Pulling Back the Curtain on Qualitative Research

William E. Thompson is a professor emeritus of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA. He was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was the first member of his family to receive a high school diploma. He received his bachelor’s degree from Northeastern State University, a master’s degree from Missouri State University, and a Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University. Professor Thompson has authored and co-authored more than 50 articles in professional journals, including several reprinted in sociology textbooks and readers. Thompson also is the author of The Glass House, a nonfiction account of his mother’s two-year battle with cancer and in 2012 authored Hogs, Blogs, Leathers, and Lattes: The Sociology of Modern American Motorcycling.Mica L. Thompson is an adjunct instructor at Texas A&M University Commerce, USA. She was born in Emporia, Kansas, and received her bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University and her master’s degree from Texas A&M University-Commerce. She has 16 years of public-school teaching experience and has co-authored several articles in professional journals as well as several major textbooks in sociology.Together, Thompson and Thompson have co-authored three major social scientific books: Sociological Wisdom, Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology which is in its 9th edition, and Juvenile Delinquency: A Sociological Approach, now in its 11th edition.

• Preface Acknowledgements 1. Designing and Conducting Qualitative Research 2. Striving for Objective and Unbiased Qualitative Research 3. Visiting the Old Order Amish in Oklahoma and Kansas: Case Studies 4. Working on a Beef Slaughter Assembly Line 5. Portraying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus at a Shopping Mall 6. Studying Morticians and Funeral Directors 7. Interviewing Topless Dancers 8. Riding With Modern American Motorcyclists 9. Performing a Content Analysis of Motorcyclists and the Media 10. Studying Kindergarten 11. Pumping Iron in the 1980s and Working Out in the Twenty-First Century 12. Conducting Qualitative Research in the Age of DisenlightenmentGlossary Bibliography Index