is the author of The Glass House, a nonfiction account of his mother’s two-year battle with cancer and in 2012 authored Hogs, Blogs, Leathers, and Lattes: The Sociology of Modern American Motorcycling.

Mica L. Thompson is an adjunct instructor at Texas A&M University Commerce, USA. She was born in Emporia, Kansas, and received her bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University and her master’s degree from Texas A&M University-Commerce. She has 16 years of public-school teaching experience and has co-authored several articles in professional journals as well as several major textbooks in sociology.

Together, Thompson and Thompson have co-authored three major social scientific books: Sociological Wisdom, Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology which is in its 9th edition, and Juvenile Delinquency: A Sociological Approach, now in its 11th edition.