Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Original Title Page; Original Copyright Page; Dedication; Table of Contents; Preface; Part one; 1 The development of British sociology; 2 The social context of British sociology; 3 Theory and empiricism; Part two; 4 Grand theory and not so grand theory; 5 The ethnographic tradition; 6 The ethnomethodological movement; 7 Sociology and policy research; Part three; 8 Sociology and action research; 9 The new methodology; 10 Who runs research? A case study; 11 Practical ethnography; 12 Sociology and the Social Science Research Council
13 A future for British sociology?Bibliography; Name index; Subject index
Summary
A social science which has become so remote from the society which pays for its upkeep is ultimately doomed, threatened less by repression than by intellectual contempt and financial neglect. This is the message of the authors of this book in this reassessment of the evolution and present state of British sociology. Their investigation analyses the discipline as a social institution, whose product is inexorably shaped by the everyday circumstances of its producers; it is the concrete outcome of people's work, rather than a body of abstract ideas. Drawing upon their varied experience as teachers
