Social research methods

Universities are increasingly taking an active role as research collaborators with citizens, public bodies, and community organisations but they, their funders and institutions struggle to articulate the value of this work. This book addresses the key challenges in collaborative research in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

This sociological collection advances the argument that the concept of a "turning point" expands our understanding of life experiences from a descriptive to a deeper and more abstract level of analysis.

Mapping environmental sustainability explains the development of visual mapping techniques with practical case studies that describe their application in environmental sustainability projects, from working with farmers and their networks to using visual mapping with indigenous communities and managing coastal environments.

Drawing on extensive survey data and written accounts of citizen engagement, this pioneering book charts change and continuity in voluntary activity since 1981. Part of the Third Sector Research Series.

This is the first book to take a radical approach to socially just, community centred research. Challenging traditional models for conducting social science research within marginalized populations, it examines the relationships between research, knowledge construction, and political power/legitimacy in society.

This book uses qualitative longitudinal data, from repeat interviews with people subject to compulsion and sanction in their everyday lives, to analyse the effectiveness and ethicality of welfare conditionality in promoting and sustaining behaviour change in the UK.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book presents impactful findings from international longitudinal studies that responded to the Agenda 2030 commitment to “leave no-one behind”.It provides actionable strategies for policy makers and practitioners to strengthen the global Sustainable Development Goals framework.

Presenting the landmark Pioneers life stories project, this one-of-a-kind book documents how modern social research in the UK was shaped. It combines a fascinating history of the generations who built outstanding and influential social research with a valuable resource for future research and teaching on methods.

This unique book explores the interaction between the academic research community and those who use its research to inform their social policy interventions, thus raising awareness of the linkages between research and social policy in particular in the area of ethnic relations.

Using Sweden as a case study, this book combines theories of family practices, care and childhood studies with the personal perspectives of nannies, au pairs, parents and children to provide new understandings of what constitutes care in nanny families.

Researching the Lifecourse features methods linking time, space and mobilities and provides practitioners with practical detail in each chapter. It covers the full lifecourse and includes innovative methods and case study examples from different European and North American contexts.

With a diverse range of case studies, and chapters co-written between academics and community partners, this book shows that co-produced research can be an empowering force by which communities stake a claim in the places they live.