At the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain stood at the forefront of science and statistics and had a long and respected tradition of social investigation and reform. But it still did not yet have a ‘science of society.’ When, in the early 1900s, a small band of enthusiasts got together to address this situation, the scene was set for a grand synthesis. No such synthesis ever took place and, instead, British sociology has followed a resolutely non-statistical path. Sociology and Statistics in Britain, 1833-1979 investigates how this curious situation came about and attempts to explain it from an historical perspective. It uncovers the prevalence of a deep and instinctive distrust within British sociology of the statistical methodology and mindset, resulting in a mix of quiet indifference and active hostility, which has persisted from its beginnings right up to the present day. While British sociology has thrived institutionally since the post-war expansion of higher education, this book asks whether or not it is poorer for having failed to recognise that statistics provides the foundations for the scientific study of society and for having missed opportunities to build upon those foundations. Ultimately, this important, revealing and timely book is about British sociology’s refusal to come to grips with a modern scientific way of thinking which no discipline that aspires to an effective study of society can afford to ignore.

William Whewell, the famous master of Trinity College in Cambridge, was a central figure in nineteenth-century British scientific culture and one of the last great polymaths. His influential work ranged from history and philosophy of science, education, architecture, mineralogy, and political economy to mathematics, engineering, natural theology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. Among his many gifts to science was his role as cofounder and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and his wordsmithing; he coined the terms scientist, physicist, linguistics, and electrode. While he was himself an opponent of evolution through natural selection, Whewell’s most famous works, including his Bridgewater Treatise (1833) and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), played a formative role in Charles Darwin’s creation of the theory of evolution. William Whewell: Victorian Polymath reexamines the whole of Whewell’s oeuvre, as well as the wide range and internal unity of his many polymathic endeavors, placing him within the early Victorian intellectual landscape and highlighting his exchanges with other important figures of the period, such as John Herschel, Charles Lyell, and Robert Peel. Bringing together a group of eminent and emergent scholars, the volume explores all major aspects of Whewell’s reform project and its legacy, both in the sciences and the humanities, in the Victorian era and beyond.

Research Paradigms and Their Methodological Alignment in Social Sciences is a comprehensive guide addressing the common conceptions surrounding research paradigms. This practical book demystifies complex concepts, giving researchers a nuanced understanding of the significance of research paradigms. It offers detailed insights, examples, and strategies for selecting and applying appropriate research methods, aiming to enhance the rigour and impact of scholarly work. This insightful guide meticulously explores the intricacies of research paradigms in the social sciences. It begins by unravelling the concept and historical development of research paradigm, emphasising its pivotal role in shaping the research process. The book elucidates major research paradigms, including positivism, interpretivism, transformative paradigm, postcolonial indigenous paradigm, and pragmatism. Each paradigm is dissected, unveiling philosophical underpinnings, methodological designs, and critical considerations. The chapters carefully align research questions with specific paradigms through illustrative case studies, offering practical guidance for researchers at all levels. Notably, the transformative paradigm and postcolonial indigenous perspective receive dedicated attention, addressing their unique methodological nuances and ethical dimensions. The exploration extends to pragmatism, seamlessly integrating theoretical foundations with real-world applications. The book strives to bridge the awareness gap in academic settings, fostering a profound appreciation for research paradigms and promoting a thoughtful, rigorous approach to scholarly inquiry. This book caters to students, novice and experienced researchers, offering a comprehensive understanding of research paradigms. It's valuable for academia, aiding undergraduate and postgraduate students, educators, and researchers in various disciplines. Research organisations, academic institutions, and professionals in diverse fields engaged in research and development will also find it a valuable resource.

For many years, the history of British Sociology has been a neglected area of study among sociologists. In more recent times, there are signs of a growing curiosity among British sociologists about their subject’s origins and development. This collection sets out both to encourage and satisfy that curiosity while recognising the value of history as a teaching tool that can be used to inspire young sociology students and furnish them with a deeper understanding of the development of British sociology. The volume contains essays by distinguished sociologists and historians who discuss British sociology’s controversial origins, the neglected legacies of several individuals and institutions, the history of how the discipline was taught in the UK throughout the twentieth century, and its peculiar relationships with statistics and the humanities. The History of Sociology in Britain reveals the distinct character of British sociology through the course of its historical evolution. It is an original contribution and valuable addition to the field which intersects with historiography, epistemology and literature.

This is the first-ever critical history of sociology in Britain, written by one of the world's leading scholars in the field. Renowned British sociologist, A. H. Halsey, presents a vivid and authoritative picture of the neglect, expansion, fragmentation, and explosion of the discipline during the past century. He is well equipped to write the story, having lived through most of it and having taught and researched in Britain, the USA, and Europe. The story begins with L.T. Hobhouse's election to the first chair in sociology in London in 1907, but traces earlier origins of the discipline to Scotland and the English provinces. There is a lively account of the nineteenth-century battles between literature and science for the possession of the third culture of social studies, setting the context for a narrative history of rapid expansion in the second half of the twentieth century. LSE had a virtual monopoly before World War II. The educational establishment of Oxford and Cambridge opposed its introduction into the undergraduate curriculum. Only the expansion of sociology to the Scottish, Welsh, provincial, and 'new' universities after the Robbins Report of 1963 brought reluctant acceptance of the subject to Oxford and Cambridge. The student troubles of 1968 are then described and the subsequent doubts, confrontations, and cuts of the 1970s and 80s. Then, paradoxically by a Conservative Government, there was a new university expansion incorporating polytechnics and other colleges, with a consequent doubling of both staff and students in the 1990s. Yet the end of the century left sociology riven by intellectual conflict. It had survived the Marxist subversions of the 70s and the feminist invasion. Yet the renewed challenges of various forms of relativism (especially enthno-methodology and post-modernism) still threatened, and at root the war was, as it began, between a scientific quantifying and explanatory subject and a literary, interpretative set of cultural studies.

This book contains essays on the historical development of the knowledge base upon which public policies depend.

Guerry's Essay on the Moral Statistics of France was among the earliest empirical studies in sociology and criminology. This translation makes the work available for the first time in English. He used data from a variety of sources, most notably the newly-available compilation of criminal justice statistics collected by the French Ministry of Justice. Within the pages of his essay, the reader will find systematic and sophisticated analyses of crime, suicide, education, wealth and poverty, illegitimacy, prostitution, infanticide, military desertion, charitable giving, and other issues of his day (and ours). Guerry's far-reaching analysis exhibits awareness of methodological issues analysts of sociological and criminological data still grapple with today, including measurement error, statistical interaction, and the identification problem. His cartographic methods influenced the Chicago School of Sociology and his pioneering use of content analysis in studying suicide notes paved the way for generations of scholars down to our own day who make use of similar methods. The introduction explores Guerry's life and work, the social context in which it was conducted, its relationship to later developments in French sociology, and its continuing relevance in the 21st century.

A defining feature of nineteenth-century Britain was its fascination with statistics. The processes that made Victorian society, including the growth of population, the development of industry and commerce, and the increasing competence of the state, generated profuse numerical data. This is a study of how such data influenced every aspect of Victorian culture and thought, from the methods of natural science and the struggle against disease, to the development of social administration and the arguments and conflicts between social classes. Numbers were collected in the 1830s by newly-created statistical societies in response to this 'data revolution'. They became a regular aspect of governmental procedure thereafter, and inspired new ways of interrogating both the natural and social worlds. William Farr used them to study cholera; Florence Nightingale deployed them in campaigns for sanitary improvement; Charles Babbage was inspired to design and build his famous calculating engines to process them. The mid-Victorians employed statistics consistently to make the case for liberal reform. In later decades, however, the emergence of the academic discipline of mathematical statistics - statistics as we use them today - became associated with eugenics and a contrary social philosophy. Where earlier statisticians emphasised the unity of mankind, some later practitioners, following Francis Galton, studied variation and difference within and between groups. In chapters on learned societies, government departments, international statistical collaborations, and different Victorian statisticians, Victorians and Numbers traces the impact of numbers on the era and the intriguing relationship of Victorian statistics with 'Big Data' in our own age.

Each "Bibliography" lists and annotates the most important works published during the year. They are arranged by topic and indexed by author, subject, and geographic location.

The 1835 Municipal Reform Act is both a consequence and a continuation of the 1832 Reform Act. By dealing with those “citadels of Torysm” that were the municipal corporations, the Whigs not only wanted to confirm their electoral victory, but also to reform the local system that had been largely criticised for decades. Preceding the reform, a thorough investigation was conducted by a group of twenty commissioners – young liberal or radical lawyers – who visited 285 municipal corporations in England and Wales. After public hearings, they wrote, for each borough, a detailed report which provided an accurate picture of the municipal institutions and their functioning over the preceding decades. In describing the political organisation, the administration, the legal and law enforcement functions, the reports showed that the municipal corporations were areas of privileges. Beyond the overview provided by those in favour of reform of a system at breaking point, the reports, while taking into account local situations, measured the role played in urban management by municipal corporations. After an extensive campaign and several petitions, the parliamentary debate resulted in a compromise bill that aimed at reforming only the main royal boroughs. Small towns, as well as large industrial cities, which had not been granted the royal charter of incorporation, were not affected by the reform. Though it carefully treated certain former institutions, the municipal reform fundamentally altered the way administration was run and marked the end of the urban Ancient Regime in England and in Wales.