ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some important developments in survey research which are giving us a new way of studying social organization. Survey research methods have often led to the neglect of social structure and of the relations among individuals. On the other hand, survey methods are highly efficient in bringing in a large volume of data – amenable to statistical treatment – at a relatively low cost in time and effort. The first, and the one closest to usual survey research, might be termed contextual analysis. In essence, it consists of relating a characteristic of the respondent's social context — and the independent variable — to a characteristic of the individual himself. IBM cards and counter-sorters were methodologically appropriate for the individualistic orientation which survey research has had in the past; electronic computers with large storage capacities are precisely appropriate for the statistical analysis of complex social organization.
