This is a jewel among methods Handbooks, bringing together a formidable collection of international contributors to comment on every aspect of the various central issues, complications and controversies in the core methodological traditions.

"An excellent guidebook through different approaches to social science measurement, including the all-important route-maps that show us how to get there."
- Roger Jowell, City University

"In this wide-ranging collection of chapters, written by acknowledged experts in their fields, Outhwaite and Turner have brought together material in one volume which will provide an extremely important platform for consideration of the full range of contemporary analytical and methodological issues."
- Charles Crothers, Auckland University of Technology

This is a jewel among methods Handbooks, bringing together a formidable collection of international contributors to comment on every aspect of the various central issues, complications and controversies in the core methodological traditions. It is designed to meet the needs of those disciplinary and nondisciplinary problem-oriented social inquirers for a comprehensive overview of the methodological literature. The text is divided into 7 sections:

• Overviews of methodological approaches in the social sciences
• Cases, comparisons and theory
• Quantification and experiment
• Rationality, complexity and collectivity
• Interpretation, critique and postmodernity
• Discourse construction
• Engagement.

Edited by two leading figures in the field, the Handbook is a landmark work in the field of research methods. More than just a ′cookbook′ that teaches readers how to master techniques, it will give social scientists in all disciplines an appreciation for the full range of methodological debates today, from the quantitative to the qualitative, giving them deeper and sharpen insights into their own research questions. It will generate debate, solutions and a series of questions for researchers to exploit and develop in their research and teaching.

PART ONE: OVERVIEWS
Introduction - William Outhwaite
The Social Sciences since World War II - Peter Manicas
The Rise and Fall of Scientism
Interdisciplinary Approaches in Social Science Research - Julie Thompson Klein
PART TWO: CASES, COMPARISONS AND THEORY
Introduction - William Outhwaite
Ethnography - Jon Mitchell
Comparative Methods - Charles C Ragin
Historicity and Sociohistorical Research - John R Hall
Case Study - Jennifer Platt
PART THREE: QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIMENT
Introduction - Stephen Turner
Statistical Models for Causation - David Freedman
Fighting to Understand the World Causally - Leslie Hayduk and Hannah Pazderka-Robinson
Three Battles Connected to the Causal Implications of Structural Equation Models
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs in Behavioral Research - Sandra Schneider
On Context, Crud and Convergence
Theory and Experimentation in Social Sciences - Murray Webster Jr and Jane Sell
The Treatment of Missing Data - David Howell
Modeling Selection Effects - Thad Dunning and David Freedman
Methods for Census 2000 and Statistical Adjustments - David Freedman and Ken Wachter
Quantitative History - Margo Anderson
PART FOUR: RATIONALITY, COMPLEXITY, COLLECTIVITY
Introduction - William Outhwaite
Rational Choice Theory - Donald P Green and Justin Fox
Rationality and Rationalist Approaches in the Social Sciences - David Henderson
Individual and Collective Agency - Thomas Schwinn
Simulating Complexity - R Keith Sawyer
Evolutionary Approaches in the Social Sciences - Maureen O′Malley
PART FIVE: INTERPRETATION, CRITIQUE AND POSTMODERNITY
Introduction - William Outhwaite
Understanding and Interpretation - Hans-Herbert Kögler
New Controversies in Phenomenology - Mark J Smith and Piya Pangsapa
Between Ethnography and Discourse
Liberal Humanism and the European Critical Tradition - Doug Kellner and Tyson Lewis
Grounded Theory - Adele Clarke
Critiques, Debates and Situational Analysis
Does Postmodernism Make You Mad? Or, Did You Flunk Statistics? - Ben Agger
PART SIX: DISCOURSE CONSTRUCTION
Introduction - Stephen Turner
Social Construction and Research Methodology - Ken Gergen and Mary Gergen
Rhetorics of Social Science - Ricca Edmondson
Sociality in Writing and Inquiry
Discourse Analysis - Michael Lynch
PART SEVEN: EVALUATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND COLLABRATIVE RESEARCH
Introduction - Stephen Turner
Evaluation Research - Michael Scriven
Feminist Methodology - Susan Hekman
Feminist Methodology and Its Discontents - Nancy Naples
Community Based Research - Michael Root
Qualitative Methodology (Including Focus Groups) - Norman Denzin and Kathryn E Ryan
Making a Mess with Method - John Law