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Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation addresses the growing question in social research of how to critically incorporate visual data and visual methodologies in ways that expand and enhance the researcher's repertoire for understanding and teaching about the social world. Editor Gregory C. Stanczak crisscrosses disciplines in ways that highlight the multiple manifestations of this newer interdisciplinary trend. Beyond methodological interests, the rich diversity of subject matter provides this volume's pedagogical punch.

Key Features
  • Provides a valuable framework for classroom use and comparative analysis: Organized around three themes in visual research—methodology, epistemological reflection, and theoretical contribution of images
  • Addresses a wide range of topics: Original and reprinted works by leading qualitative researchers from various fields, including Sociology, Education, Political Science, Religion, History, and Gender Studies
  • Offers a roadmap to common issues and topics: Reader's guide connects different chapters to different conceptual themes and methodological approaches
  • Presents vivid visual data: Methodologies go beyond photography alone and include video and virtual research
Intended Audience: This is an excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in social research across disciplines such as Sociology, Education, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, American Studies, Communications, Gender Studies, and Political Science.Vi

Gregory C. Stanczak
Chapter 01: Introduction: Images, Methodologies, and Generating Social Knowledge
Jon Wagner
Chapter 02: Observing Culture and Social Life: Documentary Photography, Fieldwork, and Social Research
Barry Goldstein
Chapter 03: All Photos Lie: Images as Data
Jon Miller
Chapter 04: Capturing the Visual Traces of Historical Change: The Internet Mission Photography Archive
Steven J. Gold
Chapter 05: Using Photography in Studies of Immigrant Communities: Reflecting across Projects and Populations
Jeffrey Sammuels
Chapter 06: Breaking the Ethnographer’s Frames: Reflections on the Use of Photo-Elicitation in Understanding Sri Lankan Monastic Culture
Marisol Clark-Ibáñez
Chapter 07: Inner-City Children in Sharper Focus: Sociology of Childhood and Photo-elicitation Interviews
Erina Duganne
Chapter 08: The Failure of “The President’s Choice”
Emmanuel David
Chapter 09: Signs of Resistance: Marking Public Space through a Renewed Cultural Activism
Ruth Holliday
Chapter 10: Filming ‘The Closet’: The Role of Video Diaries in Researching Sexualities
Yolanda Hernandez-Albujar
Chapter 11: The Symbolism of Video: Exploring Migrant Mothers’ Experiences
Stephen Papson, Robert Goldman, Noah Kersey
Chapter 12: Website Design: Merging Hypertext Aesthetics, Academic Narratives, and Visual Sociology

Visual research in physical education and coaching is a new theoretical area. This book provides good theoretical background for people new to this area.

Dr Julia Walsh
Education , University College Cork (NUI)
December 5, 2010

Very intersting book with lots of examples - for students doing qualitative reseach with photographs highly recommended

Dr Hille Otto
Psychology, University of Osnabrueck
November 22, 2010

I have found this book to be an important resource for photography students in an academic program, both for a research centered course as well as a documentary photogrpahy course.

Mr Gabriel Golan
Photographic Communication, Hadassah College
November 26, 2009
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Key features
  • Each chapter is developed around a set of guiding questions covering at least three themes in visual research: methodology, epistemological reflection, and theoretical contribution of images. These themes provide a valuable framework for classroom use and comparative analysis by any visual researcher.
  • A substantive foundational chapter explicates these themes more fully and offers a mini introduction to core visual research methodology. 
  • Reader's guide connects different chapters to different conceptual themes and methodological approaches, offering a roadmap to common issues and topics with which the reader should become familiar.
  • Expanded list of suggested readings, arranged thematically within the general framework of the book (methodology, epistemology, and theory). 
  • Original and reprinted works by leading qualitative researchers across a wide range of fields, including Sociology, Education, Political Science, Religion, History, and Gender Studies.  

For instructors

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