ABSTRACT

Research data are everywhere. In our everyday interactions, through social media, credit cards and even public transport, we generate and use data. The challenge for sociologists is how to collect, analyse and make best use of these vast arrays of information.

  • The chapters in this book address these challenges using varied perspectives and approaches:
  • The economics of big data and measuring the trajectories of recently arrived communities
  • Social media and social research
  • Researching 'elites', social class and 'race' across space and place
  • Innovations in qualitative research and use of extended case studies
  • Developing mixed method approaches and social network analysis
  • Feminist quantitative methodology
  • Teaching quantitative methods

The book provides up to date and accessible material of interest to diverse audiences, including students and teachers of research design and methods, as well as policy analysis and social media.

part I|87 pages

Big data, big issues

chapter Chapter 2|20 pages

Minority communities in Britain

Pathways to success as revealed by big data

chapter Chapter 3|16 pages

Digging deeper

Big data, elites and investigative research

part II|97 pages

Mixing methods

chapter Chapter 6|16 pages

Explanation and empirical social research

Getting beyond description while still making it interesting!

chapter Chapter 7|19 pages

Towards a quantitative feminist sociology

The possibilities of a methodological oxymoron

chapter Chapter 8|16 pages

Beyond the interview

Ethnicity/‘race' in sociological research

chapter Chapter 9|19 pages

Social network analysis

A mixed method approach

chapter Chapter 10|16 pages

Making sociology count

Some evidence and context in the teaching of quantitative methods in the UK

chapter |9 pages

Epilogue

From the ‘coming crisis' to the ‘green shoots of recovery’?