Critical Strategies for Social Research

This thought-provoking volume is designed for research methods courses in sociology and the social sciences. Critical Strategies for Social Research explores ways in which several key research strategies bring an emancipatory dimension to social analysis. The new approaches recognise that social analysis is a form of knowledge production that takes place in a human-constructed world marked by injustice and persistent inequality. The book considers five influential and productive strategies of inquiry: dialectical social analysis; institutional ethnography; participatory action research; critical discourse analysis; research to invigorate the public sphere. This unique volume of 27 readings includes works by leading Canadian and international scholars.

Introduction; Part 1: Knowledge, Power & Social Research ; Part 1A: Rediscovering the Critical Edge in Social Analysis; Part 1B: Steps Toward Critical Inquiry; Part 2: Five Critical Research Strategies; Part 2A: Making Connections, Unmasking Relations: Dialectical Social Analysis; Part 2B: Problematising the Everyday World: Institutional Ethnography; Part 2C: Subverting Dominant Discourses: Critical Discourse Analysis; Part 2D: Inquiry as Empowerment: Participatory Action Research; Part 2E: Social Research as Communicative Reason.