Content area
Full Text
James A. Holstein and Jaber F. Gubrium (Editors). Handbook of Constructionist Research. New York: The Guilford Press, 2008, 822 pages, $125.00 hardcover.
Yes, 822 pages, which is also 3.44 pounds, of scholarly reference book intended for academicians, researchers, and graduate students. Two editors and 51 contributors produced a compendium of 40 chapters in six sections that seek to define constructionist research as it currently stands. They have succeeded.
Physically, the book is imposing, and I have yet to meet someone who found the cover art attractive. The authors selected the cover art because they found it telling and congruent with something they call the constructionist mosaic. However, one does not purchase such a book for the pretty pictures. Such books are purchased because they provide a substantially complete description of the field at a given time, and this handbook is no exception.
The physical layout of the Handbook presented no surprise. I opened it quickly to get away from the cover art and found myself facing a substantial amount of text, black, on white, not glossy, paper. The chapters are presented in double columns per page, and I found the column width in conjunction with the font, pitch, and leading working quite well with my eye scan as I read along. A very few tables and graphs appear in the text, and I found no color used anywhere.
The Handbook is not available in electronic (e.g., Amazon Kindle) format. Given the imposing size of the book, I see merit in an electronic version. However, I suspect electronic books have not yet penetrated constructionist research sufficiently to be economically viable, though other academic titles are appearing in electronic form. Regardless, this title is a natural for an e-book reader such as the Kindle because of the paucity of pictures, graphs, charts, and tables. However, I suspect a single column format would be better on an e-book. (My understanding is that the publisher is moving rapidly to make electronic versions of traditional publications available.)
The tone of the writing is academic, which comes as no surprise. Chapter endnotes and references to previous works abound. Having a ready source of already aggregated underlying references should make the Handbook an important reference in your library.
The Handbook presents constructionist...