Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Fiona McSweeney and Dave Williams -- Gatekeepers : the experience of conducting research in a prison setting / Nicola Hughes -- Suicide research: what have we learned about conducting sensitive research with vulnerable populations? / Evelyn Gordon and Maeve Kenny -- Ensuring the active participation of people with intellectual disabilities in research : implications for researchers and professionals / Judit Fullana and Maria Pallisera -- To choose and to participate : lessons from researching with children and young people / Florbela Samagaio -- Managing relationships in the field : practitioner research with the travelling community / Tamsin Cavaliero -- Between policy and practice : ethical challenges in longitudinal social work research with street youth / Jeff Karabanow and Ian Stewart -- Cream cakes, hungry cats and hugs : developing a responsive strategy to asking sensitive questions and hearing the answers / Sharon Mallon -- Measuring individual change using open card sort data / Raegan Murphy and Emma Hurley -- Choosing constructivist grounded theory to explore children¿s experiences of disclosing sexual abuse / Rosaleen McElvaney -- A psychoanalytic approach to data collection and analysis / Gerard Moore -- The politics and ethics of research into ¿wicked¿ social problems : the case of jimmy savile at duncroft / Mark Smith -- A post qualitative, transdisciplinary, close reading of child and youth care and the capacity of love / Hans Skott-Myhre and Kathleen S.G. Skott-Myhre -- Using documents to examine the meanings of childhood : a figurational perspective / Paddy Dolan -- Theoretical frameworks in research : lessons from a study examining the experiences of birth children of foster carers / Dave Williams -- Constructing a knowledge through research : examples from research on practice teaching / Fiona McSweeney -- Indicators and strategies to develop credible outcomes in qualitative research : young people, compliance and community supervision / Mairead Seymour and Ben Meehan -- Index.

This text presents a novel and accessible way to learn about designing and conducting social research. Unlike traditional social research methods books, it provides a 'real world' account of social researchers' experiences and learning achieved through conducting research in a variety of fields. It contains an eclectic collection of research and advice for conducting research from social researchers with varying backgrounds.