This paper presents new explanatory perspectives on the behaviour of serial murders via the theory of social domains platform.

It is important for social sciences such as sociology, economics, criminology, psychology and anthropology, committed as they are to teaching research methods (and dependent on them for the reliable delivery of research data), to rectify basic problems which inhibit the genuine integration and accumulation of knowledge. First, the false distinction between theory and method should be abandoned, in order that authentic, problem-driven research can be installed at the heart of social scientific research. A second deficiency concerns the persistent neglect of issues around the nature of social reality, particularly their absence in (text book) discussions of research methods, and in routine research practices. Remedying these would strengthen data gathering and sampling techniques, the construction of research designs, aims and objectives, as well as the analysis of findings drawn from evidence. There is also a need for more theory-generation in social sciences, but without any neglect of theory-testing, falsification and verification. Modifications of this kind would aid the genuine accumulation of empirical and theoretical knowledge in social sciences. It is naïve to assume that this can be achieved via the stock-piling of empirical data sets in terms of similarity of ‘topic’ or ‘substantive area’. Genuine integration and accumulation can only be attained via appropriate research strategies designed to establish deep links between local properties of research data and the global properties of social reality. As such, social policy considerations and decisions would be based on firmer, more robustly integrated analyses of empirical evidence.

This article reports on an ethnographic study focusing on the impact of in-cell television on prison life in a male adult prison in the UK. Layder's social domains model (1997; 2006) and his adaptive analysis (1998; 2014), were used to give shape, meaning and organization to data from interviews with prisoners and staff and also television-use diaries. The research highlighted how television is adopted for its care-giving qualities ( Knight 2015 ; 2016). This article focuses primarily on what prisoners do and what prison does, with emotions. The paper focuses on examining and developing theoretical and methodological conceptual links between self, emotions and control in the prison setting.

This book explores the nature of intimacy by revealing how the influence of individual, interpersonal and wider social factors create variations in self-disclosure, intimacy games and relationship hab

Introduction Uncovering the Lost Heart Theoretical Issues The Psychology of Personal Control Social Encounters Types and Dimensions Familiar Issues and Examples Failures of Control Some Propositions about Human Behaviour The Lost Heart Theory and Research

upon a theoretical atheism, which characterizes today’s social constructionism as much as it did Marx or Durkheim. According to social constructionists, meaning is produced by social interaction between humans. Nevertheless, many of these humans, but not social constructionists, cite gods as actors in their accounts of the origins of meaning. A social science, which was not sceptical about such claims, but which was sceptical about the social constructionists’ routine scepticism, would look very different from that which is now the conventional orthodoxy. Constructing Identities might be a small book. In terms of style, it has a ’nice’ author, to match those ’nice animals’ and ’nice environments’, of which he writes. But do not be deceived by the engaging modesty. A conceptual network is being redrawn; social scientists are being invited to rewrite their identities. We do not know where this will lead, but the journey is sure to be exciting.

Preface. 1. Research Strategy and Theory Construction. 2. Middle--Range Theory and Research. 3. Grounded Theory and Field Research. 4. Grounded Theory on a Broader Canvass. 5. A Resource Map for Research. 6. Data and Method in Multi--Strategy Research. 7. Research Strategy and Theory Building. 8. Investigating Power, Commitment and Constraint. 9. The Historical Dimension. 10. New Strategies: Some Reflections and a Practical Guide. References. Index.

The paper attempts to link theoretical ideas concerning the relation of agency and structure with empirical research on the transition from school to work. In particular, some of the propositions of structuration theory are assessed in terms of their applicability to empirical research which investigates the impact of individual and structural variables on movement into the labour market, and the way the variables combine to determine entry into labour market segments. The data suggests that structural and individual factors are influential at all levels of the occupational hierarchy, but that the strength of influence varies at different points in the hierarchy. This supports the axiom of structuration theory which asserts that structure and activity are deeply implicated in each other in the process of social reproduction. However, the data further suggests the `duality of structure' principle has to be considerably modified in order to apprehend phenomena such as labour market processes. In this respect we believe that structure and action variables have to be viewed as loci of powers rooted in partly independent ontological domains but which interpenetrate each other in specific empirical areas at particular points in time and space.

Acknowledgements - Introduction - The Possibility of Realism - Epistemology and Levels of Discourse - Realism and Validity Claims - Causality, Acausality and the Implicate Order - Behaviour and Social Ontology - The Language of Social Analysis - The Prospects for Realism - Appendix: The Philosophical Bogeyman - References - Index

When my article ‘The relation of theory and method: causal relatedness, historical contingency and beyond’ appeared in The Sociological Review August 1988, it was followed by two critical responses in the same issue by Platt and Bulmer. In my opinion both of these responses seriously misrepresent and profoundly misunderstand my arguments. In what follows I identify the more salient of these errors and attempt to rectify them.

Preface. 1. What Do Sociologists Do?. 2. Nine Theses on the Future of Sociology. 3. The Social Sciences and Philosophy -- Trends in Recent Social Theory. 4. Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and the Production of Culture. 5. Erving Goffman as a Systematic Social Theorist. 6. Time and Social Organization. 7. Nation-States and Violence. 8. Social Theory and Problems of Macroeconomics. 9. Out of the Orrery: E.P.Thompson on Consciousness and History. 10. Reason Without Revolution? Heberman&apos s Theory of Communicative Action. 11. Alvin Gouldner and the Intellenctuals. 12. The Perils of Punditry: Gorz and the End of the Working Class. Index.