About the Pioneers project

During the first six years of the life of the ESRC Qualidata Centre (1995-2001), based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex, a key goal was to seek out surviving research data from pioneering examples of social research. These now classic studies are less than fifty years old in most cases, yet it is remarkable how much has been lost already. Qualidata confirmed the loss of some crucial examples, such as the work of Michael Young and Peter Wilmott at the Institute of Community Studies and two Banbury studies conducted by Margaret Stacey. Even so, some very important material has been rescued and has been succesfully deposited with the UK Data Archive and some other UK research archives.

In July 2000, with the support of the British Academy and the Department of Sociology at Essex, ESDS Qualidata (now part of the UK Data Archive) held a highly prestigious and successful conference on Celebrating Classic Sociology. This yielded a set of fascinating papers edited by Thompson and Corti and which appear in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 7(1), February 2004. They combine reflections by younger scholars on the value of revisiting earlier social research with retrospective reflections by older researchers, such as the community study anthropologist, Ronald Frankenberg.

In addition to the main task of locating and archiving data from UK classic studies, a series of interviews were carried out with the pioneering researchers themselves. These interviews were conducted by oral historian Professor Paul Thompson. They are very detailed interviews, covering each individual's family, social background, intellectual development and key influences. Generally there is also a detailed account of the major research projects associated with that researcher.

This Pioneers web site offers an insight into their research backgrounds, their motivations for undertaking particular pieces of research and some interesting observations about studying sociology in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

So far only a small number of interviews with the Pioneers have been prepared for inclusion on this web site. More will be added as the process of transcription, editing and audio digitisation continues.