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ETHICS & VALUES IN SOCIAL RESEARCH Paul Ransome (2013) Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. pp.200. £23.99 (pbk). ISBN: 0230202217
Paul Ransome's book represents a critical and throughout effort to stimulate the reader to reflect about how Ethics, Theory, and Values interact and interplay with the wider socio, historical, and political context. This book is very well structured and exhaustive, and with the very much needed intellectual honesty to make the debate both constructive and inspiring. This book would be beneficial for researchers at any stage of their career and should be a compulsory reading for every academic research method course.
Social research is inevitably connected or influenced by social or personal values and, as researchers, a certain dose of critical thinking and reflexivity is essential. There is nothing wrong to have a starting 'value position' or to be entangled in this web of social values; rather, Ransome's well-supported thesis is that independent and 'aseptic' forms of social research are a mirage. The best social researchers can do is to recognise the values and ideals they hold and use them as a point of strength, rather than a limitation or weakness of their own research methodology.
The book is well-structured and, although each chapter could be read on its own, it is...