To provide students with a comprehensive, clear and accessible introduction to the main methods of research and the main theoretical approaches in sociology, and help them examine the relationship between methods and theory.

PART 1. SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE
1. Nature of social research and social knowledge.
2. Doing social research.
PART 2. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY.
3. The nature of social theory.
4. The origins of classic social theory.
5. The nature of the sociological enterprise and the strains of modernity.
6. American sociology and the interactive self.
7. Contemporary theorising - Post-modernism.
8. Feminist theory - a question of difference.