Summary of findings

Smoking Survey files & documentation

Issues in research design

Further statistics and choosing statistical tests

Further techniques in data analysis

Guide to further reading

SPSS updates, links and reader inputs

Tutor's Teaching Guide

Ordering the book

FAQ

Author information

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Peter Saunders is currently Director of Social Policy Research Programmes at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia, where he is researching issues of poverty and welfare policy. 

Before joining the CIS, he spent two years as Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Family Studies where he worked on family and welfare  policy.  For over twenty years before that, he taught sociology – including quantitative research methods – at the University of Sussex where he still holds the title of Professor Emeritus.

Peter Saunders has held visiting academic posts at a number of universities in Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the United States.  His major publications include empirical studies of social mobility in Britain ('Unequal But Fair", 1996), the impact of mass home ownership on British society ("A Nation of Home Owners", 1990) and the political and social significance of privatisation ("Privatization and Popular Capitalism" 1994).  He has also published several theoretical and analytical works including "Capitalism: A Social Audit" (1995), "Social Class and Stratification" (1990) and "Social Theory and the Urban Question" (1981/1986), and he is co-author with John Dearlove of An Introduction to British Politics – a best-selling text book published by Polity Press and now in its third edition.

Alan Buckingham is currently Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Bath Spa University College in Bath, England where he teaches a range of sociology modules including quantitative survey methods. Prior to Bath Spa, he taught sociology at the University of Sussex.

Alan Buckingham has researched on social stratification, the family and speed cameras. His publications include an empirical study of the British underclass ("Is there an underclass in Britain", 1999) and an evaluation of the effectiveness of speed cameras in Australia and Britain ("Speed Traps", 2003). He has recently gained a CSAP grant to research effective ways of teaching quantitative research methods in Higher Education institutions.