How to Conduct Ethnographies of Institutions for People with Cognitive Difficulties [electronic resource].

Description based upon print version of record.

Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Preface; 1. Introduction; To the readers; Outline of contents; About the author and the research behind the book; 2. Epistemological considerations and challenges; Institutional ethnography and applied sociology; The idea of rational decisions; The Chicago sociologists; The rise of social engineering; The rise of evaluation theory; The critique of social engineering; Applied sociology today; Outcome from the history of applied sociology; 3. Meta-theoretical questions; The history of hermeneutic social science

From Weber to GoffmanStructuralism and existentialism; Realism and relativism; 4. Theoretical considerations; Habermas' contribution to the theory of lifeworld and system; The concept of culture and the concept of lifeworld; The concept of discourses; 5. Cultural studies in practice; The concept of culture and the concept of lifeworld; The concept of lifeworld and the problematic; The concept of cultural themes; 6. Ethnography in practice; Guidelines; Respondents and informants; Choice of informants; Interviewing informants and respondents; Interviewing informants

Making questionnaire questionsOn location; Observations; Organising data; 7. Investigating discourses, documents and professional intervention; Institutional discourses and professional practice; Analysing documents; Artefacts as data; Autobiographies; Analysing data -- the totality of the process; 8. Validation; Presentation of the results -- thick descriptions; Ethical premises for doing ethnography; Criteria for the quality of thick descriptions; Mapping relations and processes in the field; Photography; Target groups for the presentation of results

9. Disability, politics and rehabilitationGovernmentality of disability politics; The development of disability politics; Theoretical aspects; Illness narratives; Stigma, social exclusion and social network; 10. Disabilities which involve the brain; When your brain just does not work probably; When the map does not fit with the terrain; The professionals; 11. Investigating services for people with mental illnesses; Case 1: An ethnography of the local services for people with mental illnesses

Case 2: Anational survey of the services for people with homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness12. A national survey of day care offered to pre-school children with autism; Thick description; 13. Investigating national services for people with ADHD; Discourses about ADHD; Getting into the field; The everyday life of the families; Recommendations; 14. Investigating two residential homes for elder people with dementia and challenging behaviour; Allocated resources; Discourses of dementia and challenging behaviour; Out in the field; The lifeworld as influenced by dementia

Professional strategies

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the methodological, theoretical, and meta-theoretical considerations and guidelines involved in undertaking institutional ethnographic work involving people with cognitive and communicative disabilities. It presents a coherent platform for integrating theory and method built on classical and recent anthropological and sociological theory as well as classic and recent methodological considerations within the ethnographic tradition. Furthermore, it introduces readers to the challenging work of understanding the lifeworld of people who cannot express themselves in ordinary ways or who are deeply stigmatised and oppressed by dominating discourses telling them how to understand and define their role in society. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and researchers of disability studies, particularly those who undertake ethnographic research or want to understand the challenges involved in doing so.

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