Reworking Qualitative Data: The Possibility of Secondary Analysis

What is qualitative secondary analysis? How can it be most effectively applied in social research?

This timely and accomplished book offers readers a well informed, reliable guide to all aspects of qualitative secondary analysis.

The book:

· Defines secondary analysis

· Distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative secondary analysis

· Maps the main types of qualitative secondary analysis

· Covers the key ethical and legal issues

· Offers a practical guide to effective research

· Sets the agenda for future developments in the subject

Written by an experienced researcher and teacher with a background in sociology, the book is a comprehensive and invaluable introduction to this growing field of social research.

Janet Heaton is Research Fellow at the University of the Highlands and Islands, UK. She has a special interest in the secondary analysis of qualitative data and has published studies using the methodology as well as reviews and commentaries on the topic. In Reworking Qualitative Data (2004), she investigated the ways in which the methodology has been promoted in the social sciences and carried out in practice. In this and related works, she has examined the various epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues associated with sharing and reusing data accessed through data archives, informal data sharing, and analysts’ own collections.