`This volume is an exemplar that will serve as a measure for all texts that train researchers. Its scope and depth provide an emerging researcher with an appropriate orientation and skills to be successful in these times of incredible change' - Human Studies

`Bentz and Shapiro provide a welcome addition to the multitude of introductory texts on qualitative research. In an interesting departure from traditional treatises, which concentrate on a particular mode of research activity thereby making action the object of interest, they shift the focus onto the researcher' - Critical Public Health
This innovative introduction to research in the social sciences guides students and new researchers through the maze of research traditions, cultures of inquiry and epistemological frameworks. It introduces the underlying logic of ten cultures of inquiry: ethnography; quantitative behavioural science; phenomenology; action research; hermeneutics; evaluation research; feminist research; critical social science; historical-comparative research; and theoretical research. It clarifies conceptual and intellectual traditions in research, and puts the researcher firmly in the investigative saddle - able to choose, justify, and explain the intellectual framework and personal rationale of his or her research.