Author
Nigel Gilbert (Editor)

Pub Date: 03/2008
Pages: 576

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Nigel Gilbert (Editor)
Editor and Contributor Details

Nigel Gilbert is Professor of Sociology and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Surrey.

Contributors

Victoria D. Alexander is senior lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Surrey. She is author of Sociology of the Arts: Exploring Fine and Popular Forms and Museums and Money: The Impact of Funding on Exhibitions, Scholarship and Management, and co-author of Art and the State: The Visual Arts in Comparative Perspective. Her research interests include sociology of art and culture, organisational sociology, visual methods, and mixed methods. She teaches sociology of art, organisational analysis, and documentary analysis.
Nick Allum is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, where he mainly teaches research methods. He previously taught sociology at the University of Surrey. His research interests are primarily in public understanding of science, risk perception and social trust. He has published widely in these areas in journals and books. Nick is engaged in research on survey methods, particularly in relation to the measurement of social attitudes and factual knowledge in population surveys using latent variable models. He is also co-editor, with Bulmer and Sturgis, of a four volume book on the secondary analysis of survey data.
Sara Arber is Professor of Sociology, and Co-Director, Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender (CRAG) at University of Surrey. Sara has written over 200 journal articles on gender and ageing, and on inequalities in health. She is currently pioneering multi-disciplinary research on the sociology of sleep. Her books include The Myth of Generational Conflict: Family and State in Ageing Societies (with Claudine Attias-Donfut, Routledge, 2000), Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships (with Kate Davidson and Jay Ginn, 2003); and Connecting Gender and Ageing (with Jay Ginn, 1995), which won the Age Concern prize for best book on Ageing in 1996.
Martin Bulmer is Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey and Director of the ESRC Social Survey Question Bank, http://qb.soc.surrey.ac.uk. His own research is concerned with the history of the social sciences, the application of knowledge to policy-making, and race and ethnicity. He is editor of the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies. His most recent book, jointly edited with Patrick Sturgis and Nick Allum, is a collection on the Secondary Analysis of Survey Data (Sage, 2008).
Geoff Cooper is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. His intellectual interests lie within social theory and the sociology of science and technology, and his work focuses on the organisation of knowledge in contemporary societies, and epistemological issues within the social sciences. He has done research on the social shaping of mobile telecommunications and, more recently, on decisions to invest in nanotechnology, and published articles in a number of journals including the British Journal of Sociology, Social Studies of Science, and Sociology. He is currently researching the relation between lifestyle and energy consumption, and working on an edited collection on the reconfiguration of sociological theory.
Ann Cronin is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey. She teaches sociological theory, the sociology of work and the sociology of gender and sexuality. She also runs day courses on focus groups and qualitative analysis. Her main research interests are in gender and the social construction of sexual identities, narrative analysis and the sociology of story telling, integrating methodologies and sociological theory. Her work on the social networks of older lesbian women can be found in Ageing and Diversity: Multiple Pathways in Later Life, (Sage, 2004).
Sarah Earthy is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey. She teaches social research methods, the sociology of health and illness, and social policy analysis. She also runs day courses on qualitative interviewing and analysis. Her main research interests are in inequalities in health, chronic illness, social exclusion, and the sociology of story-telling.
Mary Ebeling is an assistant professor in sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia (USA) and she has previously held research posts in the department of sociology at the University of Surrey. Her research interests span several areas of social inquiry and investigation including work in science and technology, financial markets and journalism, online political communication and exile, and media and culture, especially advertising culture. Recent research projects have focused on African political exiles and their uses of online technologies, emerging nanotechnologies and financial markets, and pharmaceutical advertising. Her work has appeared in Sociological Research Online, Radical History Review and Science and Technology in Africa (Red Sea Press, 2004).
Jane Fielding joined the University of Surrey in 1981 as a researcher working on part-time contracts in the departments of Sociology, Human Biology and Psychology. In 1984 she became the Departmental Research Fellow and has been involved with the teaching of computing and quantitative methods since that time. She was appointed as a Lecturer in Quantitative Methods in 1994 and Senior Lecturer in 2001. She is interested in research methods, particularly mixed methods and the use of computers in quantitative and qualitative data analysis. She is currently studying the application of geographic information systems techniques to an investigation of environmental inequality in the flood plains of England and Wales. She is also interested in the career pathways of men and women with science, engineering and technology (SET) qualifications. She published Understanding Social Statistics, (2nd Edition, Sage 2006 with Nigel Gilbert).
Nigel Fielding is Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of Arts and Human Sciences at the University of Surrey. With Ray Lee, he co-directs the CAQDAS Networking Project, which provides training and support in the use of computers in qualitative data analysis. His research interests are in new technologies for social research, qualitative research methods, and mixed method research design. He has authored or edited 20 books, over 50 journal articles and over 200 other publications. In research methodology his books include a study of methodological integration (Linking Data, 1986, Sage; with Jane Fielding), an influential book on qualitative software (Using computers in qualitative research, 1991, Sage; editor, with Ray Lee), a study of the role of computer technology in qualitative research (Computer Analysis and Qualitative Research, 1998, Sage, with Ray Lee) and a four volume set, Interviewing (2002, Sage; editor). He is presently researching the application of high performance computing applications to qualitative methods.
Julie Gibbs joined the department in 2001 as a Research Officer on the ESRC Question Bank. Julie has since completed the part time MSc in Social Research and is now a Research Fellow managing the Question Bank project from April 2005. She has research interests in survey data collection methods and regularly teaches on this subject. Julie has a number of published articles on survey data collection methods, quantitative social research and teaching quantitative methods to students.
Nigel Gilbert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey. His current interests focus on the computer simulation of social phenomena (Simulating Societies, UCL, 1994; Artificial Societies, UCL, 1995 and Simulation for the Social Scientist, with Klaus G. Troitzsch, 1999, second edition 2005; Agent Based Models, Sage 2007) and science and technology policy. After graduating with a degree in Engineering from Cambridge, he worked in the sociology of science (Opening Pandora's Box: a sociological analysis of scientific discourse, with Michael Mulkay, Cambridge, 1984). He has written and edited textbooks on statistics and research methods and edited a number of other books. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Nicola Green is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. She joined the department in 2001 having previously held a Research Fellowship in the Digital World Research Centre. Her research interests have crossed disciplinary boundaries in work on science and technology, embodiment and identity, media and culture, and gender and everyday life. Her research projects have spanned virtual reality technologies, mobile multimedia, surveillance, internet technologies, and web media. Her recent publications have been included in Surveillance and Society, The Information Society, Journal of Consumer Culture, and Information, Communication and Society. She is co-editor of a collection entitled Wireless World (Springer-Verlag, 2002), and co-author of Mobile Communications (Berg, forthcoming). She has consulted to companies such as British Telecom and Intel, and to organisations such as the Office of the Information Commissioner and the Royal Society.
Christine Hine is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Her main research centres on the sociology of science and technology. She recently completed an ESRC fellowship which focused on the use of information in contemporary science. This study combined ethnographic and historical approaches to understanding the role of information and communication technologies in biological research. She also has a major interest in the development of ethnography in technical settings, and in "virtual methods" (the use of the Internet for social research). In particular, she has developed mobile and connective approaches to ethnography which combine online and offline social contexts. She is author of Virtual Ethnography (Sage, 2000) and Systematics as Cyberscience (MIT, 2008) and editor of Virtual Methods (Berg, 2005) and New Infrastructures for Knowledge Production (Information Science Publishing, 2006). Christine is President of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST).
Paul Hodkinson is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey. His research interests focus on the role of commerce, media and new technologies in the formation of young people's lifestyles and identities. He is author of Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture (Berg 2002) and co-editor of Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (Routledge 2007). He has also published a variety of articles and chapters focused upon young people's uses of online communications technologies and upon the methodological implications of studying groups of young people as an 'insider researcher'. Paul is co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Youth Study Group.
Ann Lewins joined the university in 1994. She helped to develop the ESRC funded CAQDAS Networking Project, turning it into a unique resource for researchers looking for debate, training or advice concerning the growing interest in computer assistance for qualitative data analysis. She has expertise in a number of computer based approaches to qualitative data and teaches and advises at introductory and advanced project-specific level. In 1994 she set up and still co-manages the Jiscmail Internet discussion list qual-software and currently maintains the project web site resource http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk. She was a co-researcher in the joint Huddersfield/Surrey project to set up the QDA Online resource http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk. Former research interests have included the British Labour party, the health and welfare needs of older people and community services. Her recent publications include Using Software In Qualitative Data Analysis: a Step by Step Guide (Lewins and Silver 2007).
Keith Macdonald is Visiting Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, where he has held various posts since 1964, including Head of Department 19984-88. He held visiting Research Fellowships at Edinburgh University (1969) and Manchester University (1970). He has published numerous articles on the sociology of occupations, especially the professions and the military; the most recent has involved the application of Bourdieu's concepts to the British military elite (Sociological Review, 2004). He is the author of The Sociology of the Professions (Sage 1995) and has contributed chapters on the professions to Social Theory at Work (OUP, 2006) and The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology (2006). While maintaining his interest in the sociology of occupations, he is also working on studies in historical sociology.
Jo Moran-Ellis is in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey in the UK. Her research is primarily in two areas: childhood studies, particularly social competence, and issues involved in integrating multiple methods. She has recently completed a major study looking at practice and processes involved in integrating multiple methods, working with a team of colleagues in the department. She has published work on issues in integrating multiple methods, research governance. Jo has also co-edited (with Ian Hutchby) Children and Social Competence: Arenas of Action (Falmer Press, 1998); Children, Technology and Culture (Falmer Press 2001), developing ideas of social competence as an interactional phenomenon embedded in social and structural contexts.
Mike Procter was a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University, from which he retired in 1999. He helped to set up the MSc in Social Research in 1973 and taught mainly in the areas of quantitative research methods. He has worked on cross-national comparisons of attitudes, studies of poverty and on the social psychology of adolescence.
Christina Silver has worked with the CAQDAS Networking Project at the University of Surrey since 1998. The Project, http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk, provides information and training for a range of software packages designed to facilitate qualitative data analysis. She has supported hundreds of researchers in their use of qualitative software and taught under- and postgraduate social research methods courses at several universities. Christina also undertakes commissioned research projects for independent organisations. With Ann Lewins, Christina has co-authored Using Qualitative Software: A Step-by-Step Guide, (Sage Publications 2007) the first book to provide step-by-step support for several qualitative software packages.
Rosemarie Simmons runs Surrey Social and Market Research (SSMR) Ltd. a company carrying out social research that is linked to the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. She has wide research experience carried out in an academic environment within the Universities of Surrey, Manchester and Leicester where her main fields of research were on the impact of becoming blind in adult life; the effects of disability on life chances: training and rehabilitation; and adoption: the search for birth parents. Since setting up SSMR, Rosemarie has been involved in a diverse range of projects for government, local authorities, and voluntary organisations.
Patrick Sturgis is Reader in quantitative sociology in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. His research interests are in the areas of public opinion, statistical modelling and survey methodology, with a particular focus on longitudinal surveys. He teaches survey methodology and statistical modelling at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and has published widely on different aspects of survey design and analysis. He is an Associate Fellow of the Southampton Social Statistics Research Institute (S3RI) and associate editor of the journal Survey Research Methods.
Hilary Thomas, formerly Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, is Professor of Health Care Research in the Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care, University of Hertfordshire. Her research interests include the sociology of health and illness, particularly reproduction, women's health and recovery from illness and injury. She was convenor of the BSA Medical Sociology Group (1991-94) and President of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (1999-2003).
Robin Wooffitt, formerly a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey, is now Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. His research interests include language and interaction, especially in the context of reports of anomalous or exceptional experiences and the scientific study of parapsychological phenomena. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the universities of York (1999) Edinburgh (2001) and Adelaide (2007). Recent books include The Language of Mediums and Psychics: the Social Organisation of Everyday Miracles. (2006, Ashgate),Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction. (2005, Sage) and Conversation Analysis: Principles, Practices and Applications (with Ian Hutchby, 1998, Polity).