An Introduction to Qualitative Research

-Norman K Denzin, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"This text is a unique contribution to the body of general theoretical material about this rapidly expanding field of inquiry in social psychology as well as the social and health sciences."

--Contemporary Psychology

This Second Edition of Uwe Flick′s bestselling textbook retains all of the student-friendly elements and carefully structured and thought-through qualities of the first edition, but with much more besides. As a consequence, this book should preserve its status as the essential introductory text for all students of qualitative research.

All of the major theories, methods and new approaches are still presented in an accessible manner. As well, the incorporation of many practical examples and summary boxes, helping to inform students and researchers of the right decisions to take in terms of research strategy, ensures that this text remains thoroughly practical. However, each chapter has been fully updated in terms of references and reading lists, and an entirely new section on Recent and Further Developments has been written, including chapters on: Computers in Qualitative Research; Qualitative and Quantitative Research; Quality in Qualitative Research; and The Future of Qualitative Research.

Wonderfully well-written and supremely comprehensive, An Introduction to Qualitative Research, Second Edition should be recommended reading to all students of qualitative research.

Uwe Flick is Senior Professor of Qualitative Research in Social Science and Education at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. He is a trained psychologist and sociologist and received his PhD from the Freie Universität Berlin in 1988 and his Habilitation from the Technical University of Berlin in 1994. He has been Professor of Qualitative Research at Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany and at the University of Vienna, Austria. Previously, he was Adjunct Professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada; a Lecturer in research methodology at the Freie Universität Berlin; a Reader and Assistant Professor in qualitative methods and evaluation at the Technical University of Berlin; and Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Medical Sociology at the Hannover Medical School. He has held visiting appointments at the London School of Economics, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, at Cambridge University (UK), University of Lisbon (Portugal), Institute of Higher Studies in Vienna, in Italy and Sweden, and at the School of Psychology at Massey University, Auckland (New Zealand). His main research interests are qualitative methods, social representations in the fields of individual and public health, chronical illness and vulnerability in fields like youth homelessness, peer relations or migration, and technological change in everyday life. He is the author of Introducing Research Methodology: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing a Research Project (4th edn, London: Sage: 2025) and editor of A Companion to Qualitative Research (London: Sage, 2004) and The Psychology of the Social (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). As his most recent publications, he has written Designing Qualitative Research (2nd edn, London: Sage, 2018), Doing Grounded Theory (London: Sage, 2018), Doing Triangulation and Mixed Methods (London: Sage, 2018), and Managing Quality in Qualitative Research (2nd edn, London: Sage, 2018) and Doing Interview Research – The Essential How To Guide (London: Sage, 2022). He edited The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis (London: Sage, 2014), The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit (2nd edn, London: Sage, 2018), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Collection (London: Sage, 2018) and The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design (London: Sage, 2022) and The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Quality (London: Sage, 2025).