Each day we are faced with continuing claims made by media pundits, politicians, teachers, and friends, often quoting research. Consider also the numerous comments and posts on Internet blogs, Twitter, and Facebook that illustrate the confusion between opinion and factual data. How do we learn to interpret the research we hear about and read, to distinguish opinions from scientific facts, and to use this knowledge to conduct our own studies to answer the questions faced in everyday situations? Understanding the components that go into scientific research and learning how to do research, make decisions about which statistics to use, and analyze statistical findings are goals for everyone in today's research-oriented world. Questions about the reliability and validity of data from a study or public opinion poll come up routinely and need critical review. This book contributes to achieving these objectives. Doing Survey Research is intended for people who want to learn how to conduct quantitative studies for a project in an undergraduate course, a graduate-level thesis, or a survey that an employer may want completed. This brief, practical textbook prepares beginners to conduct their own survey research and write up the results, as well as read and interpret other people's research. It combines survey design with data analysis and interpretation. And it is for those who need to understand and critically interpret survey research found in scholarly journals, reports distributed in the workplace, and social scientific findings presented online in the media, on a blog, or in social media postings. Essential new updates to this edition include coverage of Big Data, Meta-Analysis, and A/B testing methodology-methods used by scholars as well as businesses like Netflix and Amazon. New to this Fourth Edition Each chapter and its exercises feature updated data and illustrations from current academic and popular articles relevant to today's web-oriented students, including studies focused on topics related to social media. Update web site http://doingsurveyresearch.wordpress.com/ New Coverage of Big Data (used by popular web sites like Amazon and Netflix) and the ethical issues which emerge not only about privacy, but also how it relates to the methods discussed in this book about sampling, probability, and research design. New coverage of meta-data, and the increasingly popular method in many professional and other settings.

This comprehensive reader brings a social science perspective to an area hitherto dominated by the humanities. Through it, students will be able to follow the story of how sociology has come to engage with gay and lesbian issues from the 1950s to the present, from the earliest research on the underground worlds of gay men to the emergence of queer theory in the 1990s.
Bringing together classic readings and the best work of younger scholars from all parts of the English-speaking world, this reader will be an invaluable resource for courses at undergraduate and graduate level in all areas of the sociology of sexuality and gender. Separate sections cover:
* theoretical foundations
* identity and community making
* institutions and social change
* challenges for the future.
Each section begins with an introduction giving readers a brief guide to the readings in that section, contextualises them and relates them to one another and the book ends with an afterword by Ken Plummer summing up the present state of play and looking forward to the future.

Each day we are faced with continuing claims made by media pundits, politicians, teachers, and friends, often quoting research. Consider also the numerous comments and posts on Internet blogs, Twitter, and Facebook that illustrate the confusion between opinion and factual data. How do we learn to interpret the research we hear about and read, to distinguish opinions from scientific facts, and to use this knowledge to conduct our own studies to answer the questions faced in everyday situations? Understanding the components that go into scientific research and learning how to do research, make decisions about which statistics to use, and analyze statistical findings are goals for everyone in today's research-oriented world. Questions about the reliability and validity of data from a study or public opinion poll come up routinely and need critical review. This book contributes to achieving these objectives. Doing Survey Research is intended for people who want to learn how to conduct quantitative studies for a project in an undergraduate course, a graduate-level thesis, or a survey that an employer may want completed. This brief, practical textbook prepares beginners to conduct their own survey research and write up the results, as well as read and interpret other people's research. It combines survey design with data analysis and interpretation. And it is for those who need to understand and critically interpret survey research found in scholarly journals, reports distributed in the workplace, and social scientific findings presented online in the media, on a blog, or in social media postings. Essential new updates to this edition include coverage of Big Data, Meta-Analysis, and A/B testing methodology-methods used by scholars as well as businesses like Netflix and Amazon. New to this Fourth Edition Each chapter and its exercises feature updated data and illustrations from current academic and popular articles relevant to today's web-oriented students, including studies focused on topics related to social media. Update web site http://doingsurveyresearch.wordpress.com/ New Coverage of Big Data (used by popular web sites like Amazon and Netflix) and the ethical issues which emerge not only about privacy, but also how it relates to the methods discussed in this book about sampling, probability, and research design. New coverage of meta-data, and the increasingly popular method in many professional and other settings.

Based on surveys and interviews of two hundred gay men, Peter Nardi's new study presents the first book-length examination of contemporary urban gay men's friendships. Expertly weaving historical and sociological research on friendship with firsthand information, Nardi argues that friendship is the central organizing element of gay men's lives. Through friendship, gay identities and communities are created, transformed, maintained, and reproduced.
Nardi explores the meaning of friends to some gay men, how friends often become a surrogate family, how sexual behavior and attraction affects these friendships, and how, for many, friends mean more and last longer than romantic relationships. While looking at the psychological joys and sorrows of friendship, he also considers the cultural constraints limiting gay men in contemporary urban America--especially those that deal with dominant images of masculinity and heterosexuality--and how they relate to friendship.
By listening to gay men talk about their interactions, Nardi offers a rare glimpse into the mechanisms of gay life. We learn how gay men meet their friends, what they typically do and talk about, and how these strong relationships contain the roots of larger cultural forces such as social movements and gay identities and neighborhoods. Nardi also points out the political and social consequences when friendships fail to provide support against oppression.
An intimate and informative look at gay life in urban America, "Gay Men's Friendships" ultimately shows how these relationships challenge the gender order of our society by questioning how masculinity is constructed and by offering a model for a more creative blending of gay and heterosexual masculinity.

Without question, the media have perpetuated stereotypes of gay men, often portraying them as effeminate. Such a limited depiction illustrates the problematic conflation of gender roles and sexual orientation, raising important questions about the relationship between the two. The articles collected in this volume represent an attempt to understand how contemporary gay men in the United States engage in, contest, and modify controlling notions of masculinity. Peter Nardi, with contributions from leading scholars in the field of gay studies, examines the ways in which gay men develop a sense of masculine identity, with a special emphasis on the every day lives of gay men. These essays consider a great range of issues, from gay masculine identity in business, church, home, and community, to interpersonal relationships of gay men. A fascinating and thought-provoking addition to the Research on Men and Masculinities series, Gay Masculinities is a must read for any scholar of sociology, gender studies, education, anthropology, psychology, or communication.

Current and much-needed, this book offers an analysis of the social forces which shape the way friendship is organized. Through varying perspectives, contributors show that a variation exists within--as well as between--the genders. They focus on diversity in men's friendships, and how men develop and maintain friendships with other men and women. Part I focuses on philosophical and historical questions; Part II illustrates the strong connection between social structure and men's friendships; and the final chapters consider cultural diversity. Men's Friendships reorganizes existing knowledge and introduces fresh perspectives within the framework of men's studies. This volume is sure to stimulate debate, raise questions, and offer suggestions for future research. "A very interesting collection, particularly those on black men's relationships--where the author compares working class and middle class black American men's relationships--a history of friendship and the changing nature of men's intimacy and power, and intimacy and sexuality in male athletes' friendships." --Working with Men "Theory and research on men's studies are alive and well, and Peter Nardi's edited book, Men's Friendships, is a significant contribution to this literature. The book not only provides a useful account of how men develop and maintain their friendships, it introduces a variety of rigorous approaches (historical, sociological, and cross-cultural) to examine this topic." --Journal of Men's Studies "Provides a thought-provoking, multifaceted look at how men handle friendship under a variety of conditions. . . . Some of the authors present data-based research findings; others give reflective integrative essays. General readers, undergraduate students, and above." --Choice "Theory and research on men's studies are alive and well, and Peter Nardi's edited book, Men's Friendships, is a significant contribution to this literature. The book not only provides a useful account of how men develop and maintain their friendships, it introduces a variety of rigorous approaches (historical, sociological, and cross-cultural) to examine this topic. . . . Men's Friendships is not only an important contribution to men's studies, it is necessary reading for anyone interested in studying friendships." --The Journal of Men's Studies "Overall, this book demonstrates the vitality of research and theory on men's friendships. Men's Friendships is not only an important contribution to men's studies, it is necessary reading for anyone interested in studying relationships." --Personal Relationships Issues "The anthology . . . provides an excellent overview of the permutations of men's friendships. It is both tightly organized and wide ranging, a particularly difficult accomplishment for a collection. . . . Men's Friendships is one of the most interesting additions to the growing friendship literature. It significantly opens up the debate over gender differences in friendship--both within and between genders." --Masculinities