The politics of social research

• Main Author: Hammersley, Martyn (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: London SAGE Publications 1995
• Subjects: Social sciences > Research
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Physical Description: xiii, 186 pages 22 cm
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 0803977182; 9780803977181

Recent years have seen a growing range of challenges to the idea that research should be governed by the principle of value neutrality. Critical, feminist, antiracist and postmodernist analyses have argued that social research is intrinsically political. In this stimulating and often controversial book, Martyn Hammersley weighs the arguments offered in support of these positions. He considers the fundamental issues that the debate raises about the nature of social research, its political dimensions and its contemporary relevance. At the same time he provides a robust defence of value neutrality as a constitutive principle of social research, and makes a reassessment of the role of research in modern societies.