Research Methods in Social and Political Science

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the main quantitative and qualitative research approaches in sociology and political science. Good methods produce good research, regardless of whether they are qualitative or quantitative. Students will be able to do original empirical research on the various themes of the Master programme (political institutions, public policy, educational inequalities, cultural change, etc.) in a comparative and global perspective. More specifically, this course will prepare students to:
1)understand research articles and outputs that belong to different research traditions in sociology and political science.
2)foster the analysis of empirical data in other courses included in the program;
3) select the appropriate research method for their own thesis;

By the end of the course, students will have gained the following skills: an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative approaches in the social sciences; an understanding of the theoretical and epistemological underpinnings of quantitative and qualitative research; a general knowledge of a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods and an understanding of their relationship to particular types of research design.