There is now a lack of quantitative capacity among practitioners and
teachers in sociology in Ireland. Yet interest in the value of
quantitative methods among governments, funding organisations and
society in general are on the increase. Social science research councils
and funders in other countries, notably the UK, have realised there is a
problem and are now attempting to remedy
this through increased funding for the recruitment of quantitatively
trained academics for example, Q-Step. The paper examines a number of
developments notably Big Data, increases in transdisciplinary research
and developments in mixed methods research which, it is argued,
underline the need for more and better quantitative methods teaching in
sociology. The paper
calls for sociology departments to re-think their curricula and actively
promote the teaching of a range of methods at the undergraduate level.