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.
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
