Martyn Hammersley is Professor of Educational and Social Research in the Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning at The Open University, UK. His books include Taking Sides in Social Research (1999), Questioning Qualitative Inquiry (2008), and Methodology, Who Needs It? (2011).

Qualitative research has become a vast and complex approach to understanding social life, riddled with diversity and debate. Martyn Hammersley has, in this short text, managed to introduce all of this complexity and diversity without baffling the reader. It is an inspiring and exciting text, full of relevant examples illustrating the diversity of qualitative research today. Written by an undoubted authority in the field, this accessible book should whet the appetite of any would-be qualitative researcher.

• Contents PrefaceChapter 1 Defining qualitative research Chapter 2 Methodological philosophiesChapter 3 Divergent analytic stylesChapter 4 Two methodological disputes Conclusion References