ABSTRACT
Social surveys involve interaction between researcher and the subjects of research, with all the problems this creates for the validity of the measuring instruments being used. Statistical records of the main operational government departments – in the employment, health and social service fields – provide a further most important source of social data covering many of the major fields of sociological inquiry. Official statistics of the provision of many social services, yield little information on the quality or adequacy of such services, of the extent to which they meet particular needs. The Registrar-General's concept of social class and what sociologists refer to as social class have by no means the same meaning, although they may appear similar. Problems of conceptual definition and the interpretive understanding of social action are central to J. D. Douglas's study of suicide, which presents a major critique, on theoretical and methodological grounds, of the Durkheimian tradition.
