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This is the first e-special issue for the journal Sociology and its chosen focus is the article ‘The coming crisis of empirical sociology’ by Savage and Burrows (2007). This article challenged sociologists with a variety of questions about the role, relevance and methodological opportunities for sociological research in the 21st century. On publication it stoked the already charged debates on a public sociology (Burawoy, 2004), the role of publicly funded research (ESRC, 2009) and relevance of sociological research in an age of burgeoning social media (Brewer and Hunter, 2006). This e-special provides a reprise of these debates and explores relevant papers in Sociology, as well as alerting readers to recurring themes and new directions on the topic of methods and social research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To provoke debate, the paper, after fifteen years, repeats and expands on an analysis of the use of empirical data and the role of quantification in articles published in some major British journals of sociology. The earlier paper argued that the training of undergraduates, and the influence and example of their teachers, tends to orient them, well before graduate education begins, towards particular kinds of research topic and, where empirical data are used, approaches employing no quantification or very simple techniques. It suggested this would be a self-reinforcing process unless there were far-reaching changes in undergraduate curricula which were unlikely to come about. It predicted that the divide between these aspects of British sociology and that practised in North America and many parts of Europe would widen further. British sociology has become somewhat more empirical over the past fifteen years, with the bulk of this expansion in the qualitative area. The more sophisticated quantitative approaches are not much more in evidence than before. This raises a number of questions which should be a matter of debate. It is worrying that the debate does not seem to be taking place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Pinch and Clark's recent article on the strategies of market pitchers for managing local economic reasoning. We suggest that their research is illustrative of the lack of seriousness and relevance to social issues of a small proportion of sociological studies. In developing this argument, the paper considers the methodology, ethical issues and substantive content of the article. We conclude by noting that, whilst the study of the work of market pitchers is clearly an important research topic, such study should have regard to local social and economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the status of generalisation in interpretive sociology. The case made is that generalisation is inevitable, desirable and possible. It is held that interpretivism must employ a special kind of generalisation, characterised here as moderatum. However, an acknowledgement that such generalisations can be made must bring us to specify the limits of generalisation in interpretive research. These limits are the limits of interpretivism itself and the paper concludes that this implies the adoption of methodological pluralism in order to realise the full potential of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the journal Sociology, four e-special issues have been produced to explore specific themes across the journal’s history. In this e-special, we examine how social class has been discussed during the early years of the journal, 1967–1979. Based on our selection of 10 past articles, and two more recent articles, we examine two broad themes. First, we consider how social class has been conceptualised, paying particular attention to the notion of embourgeoisement. Second, we turn to methodological considerations and discuss how approaches to researching class have evolved over time. This e-special provides not only an opportunity to celebrate the Sociology back catalogue but also to re-appraise some of the classic contributions from the first decade of the journal’s history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information related to quoting and counting in sociology. Sociologist Gayle Letherby sees the overriding methodological concern of feminists as not the privileging of qualitative methods per se, but the relationship between the product and the process of knowing—what people do and how they do it affects what they get. Another way to put this is to say that who people are affects what they think they know. One important conclusion of this is that social scientists have a responsibility to ensure that when they speak about other people, they do so on the basis of warrantable knowledge. The audit trail through research question, methods, data collection, analysis and interpretation needs to be clear, systematic and explicit. The most important criterion for choosing a particular research method is not its relationship to academic arguments about methods, but its fit with the question being asked in the research. It is socially and scientifically irresponsible to expect people to take part in badly designed research.

As British sociology seeks to overcome a historical distaste for quantitative research methods, one of the discipline’s most dynamic sub-fields may prove troublesome. Feminist research thrives both within and outside sociology. As such it provides new insights and enriches the discipline, something recognized by the 2010 Benchmarking Review of Sociology. Yet feminist research has long been associated with an antipathy towards quantitative methods. This article explores the extent to which this persists. Methodological patterns in articles from 19 journals in the interdisciplinary field of ‘women’s studies’ are analysed. Perhaps surprisingly, a large proportion of articles employed quantitative methods. Those engaged with feminist literature or epistemologies were, however, unlikely to be quantitative. This article also highlights the importance of national contexts, suggesting perhaps we should not ask why UK research is so qualitative, but why US research is so quantitative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]