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THE BASICS OF
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
A Note from the Author
Writing is my joy, sociology my passion. I delight

in putting words together in a way that makes
people learn or laugh or both. Sociology shows up
as a set of words, also. It represents our last, best
hope for planet-training our race and finding ways
for us to live together. I feel a special excitement
Earl Babbie
at being present when sociology, at last, comes
into focus as an idea whose time has come.
I grew up in small-town Vermont and New Hampshire. When I announced

I wanted to be an auto-body mechanic, my teacher, like my dad, told me
I should go to college instead. When young Malcolm Little announced he wanted
to be a lawyer, his teacher told him a “colored boy” should be something more
like a carpenter. The difference in our experiences says something powerful
about the idea of a level playing field. The inequalities among ethnic groups run
deep, as Malcolm X would go on to point out.
I ventured into the outer world by way of Harvard, the U.S. Marine Corps,
UC Berkeley, and 12 years teaching at the University of Hawaii. I resigned
from teaching in 1980 and wrote full time for seven years, until the call of the
classroom became too loud to ignore. For me, teaching is like playing jazz.
Even if you perform the same number over and over, it never comes out the
same way twice and you don’t know exactly what it’ll sound like until you hear it.
Teaching is like writing with your voice.
After some 20 years of teaching at Chapman University in southern California,

I have now shifted my venue by moving to Arkansas and getting a direct
experience of southern/midwestern life. When that’s balanced by periodic returns
to my roots in Vermont, I feel well-rounded in my sociological experiences.
SEVENTH EDITION
THE BASICS OF
SOCIAL
RESEARCH
EARL BABBIE
Chapman University
Australia ● Brazil ● Mexico ● Singapore ● United Kingdom ● United States
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Printed in the United States of America

Print Number: 01 Print Year: 2015
To Evelyn Fay Babbie and Henry Robert Babbie
Contents in Brief
PA r t ONe An Introduction to Inquiry

1 Human Inquiry and Science 1
2 Paradigms, Theory, and Research 30
3 The Ethics and Politics of Social Research 60W O
PA r t t WO the Structuring of Inquiry

4 Research Design 89
5 Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement 125
6 Indexes, Scales, and Typologies 159
7 The Logic of Sampling 190
PA r t t Hr ee Modes of Observation
8 Experiments 232
9 Survey Research 254
10 Qualitative Field Research 295
11 Unobtrusive Research 331
12 Evaluation Research 361
PA r t F O Ur Analysis of Data
13 Qualitative Data Analysis 390
14 Quantitative Data Analysis 422
15 Reading and Writing Social Research 447
Appendixes
A Using the Library 474
B Random Numbers 481
C Distribution of Chi Square 483
D Normal Curve Areas 485
e Estimated Sampling Error 486
vii
Contents
Preface xix CHAPter

A Letter to Students from This Book xxv 2 Paradigms, theory,
and research 30
PAr t ONe
What do you think? 31
An Introduction to Inquiry Introduction 31
Some Social Science Paradigms 33
CHAPter Macrotheory and Microtheory 34
1 Human Inquiry and Science 1 Early Positivism 34
Conflict Paradigm 35
What do you think? 2 Symbolic Interactionism 35
Introduction 2 Ethnomethodology 36
Looking for reality 3 Structural Functionalism 37
Knowledge from Agreement Reality 3 Feminist Paradigms 38
Ordinary Human Inquiry 4 Critical Race Theory 39
Tradition 5 Rational Objectivity Reconsidered 40
Authority 5 two Logical Systems revisited 43
Errors in Inquiry and Some Solutions 6 The Traditional Model of Science 43
the Foundations of Social Science 8 Deduction and Induction Compared 46
Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief 8 Deductive theory Construction 51
Social Regularities 8 Getting Started 51
Aggregates, Not Individuals 12 Constructing Your Theory 52
Concepts and Variables 13 An Example of Deductive Theory: Distributive
The Purposes of Social Research 17 Justice 52
The Ethics of Human Inquiry 20 Inductive theory Construction 54
Some Dialectics of Social research 20 An Example of Inductive Theory: Why Do People
Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanation 20 Smoke Marijuana? 54
Inductive and Deductive Theory 22 the Links Between theory and research 55
Determinism versus Agency 23 the Importance of theory in the “real
Qualitative and Quantitative Data 24 World” 56
The Research Proposal 26
research ethics and theory 57
What do you think? REVISITED 26
Main Points 27
Main Points 58
Key Terms 28
Key Terms 59
Proposing Social Research: Introduction 28
Proposing Social Research: Theory 59
Review Questions 29
Review Questions 59
ix
x Contents
CHAPter Units of Analysis 99

3 the ethics and Politics of Social Individuals 100
Groups 100
research 60 Organizations 101
What do you think? 61 Social Interactions 101
Social Artifacts 101
Introduction 61
Units of Analysis in Review 103
ethical Issues in Social research 62 Faulty Reasoning about Units of Analysis:
Voluntary Participation 63
The Ecological Fallacy and Reductionism 104
No Harm to the Participants 64
the time Dimension 106
Anonymity and Confidentiality 67
Cross-Sectional Studies 107
Deception 69
Longitudinal Studies 107
Analysis and Reporting 72
Approximating Longitudinal Studies 111
Institutional Review Boards 72
Examples of Research Strategies 112
Professional Codes of Ethics 74
Mixed Modes 113
two ethical Controversies 77
Trouble in the Tearoom 77 How to Design a research Project 114
Observing Human Obedience 78 Getting Started 116
Conceptualization 116
the Politics of Social research 80
Choice of Research Method 117
Objectivity and Ideology 80
Operationalization 117
Politics with a Little “p” 84
Population and Sampling 117
Politics in Perspective 85
Observations 118
What do you think? REVISITED 86 Data Processing 118
Main Points 87
Analysis 118
Key Terms 87
Application 118
Proposing Social Research: Ethical Issues 87
Research Design in Review 119
Review Questions 88
the research Proposal 120
Elements of a Research Proposal 120
PAr t t WO What do you think? REVISITED 121
the Structuring of Inquiry the ethics of research Design 122
Main Points 122
CHAPter Key Terms 123
Proposing Social Research: Design 123
4 research Design 89 Review Questions 124
What do you think? 90 Answers to Units of Analysis Quiz, Review
Question #2 124
Introduction 91
three Purposes of research 91
Exploration 92 CHAPter
Description 92 5 Conceptualization,
Explanation 93
Operationalization,
Idiographic explanation 93 and Measurement 125
the Logic of Nomothetic explanation 95
Criteria for Nomothetic Causality 95 What do you think? 126
Nomothetic Causal Analysis and Hypothesis Introduction 126
Testing 97 Measuring Anything that exists 127
False Criteria for Nomothetic Causality 97 Conceptions, Concepts, and Reality 128
Necessary and Sufficient Causes 97 Concepts as Constructs 129
Contents xi
Conceptualization 130 Scale Construction 180

Indicators and Dimensions 131 Bogardus Social Distance Scale 180
The Interchangeability of Indicators 133 Thurstone Scales 181
Real, Nominal, and Operational Definitions 133 Likert Scaling 182
Creating Conceptual Order 135 Semantic Differential 182
An Example of Conceptualization: Guttman Scaling 183
The Concept of Anomie 136 typologies 186
Definitions in Descriptive and explanatory What do you think? REVISITED 187
Studies 138 Main Points 188
Operationalization Choices 139 Key Terms 188
Range of Variation 139 Proposing Social Research: Composite
Variations between the Extremes 140 Measures 188
A Note on Dimensions 141 Review Questions 189
Defining Variables and Attributes 141
Levels of Measurement 142
Single or Multiple Indicators 146 CHAPter
Some Illustrations of Operationalization 7 the Logic of Sampling 190
Choices 147
Operationalization Goes On and On 148 What do you think? 191
Criteria of Measurement Quality 149 Introduction 191
Precision and Accuracy 149 A Brief History of Sampling 193
Reliability 149 President Alf Landon 193
Validity 152 President Thomas E. Dewey 194
Who Decides What’s Valid? 154 Two Types of Sampling Methods 195
Tension between Reliability and Validity 155 Nonprobability Sampling 195
the ethics of Measurement 156 Reliance on Available Subjects 195
What do you think? REVISITED 156 Purposive or Judgmental Sampling 196
Main Points 157 Snowball Sampling 196
Key Terms 158 Quota Sampling 197
Proposing Social Research: Measurement 158 Selecting Informants 198
Review Questions 158 the Logic and techniques of Probability
Sampling 199
Conscious and Subconscious Sampling Bias 200
CHAPter
Representativeness and Probability
6 Indexes, Scales, of Selection 201
and typologies 159 Random Selection 203
Probability Theory, Sampling Distributions,
What do you think? 160 and Estimates of Sampling Error 203
Introduction 160 Populations and Sampling Frames 211
Indexes versus Scales 161 Review of Populations and Sampling Frames 215
Index Construction 163 types of Sampling Designs 216
Item Selection 164 Simple Random Sampling 216
Examination of Empirical Relationships 164 Systematic Sampling 217
Index Scoring 169 Stratified Sampling 219
Handling Missing Data 172 Implicit Stratification in Systematic
Index Validation 176 Sampling 221
The Status of Women: An Illustration of Index Illustration: Sampling University Students 222
Construction 178 Sample Modification 222
xii Contents
Multistage Cluster Sampling 222 ChaPTER

Multistage Designs and Sampling Error 223 9 Survey Research 254
Stratification in Multistage Cluster Sampling 226
Probability Proportionate to Size (PPS) What do you think? 255
Sampling 226 Introduction 255
Disproportionate Sampling and Weighting 227
Topics appropriate for Survey Research 256
Probability Sampling in Review 229
Guidelines for asking Questions 256
The Ethics of Sampling 229 Choose Appropriate Question Forms 257
What do you think? REVISITED 229 Make Items Clear 258
Main Points 230 Avoid Double-Barreled Questions 258
Key Terms 231 Respondents Must Be Competent
Proposing Social Research: Sampling 231 to Answer 258
Review Questions 231 Respondents Must Be Willing to Answer 258
Questions Should Be Relevant 259
Short Items Are Best 259
PaR T T hR EE
Avoid Negative Items 259
Modes of Observation Avoid Biased Items and Terms 260
Questionnaire Construction 261
ChaPTER General Questionnaire Format 261
8 Experiments 232 Formats for Respondents 261
Contingency Questions 262
What do you think? 233 Matrix Questions 263
Ordering Items in a Questionnaire 264
Introduction 233
Questionnaire Instructions 264
Topics appropriate for Experiments 233 Pretesting the Questionnaire 265
The Classical Experiment 234 A Sample Questionnaire 265
Independent and Dependent Variables 234
Self-administered Questionnaires 268
Pretesting and Posttesting 235
Mail Distribution and Return 268
Experimental and Control Groups 236
Monitoring Returns 269
The Double-Blind Experiment 237
Follow-Up Mailings 270
Selecting Subjects 238 Response Rates 270
Probability Sampling 238 Compensation for Respondents 271
Randomization 239 A Case Study 272
Matching 239
Interview Surveys 273
Matching or Randomization? 240
The Role of the Survey Interviewer 273
Variations on Experimental Design 241 General Guidelines for Survey Interviewing 274
Preexperimental Research Designs 241 Coordination and Control 276
Validity Issues in Experimental Research 242
Telephone Surveys 277
Examples of Experimentation 246 Positive and Negative Factors 278
Web-Based Experiments 248 Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing
“Natural” Experiments 248 (CATI) 279
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Experimental Response Rates in Interview Surveys 280
Method 250 Online Surveys 280
Ethics and Experiments 250 Online Devices 281
Instrument Design 282
Improving Response Rates 283
Main Points 251
Key Terms 252 Mixed-Mode Surveys 284
Proposing Social Research: Experiments 252 Comparison of the Different Survey
Review Questions 253 Methods 285
Contents xiii
Strengths and Weaknesses of Survey Content Analysis 333

research 286 Topics Appropriate for Content Analysis 333
Secondary Analysis 288 Sampling in Content Analysis 334
Coding in Content Analysis 338
ethics and Survey research 291
Illustrations of Content Analysis 342
What do you think? REVISITED 291 Strengths and Weaknesses of Content
Main Points 292 Analysis 343
Key Terms 293
Analyzing existing Statistics 344
Proposing Social Research: Survey Research 293
Durkheim’s Study of Suicide 344
Review Questions 294
The Consequences of Globalization 346
CHAPter
Units of Analysis 346
Problems of Validity 347
10 Qualitative Field research 295 Problems of Reliability 347
Sources of Existing Statistics 348
What do you think? 296
Comparative and Historical research 350
Introduction 296
Examples of Comparative and Historical
topics Appropriate for Field research 297 Research 351
Special Considerations in Qualitative Field Sources of Comparative and Historical Data 354
research 300 Analytic Techniques 355
The Various Roles of the Observer 300 Unobtrusive Online Research 357
Relations to Subjects 302 ethics and Unobtrusive Measures 358
Some Qualitative Field research What do you think? REVISITED 359
Paradigms 304 Main Points 359
Naturalism 305 Key Terms 360
Ethnomethodology 306 Proposing Social Research: Unobtrusive
Grounded Theory 308 Measures 360
Case Studies and the Extended Case Method 310 Review Questions 360
Institutional Ethnography 312
Participatory Action Research 313
Conducting Qualitative Field research 316 CHAPter
Preparing for the Field 316 12 evaluation research 361
Qualitative Interviewing 318
Focus Groups 321 What do you think? 362
Recording Observations 323 Introduction 362
Strengths and Weaknesses of Qualitative topics Appropriate for evaluation
Field research 326 research 364
Validity 326 Formulating the Problem: Issues
Reliability 327 of Measurement 365
ethics in Qualitative Field research 328 Specifying Outcomes 366
What do you think? REVISITED 328 Measuring Experimental Contexts 367
Main Points 329 Specifying Interventions 368
Key Terms 329 Specifying the Population 368
Proposing Social Research: Field Research 329 New versus Existing Measures 368
Review Questions 330 Operationalizing Success/Failure 370
types of evaluation research Designs 371
CHAPter Experimental Designs 371
11 Unobtrusive research 331 Quasi-Experimental Designs 372
Qualitative Evaluations 375
What do you think? 332 Logistical Problems 377
Introduction 332 Use of Research Results 379
xiv Contents
Social Indicators research 385 CHAPter

The Death Penalty and Deterrence 385 14 Quantitative Data Analysis 422
Computer Simulation 386
ethics and evaluation research 386 What do you think? 423
What do you think? REVISITED 387 Introduction 423
Main Points 388 Quantification of Data 424
Key Terms 389 Developing Code Categories 424
Proposing Social Research: Evaluation Codebook Construction 426
Research 389 Data Entry 427
Review Questions 389 Univariate Analysis 428
Distributions 428
PAr t FOUr Central Tendency 429
Dispersion 432
Analysis of Data Continuous and Discrete Variables 433
Detail versus Manageability 433
CHAPter Subgroup Comparisons 434
13 Qualitative Data Analysis 390 “Collapsing” Response Categories 434
Handling “Don’t Knows” 435
What do you think? 391 Numerical Descriptions in Qualitative
Introduction 391 Research 435
Linking theory and Analysis 391 Bivariate Analysis 436

Discovering Patterns 392 Percentaging a Table 437
Grounded Theory Method 393 Constructing and Reading Bivariate Tables 439
Semiotics 394 Introduction to Multivariate Analysis 440
Conversation Analysis 396 Sociological Diagnostics 442
Qualitative Data Processing 396 ethics and Quantitative Data Analysis 444
Coding 397 What do you think? REVISITED 444
Memoing 401 Main Points 444
Concept Mapping 401 Key Terms 445
Computer Programs for Qualitative Data 403 Proposing Social Research: Quantitative Data
QDA Programs 404 Analysis 445
Leviticus as Seen through Qualrus 404 Review Questions 446
NVivo 408
the Qualitative Analysis of Quantitative CHAPter
Data 415 15 reading and Writing Social
evaluating the Quality of Qualitative
research 447
research 417
ethics and Qualitative Data Analysis 419 What do you think? 448
What do you think? REVISITED 420 Introduction 448
Main Points 420 reading Social research 448
Key Terms 421 Organizing a Review of the Literature 448
Proposing Social Research: Qualitative Data Reading Journals versus Books 449
Analysis 421 Evaluation of Research Reports 450
Review Questions 421 Using the Internet Wisely 455
Contents xv
Writing Social research 462 APPeNDIxeS

Some Basic Considerations 462
A Using the Library 474
Organization of the Report 464
Guidelines for Reporting Analyses 467 B Random Numbers 481
Going Public 468 C Distribution of Chi Square 483
the ethics of reading and Writing Social D Normal Curve Areas 485
research 469
e Estimated Sampling Error 486
Main Points 470
Key Terms 470 Glossary 487
Proposing Social Research: Putting the Proposal
references 499
Together 471
Review Questions 471 Index 513
Boxed Features
APPLyING CONCePtS IN eVeryDAy LIFe HOW tO DO It

Birthrate Implications 13 Analyzing Data Online with the General Social
Independent and Dependent Variables 17 Survey (GSS) 18
The Power of Paradigms 37 Framing a Hypothesis 44
Church Involvement 49 The Basic Elements of Informed Consent 66
Red Families and Blue Families 105 Putting Social Research to Work 94
On to Hollywood 146 Identifying the Unit of Analysis 103
Pregnant Chads and Voter Intentions 152 Conceptualization 134
What Is the Best College in the United Measuring College Satisfaction 148
States? 170 “Cause” and “Effect” Indicators 166
Assessing Women’s Status 180 Using a Table of Random Numbers 216
Representative Sampling 202 Conducting an Online Survey 284
Soap Opera Research Success 363 Establishing Rapport 317
Communication Is the Key 462 Reading and Evaluating Documents 355
Positive Deviance 369
Using Google Scholar and Other Online
Resources 459
ISSUeS AND INSIGHtS Citing Bibliographic Sources 466
Social Research Making a Difference 5
Hints for Stating Hypotheses 46
Ethical Issues in Research on Human
Sexuality 70
Validity and Social Desirability 154
How Healthy Is Your State? 173
Indexing the World 179
Sampling Iran 224
Interview Transcript Annotated with Researcher
Memos 324
Testing Soap Operas in Tanzania 379
Chinese Public Opinion 384
Pencils and Photos in the Hands of Research
Subjects 402
xvii
Preface
The book in your hands has been about four The Practice of Social Research, I’ve been delighted
decades in the making. It began in the class- to see that the first six editions of Basics seem to
room, when I was asked to teach a seminar in have satisfied a substantial group of instructors
survey research. Frustrated with the lack of good as well. The fine-tuning in this Seventh Edition
textbooks on the subject, I began to dream up is intended to help Basics serve this group even
something I called “A Survey Research Cookbook better than before.
and Other Fables,” which was published in 1973
with a more sober title: Survey Research Methods.
The book was an immediate success. How- ■ CHANGeS IN tHe SeVeNtH
ever, there were few courses limited to survey eDItION
research. Several instructors around the coun-
A revision like this depends heavily on the input
try asked if “the same guy” could write a more
from students and faculty, who have been using
general methods book, and The Practice of Social
earlier editions. Some of those suggestions
Research appeared two years later. The latter
resulted in two new features that have been
book has become a fixture in social research
added to every chapter:
instruction, with the Fourteenth Edition pub-
lished in 2015. The official two-volume Chinese
edition was published in Beijing in 2000.
General Changes
Over the life of this first book, successive revi- ●● Each chapter begins with a list of numbered learn-
sions have been based in large part on sugges- ing objectives that are keyed to the relevant discus-
tions, comments, requests, and corrections from sion in that chapter.
my colleagues around the country and, increas- ●● As with each edition, I have included illustrative
ingly, around the world. Many also requested a data ( from the U.S. Census, opinion polls, obser-
shorter book with a more applied orientation. vational studies) wherever possible. This doesn’t
Whereas the third quarter of the twentieth change the methodological purposes for using the
century saw a greater emphasis on quantita- data but it keeps the reader in closer touch with
tive, pure research, the century ended with a the real world.
renaissance of concern for applied sociological
research (sometimes called sociological prac- Chapter Changes
tice) and also a renewed interest in qualitative
In addition to those book-wide changes, here
research. The Basics of Social Research was first
are some of the additional updates you’ll find
published in 1999 in support of these trends. This
in specific chapters of the book. Many of these
Seventh Edition aims at increasing and improv-
changes were made in response to comments
ing that support.
and requests from students and faculty.
The book can also be seen as a response to
changes in teaching methods and in student
demographics. In addition to the emphasis on Part One: An Introduction to Inquiry
applied research, some alternative teaching for- 1 Human Inquiry and Science
mats have called for a shorter book, and student ●● Added a discussion of Arbesman’s “half-life of facts”
economics have argued for a paperback. While ●● Updated census data on birthrates
standard methods courses have continued using ●● Expanded discussion of probabilistic causation
xix
xx Preface
2 Paradigms, Theory, and Research 7 The Logic of Sampling

●● Clarified the meaning of disconfirmability in ●● Updated presidential election polling
connection with hypotheses ●● Introduced term chain referral
●● Tightened the use of paradigm and theory ●● Added Michael Brick’s prediction of a rebirth of
●● Added some bibliographic citations for classic quota sampling

references ●● Discussed FCC rules on calling cell phones
●● Introductory discussion of logic and rationality ●● Expanded discussion of sampling for online
surveys
3 The Ethics and Politics of Social Research ●● Revised box on selecting random numbers due to
●● Pointed students to the National Institutes of new table in Appendix

Health course on the ethics of human-subjects ●● Related box on sampling in Iran to sampling in
research the USA (or anywhere)
●● Added example of Facebook 2012 study violating ●● Cited Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com rating
informed consent of pollsters
Part two: the Structuring of Inquiry Part three: Modes of Observation

4 Research Design 8 Experiments
●● Added a box reporting a graduate student’s ●● Experiment on impact of race, sex, and parenthood
experience in the field on hiring decisions
●● Expanded the discussion of Figure 4-1 ●● Cited use of chimpanzees or humans in studies of
●● Expanded the box discussion of determining units the common cold

of analysis ●● Substituted Muslims for African Americans in
●● Added new figure comparing time variable and running example of reducing prejudice
different designs
●● Cited Peter Lynn book on longitudinal surveys 9 Survey Research
●● Added new section on mixed modes ●● Updated and simplified online analysis of GSS data
●● Cited Akerlof and Kennedy on the evaluation of ●● Added example of survey type and sensitive
environmental degradation studies information
●● Introduced new trend study of American fears ●● Added discussion of use of ABS (address-based
sampling) in conjunction with RDD (random digit
5 Conceptualization, Operationalization, dialing) sampling for surveys
and Measurement ●● Updated section on web surveys, including the
●● Discussion of measuring ethnicity in Cornwall advantages they hold

County, Britain ●● Added a comment on “mixed-mode” surveys
●● New Applying Concepts in Everyday Life box, ●● Noted the value of online surveys for targeting
“Validity and Social Desirability” groups defined by web participation, like eBay
●● Added discussion of cognitive interviewing buyers
●● Added an example of bullying in the workplace ●● Deleted the box on Voice Capture
●● Added a test of whether the terms baby or fetus ●● Quoted from AAPOR report on mobile devices
affected abortion attitudes ●● Cited an article on tablet-based surveys
●● Added discussion of definition of rape and other

variables 10 Qualitative Field Research
●● Added discussion of Milner’s Freaks, Geeks, and
6 Indexes, Scales, and Typologies Cool Kids
●● Updated the abortion example of a Guttman scale ●● Added discussion of the impact of gender in
to 2012 GSS in-depth interviews
●● Cited Vision of Humanity’s global peace index ●● Expanded the discussion of ethics in field research
●● Cited the World Economic Forum’s “Global ●● Added discussion of voice-centered relational
Competitiveness Index” for rating 142 economies method
preface xxi
●● Added study asking subjects to do sketches regard- ●● Learning Objectives: Each chapter includes learn-
ing their vaginal disorders ing objectives to guide the student’s understanding
●● Moved box on Pencils and Photos to Chapter 13 and comprehension of the chapter materials.
●● Added example of participatory research in South ●● Chapter Introduction: Each chapter opens with
Africa an introduction that lays out the main ideas in
●● Added citation on uses of video for data collection that chapter and, importantly, relates them to the
content of other chapters in the book.
11 Unobtrusive Research ●● Clear and Provocative Examples: Students often
●● Added data on sex discrimination in income tell me that the examples—real and hypothetical—
●● Added comparative/historical study of fair trade have helped them grasp difficult and/or abstract
coffee ideas, and this edition has many new examples as
●● Deleted box “Is America Number 1?” well as some that have proved particularly valuable
●● Deleted box “Suffering around the World” in earlier editions.
●● Introduced Population Action International ●● Full-Color Graphics: From the first time I took
mapping website a course in research methods, most of the key
●● Introduced Google Public Data concepts have made sense to me in graphical form.
●● Introduced Topsy Social Analytics Whereas my task here has been to translate those
●● Introduced the Association of Religious Data mental pictures into words, I’ve also included some
Archives and their Measurement Wizard illustrations. Advances in computer graphics
●● Discussed Tyler Vigen’s work on spurious have helped me communicate to the Cengage
correlations among big data Learning artists what I see in my head and would
like to share with students. I’m delighted with
12 Evaluation Research the new graphics in this edition.
●● Updated data on death penalty and murder rates ●● Boxed Examples and Discussions: Students tell
●● Added the example of a qualitative evaluation of a me they like the boxed materials that highlight
Jamaican radio drama for youth particular ideas and studies as well as vary the
format of the book. In this edition, I’ve updated
Part Four: Analysis of Data Issues and Insights boxed features to elaborate on
13 Qualitative Data Analysis the logic of research elements, How to Do It boxes
to provide practical guidance, and Applying
●● Moved box on Pencils and Photos here from
Concepts in Everyday Life features to help students
Chapter 10
see how the ideas they’re reading about apply to
●● Added an example of using picture-drawing to
real research projects, as well as to their lives.
study vaginal infections in Australia
●● Running Glossary: There is a running glossary
14 Quantitative Data Analysis throughout the text. Key terms are highlighted in
the text, and the definition for each term is listed at
●● Illustrated use of bar graphs and pie charts
the bottom of the page where it first appears. This
15 Reading and Writing Social Research makes it easier for students learn the definitions of
these terms and to locate them in each chapter so
●● Added citation to my e-book, Avoiding Plagiarism
they can review them in context.
●● Main Points: At the end of each chapter, a concise
list of main points provides both a brief chapter
■ PeDAGOGICAL FeAtUreS summary and a useful review. The main points
Although students and instructors alike have let students know exactly what ideas they should
told me that the past editions of this book were focus on in each chapter.
effective tools for learning research methods, ●● Key Terms: A list of key terms follows the main
I see this edition as an opportunity to review points. These lists reinforce the students’ acquisition
the book from a pedagogical standpoint—fine- of necessary vocabulary. The new vocabulary in
tuning some elements, adding others. Here’s the these lists is defined in context within the chapters.
resulting package for the Seventh Edition. The terms are boldfaced in the text, are defined in
xxii Preface
the running glossary that appears at the bottom of student through the research methods course.
the page throughout the text, and are included in Instructors personalize the experience by cus-
the glossary at the back of the book. tomizing the presentation of these learning tools
●● Proposing Social Research: This series of linked for their students, even seamlessly introducing
exercises invites students to apply what they’ve their own content into the Learning Path. Learn
learned in each chapter to the development of their more at www.cengage.com/mindtap.
own research proposal. MindTap Sociology for Babbie’s The Basics of
●● Review Questions: This review aid allows students Social Research is easy to use and saves instruc-
to test their understanding of the chapter concepts tors time by allowing them to:
and apply what they’ve learned.
●● Appendixes: As in previous editions, a set of
●● Customize the course—from tools to text—and
appendixes provides students with some research make adjustments “on the fly,” making it possible
tools, such as a guide to the library, a table of ran- to intertwine breaking news into their lessons and
dom numbers, and more. incorporate today’s teachable moments;
●● Promote personalization by segmenting course
●● Clear and Accessible Writing: This is perhaps the
most important “pedagogical aid” of all. I know content into movable objects, encourage interac-
that all authors strive to write texts that are clear tivity, and ensure student engagement;
●● Integrate multimedia assets, in-context exer-
and accessible, and I take some pride in the fact
that this “feature” of the book has been one of its cises, and supplements; student engagement will
most highly praised attributes through six previous increase, leading to better student outcomes;
●● Track students’ use, activities, and comprehension
editions. It’s the one thing most often mentioned
by the students who write to me. For the Seventh in real time, providing opportunities for early inter-
Edition, the editors and I have taken special care vention to influence progress and outcomes;
●● Assess knowledge throughout each section: after
to reexamine literally every line in the book—
pruning, polishing, embellishing, and occasionally readings, in activities, homework, and quizzes; and
●● Automatically grade homework and quizzes.
restructuring for a maximally “reader-friendly”
text. Whether you’re new to this book or intimately
Online 2014 GSS Data Sets to accompany
familiar with previous editions, I invite you to
The Basics of Social Research Over the
open to any chapter and evaluate the writing for
years, the publisher and I have sought to pro-
yourself.
vide up-to-date computer support for students
and instructors. Because there are now many
■ SUPPLeMeNtS excellent programs for analyzing data, we’ve
provided data to be used with them. With this
The Basics of Social Research, Seventh Edition, edition, the data sets will be updated to include
is accompanied by a wide array of supplements the 2014 GSS data. Instructors can access this
prepared for both the instructor and student to resource at login.cengage.com to distribute to
create the best learning environment inside as their students
well as outside the classroom. All the continuing
supplements have been thoroughly revised and Readings in Social Research Methods, third
updated, and several are new to this edition. I edition The concepts and methodologies of
invite you to examine and take full advantage of social research come to life in this interesting
the teaching and learning tools available to you. collection of articles specifically designed to
accompany The Basics of Social Research. Diane
Mindtap™: the Personal Learning experience Kholos Wysocki includes an interdisciplinary
MindTap Sociology for Babbie’s The Basics of range of readings from the fields of psychol-
Social Research from Cengage Learning repre- ogy, sociology, social work, criminal justice, and
sents a new approach to a highly personalized, political science. The articles focus on the impor-
online learning platform. MindTap combines tant methods and concepts typically covered in
all of a student’s learning tools—the chapter the social research course and provide an illus-
reading, review questions, and Research Tutor trative advantage. Organized by key concepts,
modules—into a Learning Path that guides the each of the reader’s 11 chapters begins with an
preface xxiii
introduction highlighting and explaining the suggestions from students and faculty around
research concept that each chapter’s readings the world.
elucidate. Over the years, I have become more and more
impressed by the important role played by edi-
Instructor’s Manual with Test Bank This sup-
tors in books like this. Since 1973, I’ve worked
plement offers the instructor chapter outlines,
with varied sociology editors at Wadsworth,
lecture outlines, behavioral objectives, teaching
which has involved the kinds of adjustments
suggestions and resources, video suggestions,
you might need to make in as many succes-
Internet exercises, and questions/activities to
sive marriages. Happily, this edition of the book
guide a research project. In addition, for each
has greatly profited from my partnership with
chapter of the text, the bank has at least 40
Jennifer Harrison and Marta Lee-Perriard at
multiple-choice questions, 20–25 true–false
Cengage Learning. Perhaps you have to be a text-
questions, and 5 short-answer/essay questions,
book author to appreciate how much of a differ-
with answers and page references. All questions
ence editors make in the writing and publishing
are labeled as new, modified, or pickup so instruc-
experience, but I want to report that I have been
tors know if the question is new to this edition
blessed with great partners.
of the test bank, modified but picked up from
This is the first book I’ve revised with John
the previous edition of the test bank, or picked
Chell, content developer at Cengage. His expert
up straight from the previous edition of the
devotion to the book was only so slightly inter-
test bank.
rupted by the arrival of daughter, Cassidy.
Cengage Learning testing powered by Cognero® I have worked with many editors over the
Cengage Learning Testing powered by Cognero years, but my association with Greg Hubit at
is a flexible online system that allows instructors Bookworks is longer than any other. Greg’s job is
to author, edit, and manage test bank content to put together a team of professionals capable of
and quickly create multiple test versions. You can turning an imperfect manuscript into the kind of
deliver tests from your LMS, your classroom—or book you have in your hands. I wouldn’t want to
wherever you want. make a textbook without Greg.
In my experience, copy editors are the invisi-
PowerPoint® Lecture Slides Helping make your ble heroes of publishing, and it has been my good
lectures more engaging, these handy Microsoft® fortune and pleasure to have worked with one of
PowerPoint slides outline the chapters of the the very best, Marne Evans, for several years and
main text in a classroom-ready presentation, several editions. Among her many gifts, Marne
making it easy for instructors to assemble, edit, has the uncanny ability to hear what I am trying
publish, and present custom lectures. to say and to find ways to help others hear it.
In recent editions, I have developed a close
working relationship with Deb Nichols, who
■ ACKNOWLeDGMeNtS shepherds the edited manuscript into page
It would be impossible to acknowledge ade- proofs. Hers are the final critical set of eyes
quately all the people who have influenced this before the book is printed.
book. My earlier methods text, Survey Research I have dedicated this book to my granddaugh-
Methods, was dedicated to Samuel Stouffer, Paul ter, Evelyn Fay Babbie, born during the revision
Lazarsfeld, and Charles Glock. I again acknowl- of the Second Edition of the book, and my grand-
edge my debt to them. son, Henry Robert Babbie, born during the revi-
Many colleagues helped me through the sev- sion of the Third Edition. They continued to add
eral editions of The Practice of Social Research and joy to my life during the revision of the Seventh
The Basics of Social Research. Their contributions Edition, and I am committed to their growing up
are still present in this edition of Basics, as are in a more humane and just world than the one
the end results from unsolicited comments and they were born into.
A Letter to Students from This Book
I’ve asked my author and your instructor to chat If you’re worried about statistics in a course
among themselves so you and I can have a pri- like this, I must tell you something. There are
vate conversation. Before you start reading this some statistics. But it’s not what you think. It’s
book, I want to let you in on something: I know not just an evil swarm of numbers. Statistics has
you may not want me. You may not have chosen a logic that allows us to do amazing things. Did
to take this course. My guess is that you’re read- you know that questioning around 2,000 people,
ing me because I’ve been assigned in a required properly selected, can let us forecast the results
research methods class. In that case, it’s a bit like of an election in which over 100 million people
an arranged marriage. vote? I think you might find it’s worth learning a
I also know that you likely have some con- little statistics in order to understand how that
cerns about this course, especially its potential sort of thing works. (In all my years as a textbook,
difficulty. If you do, you’re not alone. I certainly I’ve never gotten tired of that example.)
don’t want to create such concerns. However, Chapter 14 contains quite a bit of statistics,
I know from years of personal experience that because it deals with quantitative (numeri-
many students feel anxious at the beginning of a cal) data analysis. Frankly, my author has never
social research course. In this short chat, I want found a way of teaching students how to do sta-
to reassure you that it will not be as bad as you tistical analyses without using some statistics.
think. You may even enjoy this course. You see, a However, you’ll find more emphasis on the logic
great many students from all over the world have of statistics than on mathematical calculations.
written to my author to say just that: They were Maybe I should let you in on a little secret:
worried about the course at the beginning, but My author never took a basic statistics course!
they ended up truly enjoying it. In his undergraduate major, statistics wasn’t
So, to be clear, I’m not Freddy Krueger or required. When he arrived at graduate school,
Chucky—some monster plotting to make your a simple misunderstanding (really, you can’t
college years miserable. I’m not even a dean. It’s a blame him for this) led him to indicate he had
little early in our relationship to call myself your already taken introductory statistics when that
friend, of course, but I do get called that a lot. I’m wasn’t, well, technically true. He only got an A in
confident we can work together. the advanced graduate statistics course because
Benjamin Spock, the renowned author and it focused on the logic of statistics more than on
pediatrician, began his books on child care by calculations. Statistics made sense to him, even
assuring new parents that they already knew without memorizing the calculations.
more about caring for children than they thought Here’s a more embarrassing secret that he
they did. I want to begin on a similar note. Before probably wouldn’t want you to know. When he
you’ve read very far, you’ll see that you already published his first research methods textbook
know a great deal about the practice of social 35 years ago, his chapter on statistics had only
research. In fact, you’ve been conducting social three calculations—and he got two of them wrong.
research all your life. From that perspective, (He’s gotten much better, by the way. However,
this book aims at helping you sharpen skills you if you find any mistakes, please write him. I’m
already have and perhaps show you some tricks much happier when everything between the cov-
that may not have occurred to you. ers is in good order.)
xxv
xxvi A LETTER TO STUDENTS FRom THIS BOOK
The purpose of these confessions is not to course. So when it’s time for evaluations, please
downplay the importance of statistical analy- separate your instructor’s performance from any
ses: I shall present them to you with the highest concerns you may have had about the material.
respect. My purpose is to let you know that sta- Of course, you might find yourself thoroughly
tistics is not a mystical world that only math wiz- enjoying the subject of social science research.
ards enter. Statistics is a powerful tool that will My author and I do, and so does your instructor.
help you understand the world around you. My We plan to do everything possible to share that
author and I merely want help you learn enough enjoyment with you.
of it to wield that tool to your advantage. If you’re at all concerned about the state of
What can you do if you come across some- the world (and I think you should be), it’s worth
thing in this book or in class that you simply knowing that social research is a key to solv-
don’t understand? You have several options: ing most major problems. No joke. Consider
the problem of overpopulation, for example.
1. Assume that it will never matter that much,
My author is fond of calling it the “mother of all
and go on with your life.
social problems.” (You’ll get used to his sense of
2. Decide that you are too stupid to understand
humor as you make your way through my pages.
such sophisticated ideas.
Be sure to check the glossary, by the way.)
3. Ask someone else in the course if they
Anyway, back to overpopulation. Most simply
understand it.
put, there are more people on the planet than
4. Ask your instructor to clarify it.
it can sustain, even at the impoverished stan-
5. In case of emergency: e-mail my author
dard of living many of those people suffer. And if
at ebabbie@mac.com.
everyone were living like those in the most devel-
Options (1) and (2) are not good choices. Try oped countries, our resources would last about a
(3), (4), and (5)—in that order. week and a half and our carbon footprint would
As regards (5), by the way, please realize that crush us like bugs. And the world’s population is
tens of thousands of students around the world growing by about 80 million people a year. That’s
are using this book, in many languages, every another United States every four years.
semester, so it may take my author a little while Where would you go for an answer to a prob-
to get back to you. He doesn’t have a workshop lem like that? My author is fond of saying that at
of methodology elves helping him. Here’s a hint: first people asked, “What causes all the babies?”
Do not frame your question in the form of a take- and they turned to the biologists for help. But
home exam, as in “What are three advantages of when they learned what was causing the babies,
qualitative research over quantitative research?” that didn’t solve the problem. Frankly, they
My author doesn’t answer those sorts of ques- weren’t willing to give up sex. So they turned to
tions. You are the one taking the exam. He’s taken the rubber industry for help. That made some
enough exams already. Besides, he would give difference, but the population continued to grow.
answers that leave out all the great material your Finally, people turned to the chemical industry:
instructor brings to the course. “Can’t we just take a pill and be able to have sex
Speaking of your instructor, by the way, please without producing babies?” Soon the pills were
know that this is not the easiest course to teach. developed and they made some difference, but
Even if the statistics are not as heavy as you the population still continued to grow.
thought, you’ll be asked to open yourself up to As I’ve learned from my author, the key to
new ways of seeing and understanding. That’s population growth lies in the social structures
not necessarily comfortable, and your instruc- that lead people to have more babies than
tor has taken on the task of guiding you through is needed to perpetuate the human species
whatever confusion and/or discomfort you may (roughly two babies per couple). Consider, for
experience. So, give ’em a break. example, the social belief that a woman is not
Instructors know that this course typically pro- “really a woman” until she has given birth, or the
duces lower-than-average teacher evaluations. complementary belief that a man is not “really
Personally, I think it’s because of the subject a man” until he has sired young. Some people
matter as well as the fears students bring to the feel they should produce children to take care of
A Letter to StudentS from thiS Book xxvii
them when they are old, or to perpetuate their The pressing need for well-trained social
name (the father’s name in most cases). Many researchers is what motivates my author and
other social perspectives promote the produc- your instructor to do what they do. It also
tion of more than enough babies. explains why you may be required to take this
The biologists, chemists, and rubber manu- course—even against your will. We’re arming
facturers can’t address those causes of overpopu- you to make a powerful difference in the world
lation. That is precisely where social researchers around you. What you do with that new ability
come in. Social researchers can discover the most is up to you, but we hope you will use it only for
powerful causes of social problems like over- the good.
population, prejudice, war, and climate change I’ll turn you over to my author now. I’ll do
(yes, even climate change) and explore ways everything I can to make this a fun and useful
of combating them. course for you.
© Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com
1 Human Inquiry and Science

Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, you will be able to . . .
LO1 Identify the different ways people decide
what’s real.
LO2 Be able to explain the fundamental nature
of social science.
LO3 Understand the basic options for conducting
social science research.
In this chapter . . .
Introduction
Looking for Reality
Knowledge from Agreement Reality
Ordinary Human Inquiry
Tradition
Authority
Errors in Inquiry and Some Solutions
What do you think
The decision
to have a
baby is deeply
personal. No
one is in charge
of who will have
?
Earl Babbie
babies in the
The Foundations of Social Science
United States in
Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief
any given year,
Social Regularities
or of how many will be born. Although you
Aggregates, Not Individuals
must get a license to marry or go fishing, you
Concepts and Variables
do not need a license to have a baby. Many
The Purposes of Social Research
couples delay pregnancy, some pregnancies
The Ethics of Human Inquiry
happen by accident, and some pregnancies
Some Dialectics of Social Research are planned. Given all these uncertainties
Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanation and idiosyncrasies, how can baby-food and
Inductive and Deductive Theory diaper manufacturers know how much
Determinism versus Agency inventory to produce from year to year? By
Qualitative and Quantitative Data the end of this chapter, you should be
The Research Proposal able to answer this question.
See the What do you think? Revisited
box toward the end of the chapter.
■■INTRODUCTION
This book is about knowing things—not so much
what we know as how we know it. Let’s start
by examining a few things you probably know
already. Of course, at one time, everyone “knew” the
You know the world is round. You probably world was flat.
also know it’s cold on the dark side of the moon Most of what you know is a matter of agree-
(the side facing away from the sun), and you ment and belief. Little of it is based on personal
know people speak Japanese in Japan. You know experience and discovery. A big part of growing
that vitamin C can prevent colds and that unpro- up in any society, in fact, is the process of learning
tected sex can result in AIDS. to accept what everybody around you “knows”
How do you know? If you think for a minute, is so. If you don’t know those same things, you
you’ll see you know these things because some- can’t really be a part of the group. If you were to
body told them to you, and you believed them. question seriously that the world is round, you’d
You may have read in National Geographic that quickly find yourself set apart from other people.
people speak Japanese in Japan, and that made You might be sent to live in a hospital with others
sense to you, so you didn’t question it. Perhaps who ask questions like that.
your physics or astronomy instructor told you it So, most of what you know is a matter of
was cold on the dark side of the moon, or maybe believing what you’ve been told. Understand that
you heard it on the news. there’s nothing wrong with you in that respect.
Some of the things you know seem obvious That’s simply the way human societies are struc-
to you. If I asked you how you know the world tured. The basis of knowledge is agreement.
is round, you’d probably say, “Everybody knows Because you can’t learn all you need to know
that.” There are a lot of things everybody knows. through personal experience and discovery
LOOKING FOR REALITY 3
alone, things are set up so you can simply believe

what others tell you. You know some things
through tradition, others from “experts.” I’m
not saying you shouldn’t question this received
knowledge; I’m just drawing your attention
to the way you and society normally get along
regarding what is so.
There are other ways of knowing things, how-
ever. In contrast to knowing things through
agreement, you can know them through direct
experience—through observation. If you dive
Earl Babbie
into a glacial stream flowing through the Cana-
dian Rockies, you don’t need anyone to tell you
it’s cold. We learn some things by experience, others by
When your experience conflicts with what agreement. This young man seems to be learning by
personal experience.
everyone else knows, though, there’s a good
chance you’ll surrender your experience in
favor of agreement. For example, imagine you’ve Aside from these agreements, what’s wrong
come to a party at my house. It’s a high-class with worms? They’re probably high in protein
affair, and the drinks and food are excellent. In and low in calories. Bite-sized and easily pack-
particular, you’re taken by one of the appetiz- aged, they’re a distributor’s dream. They are also
ers I bring around on a tray: a breaded, deep- a delicacy for some people who live in societies
fried tidbit that’s especially zesty. You have a that lack our agreement that worms are disgust-
couple—they’re so delicious! You have more. ing. Some people might love the worms but be
Soon you’re subtly moving around the room to turned off by the deep-fried breading.
be wherever I am when I arrive with a tray of Here’s a question to consider: “Are worms
these nibblies. really good or really bad to eat?” And here’s a
Finally, you can contain yourself no longer. more interesting question: “How could you know
“What are they?” you ask. I let you in on the which was really so?” This book is about answer-
secret: “You’ve been eating breaded, deep-fried ing the second question.
worms!” Your response is dramatic: Your stom-
ach rebels, and you promptly throw up all over
the living room rug. What a terrible thing to ■■LOOKING FOR REALITY
serve guests! Reality is a tricky business. You’ve prob-
The point of the story is that both of your feel- LO1
ably long suspected that some of the
ings about the appetizer were quite real. Your things you “know” may not be true, but how can
initial liking for them was certainly real, but you really know what’s real? People have grap-
so was the feeling you had when you found out pled with this question for thousands of years.
what you’d been eating. It should be evident,
however, that the disgust you felt was strictly a
Knowledge from Agreement Reality
product of the agreements you have with those
around you that worms aren’t fit to eat. That’s an One answer that has arisen out of that grap-
agreement you began the first time your parents pling is science, which offers an approach to
found you sitting in a pile of dirt with half of a both agreement reality and experiential real-
wriggling worm dangling from your lips. When ity. Scientists have certain criteria that must be
they pried your mouth open and reached down met before they’ll accept the reality of some-
your throat for the other half of the worm, you thing they haven’t personally experienced. In
learned that worms are not acceptable food in general, an assertion must have both logical
our society. and empirical support: It must make sense,
4 CHAPTER 1 HumAn InquIRy And SCIEnCE
and it must not contradict actual observation. are somehow caused or conditioned by present
Why do earthbound scientists accept the asser- ones. We learn that swimming beyond the reef
tion that it’s cold on the dark side of the moon? may bring an unhappy encounter with a shark.
First, it makes sense, because the surface heat As students we learn that studying hard will
of the moon comes from the sun’s rays. Sec- result in better grades. Second, we also learn
ond, the scientific measurements made on that such patterns of cause and effect are proba-
the moon’s dark side confirm the expectation. bilistic in nature: The effects occur more often
So, scientists accept the reality of things they when the causes occur than when the causes
don’t personally experience—they accept an are absent—but not always. Thus, students learn
agreement reality—but they have special stan- that studying hard produces good grades in most
dards for doing so. instances, but not every time. We recognize the
More to the point of this book, however, sci- danger of swimming beyond the reef, without
ence offers a special approach to the discovery believing that every such swim will be fatal.
of reality through personal experience, that is, As we’ll see throughout the book, science
to the business of inquiry. Epistemology is the makes these concepts of causality and prob-
science of knowing; methodology (a subfield ability more explicit and provides techniques
of epistemology) might be called the science of for dealing with them more rigorously than does
finding out. This book is an examination and pre- casual human inquiry. It sharpens the skills
sentation of social science methodology, or how we already have by making us more conscious,
social scientists find out about human social life. rigorous, and explicit in our inquiries.
You’ll see that some of the methods coincide with In looking at ordinary human inquiry, we
the traditional image of science but others have need to distinguish between prediction and
been specially geared to sociological concerns. understanding. Often, we can make predic-
In the rest of this chapter, we’ll look at inquiry tions without understanding—perhaps you can
as an activity. We’ll begin by examining inquiry predict rain when your trick knee aches. And
as a natural human activity, something you and often, even if we don’t understand why, we’re
I have engaged in every day of our lives. Next, willing to act on the basis of a demonstrated
we’ll look at some kinds of errors we make in predictive ability. The racetrack buff who finds
normal inquiry, and we’ll conclude by examining that the third-ranked horse in the third race of
what makes science different. We’ll see some of the day always wins will probably keep betting
the ways science guards against common human without knowing, or caring, why it works out
errors in inquiry. that way.
The Issues and Insights box, “Social Research Whatever the primitive drives or instincts
Making a Difference,” gives an example of con- motivate human beings, satisfying these urges
trolled social research challenging what “every- depends heavily on the ability to predict future
body knows.” circumstances. However, the attempt to predict
is often placed in a context of knowledge and
Ordinary Human Inquiry understanding. If we can understand why things
are related to one another, why certain regular
Practically all people exhibit a desire to pre- patterns occur, we can predict even better than
dict their future circumstances. We seem quite if we simply observe and remember those pat-
willing, moreover, to undertake this task using terns. Thus, human inquiry aims at answering
causal and probabilistic reasoning. First, we both “what” and “why” questions, and we pursue
generally recognize that future circumstances these goals by observing and figuring out.
As I suggested earlier, our attempts to learn
agreement reality Those things we “know” as part and about the world are only partly linked to direct,
parcel of the culture we share with those around us. personal inquiry or experience. Another, much
epistemology The science of knowing; systems of knowledge. larger, part comes from the agreed-on knowledge
methodology The science of finding out; procedures for that others give us. This agreement reality both
scientific investigation. assists and hinders our attempts to find out for
ISSUES AND INSIGHTS

Social Research Making a Difference
Medication errors in U.S. hospitals kill or the new technology. Their conclusion: CPOE
injure about 770,000 patients each year, and was not nearly as effective as claimed; it did
the newly developed Computerized Physician not prevent errors in medication (Koppel
Order Entry (CPOE) systems have been widely et al. 2005).
acclaimed as the solution to this enormous As you can imagine, those manufacturing
problem, which stems in part from the tradi- and selling the equipment were not thrilled by
tional system of handwritten prescriptions. the research, and it has generated an ongoing
Medical science research has generally discussion within the healthcare community.
supported the new technology, but an article At last count, the study had been cited over
in the Journal of the American Medical Asso- 20,000 times in other articles, and Koppel has
ciation in March 2005 sent a shock wave become a sought-after expert in this regard.
through the medical community. The sociolo-
Source: Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, “Medical Errors:
gist Ross Koppel and colleagues used several Sociological Research Makes News,” Sociological Practice
of the research techniques you’ll be learn- Newsletter (American Sociological Association, Section
ing in this book to test the effectiveness of on Sociological Practice), Winter 2006, p. 1.
ourselves. To see how, consider two important “standing on the shoulders of giants,” that is,
sources of our secondhand knowledge—tradition starting with the knowledge base of previous
and authority. generations.
At the same time, tradition may be detrimen-
Tradition tal to human inquiry. If we seek a fresh under-
standing of something that everybody already
Each of us inherits a culture made up, in part, of understands and has always understood, we may
firmly accepted knowledge about the workings be marked as fools for our efforts. More to the
of the world and the values that guide our par- point, however, most of us rarely even think of
ticipation in it. We may learn from others that seeking a different understanding of something
eating too much candy will decay our teeth, that we all “know” to be true.
the circumference of a circle is approximately
twenty-two sevenths of its diameter, or that
Authority
masturbation will make you blind. Ideas about
gender, race, religion, and different nations Despite the power of tradition, new knowledge
that you learned as you were growing up would appears every day. Aside from our personal
fit in this category. We may test a few of these inquiries, we benefit throughout life from new
“truths” on our own, but we simply accept the discoveries and understandings produced by
great majority of them, the things that “every- others. Often, acceptance of these new acquisi-
body knows.” tions depends on the status of the discoverer.
Tradition, in this sense of the term, offers You’re more likely to believe the epidemiolo-
some clear advantages to human inquiry. By gist who declares that the common cold can
accepting what everybody knows, we avoid be transmitted through kissing, for example,
the overwhelming task of starting from scratch than to believe your uncle Pete saying the same
in our search for regularities and understand- thing.
ing. Knowledge is cumulative, and an inherited Like tradition, authority can both assist and
body of knowledge is the jumping-off point hinder human inquiry. We do well to trust the
for developing more of it. We often speak of judgment of the person who has special training,
expertise, and credentials in a given matter, espe- meeting with a conscious plan to observe and
cially in the face of controversy. At the same time, record what your instructor was wearing, how-
inquiry can be greatly hindered by the legitimate ever, you’d likely be more accurate. (You might
authority who errs within his or her own special also need a hobby.)
province. Biologists, after all, do make mistakes In many cases, both simple and complex mea-
in the field of biology. surement devices help guard against inaccurate
Inquiry is also hindered when we depend on observations. Moreover, they add a degree of pre-
the authority of experts speaking outside their cision well beyond the capacity of the unassisted
realm of expertise. For example, consider the human senses. Suppose, for example, that you
political or religious leader with no biochemi- had taken color photographs of your instructor
cal expertise who declares that marijuana is that day. (See earlier comment about needing a
a dangerous drug. The advertising industry hobby.)
plays heavily on this misuse of authority by,
for example, having popular athletes discuss Overgeneralization When we look for pat-
the nutritional value of breakfast cereals or terns among the specific things we observe
movie actors evaluate the performance of around us, we often assume that a few similar
automobiles. events are evidence of a general pattern. That
Both tradition and authority, then, are double- is, we tend to overgeneralize on the basis of lim-
edged swords in the search for knowledge about ited observations. This can misdirect or impede
the world. Simply put, they provide us with a inquiry.
starting point for our own inquiry, but they can Imagine that you’re a reporter covering an
lead us to start at the wrong point and push us animal-rights demonstration. You have just two
off in the wrong direction. hours to turn in your story. Rushing to the scene,
you start interviewing people, asking them why
they’re demonstrating. If the first two demon-
Errors in Inquiry and Some Solutions strators you interview give you essentially the
Quite aside from the potential dangers of tra- same reason, you might simply assume that the
dition and authority, we often stumble and fall other 3,000 would agree. Unfortunately, when
when we set out to learn for ourselves. Let’s look your story appeared, your editor could get scores
at some of the common errors we make in our of letters from protesters who were there for an
casual inquiries and the ways science guards entirely different reason.
against those errors. Realize, of course, that we must generalize to
some extent to survive. It’s probably not a good
Inaccurate Observations Quite frequently, we idea to keep asking whether this rattlesnake
make mistakes in our observations. For exam- is poisonous. Assume they all are. At the same
ple, what was your methodology instructor time, we have a tendency to overgeneralize
wearing on the first day of class? If you have Scientists guard against overgeneralization
to guess, that’s because most of our daily by seeking a sufficiently large sample of obser-
observations are casual and semiconscious. vations. The replication of inquiry provides
That’s why we often disagree about “what really another safeguard. Basically, this means repeat-
happened.” ing a study and checking to see if the same
In contrast to casual human inquiry, scien- results occur each time. Then, as a further test,
tific observation is a conscious activity. Simply the study can be repeated under slightly varied
making observation more deliberate can reduce conditions.
error. If you had to guess what your instructor
was wearing the first day of class, you’d probably Selective Observation One danger of over-
make a mistake. If you had gone to the first class generalization is that it can lead to selective
observation. Once you have concluded that a
particular pattern exists and have developed
replication Repeating an experiment to expose or reduce a general understanding of why it does, you’ll
error. tend to focus on future events and situations
that fit the pattern, and you’ll ignore those business executive who is kind and feminine is
that don’t. Racial and ethnic prejudices depend taken as “proof ” that all other female executives
heavily on selective observation for their are mean and masculine.
persistence. What statisticians have called the gambler’s
In another example, here’s how Lewis Hill fallacy is another illustration of illogic in day-to-
recalls growing up in rural Vermont: day reasoning. A consistent run of either good or
bad luck is presumed to foreshadow its opposite.
Haying began right after the Fourth of July. The
farmers in our neighborhood believed that An evening of bad luck at poker may kindle the
anyone who started earlier was sure to suffer all belief that a winning hand is just around the cor-
the storms of late June in addition to those fol- ner; many a poker player has stayed in a game
lowing the holiday which the oldtimers said were much too long because of that mistaken belief.
caused by all the noise and smoke of gunpowder (A more reasonable conclusion is that they are
burning. My mother told me that my grandfather not very good at poker.)
and other Civil War veterans claimed it always Although all of us sometimes fall into embar-
rained hard after a big battle. Things didn’t always rassingly illogical reasoning in daily life, scien-
work out the way the older residents promised, of tists avoid this pitfall by using systems of logic
course, but everyone remembered only the times
consciously and explicitly. Chapter 2 will exam-
they did. — (2000: 35)
ine the logic of science in more depth. For now,
Sometimes a research design will specify in it’s enough to note that logical reasoning is a
advance the number and kind of observations conscious activity for scientists, who have col-
to be made, as a basis for reaching a conclusion. leagues around to keep them honest.
If you and I wanted to learn whether women Science, then, attempts to protect us from the
were more likely than men to support the legal- common pitfalls of ordinary inquiry. Accurately
ity of abortion, we’d commit ourselves to mak- observing and understanding reality is not an
ing a specified number of observations on that obvious or trivial matter, as we’ll see throughout
question in a research project. We might select a this chapter and this book.
thousand people to be interviewed on the issue. Before moving on, I should caution you that
Alternately, when making direct observations of scientific understandings of things are also
an event, such as an animal-rights demonstra- constantly changing. Any review of the history
tion, social scientists make a special effort to of science will provide numerous examples
find “deviant cases”—those who do not fit into of old “knowledge” being supplanted by new
the general pattern. “knowledge.” It’s easy to feel superior to the sci-
entists of a hundred or a thousand years ago,
Illogical Reasoning There are other ways in but I fear there is a tendency to think those
which we often deal with observations that con- changes are all behind us. Now, we know the
tradict our understanding of the way things are way things are.
in daily life. Surely one of the most remarkable In The Half-Life of Facts (2012), Samuel Arbes-
creations of the human mind is “the exception man addresses the question of how long today’s
that proves the rule.” That idea doesn’t make any scientific “facts” survive reconceptualization,
sense at all. An exception can draw attention to retesting, and new discoveries. For example,
a rule or to a supposed rule (in its original mean- half of what medical science knew about hepa-
ing, “prove” meant “test”), but in no system of titis and cirrhosis of the liver was replaced in
logic can it validate the rule it contradicts. Even 45 years.
so, we often use this pithy saying to brush away The fact that scientific knowledge is con-
contradictions with a simple stroke of illogic. stantly changing actually points to a strength of
This is particularly common in relation to group scientific scholarship. Whereas cultural beliefs
stereotypes. When a person of color, a woman, and superstitions may survive unchallenged for
or a gay violates the stereotype someone holds centuries, scientists are committed to achieving
for that group, it somehow “proves” that, aside an ever better understanding of the world. My
from this one exception, the stereotype remains purpose in this book is to prepare you to join that
“valid” for all the rest. For example, a woman undertaking.
■■THE FOUNDATIONS scientifically whether capitalism or socialism

most supports human dignity and freedom, we
OF SOCIAL SCIENCE would first have to agree on some measurable
The two pillars of science are logic and definitions of dignity and freedom. Our conclu-
LO2
observation. A scientific understanding sions would depend totally on this agreement
of the world must (1) make sense and (2) cor- and would have no general meaning beyond it.
respond with what we observe. Both elements By the same token, if we could agree that
are essential to science and relate to three major suicide rates, say, or giving to charity were good
aspects of the overall scientific enterprise: the- measures of a religion’s quality, then we could
ory, data collection, and data analysis. determine scientifically whether Buddhism or
In the most general terms, scientific theory Christianity is the better religion. Again, our
deals with logic; data collection with observa- conclusion would be inextricably tied to the
tion; and data analysis deals with patterns in given criterion. As a practical matter, people
what is observed and, where appropriate, the seldom agree on criteria for determining issues
comparison of what is logically expected with of value, so science is seldom useful in settling
what is actually observed. Though most of this such debates. In fact, questions like these are so
textbook deals with data collection and data much a matter of opinion and belief that scien-
analysis—demonstrating how to conduct empir- tific inquiry is often viewed as a threat to what is
ical research—recognize that social science “already known.”
involves all three elements. As such, Chapter 2 We’ll consider this issue in more detail
of this book concerns the theoretical context of in Chapter 12, when we look at evaluation
research; Parts 2 and 3 focus on data collection; research. As you’ll see, social scientists have
and Part 4 offers an introduction to the analysis become increasingly involved in studying pro-
of data. Figure 1-1 offers a schematic view of how grams that reflect ideological points of view,
this book addresses these three aspects of social such as affirmative action or welfare reform.
science. One of the biggest problems researchers face
Let’s turn now to some of the fundamental is getting people to agree on criteria of suc-
issues that distinguish social science from other cess and failure. Yet such criteria are essential if
ways of looking at social phenomena. social science research is to tell us anything use-
ful about matters of value. By analogy, a stop-
Theory, Not Philosophy or Belief watch can’t tell us if one sprinter is better than
another unless we first agree that speed is the
Social science theory has to do with what is, not critical criterion.
with what should be. For many centuries, how- Social science, then, can help us know only
ever, social theory has combined these two ori- what is and why. We can use it to determine what
entations. Social philosophers liberally mixed ought to be, but only when people agree on the
their observations of what happened around criteria for deciding what’s better than something
them, their speculations about why, and their else—an agreement that seldom occurs. With that
ideas about how things ought to be. Although understood, let’s turn now to some of the funda-
modern social scientists may do the same from mental bases upon which social science allows us
time to time, realize that social science has to do to develop theories about what is and why.
with how things are and why.
This means that scientific theory—and sci-
Social Regularities
ence itself—cannot settle debates on value.
Science cannot determine whether capital- In large part, social science theory aims to find
ism is better or worse than socialism except patterns in social life. That aim, of course, applies
in terms of agreed-on criteria. To determine to all science, but it sometimes presents a bar-
rier to people when they first approach social
theory A systematic explanation for the observations that science.
relate to a particular aspect of life: juvenile delinquency, for Actually, the vast number of formal norms in
example, or perhaps social stratification or political revolution. society create a considerable degree of regularity.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 9
Theory
Religious affiliation
Prejudice
Education Voting behavior
Social class
Chapters 2– 3
Data Collection
Planning to do Sampling Observation Data processing

research
Chapters 4–6 Chapter 7 Chapters 8–12 Chapters 13–14
Data Analysis
x x
a y 34% 78%
Application
c
d g
b y 66% 22%
Part 4
FIGURE 1-1 Social Science 5 Theory 1 Data Collection 1 Data Analysis. This figure offers a schematic overview of
the major stages of social research, indicating where each is discussed in this book.
For example, only people who have reached a Stouffer and his colleagues focused their stud-
certain age can vote in elections. In the U.S. mili- ies on two units: the Military Police (MPs), which
tary, until recently only men could participate in had the slowest promotions in the Army, and the
combat. Such formal prescriptions, then, regu- Army Air Corps (forerunner of the U.S. Air Force),
late, or regularize, social behavior. which had the fastest promotions. It stood to
Aside from formal prescriptions, we can reason that MPs would say the promotion sys-
observe other social norms that create more tem was unfair, and the air corpsmen would say
regularities. Republicans are more likely than it was fair. The studies, however, showed just the
Democrats to vote for Republican candidates. opposite.
University professors tend to earn more money Notice the dilemma faced by a researcher in
than do unskilled laborers. Men earn more than a situation such as this. On the one hand, the
do women. (We’ll look at this pattern in more observations don’t seem to make sense. On the
depth later in the book.) The list of regularities other hand, an explanation that makes obvious
could go on and on. good sense isn’t supported by the facts.
Three objections are sometimes raised in A lesser scientist would have set the prob-
regard to such social regularities. First, some of lem aside “for further study.” Stouffer, however,
the regularities may seem trivial. For example, looked for an explanation for his observations,
Republicans vote for Republicans; everyone and eventually he found it. Robert Merton, Alice
knows that. Second, contradictory cases may be Kitt (1950), and other sociologists at Columbia
cited, indicating that the “regularity” isn’t totally University had begun thinking and writing about
regular. Some laborers make more money than something they called reference group theory. This
some professors do. Third, it may be argued that theory says that people judge their lot in life less
the people involved in the regularity could upset by objective conditions than by comparing them-
the whole thing if they wanted to. selves with others around them—their reference
Let’s deal with each of these objections in group. For example, if you lived among poor peo-
turn. ple, a salary of $50,000 a year would make you feel
like a millionaire. But if you lived among people
The Charge of Triviality During World War II, who earned $500,000 a year, that same $50,000
Samuel Stouffer, one of the greatest social sci- salary would make you feel impoverished.
ence researchers, organized a research branch Stouffer applied this line of reasoning to the
in the U.S. Army to conduct studies in support of soldiers he had studied. Even if a particular MP
the war effort (Stouffer et al. 1949–1950). Many had not been promoted for a long time, it was
of the studies focused on the morale among sol- unlikely that he knew some less-deserving per-
diers. Stouffer and his colleagues found there was son who had gotten promoted more quickly.
a great deal of “common wisdom” regarding the Nobody got promoted in the MPs. Had he been in
bases of military morale. Much of the research the Air Corps—even if he had gotten several pro-
undertaken by this organization was devoted to motions in rapid succession—he would probably
testing these “obvious” truths. have been able to point to someone less deserv-
For example, people had long recognized ing who had gotten even faster promotions. An
that promotions affect morale in the military. MP’s reference group, then, was his fellow MPs,
When military personnel get promotions and and the air corpsman compared himself with fel-
the promotion system seems fair, morale rises. low corpsmen. Ultimately, then, Stouffer reached
Moreover, it makes sense that people who are an understanding of soldiers’ attitudes toward
getting promoted will tend to think the system the promotion system that (1) made sense and
is fair, whereas those passed over will likely (2) corresponded to the facts.
think the system is unfair. By extension, it This story shows that documenting the obvi-
seems sensible that soldiers in units with slow ous is a valuable function of any science, physi-
promotion rates will tend to think the system cal or social. Charles Darwin coined the phrase
is unfair, and those in units with rapid promo- fool’s experiment to describe much of his own
tions will think the system is fair. But was this research—research in which he tested things
the way they really felt? that everyone else “already knew.” As Darwin
understood, the obvious all too often turns out to Social regularities, then, do exist, and social
be wrong; thus, apparent triviality is not a legiti- scientists can detect them and observe their
mate objection to any scientific endeavor. effects. When these regularities change over
time, social scientists can observe and explain
What about Exceptions? The objection that those changes.
there are always exceptions to any social regu- There is a slightly different form of human
larity does not mean that the regularity itself is interference that makes social research particu-
unreal or unimportant. A particular woman may larly challenging. Social research has a recursive
well earn more money than most men, but that quality, in that what we learn about society can
provides small consolation to the majority of end up changing things so that what we learned
women, who earn less. The pattern still exists. is no longer true. For example, every now and
Social regularities, in other words, are probabi- then you may come across a study reporting
listic patterns, and they are no less real simply “The Ten Best Places to Live,” or something
because some cases don’t fit the general pattern. like that. The touted communities aren’t too
This point applies in physical science as well as crowded, yet they have all the stores you’d ever
social science. Subatomic physics, for example, is want; the schools and other public facilities are
a science of probabilities. In genetics, the mating great, crime is low, the ratio of doctors per capita
of a blue-eyed person with a brown-eyed person is high, the list goes on. What happens when this
will probably result in a brown-eyed offspring. information is publicized? People move there,
The birth of a blue-eyed child does not destroy the towns become overcrowded, and, eventually
the observed regularity, because the geneticist they are not such nice places to live. More sim-
states only that the brown-eyed offspring is more ply, imagine what results from a study that cul-
likely and, further, that brown-eyed offspring minates in a published list of the least-crowded
will be born in a certain percentage of the cases. beaches or fishing spots.
The social scientist makes a similar, probabilis- In 2001, the Enron Corporation was fast
tic prediction—that women overall are likely approaching bankruptcy and some of its top
to earn less than men. Once a pattern like this executives were quietly selling their shares in the
is observed, the social scientist has grounds for company. During this period, those very execu-
asking why it exists. tives were reassuring employees of the corpo-
ration’s financial solvency and recommending
People Could Interfere Finally, the objection that workers keep their own retirement funds
that the conscious will of the actors could upset invested in the company. As a consequence of
observed social regularities does not pose a seri- this deception, those employees lost most of
ous challenge to social science. This is true even their retirement funds at the same time they
though a parallel situation does not appear to were becoming unemployed.
exist in the physical sciences. (Presumably, phys- The events at Enron led two Stanford
ical objects cannot violate the laws of physics, business-school faculty, David Larcker and
although the probabilistic nature of subatomic Anastasia Zakolyukina (2010), to see if it would
physics once led some observers to postulate be possible to detect when business executives
that electrons had free will.) There is no deny- are lying. Their study analyzed tens of thou-
ing that a religious, right-wing bigot could go sands of conference-call transcripts, identified
to the polls and vote for an agnostic, left-wing instances of executives fibbing, and looked for
African American if he wanted to upset political speech patterns associated with those depar-
scientists studying the election. All voters in an tures from the truth. For example, Larcker and
election could suddenly switch to the underdog Zakolyukina found that when the executives
just to frustrate the pollsters. Similarly, workers lied, they tended to use exaggerated emotions,
could go to work early or stay home from work for instance, calling business prospects “fantas-
and thereby prevent the expected rush-hour tic” instead of “good.” The research found other
traffic. But these things do not happen often tip-offs that executives were lying, such as fewer
enough to seriously threaten the observation of references to shareholders and fewer references
social regularities. to themselves. Given the type of information
derived from this study—uncovering identifi- TABLE 1-1 Birthrates, United States: 1980–2008
able characteristics of lying—who do you sup-
pose will profit most from it? Probably the 1980 15.9
findings will benefit business executives and 1981 15.8
those people who coach them on how to com- 1982 15.9
municate. There is every reason to believe that 1983 15.6
a follow-up study of top executives in, say, ten 1984 15.6
years will find very different speech patterns 1985 15.8
from those used today. 1986 15.6
1987 15.7
1988 16.0
Aggregates, Not Individuals
1989 16.4
Social regularities do exist, then, and are worthy 1990 16.7
of theoretical and empirical study. As such, social 1991 16.2
scientists study primarily social patterns rather 1992 15.8
than individual ones. These patterns reflect the 1993 15.4
aggregate or collective actions and situations of 1994 15.0
many individuals. Although social scientists often 1995 14.6
study motivations and actions that affect individ- 1996 14.4
uals, they seldom study the individual per se. That 1997 14.2
is, they create theories about the nature of group, 1998 14.3
rather than individual, life. Whereas psychologists
1999 14.2
focus on what happens inside individuals, social
2000 14.4
scientists study what goes on between them: exam-
2001 14.1
ining everything from couples, to small groups
2002 13.9
and organizations, on up to whole societies—and
2003 14.1
even interactions between societies.
Sometimes the collective regularities are 2004 14.0
amazing. Consider the birthrate, for example. 2005 14.0
People have babies for an incredibly wide range 2006 14.2
of personal reasons. Some do it because their 2007 14.3
parents want them to. Some think of it as a way 2008 14.0
of completing their womanhood or manhood. Note: Live births per 1,000 population.
Others want to hold their marriages together. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2012), p. 65, Table 78.
Still others have babies by accident.
If you have had a baby, you could probably tell
a much more detailed, idiosyncratic story. Why
did you have the baby when you did, rather than If the U.S. birthrate were 15.9, 35.6, 7.8, 28.9,
a year earlier or later? Maybe your house burned and 16.2 in five successive years, demographers
down and you had to delay a year before you would begin dropping like flies. As you can see,
could afford to have the baby. Maybe you felt that however, social life is far more orderly than that.
being a family person would demonstrate matu- Moreover, this regularity occurs without society-
rity, which would support a promotion at work. wide regulation. As mentioned earlier, no one
Everyone who had a baby last year had a dif- plans how many babies will be born or deter-
ferent set of reasons for doing so. Yet, despite mines who will have them. (See the Applying
this vast diversity, despite the idiosyncrasy of Concepts in Everyday Life box, “Birthrate Implica-
each individual’s reasons, the overall birthrate tions,” for a look at how the analysis of birthrates
in a society (the number of live births per 1,000 can serve many purposes.)
population) is remarkably consistent from year Social science theories try to explain why
to year. See Table 1-1 for recent birthrates in the aggregated patterns of behavior are so regular,
United States. even when the individuals participating in them
APPLYING CONCEPTS IN EVERYDAY LIFE If, on the other hand, the statement issues
forth from a politician who is trailing a female
Birthrate Implications challenger and who has also begun making state-
ments about women being emotionally unfit for
Take a minute to reflect on the practical public office and not understanding politics, you
implications of the data you’ve just seen. may hear his latest comment in the context of
The What do you think? box for this chap- this political challenge.
ter asked how baby-food and diaper man- In both examples, you’re trying to under-
ufacturers could plan production from stand the thoughts of a particular individual. In
year to year. The consistency of U.S. birth- social science, researchers go beyond that level
rates suggests this is not the problem it of understanding to seek insights into classes or
might have seemed. types of individuals. Regarding the two examples
Who else might benefit from this kind just described, they might use terms such as old-
of analysis? What about healthcare work- fashioned or bigot to describe the kind of person
ers and educators? Can you think of any- who made the comment. In other words, they try
one else? to place the individual in a set of similar individ-
What if we organized birthrates by uals, according to a particular, defined concept.
region of the country, by ethnicity, by By examining an individual in this way, social
income level, and so forth? Clearly, these scientists can make sense out of more than
additional analyses could make the data one person. In understanding what makes the
even more useful. As you learn about the bigoted politician think the way he does, they’ll
options available to social researchers, also learn about other people who are “like him.”
I think you’ll gain an appreciation for the In other words, they have not been studying big-
practical value that research can have for ots as much as bigotry.
the whole society. Bigotry here is spoken of as a variable because
it varies. Some people are more bigoted than
others. Social scientists are interested in under-
standing the system of variables that causes
bigotry to be high in one instance and low in
may change over time. We could say that social another.
scientists don’t seek to explain people per se. The idea of a system composed of variables
They try instead to understand the systems in may seem rather strange, so let’s look at an anal-
which people operate, which in turn explain why ogy. The subject of a physician’s attention is the
people do what they do. The elements in such a patient. If the patient is ill, the physician’s pur-
system are not people but variables. pose is to help that patient get well. By contrast,
a medical researcher’s subject matter is different:
the variables that cause a disease, for example.
Concepts and Variables
The medical researcher may study the physi-
Our most natural attempts at understanding are cian’s patient, but only as a carrier of the disease.
usually concrete and idiosyncratic. That’s just Of course, medical researchers care about real
the way we think. people, but in the actual research, patients are
Imagine that someone says to you, “Women directly relevant only for what they reveal about
ought to get back into the kitchen where they the disease under study. In fact, when research-
belong.” You’re likely to hear that comment in ers can study a disease meaningfully without
terms of what you know about the speaker. If involving actual patients, they do so.
it’s your old uncle Harry who is also strongly Social research involves the study of variables
opposed to daylight saving time, zip codes, and the attributes that compose them. Social sci-
and personal computers, you’re likely to think ence theories are written in a language of vari-
his latest pronouncement simply fits into his ables, and people get involved only as “carriers” of
rather dated point of view about things in those variables. Here’s a closer look at what social
general. scientists mean by variables and attributes.
Attributes or values are characteristics or Most simply put, sex refers to biological/
qualities that describe an object—in this case, a physiological differences, and the attributes
person. Examples include female, Asian, alien- comprising this variable are male and female,
ated, conservative, dishonest, intelligent, and men and women, or boys and girls.
farmer. Anything you might say to describe your- Gender, on the other hand, is a social dis-
self or someone else involves an attribute. tinction, referring to what is generally expected
Variables, on the other hand, are logical sets of men and women. Notice that these “general
of attributes. The variable occupation is com- expectations” can vary from culture to culture
posed of attributes such as farmer, professor, and and over time. Note also that some men will
truck driver. Social class is a variable composed exhibit feminine behaviors and characteristics,
of a set of attributes such as upper class, middle while some women will exhibit masculine behav-
class, and lower class. Sometimes it helps to iors and characteristics. One set of attributes
think of attributes as the categories that make up comprising gender is masculine and feminine.
a variable. See Figure 1-2 for a schematic review However, the real complication comes when
of what social scientists mean by variables and women as a class are treated differently from
attributes. men as a class, but not because of their physical
Sex and gender are examples of variables. differences. A good example is gender discrimi-
These two variables are not synonymous, but nation in income. As we’ll see later in this book,
distinguishing them can be complicated. I will American women overall earn less than men,
try to simplify the matter here and abide by that even when they do the same job and have the
distinction throughout this book. same credentials. It has nothing to do with being
feminine or masculine, but it is not logically
based on their different plumbing, either. The
Some Common Social Concepts pattern of differential pay for women and men
Youn
g Social c Rac is based, instead, on established social patterns
lass e/et
hnic regarding women and men. Traditionally in
Occu s ity
patio
n Up per clas Ge America, for example, men have been the main
n
ican iews de
breadwinners for their family whereas women
mer ical v r
n A Ag Polit
ca e typically worked outside the home to provide the
Afri Liberal Plumbe a l e
r Fem family with some supplemental income. Even
though this work pattern has changed a good
deal, and women’s earnings are often an essen-
Variable Attributes tial share of the family income, the pattern of
Age Young, middle-aged, old
monetary compensation—that of men earning
more than women—has been slower to change.
Gender Female, male
Thus, we shall use the term, sex, whenever the
Occupation Plumber, lawyer, distinction between men and women is relevant to
data-entry clerk . . .
biological differences. For example, there is a cor-
Race/ethnicity African American, Asian, relation between sex and height in that men are,
Caucasian, Latino . . .
on average, taller than women. This is not a social
Social class Upper, middle, lower . . . distinction but a physiological one. Most of the
Political views Liberal, conservative times we distinguish men and women in this book,
however, will be in reference to social distinctions,
FIGURE 1-2 Variables and Attributes. Variables like
such as the example of women being paid less than
education and prejudice and their attributes (educated/
uneducated, prejudiced/unprejudiced) provide the foundation men, or women being underrepresented in elected
for examining causal relationships in social research. political offices. In those cases, we shall use the
term gender. The attributes men and women will
often be used for both sex and gender.
attribute A characteristic of a person or a thing. The relationship between attributes and vari-
variable A logical set of attributes. The variable sex is made ables lies at the heart of both description and
up of the attributes male and female. explanation in science. For example, we might
describe a college class in terms of the variable sex Here’s a simple example, involving two variables,
by reporting the observed frequencies of the attri- education and prejudice. For the sake of simplic-
butes male and female: “The class is 60 percent ity, let’s assume that the variable education has
men and 40 percent women.” An unemploy- only two attributes: educated and uneducated.
ment rate can be thought of as a description (Chapter 5 will address the issue of how such
of the variable employment status of a labor things are defined and measured.) Similarly, let’s
force in terms of the attributes employed and give the variable prejudice two attributes: preju-
unemployed. Even the report of family income for diced and unprejudiced.
a city is a summary of attributes composing that Now let’s suppose that 90 percent of the unedu-
variable: $13,124, $30,980, $55,000, and so forth. cated are prejudiced, and the other 10 percent are
Sometimes the meanings of the concepts that lie unprejudiced. And let’s suppose that 30 percent
behind social science concepts are fairly clear. of the educated people are prejudiced, and the
Other times they aren’t. other 70 percent are unprejudiced. This is illus-
The relationship between attributes and vari- trated graphically in Figure 1-3a.
ables is more complicated when we move from Figure 1-3a illustrates a relationship or associ-
description to explanation and it gets to the ation between the variables education and preju-
heart of the variable language of scientific theory. dice. This relationship can be seen in terms of the
Educated Uneducated
Prejudiced
Unprejudiced
Educated Uneducated
Prejudiced
Unprejudiced
FIGURE 1-3 Illustration of Relationship between Two Variables (Two Possibilities). Variables such as education and
prejudice and their attributes (educated/uneducated, prejudiced/unprejudiced) are the foundation for the examination of causal
relationships in social research.
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“It is an heirloom of my house,” said I. “It was given by my father to
my mother when he came to woo her.”
The Englishman raised his eyebrows with an aspect of grave
interest.
“Was that so, my young companion? Given by your father to your
mother—was that really the case? And set with agates, unless my
eyes deceive me.”
“Yes, they are agates.”
“The sight of agates puts me in mind of a ring I had of my old friend,
the Sophy. I used always to affect it on the middle finger of the right
hand, just as you affect your own, my son, until it was coveted by my
sainted mother upon a wet Ash Wednesday.”
Still exhibiting the tokens of a lively regard, the Englishman began to
fondle the ring as it lay on my finger.
“An honest band of gold, of a very chaste device. It looks
uncommonly choice on the hand of a gentleman. Does it not fit
somewhat loosely, my young companion?”
Speaking thus, and before I could suspect his intention, Sir Richard
Pendragon drew the ring off my finger. He held it up to the light, and
proceeded to examine it with the nicest particularity.
“I observe it was made in Milan,” said he. “It must have lain for years
in a nobleman’s family. My own was fashioned in Baghdat, but I
would say this is almost as choice as the gift of the Sophy. And as I
say, my son, it certainly makes an uncommonly fine appearance on
the hand of a gentleman.”
Thereupon Sir Richard Pendragon pressed the slender band of
metal upon the large fat middle finger of his right hand.
“It comes on by no means so easy as the Sophy’s gift,” said he; “but
then, to be sure, my old gossip had a true circumference taken by
the court jeweller. I often think of that court jeweller, such an odd,
brisk little fellow as ’a was. ’A had a cast in the right eye, and I
remember that when he walked one leg went shorter than its
neighbour. But for all that ’a knew what an agate was, and his face
was as open as a fine evening in June.”
With an air of pleasantry that was impossible to resist, Sir Richard
passed his cup and exhorted me to drain it. I drank a little of the
wine, yet with some uneasiness, for it was sore to me that my
father’s talisman was upon the hand of a stranger.
“I shall thank you, sir, to restore the ring to my care.”
“With all the pleasure in life, my son.” The Englishman took hold of
his finger and gave it a mighty pull, but the ring did not yield.
He shook his head and began to whistle dolefully.
“Why, as I am a good Christian man this plaguy ring sticks to my
hand like a sick kitten to a warm hearthstone. Try it, my son, I pray
you.”
I also took a pull at the ring, which was wedged so firmly upon his
hand, but it would not budge.
“This is indeed a terrible matter,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “What
is to be done, young Spaniard?”
He called the innkeeper and bade him bring a bowl of cold water.
Into this he dipped his finger; and although he held it in the water for
quite a long time, the ring and his right hand could not be induced to
part company.
“What is the price you set upon this ring, my young companion?”
“The ring is beyond price—it was my mother’s—and has ever been
in the keeping of an ancient house.”
“If it is beyond price there is an end to the question. I was about to
offer you money, but I see you have one of those lofty spirits that can
brook no vulgar dross. Well, well, pride of birth is a good thing, and
money is but little. Yet one who has grown old in the love of virtue
would like to requite you in some way. Had we not better throw a
main with the dice? If I win I wear the ring for my lawful use; and if I
lose you shall have the good tuck that was given to me by the King
of Bavaria for helping him against the Dutch.”
I did not accept this suggestion, as you may believe. Yet it gave me
sore concern to see my father’s heirloom upon the hand of this
foreigner. In what fashion it was to be lured from his finger I was at a
loss to know; and in my inexperience of the world I did not know
what course to embrace.
CHAPTER V
I HEAR OF THE PRINCESS
Upon his own part Sir Richard Pendragon showed a wonderful

calmness. He wore the ring upon his finger with so great an air, and
withal was so polite that the forcing of a quarrel was put out of the
question. None the less it was clear that if ever I was to recover my
father’s gift it must be at the point of the sword.
It is always claimed, however, by the natives of my province, which
in the things of the mind is allowed to be the first in all Spain, that a
cool judgment must ride before violence. Therefore I was in no haste
to push the matter to an extremity. My mind was set that I could only
regain possession of the trinket by an appeal to the sword; that soon
or late we must submit ourselves to that arbitrament, but as the night
was yet in its youth, I felt there was no need to force the brawl before
its season. Thus, nursing my injury in secret I marked the man
narrowly as he sat his stool, with his hungry eyes forever trained
upon me sideways, and forever glancing down with furtive laughter,
while his great lean limbs in their patched, parti-coloured hose, in
which the weather had wrought various hues, were sprawled out
towards the warmth of the chimney.
As thus he lay it was hard to decide whether he was indeed a king’s
son or no more than a fluent-spoken adventurer. And in spite of the
flattering opinions he put forward of his own character, I was fain to
come to it that the latter conclusion was at least very near to the
truth. For one thing, the lack of seriousness in his demeanour did not
consort very well with the descendant of princes, whom all the world
knows to be grave men. He never so much as looked towards me
without a secret light of mirth in his eye; and this I was unable to
account for, as for myself I had never felt so grave.
“Sir Richard Pendragon, knight,” said he, for no particular reason,
unless it were the love of hearing his own discourse; “of all names I
believe that to be the most delectable; for it is the name of a true
man, of one addicted to contemplation, and of one who has grown
old in the love of virtue. Sir Richard Pendragon, knight—a name is a
small thing, but it has its natural music; Sir Richard Pendragon,
knight—yes, it runs off the tongue to a tune. I think, my young
companion, you have already admired it?”
“Indeed, sir, I have,” said I, with a certain measure of mockery, of
which, upon occasion, those of my province are said to be adept in
the use. “I conceive it to be a most wonderful name. Have you not
said so yourself?”
“If I have, I have,” said he, patting my shoulder with a familiarity for
which I did not thank him. “After all, the murder was obliged to come
out. Is it the part of valour to shun the truth? My young companion, I
feel sure you are one of those who respect that pious opinion that is
shared by P. Ovidius Naso and other learned commentators upon
the subject. Indeed, it is very well that a name which stands so high
in middle Europe is come into this outer part. Quite recently I feared
it to be otherwise. I met an itinerant priest, not a month ago, bald,
obese, and biblical, who said that to his mind my name was
deficient. ‘Fair sir, for what is it celebrated?’ was his question. ‘For
what is it celebrated, reverend one?’ was my rejoinder. ‘Why, where
can you have lived these virtuous years of yours? It is the name of a
notorious pea-nut and straw-sucker.’ ‘That is verily a singular
accomplishment,’ said the reverend father in God. ‘Yes, your
reverence,’ I answered, ‘this old honest fellow can draw a nut
through a straw with the same complacency as a good churchman
can draw sack through the neck of a bottle.’ ‘That is indeed
remarkable,’ said the reverend father, and proceeded to demonstrate
that as pea-nuts were wide and straws were narrow, it was no light
matter. ‘Yes, my father,’ said I, ‘that is a very just observation. But I
am sure you would be the last to believe that one who has a king’s
blood flowing under his doublet would bring his mind to anything
trivial.’ ‘Doubtless your view is the correct one,’ said the reverend
sceptic, ‘but all the same, I fail to see how a king’s blood would be
able to compass a feat of that nature.’ ‘There is none shall say what
a king’s blood will compass,’ was my final rejoinder, ‘for there is a
particular genius in it.’ Yet, my young son of the Spains, I have little
doubt that the worthy Dominican is still breaking his mind upon this
problem behind the walls of Mother Church; and such is the subtlety
of these scholars with their thumb rules and their logicality, that
presently you shall find that this innocent pleasantry has unhinged
the brains of half the clerks in Salamanca.”
“You have indeed a ready wit and a subtle contrivance, sir,” said I at
the conclusion of this ridiculous tale, for it was plain that he looked
for some such comment upon it.
“You must blame my nation for that. Every Englishman is witty when
he has taken wine; he is an especially bright dog in everything after
the drinking of beer. You dull rogues of the continent can form no
conception of an Englishman’s humour.”
“How comes it, sir, that you find yourself an exile from this land
which, by your account of it, is fair unspeakably?”
“It is a matter of fortune,” he made answer.
“Is that to say you are on a quest of fortune?” said I, breathing high
at this magic word.
“You have come to the truth,” said he with a sigh and a smile and a
sidelong look at the sword that hung by his leg.
“Why then, sir,” I cried with an eagerness I could not restrain, “we are
as brothers in this matter. I also am on a quest of fortune.”
My words seemed to jump with the humour of Sir Richard
Pendragon. He looked at me long and curiously, with that side
glance which I did not find altogether agreeable, stroked his beard as
if sunk in deep thought, and said with the gravest air I had heard him
use,
“Oh, indeed, my son, is that the case! So you are on a quest of
fortune, are you, my son? Well, she is a nice, a proper, and a valiant
word.”
“My father was ever the first to allow it,” said I. “She used him ill; his
right hand was struck off in a battle at a tender age, but I never
heard him complain about her.”
“She hath ever been haughty and distant with old English Dick,” said
my companion, sighing heavily; “but you will never hear that true
mettle abuse the proud jade. Fortune,” he repeated and I saw his
great hungry eyes begin to kindle until they shone like rubies—“oh,
what a name is that! She is sweeter in the ears of us of England than
is the nightingale. What have we not adventured in thy name, thou
perfect one! Here is this Dick, this old red bully, with his dry throat
and his sharp ears and his readily watering eye, what hath he not
dared for thee, thou dear ungracious one! He has borne his point in
every land, from the wall of China to the high Caucasian mountains;
from the blessed isles of Britain to farthest Arabia. Who was it drove
the Turk out of Vienna with a six-foot pole? Who was it beat the
Preux Chevalier off his ground with a short sword? Who was it slew
the sultan of the Moriscoes with his own incomparable hand? Who
was it, and wherefore was it, my son?”
In this exaltation of his temper he peered at me with his side glance,
as though he would seek an answer to a question to which no
answer was necessary.
“Why do I handle,” he proceeded, “the sword, the broadsword, the
short sword, the sword and buckler, and above all that exquisite
invention of God, the nimble rapier of Ferrara steel, with the nice
mastery of an old honest blade, but in thy service, thou sweet
baggage with thy moist lip and thy enkindling eye?”
“Ah! Sir Englishman,” cried I, feeling, in spite of his rough brogue, the
music of his nature, “I love to hear you speak thus.”
“Thirty years have I been at the trade, good Spaniard, and sooner
than change it I would die. One hundred towns have I sacked; ten
fortunes have I plundered. But by sack they came, and by sack they
did depart. It is wonderful how a great nature has a love of sack. Yet
I have but my nose to show for my passion. Do you observe its
prominent hue, which by night is so luminous that it flames like a
beacon to forewarn the honest mariner? Yet to Fortune will we wet
our beards, good Spaniard, for we of England court her like a
maiden with a dimple in her cheek.”
Having concluded this declamation, Sir Richard Pendragon called
the landlord in a tone like thunder, bade him bring a cup of sherry for
my use, and fill up his own, which was passing empty.
“I will bear the charges, lousy one,” said Sir Richard with great
magnificence.
“Oh yes, your worship”—the poor innkeeper was as pale as a corpse
—“but there is already such a score against your worship—”
“Score, you knave!” Sir Richard rolled his eyes horribly. “Why, if I
were not so gentle as a woman I would cut your throat. Score, you
dog! Then have you no true sense of delicacy? Now I would ask you,
you undershot ruffian with your bleared eyes and your soft chaps,
are gentlemen when they sit honouring their mistresses in their own
private tavern, are they to be crossed in their sentiments by the
lowest order of man? Produce me two pots of sack this minute, or by
this hand I will cut a gash in your neck.”
The unlucky wight had fled ere his guest had got half through this
speech, which even in my ears was frightful, with such roars of fury
was it given. When he returned with two more cups filled with wine,
Sir Richard looked towards me and laid his finger to the side of his
nose, as though to suggest that he yielded to no man in the handling
of an innkeeper.
By the time he had drunk this excellent liquor there came a sensible
change in the Englishman’s mien. The poetry of his mood, which had
led him to speak of Fortune in terms to kindle the soul, yielded to one
more fit for common affairs.
“Having lain in my castle,” said he, “and being well nourished with
sack, to-morrow I start on my travels again. Upon pressure I would
not mind taking a young squire.”
He favoured me with a look of a very searching character.
“I say,” he repeated solemnly, stretching out his enormous legs, “I am
minded to take a young squire.”
“In what, sir, would his duties consist?”
“They would be mild, good Don. Assuming that this young squire—if
he were a man of birth so much the better—paid me a hundred
crowns a year, cleaned my horse of a morning and conversed with
me pleasantly in the afternoon, I would undertake to teach him the
world.”
“Why, sir,” said I, “surely it would be more fitting if your squire
received one hundred crowns from you annually, which might stand
as his emolument.”
“Emolument!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard. “One hundred
crowns! These be very quaint ideas.”
“Why, sir,” said I, with something of that perspicacity for which our
province is famous, “would not your squire have duties to perform,
and would they not be worthy of remuneration?”
“Duties!—remuneration!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard
furiously. “Why, can you not know, good Don, I am in the habit of
receiving a thousand guilders per annum for teaching the world to
sons of the nobility?”
“Indeed, sir! can a knowledge of the world be of so much worth?”
The Englishman roared at that which he took for my simplicity.
“By my soul!” he exclaimed, “a knowledge of the world is a most
desperate science. I have met many learned men in my travels, but
that science always beat them. Cæsar was a learned man, but he
would have had fewer holes in his doublet had he gone to school
earlier. It is a deep science, my son; it is the deepest science of all.
What do you know of deceit, my son, you who have never left your
native mountains before this morning? You, with the dust of your
rustic province upon your boots, what do you know of those who
hold you in fair speaking that they may know the better where to put
the knife?”
“I confess, sir, I have thought but little of these things,” I said humbly,
for my misadventure with the beggar woman was still in my mind,
and my mother’s ring was no longer in the keeping of her only son.
“Then you will do well to think upon it, my young companion,” said
the Englishman, regarding me with his great red eyes. “You talk of
fortune, Spaniard, you who have yet to move ten leagues into the
world! Why, this is harebrained madness. You who have not even
heard of the famous city of London and the great English nation,
might easily fall in with a robber, or be most damnably cheated in a
civil affair. Why, you who say ‘if you please’ to an innkeeper might
easily lose your purse.”
“I may be ill found in knowledge, sir, but I hope my sword is worthy,”
said I, determined that none should contemn my valour, even if my
poor mind was to be sneered at.
“Oh, so you hope your sword is worthy, do you now?” The
Englishman chuckled furiously as if moved by a conceit. “Well,
Master No-Beard, that is a good accomplishment to carry, and I
suspect that you may find it so one of these nights when there is no
moon.”
All the same Sir Richard Pendragon continued to laugh in his dry
manner, and fell again to looking at me sideways. For my life I could
not see where was the occasion for so much levity.
“My father has taught me the use of the sword,” said I.
“Oh, so your father has taught you the use of the sword! Well, to
judge by the length of your beard, good Don, I am inclined to suspect
that your father had a worthy pupil.”
“I hope I may say so.”
“Oh, so you hope you may say so, my son! Well, now, I think you
may take it, good Don, from one who has grown old in the love of
virtue, that your father would know as much of the sword as a
burgomaster knows of phlebotomy. You see, having had his right
hand struck off in battle at a tender age, unless he happened to be a
most infernally dexterous fellow he forfeited his only means of
becoming a learned practitioner.”
The Englishman laughed in his belly.
“My father had excellent precept,” said I, “although, as you say, the
Hand of God curtailed his practice.”
“Well now, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, assuming a grave
air, which yet did not appear a very sincere one, “he who speaks you
is one whose practice the Hand of God has not curtailed. He was
proficient with sword and basket in his tenderest infancy. He has
played with all the first masters in Europe; he has made it a life
study. With all the true principles of this inimitable art he is familiar.
He has been complimented upon his talent and genius, natural and
acquired, by those whom modesty forbids him to name. And all these
stores, my worthy Don, of experience, ensample, and good wit are at
your command for the ridiculous sum of an hundred crowns.”
“I have not an hundred crowns in the world, sir,” I confessed with
reluctancy, for his arguments were masterful.
“By cock!” he snarled, “that is just as I suspected.”
There could be no mistaking the change in his demeanour when I
made this unhappy confession. It caused him to resolve his gross
and rough features into some form of contemplation. At last he said,
with an eye that was like a weasel’s,—
“What is the sum in your poke, good Spaniard?”
“I have but eight crowns.”
“Eight crowns! Why, to hear your conversation one would think you
owned a province.”
“A good sword, a devout heart, and the precepts of my noble father
must serve, sir, as my kingdom,” said I, hurt not a little at the
remarkable change that had come over him.
“I myself,” said he, “have always been governor and viceregent of
that kingdom, and had it not been for a love of canaries in my youth,
which in my middle years has yielded to a love of sherris, I must
have administered it well. But there is also this essential divergence
in our conditions, my son. I am one of bone and sinew, an
Englishman, therefore one of Nature’s first works; whereas you,
good Don, saving your worshipful presence, are but a mincing and
turgid fellow, as thick in the brains as a heifer, and as yellow in the
complexion as a toad under his belly. Your mind has been so
depressed by provincial ideas, and your stature so wizened by the
sun, that to a liberal purview they seem nowise superior to a maggot
in a fig, or a blue-bottle fly in the window of a village alehouse.”
“Sir Englishman,” said I haughtily, for since I had told him I had but
eight crowns in the world his manner of speaking had grown
intolerable, “I do not doubt that among your own nation you are a
person of merit, but it would not come amiss if you understood that
you pay your addresses to a hidalgo of Spain. And I must crave
leave to assure you that in his eyes one of your nation is but little
superior to a heathen Arab who is as black as a coal. At least, I have
always understood my father, God keep him! to say this.”
“By my faith, then,” said the Englishman, “even for a Spaniard your
father must have been very ill informed.”
“Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I sternly, “I would have you be wary of
the manner in which you mention my father.”
“I pray you, brother, do not make me laugh.” He trained his sidelong
look upon me. “I have such an immoderately nimble humour—it has
ever been the curse of my family from mother to daughter, from
father to son—as doth cause the blood to commit all manner of
outrages upon mine old head veins. All my ancestors died of a
fluxion that did not die of steel. But I tell you, Spaniard, it is as plain
as my hand that your father must have been a half-witted fellow to
beget such a poor son.”
“Sir Richard Pendragon,” I cried, incensed beyond endurance, “if you
abuse my father I will run you through the heart!”
“Well,” said he, “this is good speaking on eight crowns, a provincial
accent, and a piece of rusty iron which is fitter to toast half a saddle
of mutton than to enhance the scabbard of a gentleman. And if you
make this speaking good, why, it will be still better. For this is a very
high standard, brother, you are setting up, and I doubt me grievously
whether even the Preux Chevalier would be able to maintain it.”
He concluded with such an insolent and unexpected roar of laughter
as made me grow furious.
“I would have you beware, sir!” I cried. “Were you twice as gross in
your stature and three times as rude, I run you through the heart if
again you contemn the unsullied name of my noble father.”
“Your father was one-handed,” said this gigantical ruffian, looking at
me steadily. “He was as stupid in his wits as a Spanish mule, and I
spit in the face of the unbearded child that bears his name.”
CHAPTER VI
OF A PRIVATE BRAWL. I TAKE PROFIT AT THE
COST OF REPUTATION
Before I could draw my sword my challenger was on his feet, had

kicked away the stool on which he had sat, and had bared his own
weapon. I was so overcome with fury that I could not stay to mark his
enormous stature, yet his head seemed to live among the hams in
the roof.
This was the first occasion I had drawn my sword in a quarrel, but I
needed to ask no better. The pure reputation of this noble heart I
was defending nerved my right arm with unimaginable strength.
Besides, I was twenty-one years old, well grown and nourished for
one of my nation. My blade was of an ancient pattern, but a true
Toledo of the first quality, and many high deeds of the field had been
wrought thereby. The Englishman towered above me in the extremity
of his stature, but had he been of twice that assemblance, in my
present mood I would not have feared him. For, as I was fain to
believe, some of the hardiest fighting blood of our northern provinces
was in my veins. This was my first duello; but you must not forget,
reader, that my father had instructed me how to bear my point, how
to thrust, how to receive, and, above all, how to conduct the wrist as
laid down by the foremost practice.
We spent little time in courtesies, for my anger would not permit
them. At once I ran in upon my adversary, thrusting straight at his
heart. Yet he received my sword on his own with a skill that was truly
wonderful, and turned it aside with ease. All the power I possessed
was behind it, yet he cast it off almost as complacently as if he had
been brushing away a mosquito. The sting of this failure and his air
of disdain caused me to spring at him like a cat, yet, I grieve to say,
without its wariness, for, do what I would, I was unable to come near
him. He saved every stroke with a most marvellous blade, not once
moving his wrist or changing his posture. After this action had
proceeded for some minutes I was compelled to draw off to fetch my
breath; whereon said my adversary with a snarl of contempt that hurt
me more than my impotence:—
“I wish, my son, you would help me to pass the time of the day.”
My instant response was a most furious slash at his head, although it
is proper to mention that this method was not recommended in the
rules of the art as expounded by the illustrious Don Ygnacio. But I
grieve to confess that rage had overmastered me. Yet Sir Richard
Pendragon evaded this blow as dexterously as he had evaded the
others.
“Come, brother,” he said; “even for a Spaniard this is futility. This is
no more than knife work. I am persuaded your father was a butcher,
and owed his entire practice to the loins of the Galician hog.”
Such derision galled me worse than a thrust from his sword. Casting
away all discretion I ran in upon him blindly, for at that moment I was
minded to make an end one way or another.
“Worse and worse,” said he. “You bear your blade like a clergyman’s
daughter. Still, do not despair, my young companion; perhaps you
will make better practice for my left hand.”
As he spoke, to my dismay he changed his weapon from his right
hand to his left, and parried me with the same contemptuous
dexterity. Suddenly he made a strong parade, and in the next instant
I felt the point of his sword at my breast.
“Your father must have been a strangely ignorant man, even for a
Spaniard,” he said. “I do not wonder that he lost his right hand at an
early age. You have as little defence as a notorious cutpurse on his
trial. Any time these five minutes you must have been slain.”
Then it was I closed my eyes in the extremity of shame and never
expected to open them again. But to my astonishment the forces of
nature continued to operate, and soon, in a vertigo of fear and anger,
I was fain to look for the cause. It seemed that my enemy had
lowered his point and drawn off. Plainly he intended to use me as a
cat uses a mouse, for his private pleasure. For that reason I fell the
harder upon him, since I knew my life to be forfeit, and I had an
instinct that the more furiously it was yielded the less should I know
of a horrid end.
“I will now slit your doublet, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon.
“Have you a favourite rib you would care to select? What of the
fifth?”
Without more ado he began cutting my doublet with a dexterity that
was amazing. His point flashed here and there across my breast and
seemed to touch it in a thousand places; yet, although the old leather
was pierced continually, no hap was suffered by my skin.
“If only I had my lighter and more fanciful blade of Ferrara here,” he
said in the midst of a thousand fanfaronades and brandishments, “I
would flick every button off your doublet so nicely as a tailor.”
“Kill me!” I cried, flinging myself upon his blade.
I made such a terrific sweep with my sword that it whistled through
the air, and was like to cut off his head. Instead, however, of allowing
it to do so, he met it with a curious turn of the wrist, and the weapon
was hurled from my grasp.
As I stood before him panting and dishevelled, and young in the
veins and full in them too, I seemed to care no more than a flake of
snow for what was about to occur. I could but feel that I had traduced
my father’s reputation, and had cast a grievous slur upon his
precept. The blood was darkening my eyes and singing in my ears,
but quite strangely I was not minding the blade of my enemy. That
which was uppermost in my mind was the landlord’s opinion that he
was the Devil in Person.
Upon striking my sword to the ground he bade me remark his
method of disarmament.
“It approaches perfection so nearly,” said he, “as aught can that is
the offspring of the imperfection of man. It is the fruit of a virtuous
maturity; it is the crown of artifice; consider all the rest as nought. For
I do tell thee, Spaniard, this piece of espièglerie, as they say at
Paris, divides one of God’s own good swordsmen from the vulgar
herd of tuck-pushers or the commonalty. And, mark you, it was all
done with the left hand.”
While awaiting with as much composure as I could summon that
stroke which was to put me out of life, there happened a strange
thing. There had come into the room, unobserved by us both, the
tap-wench to the inn. And in a moment, seeing what was toward, this
brave little creature, not much bigger than a stool, and as handsome
and flashing a quean as ever I saw, ran between me and the sword
of my adversary.
“Hold, you bloody foreign man!” she cried imperiously.
“Nay, hold yourself, you neat imp,” said the Englishman, catching her
round the middle by his right arm, and lightly hoisting her a dozen
paces as though she had been a sack of feathers. Yet he had made
but a poor reckoning if he thought he could thus dispose of this
fearless thing. For his wine cup, half full of sherry, which had been
set in the chimney-place out of the way of hap, was to her hand. She
picked it up, and hurled the pot and its contents full in the face of the
giant.
“Take it, you wicked piece of villainy!” she cried.
Now, by a singular mischance the edge of the cup struck Sir Richard
Pendragon on the forehead. It caused a wound so deep that his
blood was mingled with the excellent wine. Together they flowed into
his eyes and down his cheeks, and so profusely that they stained his
doublet and dripped upon the floor. And the courageous girl, seeing
my enemy’s discomfiture, for what with the liquor and what with his
gore he was almost blind for the nonce, she darted across the room
and picked up my sword. With a most valiant eagerness she pressed
it into my hand.
“Now, young señor gentleman, quick, quick!” she cried. “Have at him
and make an end of him!”
“Alack, you good soul,” said I, “this cannot be. I am the lawful prize of
my adversary. God go with you, you kind thing.”
I cast the sword to the ground.
“Then oh, young master, you are a very fool.” Tears sprang to the
eyes of the honest girl and quenched her fiery glances.
However, so dauntless was the creature in my cause that she picked
up my sword again, and crying, “I myself will do it, señor,” actually
had at the English barbarian with the greatest imaginable valiancy.
In the meantime the giant had been roaring at his own predicament
in the most immoderate fashion. For, on feeling his head, and
discovering that the stream that trickled into his eyes was a
compound of elements so delectable, he cast forth his tongue at it in
a highly whimsical manner, and drew as much into his mouth as he
could obtain.
“I have my errors,” he cried, rocking with mirth; “but if a wanton
disregard of God’s honest sherris be there among, when he dies
may this ruby-coloured one be called to the land of the eternal
drought. Jesu! what a body this Pendragon azure gives it. ’Tis
choicer than Tokay out of the skull of a Mohammedan. When the
hour comes to invest me in my shell, I will get me a tun of sherris
and sever a main artery, and I will perish by mine own suction.”
He had scarcely concluded these comments when the brave little
maid had at him with my sword. Expecting no such demonstration on
the part of one not much taller than his leg, it needed all his
adroitness of foot, which for one of his stature was indeed surprising,
to save the steel from his ribs. And so set was the creature on
making an end of him that the force with which she dashed at his
huge form, and yet missed it, carried her completely beyond her
balance. With another of his mighty roars, the English giant seized
her by the nape with his right hand, and held her up in the air by the
scruff, so curiously as if she had been a fierce little cat that had flown
at him.
“Why, thou small spitfire,” he said, “thou art even too slight to be
cracked under mine heel. Thou pretty devil, I will buss thee.”
“I will bite off the end of your nose, you bloody-minded villain,” cried
the little wench, struggling frantically in his gripe.
“Nay, why this enmity, pretty titmouse,” said the giant, “seeing that I
have a mind to fondle thee for thy valour?”
“You would slay the young gentleman señor, you wicked cut-throat
villain, you!”
“Nay, by my hand I will not, if you will give me twenty honest busses,
you neat imp, to heal my contusion.”
“You swear, Englishman, upon your wicked beard, the young señor
gentleman shall come to no hurt if I kiss you?”
“I will swear, thou nice hussy, by the bones of all my ancestors in
their Cornish cemetery, that young Don Cock-a-hoop shall go
uncorrected for all his sauciness and pretension. With eight crowns
in his wallet and a most unfathomable ignorance he drew his tuck on
a right Pendragon. But so much effrontery shall go unvisited, mark
you, at the price of twenty honest busses from those perfect lips of
thine. If thou art not the most perfect thing in Spain, I am little better
than a swaggerer.”
“Put me down then, Englishman,” said the little wench as boldly as
an ambassador; “and do you give the young gentleman señor his
sword.”
“So I will; but I would have you remark it, pretty titmouse, that I will
be embraced with all the valiancy of thy nature. Ten on each side of
my royal chaps, and one for good kindness right i’ th’ middle.”
“Give the young gentleman señor his sword, then, you English
villain.”
So had this matter accosted the humour of Sir Richard Pendragon
that he obeyed her.
“Take it, young Spaniard,” said he with a magnificent air; “and do you
consider it as your first lesson in the affairs of the world. I do
perceive two precepts to whose attention your noble father does not
appear to have directed you. The first is, never draw upon the
premier swordsman of his age, so long as life hath any savour in it;
and for the other, never lack the favour of a farthingale. Do I speak
sooth, good girl?”
“Yes, you do, you large villain,” said the little creature, with her two
fierce eyes as black as sloes. “And now I will kiss you quickly, so that
I may have done. I shall scarcely be able to chew so much as a
piece of soft cheese for a month after it.”
The Englishman seated himself upon his stool, and set her upon his
knees.
“Begin upon the right, my pretty she, slowly, purposefully, and with
valiancy. I would as lief have your lips as a bombard of sherris. If it
were not for one Betty Tucker, a dainty piece at the ‘Knight in
Armour’ public-house hard by to the town of Barnet, in the kingdom
of Great Britain, I would bear you at my saddle-bow all the way back
to our little England, and marry you at the church of Saint Clement
the Dane, which is in London city. For next to sack I love valour, and
next to valour I love my soul. Now then, thou nice miniard, I must
taste thy lips softly, courteously, but yet with valiancy as becomes thy
disposition.”
It was never my fortune to behold a sight more whimsical than that of
this monstrous fellow seated with the blood still trickling down to his
chin, while this little black-eyed wench, not much bigger than his fist,
with her skin the colour of a walnut, her hair hanging loose, and her
rough clothes stained and in tatters, dealt out her kisses first to one
side of his ugly mouth and then to the other, yet making as she did
so lively gestures of disgust.
“Courteously, courteously!” cried the giant. “Let us have no
unmannerly haste in this operation, or I will have them all over
again.”
“Nay, you shall not; I will take heed of that. That is fifteen. Another
ten, you foreign villain, would give me a canker in my front teeth.”
“Nay, that is but fourteen, my pretty mouse. Here we have the
fifteenth. Courteously, courteously, do I not tell thee. See to it that it
is so long drawn out that I may count nine.”
“There’s twenty, you large villain!” cried the little creature in huge
disgust, and slipping off his knee as quickly as a lizard.

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The Basics of Social Research 7th

Edition Earl Babbie

The practice of social research Fifteenth Edition Earl

Science and Morality in Medicine Earl R. Babbie

Research Methods The Basics 3rd Edition Nicholas

Research Methods The Basics 3rd Edition Nicholas

Assuring the Confidentiality of Social Research Data

The Art and Science of Social Research Second Edition

Designing Qualitative Research 7th Edition Catherine

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics 6th

Writing is my joy, sociology my passion. I delight

I grew up in small-town Vermont and New Hampshire. When I announced

After some 20 years of teaching at Chapman University in southern California,

Australia ● Brazil ● Mexico ● Singapore ● United Kingdom ● United States

Illustrator: Lotus Art Student Edition:

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PA r t ONe An Introduction to Inquiry

PA r t t WO the Structuring of Inquiry

Preface xix CHAPter

CHAPter Units of Analysis 99

Conceptualization 130 Scale Construction 180

Multistage Cluster Sampling 222 ChaPTER

Strengths and Weaknesses of Survey Content Analysis 333

Social Indicators research 385 CHAPter

Linking theory and Analysis 391 Bivariate Analysis 436

Writing Social research 462 APPeNDIxeS

APPLyING CONCePtS IN eVeryDAy LIFe HOW tO DO It

2 Paradigms, Theory, and Research 7 The Logic of Sampling

●● Added some bibliographic citations for classic quota sampling

●● Pointed students to the National Institutes of new table in Appendix

Part two: the Structuring of Inquiry Part three: Modes of Observation

●● Expanded the box discussion of determining units the common cold

●● Discussion of measuring ethnicity in Cornwall advantages they hold

●● Added discussion of definition of rape and other

1 Human Inquiry and Science

alone, things are set up so you can simply believe

ISSUES AND INSIGHTS

■■THE FOUNDATIONS scientifically whether capitalism or socialism

Planning to do Sampling Observation Data processing

Chapters 4–6 Chapter 7 Chapters 8–12 Chapters 13–14

Upon his own part Sir Richard Pendragon showed a wonderful

Before I could draw my sword my challenger was on his feet, had

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