"Prus has written a textbook on qualitative research -- a textbook in the best sense of being the summation of a discipline presented in a manner that can be put to use by students". -- Marvin Scott, Hunter College, City University of New York

The author builds on the broader interpretive/constructionist ethnographic and pragmatist traditions, particularly those developed within symbolic interaction to provide an agenda to refocus, revitalize, and synthesize the social or human sciences. Robert Prus offers a set of primary assumptions that centrally respect the unique (and uniquely enabling) features of the human condition, as well as considers a reformulation of the cultural problematic. By viewing human group life as a subcultural mosaic that is more or less continuously "in the making", a systematic research agenda for attending to the entire realm of human involvement is developed; one that opens every single arena of human endeavor to ethnographic inquiry.

"This book is rich in texture and shines as exemplary in its practical application for both students and professionals who are engaged in ethnographic research. In fact, everyone doing field research must have this text as a handy reference. It is the best I have seen in both describing the nature of ethnographic research and taking the reader through the pragmatic process of field work, analysis, and writing up results". -- Helen Rose Ebaugh, University of Houston