Qualitative research methods for the social sciences

Abstract

Social research provides necessary support for innumer able professions, bolsters and directs policy decisions, fact-checks both wild and mundane claims about theworld, and helps us understand ourselves and others. But even beyond these valuable endeavors, social research has a simple mission “to help us know what’s going on.” In this era of what is sometimes called globalization, everyone’s lives are impacted by vast numbers of things happening all over the planet, in all segments of industry, society, politics, economics, culture, and religion. Even the well-informed have little idea about most of it. We cannot observe and understand everything we need on our own. Research compresses the vast variability of life into more or less consistent and predictable bits of reality. It gives us a leg to stand on.