Three Ways to Do Sociology

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Three Ways to Do Sociology

• Methodological Orientations

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Scientific sociology

• Study of society based on systematic observation
  of social behavior
• Called positivism
• Objective reality exists out there
• Verified by our senses

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Concepts, Variables, and Measurement

• Concept a mental construct (sort of a body of
  knowledge) that represents some part of the world
  in a simplified format
• When you add matter, matter increases
• When you subtract matter, matter decreases
• Society is a concept that has parts such as
  the family, the economy

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Variable

• A value whose value changes from case to case
• Prices go up and down
• Social classes
• Upper class
• Middle class
• Working class
• Lower class

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Measurement

• A procedure to determine the value of a variable
  in a specific case
• Weight
• Distance
• Etc.
• But, how do you measure social class?
• Income, occupation, education?

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Operationalize a Variable

• Specifying exactly what is to be measured before
  assigning a value to a variable
• Before measuring the concept of social class,
  you would measure what
• -income level?
• -years of schooling?
• -occupational prestige?
• -whatever.

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Taking the Opinions of Others in Survey

• Because people are increasingly of mixed race,
  the last census permitted people to chose more
  than one race when describing themselves

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Reliability

• Consistency in measurement
• A measurement is reliable if repeated
  measurements give the same results time after
  time.

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Validity

• Measuring exactly what you intend to measure
• If you are studying religious people, for
  example, do you study people who attend church?
• -they could attend because they are pressured
• -habit

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Mode, Mean, Median

• Mode the number that occurs most often
• Mean the average of a series of numbers
• Median the value that occurs half way in a
  series of numbers arranged from lowest to highest

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Relationships Among Variables

• Remember, a variable is a value
• The real payoff is seeing relationships among
  variables

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Cause and Effect

• A relationship in which change in one variable
  causes change in another
• -Studying hard for an exam will result in a
  higher grade
• -Practicing shooting foul shots will increase
  accuracy in making foul shots

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Independent Variable

• The independent variables would be the amount of
  study achieved or the amount of time practicing
  foul shots

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Dependent Variable

• The variable that changes
• -the exam grade
• -the accuracy of foul shooting

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Linking is Important

• Lets us predict the outcome of future events
• If you study, you will get a good grade. If you
  dont study, you will not.
• Can you think of an independent variable and a
  dependent variable?

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Correlation

• A relationship in which two or more variables
  change together
• Looking at juvenile delinquency, for example, we
  see that densely populated neighborhoods and
  crowded housing correlate with juvenile
  delinquencyhowever

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There May Be Another Factor

• People living under these conditions are usually
  poorin other words
• Both previous conditions are caused by poverty

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Spurious Correlation

• An apparent but false relationship between two or
  more variables that is caused by some other
  variable
• In this case, if we control the income level
  (keep it the same) and increase or decrease the
  density of the living conditions, the delinquency
  rate does not change

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Objectivity

• Personal neutrality
• Hold to scientific procedures
• Attitudes and beliefs should not influence the
  findings

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Sociologists Selecting Topics for Study

• Most have a built in bias to some
  degreehopefully small
• People naturally study what they have an interest
  in and a bias for
• Most sociologists are white, highly educated, and
  more politically liberal than the population as a
  whole. Like everyone else, they are influenced
  by their social backgrounds

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Replication

• Having others repeat the same research and
  getting the same results helps give credence to
  the original results
• Objectivity and truth lie in consistency over time

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Interpretive Sociology

• Sociologists suggest that the scientific may fail
  to find real meaning in the study
• Max Weber, pioneering this view point, emphasized
  process of interpretationlearning what meaning
  people find in what they do
• Therefore, interpretative sociology is focusing
  on the meanings people attach to their social
  world

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Verstehen

• The German word for understanding
• Observing more than what people do, but why
  they do it

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Critical Sociology

• The study of society that focuses on the need for
  social change
• Founder Karl Marx--communist
• Questions like, should society exist in its
  current form? are the standard
• Emphasis is on social activismget out there and
  protest!

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Sociology as Politics

• Critical sociologists state that all research is
  political or biased
• -either it calls for change or it does not
• -sociologists need to chose what positions to
  support
• An activist orientation that calls for knowledge
  used to take action
• Politics range from liberal to radical left

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Gender and Research

• The personal traits and social positions that
  members of a society attach to being female or
  male
• Gender stereotyping

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Androcentricity

• Seeing things only from the perspective of a male

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Overgeneralizing

• Using data drawn from people of only one
  sextainting the findings

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Double Standards

• Judging men and women differentlyman as head of
  the household and the woman as engaging in family
  support workthe author forgets how important
  support work is

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Research Ethics

• Be fair
• Make your results available to other sociologists
• Disclose all research material
• Conduct safe research
• Protect peoples privacy
• Disclose sources of financial support

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The ExperimentTesting the Hypothesis

• A research method for investigating cause and
  effect under highly controlled conditions
• Hypothesis a statement of a possible
  relationship between two or more
  variablesusually a if, then statementif its
  this way, then it will be that way.

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The Hawthorne Effect

• People change behavior merely because they are
  being observed
• 1930s study of Western electric Company
• Whether lights were turned up or down,
  productivity increasedmerely because workers
  realized they were being observed

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The Hawthorne Effect

• The Hawthorne study stared with the question
  whether better lighting would help productivity
• Lights turned up, better production
• But when they turned the lights down, they got
  another increase in productivity
• The change was merely an awareness of being
  studied

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An Illustration The Stanford County Prison

• Experiment conducted by researcher Philip
  Zimbardo on whether the environment of prisons
  fosters violence
• Realistic prison constructed on campus of
  Stanford University
• Students selected for experiment, some prisoners,
  some guards
• Spend 2 weeks in mock prison--results

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An Illustration The Stanford County Prison

• Mock arrest conductedhandcuffs, fingerprinted
  etc.
• Guards and prisoners became bitter and hostile
• Guards humiliated prisonsclean toilets with
  hands, etc
• Before end of first week, the situation was so
  bad (depression, crying, rage, etc) they
  cancelled the experiment

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An Illustration The Stanford County Prison

• The ugliest, most base, pathological side of
  human nature surfaced
• taking pleasure in cruelty
• Conclusion Prison violence is rooted in the
  social character of the jails themselves and not
  in the personalities of the guards or prisoners
• Agree? Disagree? Why?

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Population and Sample

• Population the people who are the focus of the
  research
• Sample a part of a population that represents
  the whole
• Random sampling drawing a sample randomly from
  the general population that represents the whole

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Population and Sample

• To better assure and accurate sampling, a random
  sampling is best
• But, do you interview all those sampled on the
  same street?
• In the same neighborhood?
• In the same town?
• In the same state?
• What are some issues to overcome?

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Using Questionnaires

• A series of written questions a researcher
  presents to subjects
• -Often, the nature of the question determines
  the answers
• -One study showed that when students e given
  higher number of hours to select for how many
  hours per week they studied, the average hours
  studied went up

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Using Questionnaires

• Closed-ended format Often questionnaires use a
  list of fixed responsescan limit findings
• When looking at possible answers, people are
  often influenced
• Sample how many hours do I study?

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Using Questionnaires

• Open-ended format
• Subjects can answer any way they wish
• Problem trying to analyze a confusing list of
  answers
• Self-administering surveys are popularmailing
  survey to subjects
• Testing of the survey is needed
• Lots of people, but many throw them away

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Conducting Interviews

• A series of questions a researcher asks
  respondents in person
• Some interviews are best done in a open ended
  manner

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Conducting Interviews

• Researcher must guard against influencing answers
• Tone
• Body language

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Wording of a Question

• Can change an answer completely
• Should gays serve in the military?no
• Should gays be exempt from the military?--no

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Wording the Question

• Using welfare mothers verses using women who
  receive public assistance
• Double question
• Do you think that the government should reduce
  the deficit by cutting spending and raising
  taxes?
• One part of the question may be favorable while
  the other not, distorting the answer

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Participant Observation

• Participant Observation is a research method in
  which investigators systematically observe people
  while joining in their routine activities
• Normally, the dont have any hypothesis in
  minde.g., I will find more red meat lovers in
  small towns than large towns
• Exploratory, descriptinve

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Using Available Data

• Researchers may use available data of studies
  already done
• Government agencies
• There are some problemsdoes the data fit the
  current question/hypothesis?
• Are categories of people in other studies the
  same as in your study, e.g., do people check one
  racial category or more than one?

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Inductive Logical Thought

• Reasoning that transforms specific observations
  into general theory
• -There is interesting data here. I wonder what
  it means?
• -Upward reasoning
• -From specific to general

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Deductive Logical Thought

• Transforms general theory into specific
  hypotheses suitable for testing
• I have this hunch lets collect some data and
  put it to the test.

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Fitting It Together Ten Steps

• What is your topic?
• What have others already learned?
• What, exactly, are your questions?
• What will you need to carry out research?
• Are there ethical concerns?
• What method will you use?
• How will you record data?

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Fitting It Together Ten Steps

• What do the data tell you?
• What are your conclusions?
• How can you share what youve learned?
• How many of these can you list off the top of
  your head?

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Can People Lie With Statistics?

• People select their data
• People interpret their data
• People use graphs to spin the truth
• Read Controversy and Debate, page 50