Making Sense of the Social World - International Student Edition

The new Sixth Edition of Making Sense of the Social World continues to be an accessible and student-friendly introduction to the variety of social research methods, guiding readers to understand research in their roles as consumers and novice producers of social science.

Known for its concise, casual, and clear writing, its balanced treatment of quantitative and qualitative approaches, and its integrated approach to the fundamentals, the text covers all essential elements of social research methods including validity, causation, experimental and quasi-experimental design, and techniques of analysis.

The authors use a wide variety of examples from formal studies and everyday experiences to illustrate important principles and techniques.

Suitable reading for both novice researchers and more advanced students alike.

Daniel F. Chambliss, PhD, is the Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he has taught from 1981 to 2023. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1982; later that year, his thesis research received the American Sociological Association’s (ASA’s) Medical Sociology Dissertation Prize. In 1988, he published the book Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers, which received the Book of the Year Prize from the U.S. Olympic Committee. In 1989, he received the ASA’s Theory Prize for work on organizational excellence based on his swimming research. Recipient of both Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation fellowships, he published his second book, Beyond Caring: Hospitals, Nurses, and the Social Organization of Ethics, in 1996; for that work, he was awarded the ASA’s Eliot Freidson Prize in Medical Sociology. In 2014, Harvard University Press published his book How College Works, coauthored with his former student Christopher G. Takacs. His research and teaching interests include organizational analysis, higher education, social theory, and comparative research methods. In 2018, he received the ASA’s national career award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching. Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he received the 2007 Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service and taught from 1979 to 2022. He is also a Clinical Research Scientist I at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a Lecturer (part-time) in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. He completed his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University (where he met Dan). In addition to ten editions of Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research and one of Understanding the Social World, as well as coauthored versions for the fields of social work, criminal justice, psychology, and education, his other books include Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness (2011), Social Neuroscience: Brain, Mind, and Society (coedited, 2015), and Organization in a Changing Environment (1986). He has authored and coauthored more than 65 peer reviewed journal articles, as well as book chapters and research reports on homelessness, mental health, organizations, law, and teaching research methods. His currently a Dual Principal Investigator (with Matcheri Keshavan, MD) in randomized comparative effectiveness trial of two socially-oriented interventions to improve community functioning among persons diagnosed with serious mental illness, funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). His other recently concluded research includes co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded study of the social impact of the pandemic in Boston, and co-investigator on a Veterans Health Administration-funded study of peer support.  His earlier research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Veterans Health Administration, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Fetzer Institute, and state agencies. Details are available at https://blogs.umb.edu/russellkschutt/.