Michael V. Angrosino – författare

In the Great Commission, Jesus told his followers to 'go and make disciples of all nations'. But today, you don't need to be a missionary in another country to come across different cultures. In your neighborhood, school, workplace, and shopping area you probably run across many people with backgrounds vastly different from your own. To have an effective ministry in the U.S. today, outside or inside the church, Christians need to be aware of how people's culture affects the ways they think and live. Talking about Cultural Diversity in Your Church gives classes, workshops, or small groups the opportunity to discuss issues of multiculturalism. Presenting what culture means in the first part of the book shows how understanding and misunderstandings of culture affect American society. This beginning section encourages readers to be aware of their own cultural assumptions and how these assumptions color relations with others. It then highlights special skills for communicating between cultures and highlights the special challenges for religion in a pluralistic society. But the heart of the book is eleven case studies with discussion questions. These concrete cases allow participants to see about how their understandings of culture have real world implications. And the discussion questions let participants talk in meaningful ways about these difficult issues. If you want a useful discussion about multiculturalism in your congregation, you should take a look at Talking about Cultural Diversity in Your Church. Visit the author's web page

Calling on a decade of participant observation at a residence for mentally retarded adults, anthropologist Michael V. Angrosino's riveting and de-mystifying account offers an insider's picture of the lives of the inhabitants of Opportunity House. Using the narrative device of a dozen fictional short stories told in the voices of various community members as well as that of the researcher, Angrosino weaves a life-histories approach to ethnography together with an innovative culture concept to tackle the complexities of representing marginalized subgroups. As opposed to traditional clinical or statistical studies, which have insufficiently conveyed the subjective and experiential perspectives of retarded people themselves, Angrosino presents an intimate and complex picture of a highly functioning community with its cast of entrepreneurs, bullies, victims, and do-gooders. This wonderfully readable and captivating account is therefore an important resource for those interested in mental illness and disability, as well as a model for those experimenting with forms of ethnographic writing.

A prominent anthropologist presents behavioral and social science concepts and strategies that all health professionals can use in their clinical practice.

Observation is one of the foundational methods of qualitative inquiry—but only if it is conducted in a systematic fashion that allows for the careful recording of data and the consistent retrieval of those data for purposes of analysis. To that end, this book features a brief how-to guide to conducting observations in naturalistic settings. The history of observational research, ongoing questions of its epistemological status, the impact of new technologies, and its major ethical concerns are also treated. Replete with examples of observation-based research, questions for class discussion, a glossary, and extensive references, this volume offers a rapid fire start into doing naturalistic observational research for novices and students.