Empirical Social Research, History of

Abstract

Empirical social research (ESR) uses empirical data on social formations and their members as a basis for explaining social phenomena. Historically it developed in three stages. The first stage was represented by the changes introduced into scientific procedure by the Chicago School of Sociology between 1895 and 1929. The second stage began outside the field of sociology in the late 1920s with the use of standardized data on social units (individuals and households) for marketing and polling purposes, and the approach was then applied in sociology starting in the later 1930s; most social data processing at this time were descriptive in nature and purpose. The third stage involved use of the same mass data in the survey analysis model of research to test hypotheses on causal relations between selected variables. The aim was to develop ‘theory-based ESR.’ ESR refers to empirical research activities grounded in social theory and enriching social theory.