Abstract
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book attempts to redress the underdeveloped state of conceptualization in empirical sociological research. Analysis of the role of concepts in empirical social research has been to a very considerable extent neglected, both a symptom and a cause of the gulf which continues to separate sociological theory from sociological research. The book shows that the process of developing a construct or variable as part of a theory is much more complicated than that. In order to form an explanatory theory, concepts must be interrelated. But concepts do act as a means of storing observations of phenomena which may at a future time be used in a theory. The book illustrates the ways in which concepts and indicators have changed over time.