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How to Study Social Life
- Russell Hitchings - University College London (UCL), UK
- Alan Latham - University College London, UK
January 2025 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Do you want to study what people do, the things they say, or what they think?
This book offers a lively and questioning account of the essential elements of social research, from defining your research purpose to producing the right output for your audience.
Fostering inquisitiveness and ingenuity and drawing on lots of examples and experiences, it will inspire you to think afresh about the various things you might do as a social researcher.
It will also:
- Reveal the lived realities of research, sharing honest and illuminating stories along the way;
- Draw on plenty of past exercises with students to consider how different activities work
- Demystify the process so you can think for yourself about how to do effective projects.
Original, engaging and candid, this book will help any undergraduate or postgraduate navigate the dynamic and challenging landscape of social research with confidence and creativity.
Chapter 1. Introduction: What is the point of this book and how to use it
Chapter 2. Warrants: Starting with what you want your study to achieve
Chapter 3. Observing: On learning to learn from different social scenes
Chapter 4. Taking part: Considering the benefits of getting involved ourselves
Chapter 5. Staging talk: How to do and imagine interviews
Chapter 6. Engaging people: Seeing social research as a relationship
Chapter 7. Asking questions: Exploring a basic act that features in many methods
Chapter 8. Playing with words: Strategies for seeing and exploring patterns
Chapter 9. Looking at pictures: Ways of getting drawn into social worlds
Chapter 10. Choosing: How thinking about cases and samples can make for innovative projects
Chapter 11. Writing: How to present the material we’ve collected
Sage College Publishing
