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Book Review: Researching Society and Culture

Article in Discourse & Society · January 2007

DOI: 10.1177/0957926507069565

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 Discourse & Society
http://das.sagepub.com/

Book Review: Researching Society and Culture

Gavin Melles
Discourse Society 2007 18: 117
DOI: 10.1177/0957926507069565

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http://das.sagepub.com/content/18/1/117

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 Book reviews 117

Williams, R. (1973) ‘Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory’, New Left Review
87: 3–16.
Williams, R. (1977) Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Adam Hodges
Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado, USA

CLIVE SEALE (ed.), Researching Society and Culture. London: Sage, 2004. 536 pp.
ISBN 0–7619–4196–7 (hbk), 0–7619–4197–5 (pbk)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926507069565

This new edition of Researching Society and Culture (2004) provides a multi-
method overview and methodological contextualization of research for students
of sociology and other disciplines. The collection contains 34 commissioned
chapters subdivided into an introduction, research contexts (10 chapters), doing
research (20 chapters), and case studies (three chapters); the collection closes
with a section of workshop and discussion exercises. Although most chapters are
written as individual single contributions, some authors (the editor Clive Seale
with eight chapters, in particular) are represented more than once in areas, e.g.
coding and analyzing data, secondary analysis, where one might have expected
an alternative author. Notwithstanding, the range of issues dealt with and the
methodological and representational contextualization of research methods in
social research is thorough. I believe the text offers a good selection of readings if
one’s aim is to expose novices to the range of techniques and theories of potential
relevance to research without precipitously foreclosing on possibilities students
may want to consider.
In addition to changes to chapter content from the 1998 edition, the new
edition integrates follow-up readings from Seale (2004), revises activities for stu-
dents, and provides links with follow up web sources on relevant issues (http://
www.rscbook.co.uk/). The text adopts the same pedagogic approach as other
Sage texts, such as Silverman and Seale (2005), of commissioned chapters, dis-
cussion questions and tasks for the student.
In his introduction Seale claims the text avoids the pitfalls of toolbox methods
book approaches by addressing both methodology and method and also inter-
linking this discussion with philosophy, theory and practice in the social sciences.
Reflexivity is addressed in the attention to writing practices and representation
specifically in the final three chapters of case studies. The catholic inclusion of
quantitative and qualitative methods is clearly intended to reflect the critical real-
ist stance Seale (1999) has elsewhere promoted as a pragmatic epistemology for
social research. This stance and the recent pragmatist rationale for mixed methods
in sociology and allied disciplines is currently in vogue and attempts to strike a
middle road between formerly antagonistic paradigm wars (Creswell, 2003; Daly
et al., 1997; Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998).

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118 Discourse & Society 18(1)

Reviewers of the previous edition (1998), while acknowledging the general

strength of the collection, expressed reservations that may still be apparent. Ali
(2001), while charitable about the potential of the volume, also acknowledges that
the earlier text tends to be used by students to focus on methods out of context.
Hill (1998) argues that each of the 34 chapters on their own ‘oversimplifies’ is-
sues and could lead students into treating research in a superficial manner. I like
to be charitable about the potential of the text to address the concerns and needs
of novice researchers rather than interpreting limitations in terms of a narrow
reading of the classroom application of the text. Thus, I think Hill underestimates
the potential of the text to give novices adequate starting points to contextualize
their research options and choices. Such contextualization is distinctly lacking in
many methods texts, including some on my shelf. The text provides its own defin-
itions of relevant contexts by including eleven chapters on relevant contexts for
research including philosophy of social science, politics and identities, and history.
In the new edition the integration of follow-up readings, a companion reader
volume, weblinks and discussion exercises address some of the shortcomings of
the earlier edition. Although potentially a stand alone volume, the new edition
is clearly intended to be one component of an undergraduate package together
with Seale (2004) whose reader is referenced at the end of each chapter; any
prospective reader will benefit most by having both volumes at hand. These
cross-indexed readings are also complemented by further readings which refer
students to other sources. In teaching contexts, it would be critical for students
to be directed to follow up on further readings to substantiate methodological and
method choices. The weblink additions do provide some potentially useful dis-
cussion questions for class exercises but do not, despite fulsome advertising to the
contrary, add substantially to the text in ways other book sites do. One might also
question some of the particular choices.
Given the catholic audience of novice researchers of society and culture that
the text attempts to address, it is perhaps not surprising that discourse analysis
per se does not feature extensively in the text. However, readers of Discourse and
Society will note in the glossary a basic distinction in the text between a broadly
Foucauldian ‘system of knowledge’ approach contrasted with ‘more narrowly’
linguistic definitions, e.g. medical talk. One chapter (27) by Fran Tonkiss addresses
content and discourse analysis together – perhaps a strange juxtaposition for
discourse analysts, and the following chapter (28) provides a brief overview of
conversation analysis.
The value of such a text for readers of this journal is that the collection will
provide a good exemplification of what researchers of other methodological per-
suasions see as relevant in understanding society and culture. It may also suggest
to those employing discursive methodological frameworks ways of expanding
their research options whether individually or in collaboration with others in at-
tempting to represent the socio-cultural worlds we investigate.

REFERENCES

Ali, S. (2001) ‘Book Review – Clive Seale (ed.) (1998) Researching Society and Culture’,
Department of Sociology Goldsmiths College Current Research Newsletter 16(2).

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 Book reviews 119

Creswell, J.W. (2003) Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches
(2nd edn). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Daly, J.M., Kellehear, A. and Gliksman, M.D. (1997) The Public Health Researcher: A Methodo-
logical Guide. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Hill, A. (1998) ‘Review of Researching Society and Culture (1998), Clive Seale (ed.)’, Socio-
logical Research Online 3(2): http://www.socresonline.org.uk/3/2/hill.html.
Seale, C. (1999) The Quality of Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Seale, C. (2004) Social Research Methods: A Reader. London/New York: Routledge.
Silverman, D. and Seale, C. (2005) Doing Qualitative Research: A Practical Handbook (2nd
edn). London: Sage.
Tashakkori, A. and Teddlie, C. (1998) Mixed Methodology: Combining Qualitative and Quanti-
tative Approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Gavin Melles
Faculty of Design, Swinburne University of Technology,
Melbourne, Australia

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