Overview

Providing an up-to-date portrait of the concepts and methods of analytical sociology, this pivotal Research Handbook traces the historical evolution of the field, utilising key research examples to illustrate its core principles. It investigates how analytical sociology engages with other approaches such as analytical philosophy, structural individualism, social stratification research, complexity science, pragmatism, and critical realism, exploring the foundations of the field as well as its major explanatory mechanisms and methods. Chapters examine the ways in which analytical sociology addresses crucial concepts, including norms, structures, context, contingency, action theory, and models of social interactions. Offering an in-depth analysis of cumulative advantage, complex contagions, and network amplification, this comprehensive Research Handbook discusses the range of data sources and methods available to analytical sociologists for empirical research, in particular digital traces, historical archives, game-theoretic models, causal inference techniques, social networks analysis, and agent-based simulations. Creating a new synthesis of the theoretical and methodological resources required to carry out research using analytical sociology tools, the Research Handbook will be a key pedagogical resource for students and scholars of sociology and sociological theory, research methods, demography, social psychology, economics, and computer science.

Full Product Details

9781789906844

Table of Contents

Reviews

'This Research Handbook provides an excellent introduction to the central concepts and methods employed by leading scholars in analytical sociology. It compellingly positions analytical sociology as a viable approach to doing rigorous science in which data supports theoretical advancement. The authors embed analytical sociology in its proper historical and contemporary context, articulating commonalities and differences with related intellectual movements and fields within our discipline.' - Arnout van de Rijt, European University Institute, Italy and President of the International Network of Analytical Sociology

Author Information

Edited by Gianluca Manzo, Professor of Sociology, Sorbonne University, France

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