Social Research Methods

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.

An examination of the early work of the innovative Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Ethics and Law Committee. It will help anyone involved in other cohort studies to understand how ethical policies evolve.

Over the past decades ‘photovoice’ has emerged as a participatory and creative research method where participants capture and discuss their reality through photographs. This unprecedented ‘how-to’ book takes novice and experienced researchers through the practicalities and ethics of applying this approach.

This book explores how to establish peace in societies recovering from large-scale, armed conflicts by introducing a sustaining ‘peace scale’ as a continuous measure for peacebuilding success.

Based on an autoethnographic study about a free food store in Aotearoa New Zealand, this book examines how alternative economies and relations emerge from community solutions, and how these could be used to think, act and organize differently against capitalist dynamics.

Using original empirical data, this book explores how local government officers and politicians negotiate 'difficult subjects' linked with community cohesion policy: diversity, inequality, discrimination, extremism, migration, religion, class, power and change. Winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2014

Supported by the editors’ popular podcast Narrative Now, this interdisciplinary volume explores the capacities and limitations of narrative research. It maps out new directions for the field while honouring its legacy.

The health and fitness industry has experienced a meteoric rise over the past two decades, yet its slick exterior conceals a darker side. Using ethnographic data from gyms, interviews and social media platforms, this book investigates the growing use of image and performance-enhancing drugs (IPEDs) and their role in masculine body image.

Offering rare insights from the Moomin inner circle, this book unveils the Moomin business management journey, from Tove Jansson's creations to a global art-based brand and a growing ecosystem of companies. It unveils the keys to a sustainable business devoted to comforting people and fostering good, inspiring a blueprint for lasting success.

This interdisciplinary activist research project shows the health and well-being impacts of transnational migration on Ecuadorean families. Roberta Villalón documents the intersection of social inequalities and migration and health policies, and how individual and collective action challenges marginalising structures and fosters social justice.

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.

In examining how our identity shapes the knowledge we produce, Mental health service users in research considers ways of 'doing research' which bring multiple understandings together effectively, and explains the sociological use of autobiography and its relevance.