2011-02-19

about endangered languages (UNESCO Redbook project)

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/languages-and-multilingualism/endangered-languages/faq-on-endangered-languages/


























sample entry for VULNERABLE level of endangerment within the boundaries of Peru (62 languages endangered; 10 of these at the vulnerable level; example - the Quechua spoken in and around Cusco)









2011-02-12

qualitative methods (ethnography) book

via the Council for Anthropology and Education (Am.Anthro.Assoc section):
 
Subject: [CAE_listserv] RE: Book for Qualitative Methods
 
...At the risk of being immodest, I would recommend the second edition of "Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research," which is book one of the seven volume, exhaustive, Ethnographer's Toolkit. Book One is designed to be a comprehensive overview of qualitative and ethnographic research, from when it's appropriate through how to collect AND analyze data to issues of interpretation and ethics specific to such data. Jean J. Schensul and I have authored the entire series, minus book four, which is an edited volume of chapters describing cutting edge supplementary ethnographic methods, written by various authors who are experts in the use of those specific techniques.

The first edition of the entire Toolkit (1999) is available from Altamira Press, which is a division of Rowman and Littlefield. They also are publishing the second edition of the Toolkit; Book One is done and available for purchase; Books 2-5 (conceptual frameworks (2), essential data collection techniques (3: interviewing, observing, participant observation, and confirmatory ethnographic surveys), complementary data collection techniques and issues (4), and data analysis and interpretation (5)) will be available in early summer, and the final two books, Ethics and Relationships in the Field, and Team Research and Research Partnerships, will be available in fall. The latter two books are entirely new for the second edition, as are a number of the chapters in book 4.


Take a look at Book One; I think that it's what you would want for your course; I've used it myself for the same purpose and students loved the profuse examples and the reading level. We attempted to keep the content at a very high level, but make the text itself quite accessible. So while it's a "primer", we didn't dumb it down