Ethnography and Human Development : Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry

Jessor, Richard (EDT); Colby, Anne (EDT); Shweder, Richard A. (EDT)

ISBN 10: 0226399028 / ISBN 13: 9780226399027

Published by University of Chicago Press, 1996

About this Item

Unread book in perfect condition.

Seller Inventory # 643528

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ethnography and Human Development : Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226399028
• ISBN 13: 9780226399027
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Studies of human development have taken an ethnographic turn in the 1990s. In this volume, leading anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists discuss how qualitative methodologies have strengthened our understanding of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development, and of the difficulties of growing up in contemporary society.

Part 1, informed by a post-positivist philosophy of science, argues for the validity of ethnographic knowledge. Part 2 examines a range of qualitative methods, from participant observation to the hermeneutic elaboration of texts. In Part 3, ethnographic methods are applied to issues of human development across the life span and to social problems including poverty, racial and ethnic marginality, and crime.

Restoring ethnographic methods to a central place in social inquiry, these twenty-two lively essays will interest everyone concerned with the epistemological problems of context, meaning, and subjectivity in the behavioral sciences.

About the Author

Richard A. Shweder (Editor in Chief) is a cultural anthropologist and the William Claude Reavis Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Shweder has written several books on cultural psychology and human development, including most recently Why Do Men Barbecue? Recipes for Cultural Psychology.