Social sequence analysis: methods and applications

Table of contents:

PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Sequence analysis in the social sciences
PART II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND:
2. Theoretical foundations of social sequence analysis
PART III. SOCIAL SEQUENCE ANALYSIS CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES:
3. Sequence analysis concepts and data
4. Detecting sequence structure
5. Whole-sequence comparison methods
PART IV. NEW DIRECTIONS IN SOCIAL SEQUENCE ANALYSIS:
6. Network methods for sequence analysis
7. Social microsequence analysis
PART V. CONCLUSIONS:
8. The promise of social sequence analysis.

Social sequence analysis includes a diverse and rapidly growing body of methods that social scientists have developed to help study complex ordered social processes, including chains of transitions, trajectories and other ordered phenomena. Social sequence analysis is not limited by content or time scale and can be used in many different fields, including sociology, communication, information science and psychology. Social Sequence Analysis aims to bring together both foundational and recent theoretical and methodological work on social sequences from the last thirty years. A unique reference book for a new generation of social scientists, this book will aid demographers who study life-course trajectories and family histories, sociologists who study career paths or work/family schedules, communication scholars and micro-sociologists who study conversation, interaction structures and small-group dynamics, as well as social epidemiologists.
• Packages different sequence analysis methods together as a family of social science methods
• Expands on existing sequence analysis methods by showing how sequence analysis can be done using social network analysis techniques
• Shows how sequence analysis techniques can be used to study time-use data
• Emphasizes visualization

(http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/sociology/research-methods-sociology-and-criminology/social-sequence-analysis-methods-and-applications?format=HB)