The Sage Handbook of Social Research Methods

The SAGE Handbook for Social Research Methods is a must for every social-science researcher. It charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology, covering qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods in one volume.

The Handbook includes chapters on each phase of the research process: research design, methods of data collection, and the processes of analyzing and interpreting data. As its editors maintain, there is much more to research than learning skills and techniques; methodology involves the fit between theory, research questions, research design, and analysis. The book also includes several chapters that describe historical and current directions in social research, debating crucial subjects such as qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, how to judge the credibility of types of research, and the increasingly topical issue of research ethics.

The Handbook serves as an invaluable resource for approaching research with an open mind. This volume maps the field of social research methods using an approach that will prove valuable for both students and researchers.

Pertti Alasuutari is a sociologist, cultural studies scholar, paterfamilias and a highly significant figure in the development of both Finnish and international qualitative research.  His career has gone from strength to strength as regards advancement in Finnish academia, as witnessed by some twenty books, and numerous articles in both Finnish and foreign journals.

Yet Professor Alasuutari insists that he did not consciously choose the career of a sociologist.

Professor Alasuutari completed his school education in Rovaniemi, Lapland in 1975 and went to study technology at the University of Oulu.  But not for long.  In 1977 he dropped out and began to dream of becoming a journalist, in the meantime doing supply teaching.
"In summer I studied journalism at summer university in Lapland and began my military service"

His days in the army driving a desk led him to another state agency.  In autumn 1978 the train from the north arrived in Tampere with the 22-year-old on board.  He had gained admission to study sociology.

"For the first year I only studied journalism, and didn′t even set foot in the Department of Sociology," grins Professor Alasuutari.

Career development

In 1983 the Westermarck Society awarded a prize for a master′s thesis to the youthful Alasuutari.  The thesis was entitled "The Realm of Male Freedom".  The ethnographic approach was to describe the alcohol culture of a group of men patronizing a suburban pub.


Leonard Bickman, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Public Policy. He is director of the Center for Evaluation and Program Improvement and Associate Dean for Research at Peabody College. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology (social) from the City University of New York, his master′s degree in experimental psychopathology from Columbia University and his bachelor′s from the City College of New York. Professor Bickman is a nationally recognized leader in program evaluation and mental healthservices research on children and adolescents. He has published more than 15 books and monographs and 180 articles and chapters and has been principal investigator on over 25 major grants from several agencies. He is co-editor of the Applied Research Methods Series published by Sage Publications since 1980. He is also co-editor of the Handbook of Applied Social Research and is collaborating on a new International Handbook of Social Research. He is the co-author of the very popular book Applied Research Design: A Practical Guide.

Julia Brannen is Emerita Professor of the Sociology of the Family at Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education. Her research interests include families and intergenerational relations, the work-family interface and food in families. She has a special interest in methodology including mixed methods, comparative cross-national research, biographical approaches. Her most recent book is Social Research Matters (2019).