"This text is intended for a one-semester introductory course."--Page 1.

`This clearly written and user-friendly book is ideal for students or researchers who wish to get a basic, but solid grasp of a topic and see how it fits with other topics. By following the links a student can easily and efficiently build up a clear conceptual map of social research′ - Malcolm Williams, Reader in Sociology, Cardiff University `This is a really useful book, written in an accessible manner for students beginning their study of social research methods. It is helpful both as an introductory text and as a reference guide for more advanced students. Most of the key topics in methods and methodology are covered and it will be suitable as a recommended text on a wide variety of courses′ - Clive Seale, Brunel University At last, an authoritative, crystal-clear introduction to research methods which really takes account of the needs of students for accessible, focused information to help with undergraduate essays and exams. The key concepts discussed here are based on a review of teaching syllabi and the authors′ experience of many years of teaching. Topics range over qualitative and quantitative approaches and combine practical considerations with philosophical issues. They include several new topics, like internet and phone polling, internet searches, and visual methods. Each section is free-standing, can be tackled in order, but with links to other sections to enable students to cross-reference and build up a wider understanding of central research methods. To facilitate comprehension and aid study, each section begins with a definition. It is followed by a summary of key points with key words and guides to further reading and up-to-date examples. The book is a major addition to undergraduate reading lists. It is reliable, allows for easy transference to essays and exams and easy to use, and exceptionally clearly written for student consumption. The book answers the needs of all those who find research methods daunting, and for those who have dreamt of an ideal introduction to the subject.

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

This book presents an overview and evaluation of contemporary research in international political sociology (IPS). Bringing together leading scholars from many disciplines and diverse geographical backgrounds, it provides unprecedented coverage of the key concepts and research through which IPS has opened up new ways of thinking about international relations. It also considers some of the consequences of such innovations for established forms of social and political analysis. It thus takes the reader on an intellectual journey engaging with questions about boundaries and limits among the many interrelated worlds in which we now live, the ways we conceptualise them, and how we continually reshape boundaries of identities, spaces, authorities and disciplinary knowledge. The volume is organized three sections: Lines, Intersections and Directions. The first section examines some influences that led to the formation of the project of IPS and how it has opened up avenues of research beyond the limits of an international relations discipline shaped within political science. The second section explores some key concepts as well as a series of heated discussions about power and authority, practices and governmentality, performativity and reflexivity. The third section explores some of the transversal topics of research that have been pursued within IPS, including inequality, migration, citizenship, the effect of technology on practices of security, the role of experts and expertise, date-driven surveillance, and the relation between mobility, power and inequality. This book will be an essential source of reference for students and across the social sciences.

This successor to the well-known Using Sociology covers standard topics found in any sociology textbook. Doing Sociology walks lay readers through the steps of doing real-life sociological practices as conducted by experts in the field. The contributors to this volume range from university and college faculty, government sociologists, and practitioners from the private sector. Each of the chapters is by intention and design a personal statement, a case study illustrating how the authors practice sociology in their own words and style, giving readers a clearer understanding of what sociologists do outside of teaching in universities. And most importantly, an understanding of what they could do with sociology. Readable, relevant, and accessible, Doing Sociology is an invaluable resource as a stand-alone course reader or as a supplement to a traditional textbook.

First Published in 1974. In this collection Colin Bell and Howard Newby have reaped a rich harvest from the sociological field of community studies. The selection from the work in that field presented here should satisfy readers of many different tastes and interests. Specialists in the sociology of community studies will find the authors' brief, informative and succinct survey of the field and the introductory summaries to each chapter as useful for their own teaching and research as the comprehensive selection of articles itself. All those concerned with the welfare of people, whether social workers and nurses or magistrates and local authorities, will find here information about the community aspects of peoples' lives which all too often still fails to find a place in their professional training.

Elsewhere 1 we were concerned with fundamental aspects of the question how man can comprehend his fellow-men. We analyzed man's subjective experiences of the Other and found in them the basis for his understanding of the Other's subjective processes of consciousness. The very assumption of the existence of the Other, however, introduces the dimension of intersub jectivity. The world is experienced by the Self as being inhabited by other Selves, as being a world for others and of others. As we had occasion to point out, intersubjective reality is by no means homogeneous. The social world in which man finds himself exhibits a complex structure; fellow-men appear to the Self under different aspects, to which correspond different cognitive styles by which the Self perceives and apprehends the Other's thoughts, motives, and actions. In the present investigation it will be our main task to describe the origin of the differentiated structures of social reality as well as to reveal the principles underlying its unity and coherence. It must be stressed that careful description of the processes which enable one man to understand another's thoughts and actions is a prerequisite for the methodology of the empirical social sciences. The question how a scientific interpretation of human action is possible can be resolved only if an adequate • From: De, sinnha/te A II/ball tler sowuen WeU, Vienna, 1932; 2nd ed. 1960 (Sektion IV: Strukturanalyse der Sozialwelt, Soziale Umwelt, Mitwelt, Vorwelt, English adaptation by Professor Thomas Luckmann.