Researching Social Problems

Amir Marvasti is Associate Professor of Sociology at Penn State Altoona, USA. His books on the pedagogy of research include: Qualitative Research in Sociology; Doing Qualitative Research: A Comprehensive Guide (with David Silverman); and The Sage Handbook of Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft (2nd edition, with Jaber F. Gubrium, James Holstein, and Karyn D. McKinney). A. Javier Treviño is Professor of Sociology at Wheaton College, Massachusetts, USA. He has served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and has published numerous books including, Investigating Social Problems (2nd edition); The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems (2 volumes); and Service Sociology and Academic Engagement in Social Problems.

Foreword: The Splendid Dangers and Worthy Methods of the Social Pathologist Introduction 1. Survey Research: Asking Questions for Assessing Social Problems 2. Research Interviews: Measuring, Feeling, and Constructing Social Problems 3. Narrative Inquiry: Stories and Storytellers of Social Problems 4. Institutional Ethnography: A Mode of Inquiry and a Strategy for Change 5. Participatory Action Research: Re-imagining the Study and Transformation of Social Problems 6. Autoethnography as a Methodology in Researching Social Problems 7. Considering Materiality: The Utility of Actor-Network Theory to Study Social Problems 8. Systematic Experimentation on Social Problems 9. Visual Research Methods: Integrating Images in the Study of Social Problems 10. The Ethics of the Study of Social Problems