Delinquency Research

"An important work in methodology... Social scientists, regardless of their metaphysical convictions or substantive specializations, will find time spent with this book a profitable investment." -- American Sociological Review "For those engaged in digesting existing research literature or for those setting out to add onto that body of research, the book is essential... contains many valuable guidelines for analysis." -- The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science "Recommended as required reading in any course in research methods in sociology that considers quantitative data... ably fills in the gab between statistics and research methods." -- Social Forces "An important work in methodology... Social scientists, regardless of their metaphysical convictions or substantive specializations, will find time spent with this book a profitable investment." -- American Sociological Review "For those engaged in digesting existing research literature or for those setting out to add onto that body of research, the book is essential... contains many valuable guidelines for analysis." -- The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science "This book has crucial lessons to teach the researcher about what the answers he obtains really mean." --S. Cohen, The British Journal of Sociology "Recommended as required reading in any course in research methods in sociology that considers quantitative data... ably fills in the gab between statistics and research methods." -- Social Forces "An important work in methodology... Social scientists, regardless of their metaphysical convictions or substantive specializations, will find time spent with this book a profitable investment." -- American Sociological Review "For those engaged in digesting existing research literature or for those setting out to add onto that body of research, the book is essential... contains many valuable guidelines for analysis." -- The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science "This book has crucial lessons to teach the researcher about what the answers he obtains really mean." --S. Cohen, The British Journal of Sociology "Recommended as required reading in any course in research methods in sociology that considers quantitative data... ably fills in the gab between statistics and research methods." -- Social Forces -An important work in methodology... Social scientists, regardless of their metaphysical convictions or substantive specializations, will find time spent with this book a profitable investment.- -- American Sociological Review -For those engaged in digesting existing research literature or for those setting out to add onto that body of research, the book is essential... contains many valuable guidelines for analysis.- -- The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science -This book has crucial lessons to teach the researcher about what the answers he obtains really mean.- --S. Cohen, The British Journal of Sociology -Recommended as required reading in any course in research methods in sociology that considers quantitative data... ably fills in the gab between statistics and research methods.- -- Social Forces

Travis Hirschi, Hanan C. Selvin

i: The Nature of Methodological Criticism; On Approaching Methodology; 2: Critiques of Delinquency Research; ii: Causal Analysis; 3: Principles of Causal Analysis; 4: Causal Order; 5: Genuine and Spurious Relations; 6: Links in the Causal Chain; 7: Interaction of Variables; 8: False Criteria of Causality *; iii: Multivariate Analysis; 9: Some Problems of Multivariate Statistical Analysis; 10: The Shortcomings of Tabular Analysis 1; iv: Conceptualization and Inference; 11: Concepts, Indicators, and Indices; 12: Reliability and Scaling; 13: Statistical Inference; 14: Description and Prediction; 15: Individual and Group Variables; A Final Word