ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the role of empirical evidence in Sociology. It considers some basic methodological assumptions concurrent with the three theoretical perspectives presented in the last chapter. The chapter explores more precisely the relationship between theory and data by stating how the relationship can be either inductive or deductive. It also explains the broad distinctions between qualitative and quantitative data and suggests how different data are appropriate to specific research contexts in Sociology. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the research process as the formal organisation of how empirical research is conducted in Sociology and relates it to the five key questions at the heart of the sociological imagination.
