Research Methods in Anthropology : Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

Contents: Preface. 1. Anthropology and the social sciences. 2. The foundations of social research. 3. Preparing for research. 4. The literature search. 5. Research design: experiments and experimental thinking. 6. Sampling. 7. Sampling theory. 8. Nonprobability sampling and choosing informants. 9. Interviewing: unstructured and semistructure. 10. Structure interviewing I: questionnaires. 11. Structured interviewing II: cultural domain analysis. 12. Scales and scaling. 13. Participant observation. 14. Field notes: how to take them, code them, manage them. 15. Direct and indirect observation. 16. Introduction to qualitative and quantitative analysis. 17. Qualitative data analysis I: text analysis. 18. Qualitative data analysis II: Models and matrices. 19. Univariate analysis. 20. Bivariate analysis: testing relations. 21. Multivariate analysis. Appendixes: i. Table of random numbers. ii. Table of areas under a normal curve. iii. Student's t distribution. iv. Chi-square distribution table. v. F tables for the .05 and .01 levels of significance. vi. Resources for fieldworkers. References. Subject index. Author index. About the author.

"Research Methods in Anthropology is the standard textbook for methods classes in anthropology programs. Written in Russ Bernard's unmistakable conversational style, this fourth edition continues the tradition of previous editions, which have launched tens of thousands of students into the fieldwork enterprises with a combination of rigorous methodology, wry humor and commonsense advice. The author has thoroughly updated his text and increased the length of bibliography by about 50 percent to point students and researchers to the literature on hundreds of methods and techniques covered. He has added and updated many examples of real research, which fieldworkers and students can replicate. There is new material throughout, including sections on computer-based interviewing methods; management of electronic field notes; recording equipment and voice recognition software; text analysis; and the collection and analysis of visual materials. Whether you are coming from a scientific, interpretive, or applied anthropological tradition, you will learn field methods from the best guide in both qualitative and quantitative methods." (jacket)