The Survey Method: The Contribution of Surveys to Sociological Explanation

In the early 1980s, the survey was the most widely used method of social research, but it had been the object of much damaging criticism. Critics maintained that there were philosophical flaws inherent in survey practice which made it unacceptable as valid method; sociology students were taught that surveys are ‘positivist’ and that alternatives should be sought wherever possible. In The Survey Method, originally published in 1982, Catherine Marsh examines such claims and shows that much of this criticism was ill-founded. The book shows that surveys do not have to be mere superficial glimpses of the surface features of processes, fact-gathering exercises or opinion polls. Properly designed, executed and analysed, they can actually provide the kind of evidence that social theorists, concerned with uncovering dynamic aspects of social life, will want to use. Catherine Marsh challenges the contention that different research procedures automatically have to commit those who use them either to a particular theory of knowledge, a view of human nature or even a political stance. The Survey Method is neither a pure defence of surveys nor a textbook on how to do them. It does, after all, criticise the kinds of surveys that are often done, and it is particularly hostile to some new and manipulative developments in the often anti-democratic use made of survey results and opinion polls. Catherine Marsh’s aim is to contribute to the methodological debate on survey research. Although the book will find most of its readers among academic sociologists, it also contains a wealth of detail on the history of surveys and an extensive annotated bibliography of the major survey literature. It will accordingly prove essential reading for practising social researchers while re-establishing the credentials of survey research amongst the broader social science community.