Just starting out with social research? With contributions from experts across the social sciences, this book equips you with the tools for successfully investigating society and culture.
It shows you how to prepare for research, generate and analyse data, and present your findings. Balancing theory with practice, it covers foundational concepts in methods and methodology alongside contemporary developments.
This radically updated new edition:
- Sees all chapters fully rewritten in a friendly, accessible style;
- Offers additional chapters on participatory research and online ‘big’ data;
- Includes multiple case studies of real-world research from across the globe in every chapter;
- Celebrates the dynamic, reflexive nature of research as engagement with the world.
Daftar Isi
Chapter 1: Introduction and guide to using this book – Clive Seale
Part 1: Starting out
Chapter 2: Philosophy, politics and values – Clive Seale
Chapter 3: Research and theory – Clive Seale
Chapter 4: Ethics and social research – Suki Ali and Moira Kelly
Chapter 5: Participatory research – Clive Seale
Chapter 6: Doing a literature review – Clive Seale
Chapter 7: Research questions and proposals – Moira Kelly
Chapter 8: Research design – Clive Seale
Part 2: Generating data
Chapter 9: Sampling – Clive Seale
Chapter 10: Questionnaires and interviews – Clive Seale
Chapter 11: Designing questions – Clive Seale
Chapter 12: Qualitative interviewing – Bridget Byrne
Chapter 13: Focus groups – Clive Seale
Chapter 14: Doing ethnography – Clive Seale
Chapter 15: Grounded theory – Clive Seale
Chapter 16: Documents and archives – Clive Seale
Chapter 17: Mixed methods – Natasha Howard and Neil Spicer
Chapter 18: Online data – Clive Seale
Part 3: Doing analysis
Chapter 19: Preparing data for statistical analysis – Clive Seale
Chapter 20: Analysing single variables – Clive Seale
Chapter 21: Bivariate analysis – Clive Seale
Chapter 22: Causal arguments and multivariate analysis – Clive Seale
Chapter 23: Secondary analysis – Clive Seale
Chapter 24: Content and text analysis – Clive Seale
Chapter 25: Thematic analysis – Carol Rivas
Chapter 26: Visual analysis – Suki Ali and Niamh Hayes
Chapter 27: Analysing discourse and narratives – Clive Seale
Chapter 28: Analysing conversation – Tim Rapley
Part 4: Writing, presenting, reflecting
Chapter 29: Writing a research report – Carol Rivas
Chapter 30: Oral presentations – Clive Seale
Chapter 31: Research quality – Clive Seale
Tentang Penulis
Carol Rivas is an associate professor in Social Policy and Programme Evaluation in the Social Research Institute at University College London. For more than 30 years she has undertaken research on chronic health conditions and disabilities, abuse, and vulnerable populations. This has encompassed a range of conditions (e.g. multiple sclerosis, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, diabetes, partner abuse, depression, developmental disorders, cancer), and a variety of methods, from Big Data analyses through conversation analysis to small qualitative explorations. She is particularly interested in the intersection of health with race, ethnicity and migrant status. She currently leads on major research on the intersections of ethnicity, disability or chronic conditions, and the pandemic, including considerations of Long Covid and of vaccine uptake. Her research aims to develop practical and theoretical understandings of vulnerability and social interaction to use with linked research outputs to support instrumental changes in policy and practice. She has won several awards, particularly for her participatory methods. Carol also teaches courses on methods and on the use of evidence in policy and practice at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She has edited a special issue on disability for the journal Evidence and Policy and has written a number of textbook chapters, for example for Researching Society and Culture, the Sage Handbook of Interview Research (2012 ed), and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors Past, Present and Future, as well as publications in academic journals. She sits on a UK National Institutes of Health Research Commissioned and Researcher Led Funding panel. She holds a doctorate in medical sociology from Queen Mary University of London, a master’s in Cognitive Neuropsychology from Birkbeck University London, and a bachelor’s degree in zoology (brain and behaviour) from Queen Mary University of London.