Book Reviews : Accounts and action: Surrey conferences on sociological theory and method 1, edited by G. Nigel Gilbert & Peter Abell. Aldershot, Gower, 1983. vii + 190 pp. US$28.00 (hardcover)

McHoul, A. (1985) Book Reviews : Accounts and action: Surrey conferences on sociological theory and method 1, edited by G. Nigel Gilbert & Peter Abell. Aldershot, Gower, 1983. vii + 190 pp. US$28.00 (hardcover). Journal of Sociology, 21 (2). pp. 311-314.

Abstract

The main problematic of the papers in this book is quite simply: what is the relation between what people say and what they do? The ’saying’ part refers, with minor exceptions, to responses to interviewers’ and other elicited questions while the ’doing’ part refers to traditional sociological concerns with (a) actions or behaviours such as church-going, scientific conduct and so on and/or (b) beliefs, motives, meanings and so on.