Preface
Contents
Part I: Overview
Something New Under the Sun
Direct Observation
Indirect Observation
Surveys
Experiments
Part II: Five Case Histories of Social Research
Unwelcome Opportunity
The Goals of Social Research
"Hey, Look at This!"
A Special Kind of Science
"Not My Cup of Tea"
The Social Researcher as Social Leader
Asking Unpopular Questions
Unforseeable Outcomes
Leitmotif
"The Most Exciting Thing Going on in Social Science in the 1980s"
The Need for Data in Governance
"It's Working!"
Survey Technique: From Intuition to Science
Trial Run
Survey Research and Social Science
"Good Decisions Require Good Data"
A Problem Worth Exploring
Unambiguous Evidence
A Really Clean Experiment
Research Through Deception: An Ethical Dilemma
Hypotheses and Manipulations
Identity Crisis
Testing for Generality
A Question That Had to Be Answered
The Case for Longitudinal Research
Getting Started: The First Dozen Years
Confounded Methodology
Harvest: The Second Dozen Years
The Coming of Age of Longitudinal Research
Returns
The Bread and Circuses Question
The Concept of the Social Experiment
Hard Start
Sundry Problems of Social Experimentation
The Long Haul
The Politics of Social Experimentation
Results and Second Thoughts
Notes on Sources
Works Cited
Acknowledgments
Index