Pioneering Social Research: Life Stories of a Generation

Description

Pioneering Social Research combines the fascinating history of generations who built outstanding and influential social research with providing a major resource for current research and - especially for methods - for future teaching. Presenting the landmark Pioneers life stories project, this one-of-a-kind book documents how modern social research in the UK was shaped. It sheds new light on the lives, methods and motivations of men and women who who were the first to confront the issues of race and ethnicity and who helped develop a new world of research methodology and pioneered feminist research. It combines the fascinating history of the generations who built outstanding and influential social research with providing a major resource for current research and - especially for methods - for future teaching.

Paul Thompson is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. He is Founder-Editor of Oral History and Founder of National Life Stories at the British Library. He is a pioneer of oral history in Europe and author of the international classic The Voice of the Past (4th edition 2017). His other books include The Edwardians and Living the Fishing. He is co-author of Growing Up in Stepfamilies, of The Myths We Live By (with Raphael Samuel), and (with Daniel Bertaux) Pathways to Social Class. Ken Plummer (1946-2022) was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. He researched and wrote widely on sexuality, especially lesbian, gay and queer studies. His methodological concerns were with the development of narrative, life story, symbolic interactionism and the post-modern turn. Neli Demireva is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex. Her research interests include migration, inter-ethnic ties, social cohesion, ethnic penalties and multiculturalism. She uses a variety of methods in her research, both quantitative and qualitative, and believes strongly in mixing methods to uncover the 'deep stories' of sociology.

"...an elegant and accessible introduction to the fifty-eight life interviews of pioneering UK social scientists... revealing the strengths of the qualitative interview method that many of the pioneers themselves championed." Oral History Society