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The fact that some students left early and the experiment was cut short suggests that the experiment’s effects were significant. But which aspects of prison life could experiments of this kind never replicate? Write a 500-word position paper explaining the benefits of allowing sociologists to conduct experiments using human beings. What are the counterarguments?

A historical perspective is also essential in sociological research, as we frequently need a time perspective to make sense of the material we collect about a particular problem. Sociologists commonly want to investigate past events directly. Some periods of history can be studied in a direct way while there are still survivors around, and there have been some insightful studies of the Holocaust in Europe during the Second World War. Research in oral history means interviewing people about events they were part of or witnessed at earlier points in their lives. This kind of direct testimony can be gained, at most, for sixty or seventy years back in time.

For historical research into earlier periods, sociologists draw on documentary research, using written records often contained in the special collections of libraries or other archives. The range of useful documents is extensive, taking in personal sources such as diaries, official sources such as policy documents, records of births and deaths, tax records, and documents from private bodies such as businesses and voluntary organizations, as well as magazines and newspapers. Depending on the research question, historical documents such as these can all constitute primary sources just as much as the data recorded in interviews with war survivors. However, historical sociologists also make use of secondary sources: accounts of historical events written by people after the event. Most documentary studies utilize both primary and secondary sources. However, sociologists face the same issues as historians when they use such sources. How authentic are the documents? Is the information within them reliable? Do they represent only a partial viewpoint? Documentary research requires a patient, systematic approach to sources and their interpretation.

An interesting example of the use of historical documents is Anthony Ashworth’s study of trench warfare during the First World War (Ashworth 1980). Ashworth drew on diverse documentary sources: official histories of the war, official publications of the time, notes and records kept by soldiers, and personal accounts of war experiences. He was able to develop a rich and detailed description of life in the trenches that contained some surprises. For instance, he found that most soldiers formed their own ideas about how often they intended to engage in combat and often ignored the rules and commands of their officers.

Ashworth’s research concentrated on a relatively short time period – 1914 to 1918 – but there have been many studies investigating social change over much longer periods, making use of comparative research in that historical context. A modern classic of comparative historical sociology is Theda Skocpol’s (1979) analysis of social revolutions, which is discussed in ‘Classic studies’ 2.2.