The Myth of Research-Based Policy and Practice

Martyn Hammersley is an emeritus professor of educational and social research at The Open University, UK. He has carried out research in the sociology of education and the sociology of the media. However, much of his work has been concerned with the methodological issues surrounding social enquiry. He has written several books including (with Paul Atkinson) Ethnography: Principles in Practice (fourth edition, Routledge, 2019), The Dilemma of Qualitative Method (Routledge, 1989), The Politics of Social Research (SAGE, 1995), Reading Ethnographic Research (second edition, Longman, 1997), Taking Sides in Social Research (Routledge, 2000), Educational Research, Policymaking and Practice, (London, Paul Chapman/SAGE, 2002), Questioning Qualitative Inquiry (SAGE, 2008), Methodology Who Needs It? (SAGE, 2011), The Myth of Research-Based Policy and Practice (SAGE, 2013), The Limits of Social Science (SAGE, 2014), and The Concept of Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Website: http://martynhammersley.wordpress.com/

′I suspect that this book will appeal to scholars frustrated by growing demands that their work produce particular sorts of outcomes, and those interested in phronetic social science. Chapter 6, The question of quality in qualitative research, might also be of interest to PhD students as they discover their own epistemological and paradigmatic leanings. It is a book worth dipping in and out of (particularly the early chapters), which I suspect may have been its aim all along′

• Some Questions about Evidence-Based Practice The Myth of Research-Based Policy-Making and Practice Is Scientific Research Evidence-Based? What Counts as Evidence for Evidence-Based Practice? Is Social Measurement Possible, and Is It Necessary? The Question of Quality in Qualitative Research Action Research: A Contradiction in Terms?On ′Systematic′ Reviews of Research Literatures Systematic or Unsystematic, Is That the Question? Some Reflections on the Science, Art and Politics of Reviewing The Interpretive Attack on the Traditional Review What Is Qualitative Synthesis and Why Do It?