Interviews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing

The First Edition of InterViews has provided students and professionals in a wide variety of disciplines with the “whys” and “hows” of research interviewing, preparing students for learning interviewing by doing interviews and by studying examples of best practice. The thoroughly revised Second Edition retains its original seven-stage structure, continuing to focus on the practical, epistemological, and ethical issues involved with interviewing. Authors Steinar Kvale and Svend Brinkmann also include coverage of newer developments in qualitative interviewing, discussion of interviewing as a craft, and a new chapter on linguistic modes of interview analysis. Practical and conceptual assignments, as well as new “tool boxes,” provide students with the means to dig deeper into the material presented and achieve a more meaningful level of understanding.

New to This Edition

· Includes new developments in qualitative interviewing: New materials cover narrative, discursive, and conversational analyses.

· Presents interviewing as a social practice: Knowledge produced by interviewing is discussed as linguistic, conversational, narrative, relational, situated, and pragmatic.

· Addresses a variety of interviews forms: In addition to harmonious, empathetic interviews, the authors also cover confrontational interviews.

Intended Audience

This text is ideal for both novice and experienced interview researchers as well as graduate students taking courses in qualitative and research methods in the social sciences and health sciences, particularly departments of Education, Nursing, Sociology, Psychology, and Communication.

Praise for the previous edition:

“I think this is one of the most in-depth treatments of the interview process that I have seen. The frank and realistic approach that the authors take to this topic is rather unique and will be very reassuring to researchers who are undertaking an interview study for the first time.”        
—Lisa M. Diamond, University of Utah

Steinar Kvale (1938-2008) was professor of educational psychology and director of the Centre of Qualitative Research at the University of Aarhus, and adjunct faculty at Saybrook Institute, San Francisco. He was born in Norway and graduated from the University of Oslo. He continued his studies at the University of Heidelberg with an Alexander von Humboldt scholarship and was a visiting professor at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, and West Georgia University, Carrolton, and the University of Bergen. His long-term concern was with the implications of such continental philosophies as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and dialectics for psychology and education.

Svend Brinkmann is professor of psychology in the Department of Communication and Psychology at the University of Aalborg, Denmark, where he serves as co-director of the Center for Qualitative Studies with Lene Tanggaard. His research is particularly concerned with philosophical, moral, and methodological issues in psychology and other human and social sciences. He is author and co-author of numerous articles and books, including John Dewey: Science for a Changing World, Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life, and Qualitative Interviewing.