An End to the Crisis of Empirical Sociology?
Research data are everywhere. In our everyday interactions, through social media, credit cards and even public transport, we generate and use data. The challenge for sociologists is how to collect, analyse and make best use of these vast arrays of information.
The chapters in this book address these challenges using varied perspectives and approaches:
- The economics of big data and measuring the trajectories of recently arrived communities
- Social media and social research
- Researching elites, social class and race across space and place
- Innovations in qualitative research and use of extended case studies
- Developing mixed method approaches and social network analysis
- Feminist quantitative methodology
- Teaching quantitative methods
The book provides up-to-date and accessible material of interest to diverse audiences, including students and teachers of research design and methods, as well as policy analysis and social media.
Linda McKie is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University. She is the author of over 120 publications on research methods, care, gender, work and families, and health.
Louise Ryan is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at Middlesex University (www.sprc.info). She has published extensively on migration and social networks, ethnicity, religion, gender and research methods.
Sociological Futures
Series Editors: Eileen Green, John Horne, Caroline Oliver, Louise Ryan
Sociological Futures aims to be a flagship series for new and innovative theories, methods and approaches to sociological issues and debates and the social in the twenty-first century. This series of monographs and edited collections was inspired by the vibrant wealth of British Sociological Association (BSA) symposia on a wide variety of sociological themes. Edited by a team of experienced sociological researchers, and supported by the BSA, it covers a wide range of topics related to sociology and sociological research and will feature contemporary work that is theoretically and methodologically innovative, has local or global reach, as well as work that engages or re-engages with classic debates in sociology bringing new perspectives to important and relevant topics.
The BSA is the professional association for sociologists and sociological research in the United Kingdom, with an extensive network of members, study groups and forums, and a dynamic programme of events. The Association engages with topics ranging from auto/biography to youth, climate change to violence against women, alcohol to sport, and Bourdieu to Weber. This book series repre -sents the finest fruits of sociological enquiry, for a global audience, and offers a publication outlet for sociologists at all career and publishing stages, from well-established to emerging sociologists, BSA or non-BSA members, from all parts of the world.
An End to the Crisis in Empirical Sociology?
Trends and challenges in social research
Edited by Linda McKie and Louise Ryan
Forthcoming:
Bourdieu: The Next Generation
The development of Bourdieus intellectual heritage in contemporary UK Sociology
Edited by Jenny Thatcher, Nicola Ingram, Ciaran Burke and Jessica Abrahams
Drinking Dilemmas
Space, culture and identity
Edited by Thomas Thurnell-Read
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2016 Linda McKie and Louise Ryan
The right of Linda McKie and Louise Ryan to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An end to the crisis of empirical sociology?: trends and challenges in
social research/edited by Linda McKie and Louise Ryan.
pages cm
1. Sociology Research. 2. Sociology Methodology. I. McKie, Linda,
editor. II. Ryan, Louise, 1965 editor.
HM571.E535 2015
301.01 dc23
2015024821
ISBN: 978-1-138-82867-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-73819-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman and Gill Sans
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Contents
LINDA MCKIE AND LOUISE RYAN
EVELYN RUPPERT
RICHARD WEBBER AND TREVOR PHILLIPS
DAVID MILLER AND WILLIAM DINAN
ROGER BURROWS
DHIRAJ MURTHY
DAVID BYRNE
RACHEL LARA COHEN
ANNABEL TREMLETT AND ROXY HARRIS
ALESSIO DANGELO AND LOUISE RYAN
MALCOLM WILLIAMS, GEOFF PAYNE AND LUKE SLOAN
MIKE SAVAGE
The editors
Linda McKie is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Applied Social sciences, Durham University. She is the author of over 120 publications on research methods, care, gender, work and families, and health. Recent research has considered working life among the low paid women, female middle managers and senior women opting out of corporate employment. Lindas research is also considering veterans families and transitions into civilian life. Recent theoretical work has explored the use of biographical matching and focus groups as well as revisions to the analytical framework caringscapes, which she developed with colleagues in the 1990s. Her most recent publications include McKie et al . (2013) The Best Time is Now!: The Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Women Opting in to Self-Employment, Gender, Work and Organization , 20(2): 184196 and Biese and McKie (2015) Opting in: Women in search of well-being, in Connerley and Wu (eds) The Handbook on Well-Being of Working Women , New York: Springer Press.
Louise Ryan is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at Middlesex University (www.sprc.info). She has published extensively on migration and social networks, ethnicity, religion, gender and research methods. Louises work has appeared in international journals such as Sociology , Sociological Review , Global Networks , Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and International Migration . She has co-edited (with Wendy Webster) Gendering Migration: Masculinity, femininity and ethnicity in post-war Britain (Ashgate, 2008). Louise has held several research grants from the Economic and Social Research Council, as well as leading projects commissioned by charitable organisations, local authorities and government departments. She is currently working on a large EU-funded, Framework 7 project, on Reducing Early School Leaving (with DAngelo). Her most recent book is Migrant Capital: Networks, identities, strategies (editors Louise Ryan, Umut Erel and Alessio DAngelo) (Palgrave, 2015).
