Qualitative Research and Intercultural Understanding Conducting Qualitative Research in Multicultural Settings

Qualitative Research and Intercultural Understanding: Conducting Qualitative Research in Multicultural Settings makes an important contribution to the fields of multiculturalism and qualitative research methods.

The first section of the book is a textbook on qualitative methodology. Beginning with a sketch of the historical roots of qualitative research and its place in the research landscape, the book then explores the notion of culture and our individual and collective experiences of culture. The chapters that follow explain how to frame a study and ask qualitative research questions, how to strengthen the trustworthiness of qualitative findings and how to collect and analyze data and write a research report. This section closes with a chapter on research ethics.

Every chapter is infused with the idea of researcher reflectivity in order to see beyond the researcher's personal cultural worldview. Examples of research studies are provided in every chapter, and each chapter concludes with questions and exercises for critical thought. The second section of the book is comprised of five contributed chapters in which researchers describe their own challenges in conducting research in multicultural settings. Graduate students, experienced researchers and all those interested in multiculturalism will find something to learn and enjoy in this vivid and unusual book.

Introduction: Why Qualitative Research and Intercultural Understanding?

Part One: Conducting Qualitative Research in Multicultural Settings

Chapter One: The Roots of Qualitative Research and its Place in the Research Landscape

Chapter Two: What is Culture?

Chapter Three: Framing Your Study and Asking Research Questions

Chapter Four:Validity and Reliability: How Do You Know?

Chapter Five: Data Collection 1: Observations and Document Analysis. Who's Looking?

Chapter Six: Data Collection 2: Interviews. Who's Asking?

Chapter Seven: Data Analysis: Be Alert, Patient and Self-Critical, but Fear Not

Chapter Eight:Writing and Sharing the Research Report

Chapter Nine: Research Ethics and the Qualitative Road to Intercultural Understanding

Part Two: Voices from the Field

Chapter Ten: Running between the Raindrops: Research, Culture and My Life in Two Worlds Randa Abbas

Chapter Eleven:Foolish Dreams in a Fabled Land Deborah Court

Chapter Twelve: In Whose Interests? Chasing the Chimera of Beneficence in Qualitative Research Ted Riecken

Chapter Thirteen: Moving from Research to Publication: Best Practices in Communicating Interfaith Scholarship Jack Seymour

Chapter Fourteen: When Flesh Became Word: Vulnerable Listening and Mimetic Learning in the Zone of Proximal (Inter)Diction Mai-Anh Le Tran

Deborah Court is associate professor in the School of Education at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She has conducted qualitative research into culture, religious education and educational cultures in Israel and in Canada for 30 years.