On Social Research and Its Language (Heritage of Sociology Series) - Softcover

Lazarsfeld, Paul F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226469638 ISBN 13: 9780226469638

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1993

Synopsis

Without Paul F. Lazarsfeld the social sciences would not be what they are today. In his ground-breaking work on unemployment, voting, consumer behavior, and social influence, among other subjects, his methodological emphasis on vigorously controlled scientific language and structures transformed social research worldwide.

Lazarsfeld's systematic criticism of observational, conceptual, and inferential procedures in sociology led to the the formation of universally applied observational and analytical techniques, such as the panel design of observation and contextual and multivariate analysis. His methodology for empirical social research had a profound effect on all the social sciences.

The eighteen essays in On Social Research and Its Language illustrate the diversity of Lazarsfeld's substantive, methodological, and organizational interests. Spanning the years 1933 to 1972, they encompass his own works of social research, as well as writings on methodology and the history and sociology of social research. Articles on methodology—observing, classifying and building typologies, analyzing the relations between variables, qualitative analysis, and macrosociology—form the bulk of the book. In addition, Raymond Boudon provides a revealing biography of Lazarsfeld and his influence on sociology.

These classic writings by a formative figure of modern social science will be an indispensable reference for scholars across the historical and social science disciplines.

About this title

About the Author

Raymond Boudon is professor of sociology at the Sorbonne. He is the author of numerous works, including, in English translation, Theories of Social Change and The Critical Dictionary of Sociology, the latter of which is also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226469638
• ISBN 13: 9780226469638
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 342
• Editor: Boudon Raymond