This course introduces students to the purposes, theories, & methods of a family of approaches to social science research variously called ethnographic, qualitative, case study, naturalistic, or interpretive. Throughout this course, we will draw on resources in anthropology & sociology to explore issues that are central to understanding the epistemology & methodology of interpretive inquiry. The purposes of this course are to: (a) examine the nature, purposes, theories, & methods of qualitative inquiry; (b) introduce several approaches to qualitative inquiry; & (c) learn how to assess the quality & trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry.