Introduction

This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part explores the basic terminology of social research and explains its epistemological foundations. It presents the model of the scientific process in which most of the key terms appear and introduces some of the principal actors on the research stage; theorist, research director, interviewer, sampling expert, statistician. The part outlines the two major traditions of sociological enquiry, positivism, which looks to natural science as the only true model; and idealism of the kind espoused by Max Weber, who emphasized the notion of 'Verstehen' or 'empathic understanding', as the distinctive feature of the human or social sciences. The source of social science concepts and the hypotheses expressing their relations is of crucial importance; for the theories of social phenomena are relatively worthless unless rooted within the meaning systems of the actors to whom they relate.