Family researchers are developing ever more sophisticated methods for studying the family, yet few people have attempted to synthesize these methodological techniques. In this concisely-written work, Miller does just that. He describes the entire research process -- from design to data collection, sampling and data analysis -- to explain to undergraduates and first year graduate students just how family research is done.
Professor Jones gives a succinct and critical analysis of the sociological theories and methodology of Emile Durkheim. He focuses on four of Durkheim's books -- The Division Of Labour In Society (1893), The Rules Of Sociological Method (1895) and The Elementary Forms Of Religious Life (1912). With an illuminating chapter analysis of each work, this text is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students.
The Idea of Police is one of the core texts in its series. Written by a leading criminologist in a highly readable, fluid style, it is intended as an introductory text on police. Klockars defines the police in terms of their right to use coercive force. He then describes the comparative evolution of the British and US police forces, providing readers with the historical background to the current state of the police. The moral conflicts and issues of discretion that policemen must cope with are explored and, lastly, he looks at two questions: What makes a good police officer? And what type of organizational, political, and social environment encourages good policework?
In Max Weber: A Skeleton Key Randall Collins gives a concise overview of the work of one of sociology's greatest classic thinkers. The many strands of Weber's theorizing and the breadth and scope of his historical comparisons are here brought clearly into focus. This is an ideal text for students in sociology.
This monograph is not statistical. It looks instead at pre-statistical assumptions about dependent variables and causal order. Professor Davis spells out the logical principles that underlie our ideas of causality and explains how to discover causal direction, irrespective of the statistical technique used. He stresses throughout that knowledge of the `real world' is important and repeatedly challenges the myth that causal problems can be solved by statistical calculations alone.
In Max Weber: A Skeleton Key Randall Collins gives a concise overview of the work of one of sociology's greatest classic thinkers. The many strands of Weber's theorizing and the breadth and scope of his historical comparisons are here brought clearly into focus. This is an ideal text for students in sociology.
The transition from viewing organizations as bureaucracies towards seeing them in metaphoric terms is a contemporary break with past organizational theory. But to investigate the similarities between real organizations and the metaphors describing their functions and context, a shift in both methods of inquiry and organizational theory must take place. This volume explores the paradigm shift at three levels: an overview of historical roots; an explication of terminology, metaphors and constructs; and the practical application of these new organizational inquiry methods, especially for actual research practices and policy analysis applications.
Berry and Feldman provide a systematic treatment of many of the major problems encountered in using regression analysis. The authors discuss: the consequences of violating the assumptions of the regression model; procedures for detecting when such violations occur; and strategies for dealing with these problems when they arise. The monograph was written without the use of matrix algebra, and numerous examples are provided from political science, sociology, and economics.
Although clustering -- the classifying of objects into meaningful sets -- is an important procedure, cluster analysis as a multivariate statistical procedure is poorly understood. This volume is an introduction to cluster analysis for professionals, as well as for advanced undergraduate and graduate students with little or no background in the subject. Reaching across disciplines, Aldenderfer and Blashfield pull together the newest information on cluster analysis -- providing the reader with a pragmatic guide to its current uses, statistical techniques, validation methods, and compatible software programmes.
