'Grounded theory is a highly influential way of working with qualitative data and Kathy Charmaz is a major player, both innovative and fluent. This book is a model student text: lively, carefully argued and full of vivid illustrations. Beginning students and professional researchers will find it to be required reading' - David Silverman, Professor Emeritus, Sociology Department, Goldsmiths College and Visiting Professor, Management Department, King's College, University of London.Kathy Charmaz is one of the world's leading theorists and exponents of grounded theory. In this important and essential new textbook, she introduces the reader to the craft of using grounded theory in social research, and provides a clear, step-by-step guide for those new to the field. Using worked examples throughout, this book also maps out an alternative vision of grounded theory to that put forward by its founding thinkers, Glaser and Strauss. To Charmaz, grounded theory must move on from its positivist origins and must incorporate many of the methods and questions posed by constructivists over the past twenty years to become a more nuanced and reflexive practice. Essential reading for students, new researchers and seasoned social scientists alike, this book is one of those rare things, a textbook that is both accessible to those new to the field but also one that has important things to say about the nature of social enquiry itself.