Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of the book. British sociology is predominantly a post-Second World War development, and now spans several decades of research. The problem for teachers and students of sociology today is how to come to terms with the subject matter. Sociology is an intricate set of styles and approaches that attempt to deal with a set of complex phenomena by embarking on critical activities, challenging assumptions, raising doubts, teasing out the policy relevance of an issue and its consequences. The book covers a vast terrain: theory, meta-theory and discourse, postmodernism, and feminism, as well as methods involving cross-sectional surveys, panels, longitudinal studies, ethnographies and qualitative approaches. It presents that Sara Arber traces some of the main concerns of sociologists engaged in surveys. Some of the complex theoretical issues that run through different methodological approaches are reflected in the concerns examined by Christopher Bryant.