Social Contexts of Method

Michael Brenner (d.1982) received his D.Phil from Wolfson College, Oxford in 1979. When Michael arrived in Oxford from Germany, he would have described himself as a microsociologist and emphasised his research interest in communication, cognisant of the attendant philosophical and methodological issues. Research in Cardiff afforded access to survey response data; Michael later visited the Institute for Social Research in Michigan, and decided on research interviews as his topic. A portable VTR was used to capture respondent behaviours in interviews he initiated in Oxford. Established as a social psychologist, Michael co-edited The Social Contexts of Method (1978) followed by a more theory-based edition The Structure of Action (1980), and others.Peter Marsh As a mature student, Peter studied Psychology at Oxford University and went on to gain DPhil. He taught at Oxford Polytechnic (later Oxford Brookes University) before settling up his own research group, the Social Issues Research Centre, a non profit think tank working on social and lifestyle issues. He was best known for work on football hooligans and the connections between drinking and disorder. He wrote and contributed to a number of other publications including Aggro:The Illusion of Violence, The Rules of Disorder with Elizabeth Rosser and Rom Harre and Driving Passion: The Psychology of the Car with Peter Collett.Marylin Brenner (née and AKA Marylin Williams) received her D.Phil from St Anne's College, Oxford in 1973 and took up a lectureship in Social Psychology at the University of Reading, where she came to specialise in Occupational Psychology and collaborated with colleagues in International Development and other departments. At Oxford Marylin worked with a group supervised by Michael Argyle on his non-verbal behaviour research. When she chose ‘the dramaturgical analogy’ as her research focus, Argyle enlisted Rom Harré to provide additional supervision. Argyle invited her to co-administer a NATO symposium on non-verbal communication. Marylin co-edited The Social Contexts of Method (1978) and Discovery Strategies in the Psychology of Action (1985).

• Introduction 1. On Negative Rationalism in Scholarly Studies of Verbal Communication and Dynamic Residuals in the Construction of Human Inter-subjectivity Ragnar Rommeveit 2. Towards a Social Psychology of Everyday Life: A Standpoint ‘in Action’ John Shotter 3. Accounts, Actions and Meanings – the Practice of Participatory Psychology Rom Harré 4. Method and Sociological Discourse Stewart Clegg 5. Role-Playing and Role Performance in Social Psychological Research Gerald P. Ginsberg 6. Interviewing: The Social Phenomenology of a Research Instrument Michael Brenner 7. Meaning – Who Needs It? Herbert Menzel 8. The Structuralist Analysis of Communication: An Example of Problem-Centred Methodology David D. Clarke 9. Qualitative Knowing in Action Research Donald T. Campbell 10. Hierarchies of Interaction in Sociological Research Derek L. Phillips 11. Discussion Chapter: An Appraisal of the New Approach to the Study of Social Behaviour Michael Argyle. Index.