How to Do Qualitative Interviewing

Dr Katy Wheeler is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at The University of Essex. Katy returned to Essex University after working for three years as a central academic at The Open University (Milton Keynes). Whilst at the OU, Katy played a leading role in the development of a first year interdisciplinary module, Investigating the Social World (DD103). Before this, she held positions as a post-doctoral researcher at Essex University and Queen Mary, University of London where she conducted research on recycling and obesity interventions respectively.

Katy's PhD research explored Fairtrade consumption and support in the UK, focusing on the Fairtrade Towns movement. Katy completed her PhD (ESRC 1+3) and undergraduate studies at Essex. Katy's work deals with the ways ordinary consumers respond to the normative pressures placed upon them to act in sustainable or responsible ways. Katy has researched the Fairtrade movement and recycling in comparative contexts, exploring how these different consumer practices generate distinctive moral economies. There has been a growing interest in the concept of moral economy along with the growing interest in sustainable consumption and markets. Her recent work develops a holistic moral economy framework that explores the interactions and interdependencies between individuals, communities and political-economic structures. She is also exploring the ways young people are educated about sustainability through a British Academy Small Grant, entitled 'Educating young people as sustainable citizen-consumers'. Katy has been an instructor at the Essex Summer School since 2012, offering a course in qualitative interviewing and analysis. She is a Professional Trainer for the qualitative software, MAXQDA. Katy is on the editorial board for the Journal of Cultural Economy and is a convenor for the BSA Climate Change Study Group.

"How to Do Qualitative Interviewing"(Dr Bethany Morgan Brett and Dr Katy Wheeler)

Our new textbook offers an accessible, engaging and practical approach to doing qualitative interviewing. It is organised around a series of practical hints, reflexive tasks, bite-sized pieces of information, and original case study material, designed to engage students and researchers approaching interviewing for the first time. Both authors have extensive experience of teaching on methods and dissertation modules and we decided to write this textbook after successfully convening an Essex Summer School course, entitled Qualitative Interviewing for the past 9 years. Interviews are the most common qualitative method that students use in their dissertations and research projects and although most methods courses include basic training in this method, we have found that by the time students come to put this method into practice, they have forgotten much of this training. We see this resource as bridging the gap between teaching and entering the field. It is the handholding, step-by-step guidance that students need as they navigate the qualitative interviewing process.

This online webinar is part of an open seminar series, hosted by the Department of Sociology, to find out more visit the Department of Sociology and follow us on Facebook.