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SWK 6305H – Developing and Conceptualizing Knowledge - Elective

This is intended as a doctoral level course. Masters level students must seek instructor permission.

This session of the course will focus on the philosophical underpinnings, techniques and practices that inform interpretive research design and methods in the social and health sciences. Interpretive research—conceptually distinct from the more ubiquitous term ‘qualitative’—signals an attention to the philosophical presuppositions that guide the production of knowledge and meaning making.

Traditions in interpretive methodology are vast and diverse. In this course, we will focus on ethnography, interpretive policy analysis, action research, and different forms of discourse analysis (we may explore other methodologies depending on student interest and as time permits). In addition to addressing philosophical foundations, we will discuss and practice common strategies to access and collect data (e.g. observation, interviewing, finding existing documents), methods of organizing and representing different forms/genres of data for analysis (e.g. transcripts, electronic texts, hand-written notes); and strategies to analyze and represent your analyses for different audiences.

This advanced graduate course seeks to support social work doctoral students and graduate students in related disciplines to develop appropriate research designs and research proposals for either their comprehensive paper or their doctoral dissertation research. Prior graduate course work in qualitative methods required. Prior course work in epistemology or the philosophy of science is strongly recommended. This is intended as a doctoral level course. Masters level students must seek instructor permission.