Researching Social Problems (Routledge Advances in Research Methods)

This book covers a wide range of contemporary methods for researching social problems and connects these approaches to the broader substance and theories of social problems. Expository and discursive in approach, chapters follow a uniform structure, with each offering research examples and a broad description of the related method and its theoretical context, together with a "how-to" guide for applying that method using substantive examples from the field of social problems. For every method explored, there is a research example that fully reviews and illustrates the application of the particular method, before giving a full assessment of the method’s strengths and weaknesses and latest developments. With chapters exploring survey interviews, in-depth interviews, narrative inquiry, institutional ethnography, participatory action research, auto-ethnography, Actor-Network Theory, experimental research, visual research methods, and research ethics, Researching Social Problems will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and politics working in the fields of research methods and social problems.

Amir Marvasti is Associate Professor of Sociology at Penn State Altoona, USA. His books on the pedagogy of research include: Qualitative Research in Sociology; Doing Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Guide (with David Silverman); and The Sage Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (2nd edition, with Jaber F. Gubrium, James Holstein, and Karyn D. McKinney).

A. Javier Treviño is Professor of Sociology at Wheaton College, Massachusetts, USA. He has served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and has published numerous books including, Investigating Social Problems (2nd edition); The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems (2 volumes); and Service Sociology and Academic Engagement in Social Problems.