This paper presents an investigation of the research methods curriculum in public sector sociology courses. It is based on an analysis of CNAA course documents for degrees in sociology and the social sciences, and undertaken with the aim of contributing to the current debate on the content of the undergraduate curriculum in sociology. The survey results suggest several trends in curricular policy: in particular an increasing emphasis on practical competence and familiarity with procedures and techniques, and a greater recognition of `methodological pluralism', although qualitative methods are still given only a marginal place in many courses. There was little evidence of progress in the teaching of quantitative skills, nor was computing yet seen to be a core element of the curriculum. The documents also revealed a continuing problem over the place of methods teaching as a whole in relation to other parts of the curriculum as reflected both in time allocation and in assessment weighting. It is argued that if the claims of sociology to practical and vocational relevance are to become genuine for students wishing to pursue research in a variety of careers, then research methods teaching needs to be brought out of the ghetto. It is the contention of the authors that this is not just a pragmatic consideration: such a change would also benefit sociology as a discipline.

This essay presents a method for integrating visual representations of social and cultural realities into sociological analysis. It unites strategies of documentary photography with those of grounded theory-based field research and demonstrates the consonant interactionist and interrogatory stance of the visual sociologist. The documentary photographic method of using “shooting scripts” to structure the visual field project is shown to have a complementary relationship to a grounded theory method, and both, together, offer the visual sociologist a structured way of initiating and sustaining photographic field work.

This article defines a method of evaluation of sociology collections in academic and research libraries. Three parts of a collection are examined, the journal collection, the basic book collection, and recent monograph acquisitions. The evaluation takes into account both the quantity and quality of a library's holdings and allows the evaluator to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the collection. An attempt is also made to establish standards for the evaluation that permit comparisons to be made with other sociology research collections.

After a giving a summary of the development of sport sociology and the present research situation in Germany, selected foci of research are outlined. Topics dealt with include the discussion on issues to be tackled by sport sociology, research in the sociology of organizations, social roles and social processes in sport and contributions that examine the future development of sport in the Federal Republic.

The paper presents the author’s thoughts and explores the process of teaching sociology students to analyze data using SPSS and the course book by N. Voronina, published in 2024. It also provides a brief overview of the available domestic learning materials in SPSS-based data analysis and argues that the genre of course books written by a new generation of researchers and teachers is of relevance. N. Voronina’s course book shows an understanding of the specifics of sociology students, as students who still have signs of avoiding information that is heavy in formulas and mathematical terminology, together with an understanding of how important is gaining analytical skills for professional activities. The author argues that this contradiction can be removed by bringing the research methodology to the forefront, while the analysis methods themselves should come second. The author’s high level of empathy towards students who study analysis and the use of 232 pictures embracing all the nuances of the applied processes can contribute to effective learning and application of the methods under consideration. The course book outlines all data processing and analysis approaches that may be required to develop the basic skills of a sociology research analyst. Deep and substantial description of regression analysis, decision tree method (CHAID), and discriminant analysis techniques are redundant in this context. Therewith, the author disregards the fact that the most common sociology research method is crosstabs, and its brief overview in the course book is insufficient.

This paper introduces clinical sociology as a humanistic, multidisciplinary specialty seeking to improve the quality of people's lives. It traces the emergence of clinical sociology in the United States in 1931, and in Australia in the late 1950s in the context of the pioneering clinical sociology research into social transformation at Australian society's margins by Neville Yeomans. A contemporary illustration is given demonstrating how a biopyschosocial model of health is now being implemented as world best-evidence-based practice within the Australian health care delivery system. Further arguments, citing national and international evidence based on sociotherapeutic models of intervention, support a proposal for the Australian Sociology Association to engage in dialogues with health care agencies with the view of establishing clinical sociologists as an integral part of the Australian health-care delivery system.