Sociological Methods (Chappy 9) Flashcards
What do sociologists study, why is this challenging?
what does the sociological method produce?
Sociologists study their own world - makes knowledge of that world more difficult to assess, gather and process
Its hard because: Different types of knowledge of the social world and different ways of knowing it, Multi perspective + multi method - social world is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon
Produces/trustworthy knowledge of the social world/society and a wide array of methods for deriving knowledge of society and the social world
What is the order of method and question?
Type of question determines the method used - method is framed by the theory and the two are intimately related
What is quantitative knowledge? what is the most common form of research method for this type?
who was it employed by?
Social phenomenon that can be counted, quantified and measured- It is the Study of social facts - social facts like the suicide rate, homicide rate etc
Stat analysis is the most common form of quantitative research method
Positivists: Durky and Auguste Comte
What is qualitative knowledge?
Focuses on things that cannot be easily measured/counted - people’s experiences
Explain the debate/critisisms of quantitative vs. qualitative knowledge?
Quantitative - knowledge generated through interviews is unreliable - soft data
Qualitative - stats cannot accurately capture the nuances of social life/ cannot deal with many aspects of social life that are not about stats
Many sociologists use a combination of both
Explan LICO?
Explain the Market Basket Measure?
LICO: Threshold calculated based on percentage of income that a household spends on necessities relative to av
More than 20% over av
Mark B: Threshold calculated based on the cost of a basket of goods and services for a household of two adults (age 25-49) and two children - basket includes core necessities plus social amenities
Define indie/D variables?
Indie V - one assigned-the one which does not change
Hypothesized cause
Dep V - one affected by the indie V
Hypothesized effect
What is a correlation? define posi/nega correlations
What can we NOT assume a correlation to represent?
Two things that relate - more than chance
The strength of association
Positive - both values increase
Negative - one value increase, other decreases
Correlation does not mean causation - two or more things/events tend to occur at about the same time, might be associated but not necessarily cause/effect
What is true about surveys in the form of questionnaires? how are they useful, what sucks about them?
Good: Most widely used, asking sample people the same questions
Structured questions and answers
Can generalize if the pop is representative
Bad: Volunteer bias - non rep sample
Response bias - ex: social desirability bias
Interviewer bias - ex: leading, order of questions
What is true about surveys in the form of interviews? what sucks about them?
Interviews are about narratives - researcher contextualizes those narratives
Good: Usually good size sample (30-50), You can code interviews - look for reoccuring themes/topics
Cannot misrepresent what your interviewees say
Bad: Takes time to do and transcribe
Talk about the “Matthew but not Samir?” experiment conducted by Metropolis B.C
Resume sent out to different employers - only difference was surname
Higher callback rates for resumes with Anglo surnames
Talk about Lauster and Easterbrook’s 2011 experiment about discrim in Vancouver housing
Renting inquiries were identical except for minor demographic variations - these variations impacted who recieved housing
What are the advantages of experiments?
Advantages: use of email, able to focus on one variable, ex: use of resume = great idea
What is true about field research? provide an example
Participant observation - researcher joins in with study subjects in order to gain insight into their social world
Naturally occurring context
Exploring a social world from the “inside”
ex: covert research -Goffman total institutions
What is true about data/textual analysis? provide an example
Non primary sources - research by other agencies, individuals
Ex: proquest - US newspaper and magazine database
Word search for “politically correct”
