Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research

The Fourth Edition of Russell Schutt?s successful social research text, Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, links the "doing" of social research to important social issues, including research on the Internet and social relations, substance abuse, homelessness, and gender roles.

The Fourth Edition now includes a new chapter on evaluation research (Chapter 10) and a new, comprehensive qualitative data and content analysis chapter (Chapter 13). The qualitative analysis software integrated into the text and CD is now from HyperRESEARCH and an expanded, comprehensive Instructor?s Resource CD containing PowerPoint slide sets for each chapter, test questions, illustrations from the book for transparency masters, and much more is available.

Investigating the Social World is an engaging, accessible introductory text for research methods courses in sociology, criminal justice, social work, communication and journalism, and political science and public administration.

Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is a professor and the chair of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a lecturer on sociology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts Mental Health Center). He completed his BA, MA, and PhD (1977) at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University (1977–1979). His other books include Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, Fundamentals of Social Work Research (with Ray Engel), Making Sense of the Social World (with Dan Chambliss), and Research Methods in Psychology (with Paul G. Nestor)―all with SAGE Publications, as well as Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (Harvard University Press) and Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society (coedited with Larry J. Seidman and Matcheri S. Keshavan, also Harvard University Press). Most of his peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters focus on the effect of social context on cognition, satisfaction, functioning, and recidivism; the orientations of service recipients and of service and criminal justice personnel; and the organization of health and social services. He is currently a coinvestigator for a randomized trial of peer support for homeless dually diagnosed veterans funded by the Veterans Administration.