Part I The Study of Sociology Chapter 2: Asking and Answering Sociological Questions

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Part I The Study of SociologyChapter 2 Asking
and Answering Sociological Questions

• Lecture 3

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Sociological Questions

• Sociological Imagination
• To remove yourself from the world-taken-for-grant
  ed.
• So that we are able to discover something new in
  the routines of everyday life.

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Sociological Questions

• Sociological Imagination
• Asking questions
• How?
• What?
• Why?

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Sociological Questions

• Knowledge ? Commonsense belief
• Beliefs or propositions with no scientific ground
• Stereotypes

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Sociological Questions

• What are sociological questions?
• What kinds of question do sociologists have to
  ask?

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Sociological Questions

• Factual (Descriptive) questions
• What happened?
• How did (do) things happen?

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Sociological Questions

• 2. Comparative questions
• Questions asked when one social context within a
  society is related to another, or examples drawn
  from different societies are contrasted.
• Space
• Did this happen everywhere?
• - Time
• How different are a phenomenon in a period and
  one in another?

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Sociological Questions

• 3. Developmental questions
• Questions asked in order to understand the main
  direction that processes of change have taken.
• What has happened over time?

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Sociological Questions

• 4. Theoretical questions
• Generalization
• Why do things happen?
• What factor brings this about?
• What underlies this phenomenon?

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Sociological Questions

• Questions / Research Problems
• How are you gonna answer your question?
• Systematic scientific procedure

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• Asking question / Defining research problem
• To specify the question you are trying to answer

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• 2. Reviewing the evidence
• To familiarize yourself to the research problem
• Literature review
• Initial observations etc.

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• 3. A clear formulation of the research problem
• Setting up hypotheses
• Hypotheses
• Educated guesses about what is going on (P.34)
• Temporary conclusions

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Understanding Cause and Effect

• All events have causes. (P.35)
• One of the main tasks of sociological research is
  to identify causes and effects.
• What brings it about?
• Causal relationship (Causation)
• An event or situation causes or produces another

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Understanding Cause and Effect

• Variables
• Any dimensions along which individuals and
  groups vary. (p.32)
• Factors telling an individual or group from
  another
• Criteria based on which an individual or group is
  categorized
• Age
• Income
• Educational attainment
• Social class
• Race/ethnicity etc.

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Understanding Cause and Effect

• Correlation
• The existence of a regular relationship between
  variables (p. 35)
• Correlation ? Causation

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• 4. Research design
• to decide how the data are collected
• Select methods
• Research subjects
• Duration of the research etc.

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Major Research Methods
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• 5. Carry out the research
• Collect data by applying the suitable methods

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• 6. Analyze your data / Interpret your results

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• 7. Reporting the findings