The IBSS is the essential tool for librarians, university departments, research institutions and any public or private institution whose work requires access to up-to-date and comprehensive knowledge of the social sciences.

This book provides a useful guide for researchers, reviewers, and consumers who are charged with judging the quality of qualitative studies.

Originally published in 1959, this book critically examines, in the light of numerous research, both the relation between unacceptable behaviour and economic and social status and the validity of several popular hypotheses of the 20th Century: that anti-social attitudes are due to lack of maternal affection in infancy, or that problem families produce problem families generation after generation. The author discusses the factors affecting the growth of modern psychiatry and how this shaped attitudes towards anti-social behaviour and conceptions of social work. The final section of the book considers the wider methodological implications.