Methods for Whom?

The problems of deciding upon objectives and strategies for courses in research methods, at whatever level they are taught, are inevitably inscribed within a more general set of intellectual and political problems with which all sociologists are familiar. Beyond these general intellectual and political elements which influence us are the particular institutional settings in which we do our teaching and research and which equally affect decisions made on the content of courses. In what follows attention is given to some of these factors and their inter-relationships.