Contents
Introduction
1 Historical overview
1.1 The early years
1.2 Forerunners of modern social research
1.3 The nineteenth century: the rise of positivism
1.4 The twentieth century: research pluralism
The hegemony of positivism
Challenging the positivist hegemony
2 The state of contemporary research
2.1 Diversity of research
Types of research
2.2 Aims of social research
2.3 Motives of social research
3 Politics and the production of knowledge
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The producer and the construction of knowledge
3.3 The controller of knowledge
3.4 The consumer of research
4 Ethics in social research
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Professional practice and ethical standards
4.3 The researcher-respondent relationship
Avoiding harm to respondents
Deception
Privacy,
anonymity and confidentiality
4.4 The researcher-researcher relationship
4.5 The researcher-animal relationship
4.6 Ethical practice
4.7 The limits of limitations
5 Sexism and social research
Main points
Where to from here?
Further
reading