Synopsis
"The book offers communication researchers some of the best recent work on qualitative inquiry in the human disciplines. . . . Published by Sage, the leading publisher of qualitative research in the social sciences today. . . . This valuable text moves the student through four phases of inquiry: beginnings (gaining access), into the field, back home, and endings (writing). . . . This work brings the communication scholar up-to-date on where qualitative methods are in current sociological and educational discourse."
--Norman K. Denzin in
Journal of Communication
"A clearly written, straightforward piece of work which nicely combines informative chapters, projects for students, and exemplars from real life research projects. The substance of the book, with each chapter written by a different author with appropriate experience, offers a readable and easily comprehensible introduction to all the major areas of social science research. The authors have expertly trodden the tightrope between giving the reader too much information and thus complicating subjects and giving too little and making the book superficial. This is a book to be highly recommended to the research community."
--ESRC Data Archive Bulletin
"The book . . . has some notable features. It provides some very detailed exemplars of research. It contains a chapter on gaining access to research settings (a practical matter of considerable importance, and one that typically is ignored in research texts)."
--Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
"A research methods text that clearly presents topics to reflect its primary focus, which is to provide students with a basic set of social research skills. The emphasis here is squarely on the practical aspects of social research. . . . The book reads much like a ′how-to′ manual for doing sociological research. . . . The expertise of the various authors provides innumerable insights on doing research that can further the development of students′ own skills."
--Teaching Sociology
"Researching Social Life is an ideal primary text for an undergraduate course in social research methods. The book would be especially suitable for students at the junior or senior levels in sociology and other social science majors (e.g., social work, political science, health sciences). The book′s focus on practical research skills is likely to be helpful to students who pursue graduate degrees and also to students who pursue other vocational paths that rely on social research."
--Teaching Sociology
"This book has a number of strengths to recommend it to the newcomer to social research; its structure, content, and style are all ideal for an introductory text. Researching Social Life will prove an ideal text for undergraduates in a variety of disciplines who are taking research methods courses, as it provides both ideas for projects and references to more advanced texts. It can also be heartily recommended to health promoters who, faced with an increasing emphasis on the evaluation of initiatives and population needs assessment in their work, will find this book an invaluable resource."
--Health Promotion International
Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, Researching Social Life offers a clear introduction to the most widely used methods in social research. Drawing from the actual experiences of the contributors, the book carefully outlines the main ways in which data are gathered, collated, managed, and analyzed. Topics addressed include interviewing techniques, questionnaire design, measuring attitudes, research design, analyzing survey data, reviewing documents, and how to put collected data in written form. In addition, the links between data, critical understanding, and theory are highlighted throughout and ideas for student projects are provided.
For anyone in need of an excellent introduction to social research methods, this book is a must.
About the Author
Nigel Gilbert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey, Guildford, England. He is the author or editor of 34 books and many academic papers and was the founding editor of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. His current research focuses on the application of agent-based models to understanding social and economic phenomena, especially the emergence of norms, culture, and innovation. He obtained a doctorate in the sociology of scientific knowledge in 1974 from the University of Cambridge and has subsequently taught at the universities of York and Surrey in England. He is one of the pioneers in the field of social simulation and is past president of the European Social Simulation Association. He is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences and of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
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