Teach students how to think about sociological theory.

Simply put, Thinking Through Statistics is a primer on how to maintain rigorous data standards in social science work, and one that makes a strong case for revising the way that we try to use statistics to support our theories. But don’t let that daunt you. With clever examples and witty takeaways, John Levi Martin proves himself to be a most affable tour guide through these scholarly waters. Martin argues that the task of social statistics isn't to estimate parameters, but to reject false theory. He illustrates common pitfalls that can keep researchers from doing just that using a combination of visualizations, re-analyses, and simulations. Thinking Through Statistics gives social science practitioners accessible insight into troves of wisdom that would normally have to be earned through arduous trial and error, and it does so with a lighthearted approach that ensures this field guide is anything but stodgy.

Winner of the 2013 American Educational Studies Association's Critics Choice Award!Thinking With Theory In Qualitative Research shows how to use various philosophical concepts in practices of inquiry; effectively opening up the process of data analysis in qualitative research. It uses a common data set and utilizes various theoretical perspectives

Sharpen your tools -- How to formulate a question -- How do you choose a site? -- Talking to people -- Hanging out -- Ethics in research -- Comparing -- Dealing with documents -- Interpreting it and writing it up

`If there is a single question that presses upon the intellect of the current generation of social scientists, it is surely: "what do the great insights of social theory imply for the way we conduct research and write about the social world?". Until now there has been no single text to turn to that explores the epistemological complexities of field work, the problems of writing and language, and of the logics of inquiry that link theory, method and evidence. Using Social Theory is a magisterial effort to open up the black-box of research methods, and to provide students, in a way that no other comparable text has done, with a road map for the practice of the contemporary human sciences′ - Michael Watts, Chancellor′s Professor of Geography and Director Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley `From "theory talk to making it walk", Using Social Theory is one of the most useful and interesting books on the market. The authors demonstrate how to use philosophy and social theory as an indispensable toolkit for passionate and rigorous research. Essential reading for students and teachers in the social sciences and humanities′ - Professor Elspeth Probyn, Department of Gender Studies, University of Sydney Have you ever stopped to wonder about the influences that underpin research? If you are thinking about doing a piece of research, what difference might it make to the question you ask, to your approach to empirical work, analysis and writing of research, if you are influenced by one theoretical approach rather than another? The chapters in this innovative guide share a common belief that thinking alongside ideas, philosophical persuasions, is an integral part of the research process; it is not an optional extra. It sets out ways to encourage the researcher to think through three key moments of the research process: the production of a research question; fieldwork; and analysis and writing. As the authors demonstrate, research is not simply `done′: it has to be thought about and thought through. The book′s accessible style makes it suitable for anyone wishing to engage ideas in research in the social sciences and humanities.

"How to rethink social theory in our digital times"--

Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research: Second Edition demonstrates how to enact various philosophical concepts in practices of inquiry, effectively opening up the process of thought in qualitative studies. Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research functions as a refusal of pregiven method, intensifying creativity, experimentation, and newness. Readers are invited into the threshold of theory to traverse philosophers and their concepts, reorienting conventional approaches to inquiry. Each chapter presents a thinking with process as a way of reading intensively through plugging in performative accounts of two first-generation academic women to philosophical concepts from Derrida, Spivak, Foucault, Butler, Barad, and Deleuze and Guattari. This book is a deliberate attempt to unsettle what is expected to be represented or recognized in terms of both meaning and method in traditional practices of qualitative research, which become unproductive and untenable in this different image of thought. New to this edition Fully revised and rewritten Chapter 1 that introduces the technique of plugging in as contingent, strategic movements of thought. Also new to Chapter 1 is a shift in language away from traditional practices in qualitative research (data and analysis) to performative accounts and becoming-questions Fully revised "Thinking with intra-action" chapter, which focuses on Karen Barad’s ontoepistemological framework of agential realism, and the concepts of posthumanist performativity and entangled agencies Fully revised and rewritten Chapter 8 that presents plugging in and thinking with as ontological Further development of and new material on the "plugging in" technique Schematic cues updated and extended for all of the Interludes In the ten years since the first edition was published, Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research has become a vanguard text in the field of postfoundational inquiry for its accessible but thorough introductions to philosophically informed inquiry. This book is for experienced and novice researchers, and students in introductory, general, and advanced qualitative inquiry courses, who may also be first-time readers of philosophy. This text will function as an entry into techniques of thinking with a new theoretical vocabulary.