Mishler shows both his familiarity with survey research and his sophistication ... [He] builds a powerful argument ... Since his book pulls together several major methodological issues, it will receive a welcome among qualitative sociologists. It is a major contribution to the literature on methods.
   --American Journal of Sociology

[Research Interviewing] will be of particular interest to those who use surveys as a method of studying major life events: family relationships, factors relating to the quality of life, impact of health events, major economic or political issues and their impacts, factors in the work life, etc. The objective of these interviews is not to generate descriptive statistics but to understand and interpret significant factors of the individual's experiences and reactions.
   --Charles Cannell, Public Opinion Quarterly

[An] important book that examines the social and behavioral science research interview method. Mishler argues that although we recognize the interview as a dialogic speech event, interviews are rarely permitted to function as discourse. The book instructs readers on how interviews can be analyzed and interpreted as narratives; it offers alternative methods to the standard interviewing techniques.
   --Bruce A. Austin, Communication Booknotes

This book continues an important discussion on meaning and construction of meaning in research interviews in the social sciences...Research Interviewing will be of interest to those who are concerned with the politics of research, as well as to those producers or consumers of social science research who are considering the use of interviews.
   --Harvard Educational Review

Elliot G. Mishler is Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Read More by Elliot G. Mishler:

• Storylines: Craftartists' Narratives of Identity
• Writings for a Liberation Psychology