How to Conduct Ethnographies of Institutions for People with Cognitive Difficulties

Epistemological considerations and challenges -- Metatheoretical questions -- Theoretical considerations -- Cultural studies in practice -- Ethnography in practice -- Investigating discourses, documents and professional intervention -- Validation -- Disability, politics and rehabilitation -- Disabilities which involves the brain -- Investigating services for people with mental illnesses -- A national survey of day care offered to pre-school children with autism -- Investigating national services for people with ADHD -- Investigating two residential homes for elder people with dementia and challenging behaviour -- Conducting master thesis.

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 Goffman -- Structuralism 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 questions -- On 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.