Transforming Qualitative Data: Description, Analysis, and Interpretation

The process of analyzing qualitative data and producing a complete study is discussed in this book. Breaking down the transformation process into description, analysis and interpretation, Harry Wolcott discusses these three related activities. To illustrate them, he critically analyzes his own work, using nine of his previous studies as examples. He concludes by examining how to learn and teach qualitative research using these principles.

The process of analyzing qualitative data and producing a complete study is discussed in this book. Breaking down the transformation process into description, analysis and interpretation, Harry Wolcott discusses these three related activities. To illustrate them, he critically analyzes his own work, using nine of his previous studies as examples. He concludes by examining how to learn and teach qualitative research using these principles.

Harry F. Wolcott(Ph.D. Stanford) taught at the University of Oregon, serving on both the faculties of education and anthropology. He authored several ethnographic texts that included his experiences among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia and with the African Beer Gardens of Bulawayo, Rhodesia, as well on ethnographic method and on writing itself, with a focus on qualitative research. His publications included: Transforming Qualitative Data (SAGE 1994); Art of Fieldwork (2nd ed., Altamira Press 2005); Ethnography: A Way of Seeing (2nd ed., Altamira Press 2008); Writing Up Qualitative Research (3rd ed., SAGE 2009); Sneaky Kid and Its Aftermath: Ethics and Intimacy in Fieldwork (Altamira 2002), and Ethnography Lessons: A Primer (Left Coast Press, 2010).