Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research

Russell K. Schutt, PhD, is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he received the 2007 Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service. Since 1990, he has also been Lecturer on Sociology in the Department of Psychiatry (Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center) at the Harvard Medical School. He completed his BA, MA, and PhD degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University. In addition to seven editions of the text on which this brief edition is based, Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, and four other coauthored versions—for the fields of social work, criminal justice, psychology, and education—he is the author of the new book, Homelessness, Housing, and Mental Illness, and of Organization in a Changing Environment, coeditor of the Organizational Response to Social Problems, and coauthor of Responding to the Homeless: Policy and Practice. He has authored and coauthored numerous journal articles, book chapters, and research reports on homelessness, mental health, organizations, law, and teaching research methods. He currently directs an evaluation of a Massachusetts Department of Public Health coordinated care program. His primary research focuses on social factors that shape the impact of housing, employment, and services for severely mentally ill persons and on the service preferences of homeless persons and service personnel. He has also studied influences on well-being, satisfaction, and cognitive functioning; processes of organizational change and the delivery of case management; decision making in juvenile justice and in union admissions; political participation; media representations of mental illness; and HIV/AIDS prevention.