Author : R. Biernacki
Publisher : Springer
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 14,54 MB
Release : 2012-08-08
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1137007281
Revisiting the dominant scientific method, 'coding,' with which investigators from sociology to literary criticism have sampled texts and catalogued their cultural messages, the author demonstrates that the celebrated hard outputs rest on misleading samples and on unfeasible classifying of the texts' meanings.
Author : Charles C. Ragin
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 33,77 MB
Release : 2009-05-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0226702790
For over twenty years Charles C. Ragin has been at the forefront of the development of innovative methods for social scientists. In Redesigning Social Inquiry, he continues his campaign to revitalize the field, challenging major aspects of the conventional template for social science research while offering a clear alternative. Redesigning Social Inquiry provides a substantive critique of the standard approach to social research—namely, assessing the relative importance of causal variables drawn from competing theories. Instead, Ragin proposes the use of set-theoretic methods to find a middle path between quantitative and qualitative research. Through a series of contrasts between fuzzy-set analysis and conventional quantitative research, Ragin demonstrates the capacity for set-theoretic methods to strengthen connections between qualitative researchers’ deep knowledge of their cases and quantitative researchers’ elaboration of cross-case patterns. Packed with useful examples, Redesigning Social Inquiry will be indispensable to experienced professionals and to budding scholars about to embark on their first project.
Author : Jennifer C. Greene
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 27,44 MB
Release : 2007-10-26
Category : Education
ISBN : 0787983829
“This is an excellent addition to the literature of integrated methodology. The author has skillfully integrated diverse ways of thinking about mixed methods into a comprehensive and meaningful framework. By providing detailed examples, she makes it easy for both the students and the practitioners to understand the intricate details and complexities of doing mixed methods research. On the other hand, by comparing, contrasting, and bridging multiple perspectives about mixed methods, she has made this book very relevant and useful to seasoned scholars of mixed methodology.”--Abbas Tashakkori, Frost Professor and coordinator, educational research and evaluation methodology, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies, Florida International University, founding coeditor, Journal of Mixed Methods Research
Author : Hans Kelsen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 40,42 MB
Release : 2014-05-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 131783318X
First published in 1998.This is Volume XIV of eighteen in the Sociology of Behaviour and Psychology series. This text is concerned with sociological inquiry into society and nature. Written in 1946, it investigates the idea that society and nature, if conceived of as two different systems of elements, are the results of two different methods of thinking and are only as such two different objects. The same elements, connected with each other according to the principle of causality, constitute nature; connected with each other according to another, namely, a normative, principle, they constitute society
Author : Roger Cotterrell
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 429 pages
File Size : 38,20 MB
Release : 2017-12-06
Category : Law
ISBN : 1351683233
This book presents a unified set of arguments about the nature of jurisprudence and its relation to the jurist’s role. It explores contemporary challenges that create a need for social scientific perspectives in jurisprudence, and it shows how sociological resources can and should be used in considering juristic issues. Its overall aim is to redefine the concept of sociological jurisprudence and outline a new agenda for this. Supporting this agenda, the book elaborates a distinctive juristic perspective that recognises law’s diversity of cultural meanings, its extending transnational reach, its responsibilities to reflect popular aspirations for justice and security, and its integrative tasks as a general resource of regulation for society as a whole and for the individuals who interact under law’s protection. Drawing on and extending the author’s previous work, the book will be essential reading for students, researchers and academics working in jurisprudence, law and society, socio-legal studies, sociology of law, and comparative legal studies.
Author : Alan Petersen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 29,85 MB
Release : 2018-11-21
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1351780395
What is ‘digital health’? And, what are its implications for medicine and healthcare, and for individual citizens and society? ‘Digital health’ is of growing interest to policymakers, clinicians, and businesses. It is underpinned by promise and optimism, with predictions that digital technologies and related innovations will soon ‘transform’ medicine and healthcare, and enable individuals to better manage their own health and risk and to receive a more ‘personalised’ treatment and care. Offering a sociological perspective, this book critically examines the dimensions and implications of ‘digital health’, a term that is often ill defined, but signifies the promise of technology to ‘empower’ individuals and improve their lives as well as generating efficiencies and wealth. The chapters explore relevant sociological concepts and theories; changing conceptions of the self-evident in citizens’ growing use of wearables, online behaviours and patient activism; changes in medical practices, especially precision (or ‘personalised’) medicine and growing reliance on ‘big data’ and algorithm-driven decisions; the character of the digital healthcare economy; and the perils of ‘digital health’. It is argued that, for various reasons, including the way digital technologies are designed and operate and the influence of big technology companies and other interests seeking to monetise citizens’ data, ‘digital health’ is unlikely to deliver much of what is promised. Citizens’ use of digital technologies is likened to a Faustian bargain: citizens are likely to surrender something of far greater value (their personal data) than what they obtain from their use. However, growing data activism and calls for ‘algorithmic accountability’ highlight the potential for citizens to create alternative futures—ones oriented to fulfilling human needs rather than techno-utopian visions. This ground-breaking book will provide an invaluable resource for those seeking to understand the socio-cultural and politico-economic implications of digital health.
Author : Stanley Raffel
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 135 pages
File Size : 46,92 MB
Release : 2014-08-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1317651510
Facts may seem to be independent, but in this study Stanley Raffle looks at them as expressions of commitment. Medical records, he believes, furnish a principal example of the actively oriented character of the factual commitment, and he draws on his experience of research among the records of a large modern hospital to demonstrate this. He describes how records are produced and reorganized as records, and discusses the grounds which provide for all the features of the records. He looks at the act of ‘observation’ in many apparently and concretely different places, and analyses the activity of noticing, viewing, recording a spectacle, where what is observed supposedly remains untouched by the observing. Dr Raffel goes on to show that observation, events, records and criteria of assessment such as reliability and completeness lose their status as unexplicated verities and become, instead, decisive and consequential courses of action. He points out, too, that the Socratic dialogues exemplify an orientation to commitment that even medical records, paradoxically, require if they are to be the matters of fact that they are.
Author : Gary King
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 259 pages
File Size : 43,94 MB
Release : 1994-05-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0691034710
Designing Social Inquiry focuses on improving qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable. What are the right questions to ask? How should you define and make inferences about causal effects? How can you avoid bias? How many cases do you need, and how should they be selected? What are the consequences of unavoidable problems in qualitative research, such as measurement error, incomplete information, or omitted variables? What are proper ways to estimate and report the uncertainty of your conclusions?
Author : Linda Eberst Dorsten
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 35,30 MB
Release : 2016-09-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 131551091X
Provides a foundation for understanding research findings in social sciences. Designed to help students acquire basic skills in the methods of social science research, the second edition of Research Methods and Society contains numerous excerpts from professional journal articles, scholarly books, and popular press. The text uses a straightforward writing style to present essential information, without eliminating key concepts, tools, and their applications. Concrete, everyday examples and “hands-on” practice activities reinforce fundamental concepts that will be useful to students in their future careers and life. Topics are illustrated in ways that are student-centered, yet instructor-friendly. Features and updates to this 2nd edition include: Highlighted concepts and terms in each chapter -- In addition to a chapter-end list of key terms. These familiarize students with important content, and helps ensure they understand and retain it. Chapter summaries – Includes a section titled Your Review Sheet: Questions Discussed in This Chapter. Enables students to review the major themes presented in each chapter, and encourages them to reflect on the key points. Numerous “real-world” activities – Help students meet specific learning needs, such as evaluating excerpts from research articles, analyzing secondary data, and analyzing primary data from direct observation and other mini-projects Excerpts from professional journal articles and popular press readings – these are followed by questions, which guide learning on specific methods topics, and illustrates specific issues related to methodology typically employed by social scientists. Added and expanded discussion of Ethics, with special attention to chapters on direct methods of data collection, as well as new discussions about online research. New secondary data tables and their discussions/applications.
Author : Brian D. Haig
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 47,18 MB
Release : 2015-11-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1473943124
Realist Inquiry in Social Science is an invaluable guide to conducting realist research. Written by highly regarded experts in the field, the first part of the book sets out the fundamentals necessary for rigorous realist research, while the second part deals with a number of its most important applications, discussing it in the context of case studies, action research and grounded theory amongst other approaches. Grounded in philosophical methodology, this book goes beyond understanding knowledge justification only as empirical validity, but instead emphasises the importance of theoretical criteria for all good research. The authors consider both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and approach methodology from an interdisciplinary viewpoint. Using abductive reasoning as the starting point for an insightful journey into realist inquiry, this book demonstrates that scientific realism continues to be of major relevance to the social sciences.
