The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods: 0 - Tapa dura

The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods is a must for every social-science researcher. It charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology, covering qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods in one volume.

The Handbook includes chapters on each phase of the research process: research design, methods of data collection, and the processes of analyzing and interpreting data. The volume maintains that there is much more to research than learning skills and techniques; methodology involves the fit between theory, research questions research design and analysis. The book also includes several chapters that describe historical and current directions in social research, debating crucial subjects such as qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, how to judge the credibility of types of research, and the increasingly topical issue of research ethics.

The Handbook serves as an invaluable resource for approaching research with an open mind. This volume maps the field of social research methods using an approach that will prove valuable for both students and researchers.

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.