2 Soc Research Lesson 1: The importance of Sociological Research

This is the beginning of our second unit of study, sociological research.  The last unit we examined how sociology began as a discipline and how sociologists view people and society.  This unit we will turn our focus to how sociologists actually do sociology.   The second page of the Framework for Understanding Sociology should be a useful organizer for notes in this unit and a quick reference for deciphering sociological research going forward.

Unit 2 Soc Research will examine what sociologists research and how they conduct their research.

HW:  Read Gang Leader for a Day Introduction by Sudhir Venkatesh (due by lesson 5)

For homework, read the excerpt in the link above.  This reading is the introduction of a widely popular book called Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh.  Venkatesh grew up in California and attended undergrad there.  He then went to the University of Chicago for his PhD in sociology.  Venkatesh really wants to study race and poverty and he tries various types of research to learn about race and poverty's effects on Chicagoans.  

Prereading Strategy:  As you read, think about all the ways that he tries to learn about race and poverty.  Additionally, think about the benefits and challenges of each way.

Sociological Research

To start today's lesson, please open this Common Sense Quiz and answer True or False for questions 1-15.  Use your previous knowledge or simply use common sense to guess the answers for each question.  Do not spend much time on these questions.  If you don't know the answer, go with your intuition or common sense.

Open the Google Form for this lesson and answers the questions as you go along.

1.  How many answers from the quiz did you get correct?

2.  What is one of the answers that you were surprised about?

Why is research important?

Hopefully, that quiz shows that common sense and your own experiences are not always reliable in understanding society.  For deeper understanding about why our own knowledge/experiences are unreliable, see these psychological concepts:

· overgeneralization - basing all of your understanding on a limited experience.

· selective observation/confirmation bias - seeking out only evidence that supports your opinion.

· premature closure - deciding on a conclusion and then being unable to see evidence contrary to that conclusion.

· halo effect - having a positive view of one aspect of a person or idea and that affects your view of all other aspects associated with it.

· false consensus - the tendency to overestimate how much others agree with us.

Background - The Beginning of Sociology as a Science

Auguste Comte - started as positive philosophy (aka positivism) the early 1800s, then popularized the term "sociology" (1838), the empirical study of society using scientific methods and data.  Basically, Comte was saying what knowledge can we be positive about regarding society?  In other words, what can we test scientifically about society; thus, "sociology".  

3.  Do you understand why research and the scientific method is important to sociology?

Finding Good Sources of Research

Sociological research shows up in everyday life a lot more than you may notice.  The chart below details the many places that you can seek out information: television, radio, and print media like websites, journals, magazines and newspapers.  The X-axis shows the tendency of the sources below to have a partisan bias (liberal, centrist, conservative).  And the Y-axis shows the reliability of the reporting from most in-depth to sensationalized.

4.  Examine the chart.  What is the most in-depth and nonpartisan source?

For more information, our SHS ILC has a lesson on sources here.  Here are some main points:

• There is a difference between biased news and fake news.
• Don't be fooled by the appearance of the page: a professional-looking page, a .org extension, links all might confuse you to thinking the page is not what it is.
• Read laterally - go outside the page to learn about it. These sites are reliable for lateral checking: Snopes, Sourcewatch, Wikipedia, Allsides, Factcheck
• Find the source of the article, who published it?  Who funded it?
• More news on the internet is fake than real!

The point is that our understanding of society should be empirical, unbiased and research-based.  The most reliable news/research is from academic, peer-reviewed journals.  These are journals that publish articles that have been reviewed by experts in the subject of the article.  For example, if I wanted to publish an article about sociology, other successful sociologists would review my article before it gets published.  These articles are often original research or primary sources.  We will focus on primary sources in the rest of this unit.  Before that, let's examine other sources.


Examples of sociological research in secondary sources

Often, sociological research shows up in secondary sources.  These sources explain the findings of the research without detailing the research methods and background.  Most of the chart above (and most news) is from secondary sources.  These sources will summarize bits and pieces of research based on what the source deems significant.  Be sociologically mindful about where your information about society has come from up to and until now.  Here are some other charts of news and bias:

AdFontes regularly updates a chart of media bias on their website and has an interactive chart here.

AllSides provides left - center - right coverage of various issues as well as news bias rating.

5.  Take a moment to be mindful about your understanding of society.  Where does your knowledge of current events/news come from?  List the sources where you get your news.

6.  Now examine the two links above.  Where do your sources fall in terms of bias?  How do you think that affects how you view the world?

BEING MINDFUL ABOUT MEDIA

This research from PEW shows how Americans may view the news differently based on party affiliation.

Here are examples of secondary sources that have sociology in them:

• Textbooks; for our class; Real World Sociology by Ferris and Stein. The text might seem to just be musings/opinions about society but there are 30 pages of references at the end of the book.  Here is one page showing the references for the text.
• News articles;  One example is the article, The Myth of the Two-Parent Household, from Harvard professor Christina Cross in the NY Times (2019) also available here.   

7.  What research is this article based on?  You can do your own search in the NY Times for sociology by clicking here for a Google search of "sociology" in the NYT.  

• Contexts magazine; A publication by the American Sociological Association that explains the latest research in an accessible way for students and general public to understand.  Here is the Contexts website, especially in the In Brief section   You can access Contexts by issue through the ILC page using the search by title page here.

• The Society Pages:  Website of sociology resources, especially Discoveries page.

• Journal of Contemporary Sociology, a journal of reviews.  You can access Contemporary Sociology through the ILC page using the search by title page here.

Applying your secondary source understanding

Choose one of the secondary sources bulleted above (NY Times, Contexts, Society Pages, Journal of Contemporary Sociology).  Find an article about a topic you are interested in. Then explain what research the article was based on.  Feel free to try a few sources or articles before you decide to answer the questions below.

8.  What secondary source did you choose?

9.  What was the article you read?

10.  What research was the article about?