Does British Sociology Count? Sociology Students ’ Attitudes toward Quantitative Methods

The research reported here is from the first national survey of British undergrad-uate attitudes to the methodological character of the discipline and specifically to quantitative methods.The study found that most sociology students saw their sub-ject as closer to the humanities than the sciences. However, whilst as anticipated many students expressed anxiety about quantitative methods and ‘number’, a slight majority nevertheless expressed no such anxiety. The methodological issue for sociology is perhaps less to do with a numeric deficit and more to do with a lack of student interest in the use of quantitative methods. It may be concluded that the views held by present undergraduates do not augur well for a methodologi-cally pluralist discipline in the future, or more generally for key numeric and ana-lytic skills sociology graduates can bring to other professions and occupations