Methodology

Writing well is an essential skill for sociologists, but few books help students learn to write well. Designed to help students produce a manuscript that is clear, concise, and compelling, Effective Writing for Sociology demonstrates and deconstructs...

This collection examines the uses of quantification in climate science, higher education, and health. Numbers are both controlling and fragile. They drive public policy, figuring into everything from college rankings to vaccine efficacy rates. At the...

A core statistics text that emphasizes logical inquiry, not math Basic Statistics for Social Research teaches core general statistical concepts and methods that all social science majors must master to understand (and do) social research. Its use of...

Current mathematical models are notoriously unreliable in describing the time evolution of unexpected social phenomena, from financial crashes to revolution. Can such events be forecast? Can we compute probabilities about them? Can we model them? This...

Aimed at those new to the area, and those who have collected time-series data before, this book intends to facilitate the interpretation of observations of behaviour, physiology, mood, perceptual threshold, social indicator variables and other responses...

*Cost analysis essentials--a professional reference and core text for ensuring the continuity, sustainability, and survival of programs. *Helps answer critical questions: is the program more cost-effective than alternatives, how to measure its economic...

Behind the Scenes in Social Research discusses the informal, adaptive, real-life process of doing social science research. It complements the material in standard methods texts that describe the basics - how to choose topics, ways of obtaining and...

Most existing research methodologies texts take a more general approach or are edited books of previously published articles or chapters written by different authors. This book, written by a business management scholar, covers the fundamentals of...

This is the first practitioner-oriented guide to basic psychometrics--the science behind test construction and validation. It can be used as a course text or clinical reference for anyone who needs to select and administer diagnostic tests or review test...

Howard Schuman is one of the premier scholars of social surveys. His expertise concerns the way questions about attitudes and beliefs are worded and the effects questions have on the answers people give. However, Method and Meaning in Polls and Surveys...

Across disciplines, critical thinking is praised, taught, and put into practice. But what does it actually mean to think critically? In this brief volume, sociologist Joel Best examines how to evaluate arguments and the evidence used to support them as...

Knowledge Discovery in the Social Sciences helps readers find valid, meaningful, and useful information. It is written for researchers and data analysts as well as students who have no prior experience in statistics or computer science. Suitable for a...

Weber and Durkheim: A methodological comparison is a systematic, comparative analysis of the methodologies of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. Jensen shows how Weber and Durkheim analyse Protestants and Catholics in practice in The Protestant Ethic and...

What are the most effective methods to code and analyze data for a particular study? This thoughtful and engaging book reviews the selection criteria for coding and analyzing any set of data--whether qualitative, quantitative, mixed, or visual. The...

Introduction to Cognitive Ethnography and Systematic Field Work by G. Mark Schoepfle provides a guide to the fundamentals of cognitive ethnography for qualitative research. A focus of this technique is collecting data from flexible but rigorous...

This book invites the reader to think about collaborative research differently. Using the concepts of 'letting go' (the recognition that research is always in a state of becoming) and 'poetics' (using an approach that might interrupt and remake the...

Concise and unintimidating, the fifth edition of this bestselling book is the only pragmatic, quick-start guide to the main theories, issues, and approaches to insider action research. With an encouraging and approachable tone, David is the perfect...

Building Experiments is the essential text for understanding experimental methods. In engaging style, the book shows how theory is employed in experimental design, how experiments test theory, and how proper design and use of experiments can advance the...

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the use of computerized text analysis methods to address basic psychological questions. This comprehensive handbook brings together leading language analysis scholars to present foundational concepts and...

Without Paul F. Lazarsfeld the social sciences would not be what they are today. In his work on unemployment, voting, consumer behaviour, and social influence, among other subjects, his methodological emphasis on vigorously controlled scientific language...

Today most countries rely on formally organized welfare programs - in some cases to the extent that they are labeled "welfare states". These programs, which have been constructed over the last decades, make up a larger national and international system...

Preparing students to become informed, critical consumers of research, this accessible text builds essential skills for understanding research reports, evaluating the implications for evidence-based practice, and communicating findings to different...

Written by a team of renowned sociologists with experience in both the field and the classroom, The Art and Science of Social Research offers authoritative, accessible and balanced coverage of the methods used to study the social world. The authors...

To do quality research, many social scientists must travel to far-flung parts of the world and spend long stretches of time living in places they find unfamiliar and uncomfortable. No matter how prepared researchers think they are, everyone encounters...

This book explores considerations of method in the field of political anthropology, contending that this constitutes a distinct approach within the broader area of the human, social and political sciences. Faithful to the basic guiding ideas of...

Media and Ethnic Identity carries a Native American perspective to media and its role in ethnic identity construction. This perspective is gained through a case study of the Hopis, who live in northeast Arizona and are known for their devotion to their...

For too long, argues Richard Harvey Brown, social scientists have felt forced to choose between imitating science's empirical methodology and impersonating a romantic notion of art, the methods of which are seen as primarily a matter of intuition,...

Introducing the idea of conversational storytelling interviewing (CSI) as an 'indirect' method of interviewing, David Boje and Grace Ann Rosile explore this innovative methodological framework as a way for respondents to tell their own story, without...

Social researchers increasingly find themselves looking beyond conventional methods to address complex research questions. This is the first book to comprehensively examine emergent qualitative and quantitative theories and methods across the social and...

Understanding the relationships between humans and animals is essential to a full understanding of both our present and our shared past. Across the humanities and social sciences, researchers have embraced the 'animal turn,' a multispecies approach to...

How social scientists' disagreements about their key words and distinctions have been misconceived, and what to do about itSocial scientists do research on a variety of topics-gender, capitalism, populism, and race and ethnicity, among others. They make...

The era of digital communication provides endless opportunities for the collection and analysis of social data in novel ways. It also presents new and unanticipated challenges, as researchers are often inventing elements of their methodologies on the fly...

Through a series of case studies, this book provides an understanding of the practice of ethnographic fieldwork in a variety of contexts, from everyday settings to formal institutions. Demonstrating that ethnography is best viewed as a series of...

Nostalgia is intimately connected to the history of the social sciences in general and anthropology in particular, though finely grained ethnographies of nostalgia and loss are still scarce. Today, anthropologists have realized that nostalgia constitutes...

Durkheim, in his very role as a 'founding father' of a new social science, sociology, has become like a figure in an old religious painting, enshrouded in myth and encrusted in layers of thick, impenetrable varnish. This book undertakes detailed,...

Oral history is a universal form of storytelling. For many years, Voice of Witness has shared powerful stories of people impacted by injustice with a broad audience of readers. Say It Forward extends this work, offering a DIY guide for social justice...

This textbook provides a clear, concise, and comprehensive introduction to methodological issues encountered by the various social science disciplines. It emphasizes applications, with detailed examples, so that readers can put these methods to work in...

What would you say to a deceased loved one if they could come back for one day? What if you can't just 'move on' from grief? At Home with Grief: Continued Bonds with the Deceased chronicles Blake Paxton's autoethnographic study of his continued...

Visual Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Awakening Visions is an indispensable resource for students, researchers and teachers seeking to use visual sources in their research and understand how images work. This fully updated edition adds...

Norbert Elias has been recognized as one of the key social scientists of the 20th century at least in sociology, political science and history. This book will address Norbert Elias's approach to empirical research, the use of his work in empirical...