INTRODUCTION OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
Social research is all around us. Educators, government officials, business managers, human service providers, and health care professionals make frequent use of social research findings. Many people use social research to raise children, reduce crime, improve health, sell products, or just understand life. Daily broadcast news programs, magazines, newspapers, and websites disseminate research results. Research findings can affect our lives and public policies. For example, a study that looked at the "summer slide" or decline in children's reading and spelling skills over the summer. The decline is greatest among low-income students who lose about two months of school learning each summer. At a time when many schools are cutting summer programs to save money, the study found that simply giving low-income children access to books at spring fairs and letting them pick books that most interested them reduced the summer reading gap. Low-income children given twelve books ...