In this book I have considered the ways in which ‘social research matters’ at particular times and some of the ways in which it is conducted. I have used my own life as a researcher of family life over four decades to show how research problems reflect specific historical and contemporary contexts, how they are selected at particular moments in time and positioned in relation to a number of social domains. I have also discussed how the funding and organisational environments for social science research affect how research is done. A further aim has been to consider how the specific and broader research context influences which conceptual and methodological developments come to the fore at particular times and become ‘acceptable’, and how they shape the creation of knowledge and understanding. In this concluding chapter, I want to draw out a few specific points relating to these themes and my own ‘take’ on where research in my field might develop.

Contexts for the construction of knowledge

The beginning of the book gave a brief account of my own positioning: how I came to follow a career in research and my subsequent pathway in terms of the fields pursued, the particular topics studied and where I have worked. The book went on to consider the organisational contexts in which research is done and discussed different organisational models. My own workplace, although it was located in a university, was one that was devoted primarily to the conduct of social science research. The research organisation depended largely on its own efforts and those of its members to raise funding for salaries and services. The staff had a common stake in the success of the organisation and its research output. This model was contrasted with that of the ‘academic entrepreneur’, one that has been historically more common in universities, in which tenured academics are employed by the university principally to teach. However, in order to develop their own knowledge and reputations in academia, they are required to procure research funding and, in the last decade or more, preferably large grants that cover some of their own salaries as well as those of ‘hired hands’ who do much of the research.