Making Sense of Social World: methods of investigation 2nd Edition

• Provides greater detail on qualitative data analysis: A new chapter draws attention to the distinctive features of qualitative data analysis and illustrates several different approaches. There is a new section in this chapter on visual sociology and more on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis.
• Offers an expanded appendix on secondary data resources: The appendix on sources of secondary data has been greatly expanded and now includes instructions for using the resources available at the Inter-university Consortium on Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
• Provides writing techniques: New sections on writing techniques and literature reviews provide tips for writing clearly and on preparing a composite literature review.
• Improves clarity of traditionally difficult topics: There is expanded coverage of conceptualization, units and levels of analysis, ecological fallacy, and the varieties of longitudinal research designs to provide a better understanding of these often difficult topics. The authors also include mnemonics–memory tricks–to help students remember important distinctions.
• Increases international examples: Reflecting the increasingly global scope of social science research, more examples are included from researchers in other countries or about persons from countries outside the United States.
• Expands treatment of human subjects issues: More details are provided about how to consider ethical issues involving the treatment of human subjects in research, as well as the increasing role of university IRB′s in student research.

To request an IRCD for this book (qualified instructors only) please contact Customer Care at 1.800.818.SAGE (7243) (6 am – 5 pm Pacific Time).

Daniel F. Chambliss, PhD, is the Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he has taught from 1981 to 2023. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1982; later that year, his thesis research received the American Sociological Association’s (ASA’s) Medical Sociology Dissertation Prize. In 1988, he published the book Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers, which received the Book of the Year Prize from the U.S. Olympic Committee. In 1989, he received the ASA’s Theory Prize for work on organizational excellence based on his swimming research. Recipient of both Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships, he published his second book, Beyond Caring: Hospitals, Nurses, and the Social Organization of Ethics, in 1996; for that work, he was awarded the ASA’s Eliot Freidson Prize in Medical Sociology. In 2014, Harvard University Press published his book How College Works, coauthored with his former student Christopher G. Takacs. His research and teaching interests include organizational analysis, higher education, social theory, and comparative research methods. In 2018, he received the ASA’s national career award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching.

Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he received the 2007 Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service and taught from 1979 to 2022. He is also a Clinical Research Scientist I at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a Lecturer (part-time) in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. He completed his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University. In addition to ten editions of Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research and seven editions of Making Sense of the Social World, with Daniel F. Chambliss, PhD, as well as coauthored versions for criminal justice, psychology, and education, his other books include Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (2011), Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society (coedited, 2015), and Organization in a Changing Environment (1986). He has authored and coauthored more than 70 peer reviewed journal articles, as well as more than 30 non-refereed articles and book chapters on social support, mental and physical health, health services, organizations, homelessness, law, and teaching research methods. His research has been funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the National Science Foundation, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Fetzer Institute, and state agencies. Details are available at https://blogs.umb.edu/russellkschutt/.