Interviewing has strong claims to be the `queen' of research methods. It is used throughout the social sciences and is a core method. The ubiquity of this basic activity means that it should be no surprise that interviewing takes many forms and poses many challenges. These have been the subject of one of the most developed bodies of methodological literature having ramifications throughout the social sciences. Commentaries on interviewing began to emerge at the very birth of the social and behavioural sciences in the 19th century. There are now hundreds of articles on the subject. The aim of this collection is to bring together all of the key articles on interviewing which have been published in professional journals. It addresses the philosophy of interview methods and its epistemological foundations; the ethics of interview research; and the criteria for assessing interview based research. It covers both interviewing in quantitative research, such as the survey method, and qualitative research in all its many forms. The collection explores the principal types of interview (standardized, semi-standardized and non-standardized), and the different modes of interviewing (for example, telephone interviewing, life history interviews and focus groups). There is a section on formulating interview questions, a section on the practicalities of recording, transcribing and managing interview data, and several sections addressing power relations, the role of gender, interviewing on sensitive topics and interviewing special respondents such as elites, children and the vulnerable.

Table of Contents:
VOLUME ONE PART ONE: EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON THE INTERVIEW Of Sociology and the Interview - M Benney and E C Hughes Interviewing for Organizational Research - W Whyte Merton and Methodology - A B Sorensen Finding the Common Denominator - G Frank A Phenomenological Critique of Life History Method Biography and the Social Sciences - F Ferrarotti PART TWO: VARIETIES OF RESEARCH INTERVIEWS: TYPES AND MODES Methods of Interviewing - E Bogardus The Controversy over Detailed Interviews - P Lazarsfeld An Offer for Negotiation Understanding the Standardized/Non-Standardized Interviewing Controversy - P Beatty Does Conversational Interviewing Reduce Survey Measurement Error? - M Schober and F Conrad Theorizing the Interview - R Pawson Dimensions of the Depth Interview - R Gorden Artifacts Are in the Mind of the Beholder - H Schuman Interactional Troubles in Face-to-Face Survey Interviews - L Suchman and B Jordan The Focused Interview - R Merton and P Kendall The Focused Interview and Focus Groups - R K Merton Continuities and Discontinuities The Group Interview - E Bogardus Studying Intergroup Relations Embedded in Organizations - C Alderfer and K Smith Focus Groups - D L Morgan The Methodology of Focus Groups - J Kitzinger The Importance of Interaction between Research Participants Focus Groups and Ethnography - M Agar and J MacDonald Enhancement of Eyewitness Memory with the Cognitive Interview - R Geiselman et al Topical Summaries of Current Literature - R Cavan Interviewing for Life History Material Doing Life Histories - A Faraday and K Plummer Social Genealogies Commented On and Compared - D Bertaux An Instrument for Observing Social Mobility Processes in the Longue Dur[ac]ee Eliciting Narrative through the In-Depth Interview - W Hollway and T Jefferson Telephone Interviews in Social Research - C Ibsen and J Ballweg Some Methodological Considerations The Effect of Computer-Assisted Interviewing on Data Quality - E D de Leeuw, J J Hox and G Snijkers A Review E-Mail - C Murray and J Sixsmith A Qualitative Research Medium for Interviewing? Feminist Perspectives on Empowering Research Methodologies - P Lather A Feminist, Qualitative Methodology - A S Kasper A Study of Women with Breast Cancer VOLUME TWO PART THREE: DESIGNING INTERVIEW-BASED RESEARCH Informed Consent and Survey Response - E Singer A Summary of the Empirical Literature Interviewing Undocumented Immigrants - W Cornelius Methodological Reflections Based on Field Work in Mexico and the United States Reducing Response Error in Surveys - S Sudman The Open and Closed Question - H Schuman and S Presser A Decade of Questions - N C Schaeffer Acquiescence and Recency Response-Order Effects in Interview Surveys - M J McClendon Strong Arguments and Weak Evidence - J Converse The Open/Closed Questioning Controversy of the 1940s How to Ask Questions about Drinking and Sex - E Blair et al Response Effects in Measuring Consumer Behavior The Reliability of Recall Data - S Dex A Literature Review The Vignette Technique in Survey Research - J Finch Tape-Recorded Interviews in Social Research - R Bucher, C Fritz and E Quarantelis Representing Discourse - E Mishler The Discourse of Transcription PART FOUR: CONDUCTING INTERVIEW-BASED RESEARCH A Note on Interviewing Tactics - H Becker A Research Note on Experimentation in Interviewing - A Rose Probing - W Foddy A Dangerous Practice in Social Surveys? The Unco-Operative Interviewee - L Sigelmann Collaborative Interviewing and Interactive Research - B Laslett and R Rapoport The Life Study - T Cottle On Mutual Recognition and the Subjective Inquiry Methodology and Research Notes - E J Lawless Women′s Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography as Feminist and Emergent Interviewing Style and Respondent Behavior - W Dijkstra An Experimental Study of the Survey-Interview Questions for the Ethnographer - C Briggs A Critical Examination of the Role of the Interview in Fieldwork VOLUME THREE PART FIVE: FIELD RELATIONS IN INTERVIEW-BASED RESEARCH White-Knuckle Research - K Blee Emotional Dynamics in Fieldwork with Racist Activists Data Collection in Dangerous Neighborhoods - V Gwiasda, N Taluc and S Popkin Lessons from a Survey of Public Housing Residents in Chicago Hired-Hand Research - J Roth Respondents′ Intrusion upon the Situation - J Skipper and C McCaghy The Problem of Interviewing Subjects with Special Qualities Talking and Listening from Womens′ Standpoint - M Devault Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis Interviewing Women - P Cotterill Issues of Friendship, Vulnerability and Power Self-Deception and Self-Discovery in Fieldwork - A Daniels PART SIX: INTERVIEWERS: CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALITIES When Gender Is Not Enough - C Kohler Riessman Women Interviewing Women Analysis of the Interviewer′s Behaviour - B Dohrenwend and S Richardson The Cheater Problem in Polling - L Crespi The Observers Observed - J Peneff French Survey Researchers at Work Interviewing an Ultra-Elite - H Zuckerman Surely You′re Not in This Just to Be Helpful - S Ostrander Access, Rapport and Interviewing in Three Studies of Elites Interviewing Homosexuals - M Leznoff On Reaching Out-of-School, Hard-to-Reach Youth - E Luchterhand and L Weller Notes on Data-Gathering The Use of Depth Interviewing with Vulnerable Subjects - T Booth and W Booth Lessons from a Research Study of Parents with Learning Difficulties Age and Sex in the Interview - M Benney, D Riesman and S Star The Effect of Interviewer′s Gender on the Interviewing Process - M Padfield and I Proctor A Comparative Inquiry The Effects of Black and White Interviewers on Black Responses - H Schuman and J Converse Interviewer Variability - M Collins A Review of the Problem VOLUME FOUR PART SEVEN: ANALYSING INTERVIEW DATA Grounded Theory Method - J Corbin and A Strauss Procedures, Canons and Evaluative Criteria Interpreting Discourse - M Agar and J Hobbs Coherence and the Analysis of Ethnographic Interviews Doing Data - S Hester and D Francis The Local Organization of a Sociological Interview The Spoken and the Unspoken - C J Thompson, H R Pollio and W B Locander A Hermeneutic Approach to Understanding the Cultural Viewpoints That Underlie Consumers′ Expressed Meanings Ghostwriting Research - C Rhodes Positioning the Researcher in the Interview Text Asking Questions (and Listening to Answers) - I Deutscher The Sociological Significance of Ambivalence - K Wegar An Example from Adoption Research Problems of Editing `First-Person′ Sociology - B Blauner The 1,000-Page Question - S Kvale The Informant in Quantitative Research - D Campbell Participant Observation and Interviewing - H Becker and B Geer A Comparison PART EIGHT: BIAS, CROSS-CULTURAL INTERVIEWING AND THE SOCIAL DESIRABILITY PHENOMENON, AND VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY Contagious Bias in the Interview - S Rice A Methodological Note Multilingual Interviewing in Israel - H Blanc The Worst Place and the Best Face - C E Ross and J Mirowsky An Investigation of Interview Method, Threat and Response Distortion - W Locander, S Sudman and N Bradburn How Do You Know if the Informant Is Telling the Truth? - J P Dean and W Whyte The Reliability and Validity of Interview Data from 59 Narcotic Drug Addicts - J C Ball Coding Reliability and Validity of Interview Data - K Crittenden and R Hill Interviews, Surveys and the Problem of Ecological Validity - A V Cicourel The Place of Inter-Rater Reliability in Qualitative Research - D Armstrong et al An Empirical Study