The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods

Social Research in Changing Social Conditions
PART ONE: DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL RESEARCH
The End of the Paradigm Wars? - Alan Bryman
The History of Social Research Methods - Marja Alastalo
Assessing Validity in Social Research - Martyn Hammersley
Ethnography and Audience - Karen Armstrong
Social Research and Social Practice in Post-Positivist Society - Pekka Sulkunen
From Questions of Methods to Epistemological Issues - Ann Nilsen
The Case of Biographical Research
Research Ethics in Social Science - Celia B. Fisher and Andrea E. Anushko
PART TWO: RESEARCH DESIGNS
The Core Analytics of Randomized Experiments for Social Research - H S Bloom
Better Quasi-Experimental Practice - Thomas D. Cook and Vivian Wong
Sample Size Planning with Applications to Multiple Regression - Ken Kelly and Scott E. Maxwell
Power and Accuracy for Omnibus and Targeted Effects
Re-Conceptualizing Generalization in Qualitative Research - Giampietro Gobo
Old Issues in a New Frame
Case Study in Social Research - Linda Mabry
Longitudinal and Panel Studies - Janet Holland, Rachel Thomson and Jane Elliott
Comparative and Cross-National Designs - David de Vaus
PART THREE: DATA COLLECTION AND FIELDWORK
Modern Measurement in the Social Sciences - James A. Bovaird and Susan E. Embretson
Natural and Contrived Data - Susan Speer
Self Administered Questionnaires and Standardized Interviews - Edith de Leeuw
Qualitative Interviewing and Feminist Research - Andrea Doucet and Natasha Mautner
Biographical Methods - Joanna Bornat
Focus Groups - Janet Smithson
PART FOUR: TYPES OF ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF EVIDENCE
An Introduction to the Multi Level Model for Change - Suzanne E. Graham, Judith D. Singer and John B. Willett
Latent Variable Models of Social Research Data - Rick H. Hoyle
Equating Groups - Stephen West and Felix Thoemmes
Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis - Charles Antaki
Analyzing Narratives and Story-Telling - Matti Hyvarinen
Reconstructing Grounded Theory - Kathy Charmaz
Documents and Action - Lindsay Prior
Video and the Analysis of Work and Interaction - Christian Heath and Paul Luff
Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Data - Janet Heaton
Secondary Analysis of Quantitative Data Sources - Angela Dale, Jo Wathan and Vanessa Wiggins
Conducting a Meta Analysis - Erika A. Patall and Harris Cooper
Synergy and Synthesis - Jane Fielding and Nigel Fielding
Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Data
The Analytic Integration of Qualitative Data Sources - Ann Cronin, Victoria D. Alexander, Jane Fielding, Jo Moran-Ellis and Hilary Thomas
Combining Different Types for Quantitative Analysis - Max Bergman
Writing and Presenting Social Research - Amir Marvasti
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Pertti Alasuutari is a sociologist, cultural studies scholar, paterfamilias and a highly significant figure in the development of both Finnish and international qualitative research. His career has gone from strength to strength as regards advancement in Finnish academia, as witnessed by some twenty books, and numerous articles in both Finnish and foreign journals.

Yet Professor Alasuutari insists that he did not consciously choose the career of a sociologist.

Professor Alasuutari completed his school education in Rovaniemi, Lapland in 1975 and went to study technology at the University of Oulu. But not for long. In 1977 he dropped out and began to dream of becoming a journalist, in the meantime doing supply teaching.
"In summer I studied journalism at summer university in Lapland and began my military service"

His days in the army driving a desk led him to another state agency. In autumn 1978 the train from the north arrived in Tampere with the 22-year-old on board. He had gained admission to study sociology.

"For the first year I only studied journalism, and didn't even set foot in the Department of Sociology," grins Professor Alasuutari.

Career development

In 1983 the Westermarck Society awarded a prize for a master's thesis to the youthful Alasuutari. The thesis was entitled "The Realm of Male Freedom". The ethnographic approach was to describe the alcohol culture of a group of men patronizing a suburban pub.
Leonard Bickman, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Public Policy. He is director of the Center for Evaluation and Program Improvement and Associate Dean for Research at Peabody College. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology (social) from the City University of New York, his master's degree in experimental psychopathology from Columbia University and his bachelor's from the City College of New York. Professor Bickman is a nationally recognized leader in program evaluation and mental healthservices research on children and adolescents. He has published more than 15 books and monographs and 180 articles and chapters and has been principal investigator on over 25 major grants from several agencies. He is co-editor of the Applied Research Methods Series published by Sage Publications since 1980. He is also co-editor of the Handbook of Applied Social Research and is collaborating on a new International Handbook of Social Research. He is the co-author of the very popular book Applied Research Design: A Practical Guide.
Julia Brannen is Professor of Sociology of the Family at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. She has carried out research in Britian and Europe for 35 years on families, children and young people, intergenerational relations and work-life issues. She has a special interest in methodology including mixed methods, cross-national research and biographical methods. Co-founder of The International Journal of Social Research she co-edited the journal for 17 years. Author of 17 books including Mixing Methods: Qualitative and Quantitave Research (Aldershot Gower 1992) and numerous articles on methodology, more recently she co-edited The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods (2008) and has contributed to The SAGE Handbook of Mixed Methods (2010.)
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