Social Research Methods

Drawing on the author’s participation in high-level policy discussions, this book presents three key issues in UK illicit drug policy – medical cannabis, drug-related deaths and the government’s 10-year drug strategy.

Drawing on an unprecedented institutional ethnography of UK universities, this book uses feminist and gender lenses to critique the power, culture and structure of Higher Education institutions. Challenging the myths of how academia is governed by audit processes, it provides an opportunity to re-read and re-write these institutions from within.

This perceptive study explores the extent to which boxing has the potential to reduce violent attitudes among young offenders. Jump assesses conflicting evidence and presents in-depth case studies of fighters to ask whether boxing’s values of discipline and respect can create a support network that helps young men refrain from reoffending.

This book addresses the frustrating gap between research conducted on effective practices and the lack of routine use of such practices. The author introduces a model for reducing this gap, highlighting the roles of social networks, research evidence, practitioner/policymaker decision-making, research-practice-policy partnerships.

Using insights from those with first-hand experience of conducting research in areas of international intervention and conflict across the world, this book provides essential practical guidance, discussion of mistakes, key reflections and raises important questions for researchers and students embarking on fieldwork in violent and closed contexts.

Measuring research impact and engagement is a much debated topic in the UK and internationally. This book is the first to provide a critical review of the research impact agenda, situating it within international efforts to improve research utilisation.

This book innovatively explores how we can better apply a ‘bottom-up’ approach to the design of regulatory systems that recognise the capabilities, knowledge, passions and creativity of citizens in communities at the margins.

This unique study of social work provides a bold and challenging view of the subject from an anthropological perspective. Combining research and personal reflection, it explores cultural and symbolic representations of social work, evolving identities of social work practitioners and the ways in which they and society now view one another.

Drawing from forty years of experience, Julia Brannen offers an invaluable account of how research in family studies is conducted and ‘matters’ at particular times. An exceptional resource for family scholars and those interested in the methodology of social research.

In this book, Daniela Aidley and Kriss Fearon provide a practical introduction to making it easier for everyone to take part in research. It will be invaluable to researchers from a variety of backgrounds looking to increase participation in their research, whether postgraduate students, experienced academic researchers, or practitioners.

Systemic Action Research explains how systemic thinking works and how it can be embedded into organisational structures and processes to catalyse sustainable change and critical local interventions.

This insightful book explores the governance of immobilities and temporality in African migration. It shares lessons from the experiences of Zimbabwean migrants fleeing economic crisis to the South African town of Musina and asks what the work of state and non-state actors there tell us about the management of immobile people and places.