Researching Society and Culture / Edition 3

by Clive Seale

Overview

In this undergraduate textbook, contributors describe and analyze the theoretical and practical issues of research on society and culture. General topics include research contexts, case studies of collecting and analyzing visual data, and a description of one researcher's practice. Essays discuss the history, policies and theories of social research; literature reviews and surveys; combining qualitative and quantitative data; conducting statistical reasoning and analysis; and preparing the final report. The book closes with a collection of workshop and discussion exercises. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849207980
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	02/22/2012
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	656
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Clive Seale has been Professor of Sociology (or Medical Sociology) at Goldsmiths and Queen Mary’s (both University of London) and Brunel University. His work has concerned communication in health care and death in modern society. He has published extensively on research methods. His books include Constructing Death: the sociology of dying and bereavement (Cambridge University Press, 1998), The Quality of Qualitative Research (Sage, 1999), Media and Health (Sage, 2003) and Gender and the Language of Illness (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010, with Jonathan Charteris-Black). Recently, he has turned to fiction, publishing a novel, Interrogating Ellie (Cloiff Books, 2015) using the pen name Julian Gray. He is currently writing another novel.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction and guide to using this book - Clive Seale
Part 1: Starting out
Chapter 2: Philosophy, politics and values - Clive Seale
Chapter 3: Research and theory - David Silverman
Chapter 4: Ethics and social research - Suki Ali and Moira Kelly
Chapter 5: Doing a literature review - Duncan Branley, Clive Seale and Thomas Zacharias
Chapter 6: Research questions and proposals - Moira Kelly
Chapter 7: Research design - Clare Robinson and Clive Seale
Chapter 8: The dissertation - Chetan Bhatt
Part 2: Generating data
Chapter 9: Sampling - Clive Seale
Chapter 10: Questionnaires and interviews - Clive Seale
Chapter 11: Questions, measurements and structured observation - Clive Seale
Chapter 12: Qualitative interviewing - Bridget Byrne
Chapter 13: Focus groups - Fran Tonkiss
Chapter 14: Doing ethnography - David Walsh and Clive Seale
Chapter 15: Grounded theory - Clive Seale
Chapter 16: Doing historical and documentary research - Ben Gidley
Chapter 17: Combining qualitative and quantitative methods - Neil Spicer
Chapter 18: Digital Social Research - Clive Seale
Part 3: Doing Analysis
Chapter 19: Preparing data for statistical analysis - Clive Seale
Chapter 20: Analysing single variables - Clive Seale
Chapter 21: Bivariate analysis - Clive Seale
Chapter 22: Causal arguments and multivariate analysis - Clive Seale
Chapter 23: Secondary analysis - Clive Seale
Chapter 24: Content and text analysis - Clive Seale and Fran Tonkiss
Chapter 25: Finding themes in qualitative data - Carol Rivas
Chapter 26: Visual analysis - Suki Ali
Chapter 27: Discourse analysis - Fran Tonkiss
Chapter 28: Analysing conversation - Tim Rapley
Chapter 29: Narrative analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis - Ann Griffin and Vanessa May
Part 4: Writing, Presenting, Reflecting
Chapter 30: Writing a research report - Carol Rivas
Chapter 31: Giving oral presentations - David Silverman
Chapter 32: Research quality - Clive Seale

Editorial Reviews

Concise and to the point. This is a highly useful methods book for approaching and teaching research on society and culture from start to finish, between qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Robert Hafner

This brilliant book offers an authoritative exposé of all major aspects of empirical social research. The authors balance consideration for detail, necessary for hands-on research, with general methodological discussion, and show how both are necessary to achieve research excellence.

Rasmus Helles

This book has the potential to be a market leader. Seale put together a comprehensive collection of chapters that inspires students to take their classroom examination of methods out into the real world. This book moves ahead of many others by explaining concepts in a way that actively encourages students to engage with them and visualize how they can be used with actual problems. The authors address students directly on a personal level, rather than lecturing, which turns the book into the ‘story of methods’. Such an experience means that chapters on theory and ethics draw students into everyday life reassuring them that these are important topics to consider within actual research.

Grant Coates