What is Qualitative Interviewing? is an accessible and comprehensive ‘what is’ and ‘how to’ methods book. It is distinctive in emphasizing the importance of good practice in understanding and undertaking qualitative interviews within the framework of a clear philosophical position. Rosalind Edwards and Janet Holland provide clear and succinct explanations of relevant philosophies and theories of how to know about the social world, and a thorough discussion of how to go about researching it using interviews. A series of short chapters explain a range of interview types and practices. Drawing on their own and colleagues’ experiences Edwards and Holland provide real research examples as informative illustrations of qualitative interviewing in practice and the use of creative interview tools. They discuss the use of new technologies as well as tackling enduring issues around asking and listening, and power dynamics in research. Written in a clear and accessible style the book concludes with a useful annotated bibliography of key texts and journals in the field. What is Qualitative Interviewing? provides a vital resource for both new and experienced researchers across the social science disciplines.

What is Qualitative Interviewing

Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Schooling in Capitalist America.

Simulacra and Simulation

The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction by Emily Martin Beacon Press, 1987 Paperback, 276 pp $1195 Winner of the 1988 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize As anthropology at its best can do, this book exposes hidden cultural assumptions about the nature of reality Martin has produced a powerful study of the dialectic between medical metaphors for women's reproductive processes and women's own views of those processes She and her associates interviewed 165 white and black women, seeking a balance between the three life stages of puberty, childbearing, and menopause 43% of her interviewees were working-class; 57% middleclass Early on Martin came up against one of the greatest dangers of studying one's own society Hearing women discuss uterine contractions as separate from the self and labor as something one "went through," and reading the same in medical texts, she at first thought that her interviews had turned up views of the body that simply reflected actual scientific fact It took her some time to realize that such scientific views are not "fact" but culturally grounded statements of an underlying ideology To get at this ideology Martin studied medical texts for the "grammar" that scientific medicine uses to describe female bodies In this medical grammar, she finds industrial society writ small The female reproductive tract is a machine designed to produce a baby; accordingly, menstruation represents failed production, connoting both a productive system that has failed to produce and one that produces only useless waste Such metaphors, disturbing to a society whose existence depends upon continued production, lead to menstruation's description in medical texts in highly negative terms: The fall in blood progesterone and estrogen, which results from regression of the corpus luteum, deprives the highly developed endometrial lining of its hormonal support    Disintegration starts    The endometrial arteries dilate, resulting in hemorrhage through the weakened capillary walls; the menstrual flow consists of this blood mixed with endometrial debris    (quoted on p 48) (Martin contrasts this with a description of male reproductive physiology which speaks of the "remarkable" cellular transformation from spermatid to mature sperm, its "amazing" nature and "sheer magnitude") Confronting the argument that the above is not value-laden but simply a factual description of menstruation, Martin examines medical descriptions of the analogous regular shedding and replacement of the lining of the stomach, finding in a number of texts no references to degeneration, but instead a stress on the periodic "renewal" of the stomach lining Concluding that writers can choose to depict what happens to the lining of stomachs and uteruses either negatively as breakdown and decay or positively as continual production and replenishment, Martin suggests an alternative medical description of menstruation: A drop in the formerly high levels of progesterone and estrogen creates the appropriate environment for reducing the excess layers of endometrial tissue Constriction of capillary blood vessels causes a lower level of oxygen and nutrients and paves the way for a vigorous production of menstrual fluids    Such a description would far more accurately reflect women's own more positive assessments of the menstrual fluid as the desired product Viewing pregnancy as the sole purpose of female reproductive organs and despising menstruation as a "waste" ignores the reality that most women do not intend to get pregnant most of the time (and so are often joyful when menstruation begins), and conceals "the true unity women have    [Menstruation is] the one thing we all share" (p 112) In spite of ambivalence about the "disgusting mess," most interviewees felt that menstruation defines them as women and insisted that they wouldn't want to give it up Teens spoke of the joy of getting their periods so they could be part of the in-group that shared the women's "special secret," of mothers and sisters greeting their first menstruation with "You're a woman now! …

The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction

This article will focus upon the role of humour in the cultures of young men in school. We adopt an ethnographic approach to illustrate the variety of these interactions which can include forms of game-play, mythic storytelling and ritual insults. Our analysis suggests that humorous exchanges are constitutive of heterosexual masculine identities. We argue that humour is a technique utilised for the regulation of masculinities and the negotiation of gender-sexual hierarchies within pupil cultures. Bodily practices were prevalent in the interchanges, playing a part in the contestation and production of differentiated heterosexualities. Humour was an organising principle, deployed to position pupils within differing dominant and subordinate peer group sexual cultures. The paper focuses on conformist aspects of humour and recognises the oppressive dynamics articulated in these exchanges. Finally, we consider the implications of these practices for contemporary working-class masculinity.

‘Lads and laughter’: humour and the production of heterosexual hierarchies

The sexuality of young people arouses controversy and remains a source of concern for parents, teachers, policy-makers and politicians. But what young people really think about sexuality and gender and how these issues impact upon their lives is often marginalized or overlooked.

Based upon extensive ethnographic research with young people and teachers, Sexuality, Gender and Schooling offers a telling and insightful account of how young people acquire sexual knowledge and how they enact their understanding of their own gender. It highlights the ways in which young people's constructions of gender and sexuality are formed outside the school curriculum, through engagements with various forms of popular culture - such as teen magazines and television programmes - and through same-sex friendship groups.

Offering a fresh perspective on a subject of perennial interest and concern, Sexuality, Gender and Schooling provides accounts from the inside - some of which may challenge and eclipse current approaches to sexuality education. It has significant implications for policy and practice in Personal, Social and Health Education and is also an excellent introduction to key debates and issues in the study of gender and sexuality.

Sexuality, Gender and Schooling: Shifting Agendas in Social Learning

How do boys become men and girls become women in the modern world? What does it mean to be a ‘proper’ girl or boy? Innovatively weaving together work on both feminine and masculine identities, Gender, Youth and Culture explores how gender is produced, consumed, regulated and performed by young people. Drawing on rich ethnographic youth research this arresting book reveals the intimate ways in which young people ‘do’ gender. Using refreshing examples from contemporary culture, the authors demonstrate how features of youth culture such as social networking, club culture, film and popular television shows can be used to explain complex theoretical ideas. With discussion of new research, key concepts and global case accounts, this original volume explores how young lives intersect with gender, sexuality, race, class and religion in a range of locations.

Gender Youth and Culture: Young Masculinities and Femininities (2nd ed)

What is childhood and how can it be studied and understood? How is the idea of childhood shaped by the society we live in? This timely publication addresses these questions by pointing to the importance of childhood as a conceptual category and as a social status for the study of a previously overlooked or marginalised group - children. Following the success of the first edition, this new volume brings together key themes in the area of Childhood Studies, providing a scholarly introduction to students and practitioners working in the field. The book offers a broad-based, comprehensive and accessible insight into this growing discipline. Contributors examine childhood from historical, socio-cultural and policy perspectives. Each chapter is written by an expert in a specific area of childhood studies and many chapters are authored by leading figures in their field. Intellectually robust and confident in its academic approach this book is a key textbook for students and practitioners working in the area of Childhood Studies.

An Introduction to Childhood Studies

This original book interweaves popular culture and theory-led research to explore how gender is produced, consumed and performed in young lives today. With valuable insight into the significance of gender and culture in young people's lives, the authors examine current and future developments in the fields of youth, gender and cultural studies.

Mary Jane Kehily

Papers

‘Lads and laughter’: humour and the production of heterosexual hierarchies

Sexuality, Gender and Schooling: Shifting Agendas in Social Learning

Gender Youth and Culture: Young Masculinities and Femininities (2nd ed)

An Introduction to Childhood Studies

Gender, Youth and Culture: Young Masculinities and Femininities