Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond

Ragin, Charles C.

ISBN 10: 0226702731 / ISBN 13: 9780226702735

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # E-9780226702735-6-2

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and Beyond
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226702731
• ISBN 13: 9780226702735
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very good

About this title

Synopsis

For over twenty years Charles C. Ragin has been at the forefront of the development of innovative methods for social scientists. In Redesigning Social Inquiry, he continues his campaign to revitalize the field, challenging major aspects of the conventional template for social science research while offering a clear alternative.
            Redesigning Social Inquiry provides a substantive critique of the standard approach to social research—namely, assessing the relative importance of causal variables drawn from competing theories. Instead, Ragin proposes the use of set-theoretic methods to find a middle path between quantitative and qualitative research. Through a series of contrasts between fuzzy-set analysis and conventional quantitative research, Ragin demonstrates the capacity for set-theoretic methods to strengthen connections between qualitative researchers’ deep knowledge of their cases and quantitative researchers’ elaboration of cross-case patterns. Packed with useful examples, Redesigning Social Inquiry will be indispensable to experienced professionals and to budding scholars about to embark on their first project.

About the Author

Charles Ragin is professor of sociology and political science at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Fuzzy-Set Social Science and The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies.