In this new and timely book in the Qualitative Research Methods series, author Dvora Yanow outlines a more interpretive approach to policy analysis. She begins by describing what interpretive approaches are, and what they can mean to policy analysis. Chapters on symbolic language, symbolic objects, and symbolic acts help shift the frame of reference from thinking about values as costs and benefits to thinking about them more as a set of meanings. Finally, the book concludes with a chapter on how to move from fieldwork to deskwork and textwork. This Is A Guide To Interpretative Techniques And Methods For Policy Research. The Author Describes What Interpretative Approaches Are And What They Can Mean To Policy Analysis, And Then Shifts The Frame Of Reference From Thinking About Values As Costs And Benefits To Thinking About Them More As A Set Of Meanings. Underlying Assumptions Of An Interpretive Approach: The Importance Of Local Knowledge -- Interpretive Presuppositions -- Communities Of Meaning And Policy Frames: The Architecture Of Policy Arguments -- Symbolic Relationships And Tacit Knowledge -- Texts, Text Analogues, And Interpretive Communities -- Steps To An Interpretive Policy Analysis: Mapping Issue Architecture -- Accessing Local Knowledge: Identifying Interpretive Communities And Policy Artifacts -- Proceeding -- Identifying Interpretive Communities In The Field: An Example -- Summary: Identifying Communities; Sources Of Data -- Symbolic Language -- Metaphor Analysis -- Category Analysis -- Narrative Analysis -- Symbolic Objects -- Built Spaces And Their Props -- Programs -- Symbolic Acts -- Ritual Analysis -- Myth Analysis -- Moving From Fieldwork And Deskwork To Textwork And Beyond -- Textwork As World-making -- Issues In The Practice And Teaching Of Interpretive Analysis. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 94-102). This book in the QRM series is designed for a wide variety of research methods courses taught in various departments. It will be of most interest to those in Public Policy, Political Science, and Public Administration departments, but will also be of interest to researchers in Sociology, Anthropology, Communication and Education departments, among others. The book fills a gap in the traditional policy analysis coverage, which is usually heavily quantitative. It will also fill a gap in the QRM series in covering the discipline of political science, which is warming to qualitative methodology...slowly.There has been much in the journal literature in the past 15 years calling for more interpretive approaches to the study of public policy; Yanow has been in the middle of it. This book presents a much needed guide to interpretative techniques and methods for policy research. The author begins by describing what interpretative approaches are and what they can mean to policy analysis. The author shifts the frame of reference from thinking about values as costs and benefits to thinking about them more as a set of meanings. The book concludes with a chapter on how to move from "fieldwork to deskwork to textwork."
