The Science and Art of Interviewing PDF
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The Science and Art of Interviewing The Science and Art of Interviewing KATHLEEN GERSON AND SARAH DAMASKE 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data Names: Gerson, Kathleen, author. | Damaske, Sarah, author. Title: The science and art of interviewing / Kathleen Gerson and Sarah Damaske. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020017680 (print) | LCCN 2020017681 (ebook) | ISBN 9780199324286 (hardback) | ISBN 9780199324293 (paperback) | ISBN 9780199324316 (epub) | ISBN 9780197533857 Subjects: LCSH: Interviewing. | Interviewing in sociology. | Interviewing—T echnique. Classification: LCC H61.28 .G47 2020 (print) | LCC H61.28 (ebook) | DDC 001.4/ 33— dc23 LC record available at https://l ccn.loc.gov/ 2020017680 LC ebook record available at https://l ccn.loc.gov/ 2020017681 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Paperback printed by LSC Communications, United States of America Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America Acknowledgments One reward of finishing a book is to finally get the chance to thank the people who made it possible. Yet this is a daunting task, not only because the village it takes to write a book is so large but also because words are so inadequate to express the gratitude we owe our fellow villagers. To start at the begin- ning, it is especially difficult to convey the depth of our appreciation to James Cook, our editor par excellence. He supplied the original impetus for this project when, in a classic case of “be careful what you say,” Kathleen casu- ally mentioned that there is a method to the madness of interviewing as a social research endeavor. James then convinced us to spell out that method in written form and provided the steadfast support and wise counsel needed to get us to the end. It is no exaggeration to say that this book would not exist without him. James also recruited a large and remarkably devoted group of outside reviewers, whose thorough, incisive feedback helped us transform several (very rough) drafts into a much better final product. Our deep appreciation thus goes to Allison Pugh and the other anonymous reviewers who gave so generously of their time and wisdom. We have been exceptionally fortunate to receive sustained support from a widespread network of colleagues, friends, and relatives. Over many years of teaching and mentoring, our students have provided inspiration and taught us lessons as valuable as the ones we have endeavored to teach them. To mention only a few by name, we are grateful to Eman Abdelhadi for re- search assistance and inspiration above and beyond the call of duty and to Eliza Brown, Lauren Clingan, Sabrina Dycus, Ananda Martin- Caughey, and Marie Mercier for their helpful and insightful feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. We have also benefited from the many treasured colleagues who read chapter drafts or otherwise engaged with our ideas as we developed them. Among these colleagues, NYU’s Lynne Haney, Ruth Horowitz, Colin Jerolmack, Iddo Tavory, and May Al- Dabbagh (at NYU Abu Dhabi) as well as alumnae Ellen Lamont, Alexis Merdjanoff, Josipa Roksa, and Stacy Torres are especially appreciated. At Penn State, Sarah thanks colleagues Michelle viii Acknowledgments Frisco, Jennifer Glick, Valarie King, Kate Maich, Molly Martin, Susan McHale, Léa Pessin, and Jenny van Hook. Kathleen’s writing group, which over the years has included Lynn Chancer, Ruth Horowitz, Tey Meadow, Arlene Skolnick, and Cynthia Epstein, offered a steady source of support and constructive observations, its members always expressing enthusiasm for the project while never pulling their punches about needed improvements. Sarah’s writing groups, whose members include Jessica Halliday Hardie, Carrie Shandra, Heather Jacobson, and Kristen Schultz Lee, offered in- sightful comments and critiques as well as much needed moral support as Sarah navigated both pre- and post- tenure academic life. Eviatar Zerubavel’s belief in the need for a book like this, as well as his conviction that we were the people to write it, provided critical encouragement that convinced us to add this project to our already crowded to-d o list. We also thank the generative communities found on #soctwitter, #poliscitwitter, and #academictwitter more broadly. Although there are far too many contributors to name here, we are thankful for the numerous colleagues who replied to our queries about people’s favorite interview-b ased books (many of which were our favorites as well), who posted thoughts about depth interviewing and qualitative methods that inspired our thinking, and who became members of our broader community of scholars and researchers. We thank everyone for their vision and inspiration. Last, though very, very far from least, we thank our families and espe- cially our life partners and children (and, for Kathleen, grandchildren), all of whom supported us and enriched our lives immeasurably during the time it took for this book to gestate. In addition to keeping Kathleen well fed, in- tellectually energized, and remarkably sane and happy, John Mollenkopf believed in the value of adding this book to our crowded writing agenda and then gave his own valuable time by reading every page and editing every line. No one could ask for an editor and intellectual confidant with a better sense of what it takes to conduct important, high-q uality research or with a better ability to convey this importance with elegance and verve and as little jargon as possible. Paul Damaske nurtured both this project and the Damaske household. His contributions— via conversations, editorial comments, and co-p arenting—w ere given with good-n atured cheer, patience, and gener- osity. Sarah’s daughter, Charlotte Damaske, gave Sarah the chance to see the world anew again (a gift for an interviewer). Charlotte was born near the start of this project, and Kathleen’s grandchildren, Charlie and Dot, joined the world soon thereafter. It’s impossible to exaggerate the joy, laughter, light, Acknowledgments ix and meaning that they—a long with Kathleen’s daughter, Emily; Emily’s partner, Scott; and Sarah’s parents, Frankie and Steve—h ave brought to our lives. We are exceptionally fortunate and feel immensely grateful. We dedicate this book to our children, Emily Gerson Mollenkopf and Charlotte Lucille Damaske, and to the generations of researchers now at work, in the making, and yet to come. 1 Depth Interviewing as Science and Art Qualitative interviews form the basis for countless books and articles, yet these accounts rarely offer an insider’s view of how they were produced. Most researchers, including interviewers, generally strive to present their findings seamlessly. An extended discussion of method would interrupt the narrative flow and take up space better left for presenting the arguments that emerged from the interviews. Yet it is both theoretically and practically important to demystify the process that leads to these findings and arguments in order to make clear the unique—i ndeed, irreplaceable— empirical and theoretical contributions qualitative interviews offer. Our goal in this book is to make that method visible and, in doing so, to offer our approach to maximizing interviewing’s power. Qualitative interviews are unique because they place each participant’s voice at the heart of the research. In this way, interviewers give people an op- portunity to tell their stories with their own words and, as we explore in later chapters, encourage them to think more deeply about their experiences than is usually possible with other methods. Yet interviews do not stop with the first story a person tells. Through techniques that stress careful questioning, listening, and probing, interviewers invite each person to delve into that story by inviting them to share their experiences, their accounts, their motivations, their aspirations, and their efforts to make meaning out of their experiences, social contexts, life trajectories, and social ties. Then, through careful anal- ysis, each component of an interview takes its place in relation to all the other information shared by that participant, amid the social and historical set- ting in which their experiences take place, and in the context of all the other interviews. Finally, interviewers return to their original question(s)—o r per- haps to new questions that emerged during the research process— and use their findings (especially unanticipated discoveries) to provide answers and contribute new theoretical insights about the social world. While inspira- tion, interpersonal skills, and even luck matter in this process, we argue that good interviews do not just happen. Instead, collecting interview material and making insightful breakthroughs with it depend on taking steps that The Science and Art of Interviewing. Kathleen Gerson and Sarah Damaske, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199324286.001.0001 2 The Science and Art of Interviewing create the fertile ground in which inspiration can emerge, develop, and be confirmed. We develop this position by building on classic works, old and new, that have offered pioneering approaches to conducting qualitative research, but we also offer our own perspective. Like Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss’s The Discovery of Grounded Theory, we stress the ways that theory building is integral to interview research.1 Like Robert Merton and his colleagues’ The Focused Interview and Robert Weiss’s Learning from Strangers, we recom- mend interviewing techniques that rely on careful listening, deep probing, and striving to see the world through the participants’ eyes.2 And like Kristen Luker’s Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences, we argue that good qualitative research adheres to the logical principles that also apply to other methods.3 While taking off from these themes, we draw on our experiences as well as selected examples from the work of others to present a distinct framework. In our approach, interviewing becomes an especially powerful research tool when it employs a set of strategies that include: • Combining careful preparation before entering the field (in formu- lating questions and crafting the research design) with mental flexi- bility and openness to unexpected findings in the process of conducting interviews and analyzing the findings • Developing a theoretically informed research design to select an ap- propriate sample of participants and place them in their proper social- historical context • Organizing the interview experience to emphasize dynamic processes and trajectories— including the developmental paths of individuals, groups, and organizations—t hus helping participants provide mean- ingful answers in a time-o rdered, narrative sequence • Asking questions that tap the multiple dimensions of human experience, including what happened (that is, descriptions of important events and the social contexts surrounding them), how interviewees experienced these events (that is, what meaning they held for each person), and the responses these experiences evoked (that is, the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences going forward) • Taking contradictory responses seriously, not as an indication of inau- thenticity but rather as an opportunity to explore socially embedded structural and cultural conflicts that pose dilemmas and conflicts for social actors Depth Interviewing as Science and Art 3 • Taking advantage of the ability to collect sequential information on the various dimensions of human experience as an unfolding, interactive process between structure and agency4 • Paying attention to the distinction between the accounts people draw on to explain their experiences and decisions and the often hidden social forces— contextual, institutional, and interactional—t hat contribute to these outcomes By following these principles, we argue, interviews can and do make unique and necessary contributions to knowledge not just about individuals but also about social relationships, institutions, and whole societies. The key is knowing when and how to enact each principle throughout the research process, from the earliest ideas that spark the research questions through the final efforts at answering them and reporting the conclusions. Whether your goal is to conduct an interview-o nly study, to include interviewing in a mixed- method project, or simply to know more about the principles and practices that structure this kind of research, we offer a step- by- step ap- proach to formulating, conducting, analyzing, and reporting on interview- based research. First, however, let us consider some basic issues: What is a qualitative— or depth— interview?5 What do interviews contribute, and how are those contributions distinct from the evidence gathered by other methods? And what are the common misunderstandings about interviewing as a method, and how should we address them? What Is a Depth Interview? What makes an interaction a depth interview? The answer may seem ob- vious, but interviewing can take many forms. It can be free- flowing or highly structured. It can involve one interviewee at a time, a couple together, or even a small group. It can take place in- person or at a distance via a video- conference program such as Skype, or Zoom, or via the telephone. It can seek personal information about numerous realms and periods of a person’s life, focus on discrete periods or areas of a person’s life, or gather insider know- ledge from an informant about a group or organization or large-s cale event. All of these interviewing formats share an open- ended, probing, and dis- cursive structure, but they do not seek the same kind of information. Focus groups gather only the information that people are willing to disclose when
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