Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research

About Gayle LetherbyJohn ScottMalcolm Williams

Gayle Letherby is an honorary professor of sociology at the University of Plymouth and a visiting professor at the University of Greenwich. Alongside substantive interests in reproductive and non/parental identities; gender health and well-being; loss and bereavement; travel and transport mobility and working; and gender and identity within institutions (including universities and prisons) she has an international reputation in research methodology. Expertise in this area includes feminist and qualitative approaches and in auto/biography and creative reflexivity (with reference to data collection and presentation). Gayle is currently a coeditor of the SAGE journal Methodological Innovations and is in the process of editing the Handbook of Feminist Research for Routledge. In addition to her own research and writing Gayle has significant experience in research mentoring and consultancy both within academia for grant funding bodies and for HealthWatch UK. For examples of nonacademic writing and pieces written for general readership see http://arwenackcerebrals.blogspot.co.uk/ and https://www.abctales.com/user/gletherby John Scott is an Honorary Professor at the Universities of Essex Exeter and Copenhagen. He was formerly a professor of sociology at the Universities of Essex and Leicester and pro-vice-chancellor for research at the University of Plymouth. He has been president of the British Sociological Association Chair of the Sociology Section of the British Academy and in 2013 was awarded the CBE for Services to Social Science. His work covers theoretical sociology the history of sociology elites and social stratification and social network analysis. His most recent books include British Social Theory: Recovering Lost Traditions before 1950 (SAGE 2018) Envisioning Sociology. Victor Branford Patrick Geddes and the Quest for Social Reconstruction (with Ray Bromley SUNY Press 2013) Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research (with Gayle Letherby and Malcolm Williams SAGE 2011). Malcolm Williams is Professor and Director of the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. Prior to joining Cardiff in 2010 he was Professor of Social Research Methodology and Head of the School of Psychosocial Sciences at the University of Plymouth where he taught for 16 years. Malcolm has designed and taught modules in the philosophy of social research for 18 years at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. In these he has introduced a number of innovative pedagogic techniques such as Problem Based Learning and Concept Speed Dating in which students take a key idea and move from table to table attempting to build conceptual links between ideas.Additionally he has taught many modules and short courses in social theory research design questionnaire design scaling sampling scientific method and history of science. Williams has an extensive publishing record in philosophy of social research including: Introduction to Philosophy of Social Research (with Tim May Routledge 1996) Knowing the Social World (with Tim May OUP 1998) Science and Social Science (Routledge 2000) Making Sense of Social Research (SAGE 2003) Philosophical Foundations of Social Research (SAGE 2006) Teaching Quantitative Methods (with Geoff Payne SAGE 2011) Objectivity and Subjectivity in Social Research (with Gayle Letherby and John Scott SAGE 2012) and The SAGE Handbook of Innovations in Social Research (with W Paul Voght SAGE 2014).