Designed to encourage sociologists and other social scientists to think about the conceptual and problems of using and evaluating key variables in social research, this book contains reviews of ten major variables: age; gender; race and ethnicity; health and illness; education; social class and occupation; work, employment and unemployment; leisure; politics; and voluntary associations. The essays will help researchers to examine the ways in which concepts can be specified and translated into variables and indicators. Each essay therefore deals with conceptual and technical problems in the presentation of empirical data.
The contributors are all specialists who have had first-hand experience of dealing with concepts, variables and indicators in empirical studies. Each of the essays provides reviews of key variables in social investigation and discusses concepts, variables, indicators and measurement. Together they provide methodological reviews of studies in substantive areas; guidance on the us of concepts, variables and indicators; and discussions of the problems involved in comparing and presenting empirical material.