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This article presents author's remarks on the paper "The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Reproduction and Production of Hegemony: Rockefeller Foundation and Social Sciences," by Donald Fisher. The history of the large American private philanthropic foundations is of particular significance for the history of the social sciences, both in the U.S. and Great Britain, as they developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Applied to the social sciences, foundations are held to have perverted the course of development of a number of disciplines, including sociology, in the capitalist interests of their founders and the technocratic interests of foundation officials. Donald Fisher has performed a major service in documenting in considerable empirical detail the range and scope of activities of the major philanthropic foundations. One of the Fisher's central propositions is that foundations have represented interests of the ruling class. His interpretation of the key McKenzie-King affair of 1914-15, when the Rockefeller Family was publicly censured for using foundation funds to further their business interests, demonstrates the tendentious nature of his approach.

This article focuses on methodology teaching within sociology. There is increasing diversity in what is taught as "methods," some curriular innovation, and a healthy experimental approach to the teaching of the subject. Some critics, however, maintain that overall methodological standards are feeble in both quantitative and qualitative research, technical competence inadequate, and the dominant mode that of "observational, interpretive journalism rather than social science." A quite different line of development is to discuss methodology in terms of a research process. Such an approach shifts away from the notion of "stages," set operations and set techniques involved in doing research and instead focuses on the links between research strategies, research techniques and research problems and between data collection and data analysis. In some institutions numerous methodology courses are provided and methodology is also a core element in substantive courses. Despite the fact that sociologists have raised questions about the organization of educational institutions, patterns of teaching and the content of the curriculum, relatively little attention has been given to teaching in higher education in general and in sociology in particular.

Common methodological themes and issues are identified which run through quantitative, ethnographic and comparative-historical research. Particular attention is paid to a variety of historical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching of research methodology in graduate and undergraduate courses is discussed with reference to British experience. Recent trends are examined, with reference to the place of methods, statistics and changes in course content. `Alternative methodologies, deriving from critical, autobiographical, Marxist or feminist positions, are evaluated. The importance of core methodological elements in a sociological education is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of using official statistics - from administrative sources, vital registration, population censuses and government social surveys in sociological inquiry. In recent years influential critiques of such data by Cicourel, J. D. Douglas, Hindess and other have come to hold powerful sway in sociology. Yet their criticisms have been exaggerated, overdrawn and extended illegitimately far beyond fields such as suicide and crime in which they were originally developed. The advantages of such official data are here reasserted, by means of examples drawn from the study of health, wealth, occupation, social class and race and ethnicity. Significant and meaningful empirical regularities have been shown using such data. Facts do not speak for themselves, but neither does theory speak for itself. The conceptual difficulties are not so intractable as critics of the use of official data tend to suggest. Traditions of the use of official statistics in social science stemming from the works of Ernest Burgess, William F. Ogburn, S. R. Steinmetz and Oscar Morgenstern are discussed. The past achievements and future potential of research using such data are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on several books related to sociological research. The book "Who Should Know What?," by John Barnes is a wide-ranging and incisive essay combining historical depth and insight into current practical ethical problems. Barnes argues that in the nineteenth century social research conformed to a natural science paradigm, social scientists and citizens were socially and epistemologically unequal and new knowledge was seen as a source of enlightenment for the élite. The book "Ethics in Social and Behavioural Research," by E. Diene and R. Crandall, has four main parts, dealing with the ethical treatment of research participants ethics in non-laboratory settings such as observational research and social experiments professional issues concerning honesty and publication, and the relationship of science and society. The book "The Ethics of Social Intervention," edited by G. Bermant, H.C. Kelman and D.P. Warwick, is a rather ponderous symposium, for reference rather than a single read through, edited by three authors two of whom have written extensively on research ethics. The sections of greatest interest are those discussing ethical problems in family-planning programmes action research in organisations, encounter groups, behaviour-modification therapy and particularly income-maintenance experiments.

Comments on the relation between sociological theory and method in Great Britain. Distinction between method and methodology; Usability of classifying sociological investigation; Definition of Positivism.

Why have community studies in Britain undergone such a decline? Several reasons are suggested for the decrease in popularity of this type of research since the mid-1960s, but several signs of possible resurgence are detected. Sociologists may also have something to learn from applied work in this area. The definition of the field is shifting from the geographical community to the study of primary group relations among neighbours, friends and kin. An effective methodological strategy which avoids hypostatising geographical space is social network analysis. Current theoretical issues are exemplified from Philip Abrams's work. There is revival too in the study of local-level political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine in detail one type of covert ethnographic research, the pseudo-patient study, to provide an assessment of these ethical issues which is grounded in actual research practices.
Pseudo-patient studies are studies where a person enters a medical setting by adopting the role of a patient, not in order to receive therapeutic treatment but in order to observe covertly the treatment process and the broader medical and social setting within which it occurs. The studies of this kind discussed here have been conducted by social scientists, but there are cases of journalists and even politicians adopting this role in order to conduct undercover studies of medical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on concepts in the analysis of qualitative data. The realm of concepts falls clearly in the latter category. Analysis of the role of concepts in empirical social research remains to a very considerable extent underdeveloped, both a symptom and a cause of the gull which continues to separate sociological theory from socio- logical research. Despite a number of important attempts to bridge the gulf, it is fair to say that in the available literature on how to do research, the awkward problems of the formation and justification of concepts are rapidly passed over to get to more tractable fields like sample design or questionnaire construction. Not that sociologists neglect the analysis of concepts. Concepts in themselves are not theories. They are categories for the organization of ideas and observations. In order to form an explanatory theory, concepts must be interrelated. But concepts do act as a means of storing observations of phenomena which may at a future time be used in a theory. Similarly while concepts are distinct from observations the formation of concepts is a spur to the development of observable indices of the phenomenon subsumed under the concept. Concepts, then, mediate between theory and data.

Community care provides a setting in which both public, formal social care and private, informal, social care have the potential to complement one another in meeting the needs of dependent persons. The theoretical implications of "interweav ing" formal and informal care are considered in the light of concerns about privacy and confidentiality which may limit such potential collaboration. The obstacles to those working in welfare agencies tapping informal networks are highlighted. Em pirical evidence from the study of neighbors and neighborhood care is presented to show that drawing boundaries around a private sphere belonging to the self and the family is universal and that various defences are erected against gossip and the local sharing of personal information. The implications of such privacy concerns for interweaving are considered in terms of balance theory, the substitutability of carers, the circumstances in which information may be shared with third parties, the use of natural leaders, and problems of professional responsibility. The need to rethink the boundaries of the private realm is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on social science factors which affect the work of government commissions. Implications of social science for the structure of the commissions; Components of the commissions; Functions of the commissions for inquiry and advisory.

Introduces articles on concerns about the utilization of social science knowledge to the role of the governmental commission as an instrument of policy making in the United States, published in the May 1993 issue of the 'American Behavioral Scientist' journal.

This article examines the case for social research training at the post-graduate level integrally linked to a social survey research organization. Programs related to social research training should reflect a clear aim in relation both to post-graduate training in sociological method in particular and to postgraduate education in sociology in general. One such program is developed by the Detroit Area Study at the University of Michigan. Three main objectives of this scheme are to establish a highly efficient means of providing young social scientists with an all-round training in the planning and execution of survey research, to provide staff members with an opportunity to pursue social science research and to supply social science data of value to authorities and communities in the area surrounding the university where the program is located. The form which the training takes follows the standard procedures of social survey research. Students' work includes preliminary relevant reading, problem formulation, question drafting, pretest analysis, sampling, interviewing and data processing. In addition each student writes an analysis paper based on part of the collected data.

This article discusses the book "Applied Sociology: Roles and Activities of Sociologists in Diverse Settings," edited by Howard E. Freeman, Russell R. Dynes, Peter H. Rossi and William Foote Whyte. Applied sociology is a contemporary growth point of the discipline. A shrinking job market and a climate of economic stringency have brought about a considerable transformation to the subject. In the book Rossi and Whyte identify some of the different forms and the features that distinguish applied sociology from academic sociology. These include working in nonacademic organizations, being able to communicate effectively with non-sociological audiences, the constraints imposed by policy relevance, and higher levels of concern for internal and external validity. They also estimate that one in seven qualified sociologists will not be able to find openings in either academic or applied settings. The book urges the need to rethink graduate curricula and the section on teaching applied sociology should stir mainstream academic sociologists to reconsider their situation.