Today's Lesson is ASYNCHRONOUS. Please read the lesson and answer the embedded questions in the Google form for this lesson.
Sociological Research
NOTE, for HW:
Read Chapter 1: How Does It Feel to Be Black and Poor from Venkatesh's Gang Leader for a Day here. (For background info, see this post about Chicago Housing Projects Leader for a Day.)
This is the introductory chapter of Venkatesh’s book, Gang Leader for a Day. As you read the chapter, look for all of the ways that Venkatesh gathers data and attempts to study race and poverty. This is from a book published for popular consumption - It is NOT an academic source. We will examine academic sources later in this lesson.NOTE: there is offensive language in the chapter which Venkatesh included in order to preserve the authenticity of his interactions with the people he meets. Please do not take the use of this language as making light of the offensivesness of this language.
Why is research important?
Hopefully, the quiz above shows that common sense and your own experiences are not always reliable in understanding society. Human psychology has a tendency to make incorrect assumptions especially because of 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
Reading Primary Research Articles in Sociology
Don't let the length of the journal article intimidate you, nor should you be intimidated by the loquaciousness of the author's writing. Academic professors often use fancy jargon (like loquaciousness). It makes the reading longer and sometimes confusing, but you can still understand what the researcher is getting at. Especially if you understand the structure that I explain below. Here is a funny example of how writing gets more complicated even though it says the same idea:
Simply put - read through the jargon and decipher what you can. If necessary, look up the words you need to know to understand the main point, but don't be intimidated by the length or the wording of the article.
Apply this to the scholarly article published by Venkatesh, note how long the article is - DON'T BE INTIMIDATED! Start by simply reading the abstract.
2a. Read the abstract - Is there any jargon that you notice? Quickly circle or underline the words, but don't let that intimidate you!
B. Understand the structure
Most of the research articles have a similar structure. Once you understand the structure, it is easier to find what you need and make sense of the article. Sometimes these sections will even be labeled for you.
Most research articles have a format that looks like this (sometimes a couple of these sections are combined):
2b. Look over the article and see which of these sections can you identify in the article? Note that you don't have to read the whole article. Look for different sections and headings.
Understanding the structure I explained in B above should help you understand the research efficiently and bounce around the article to find what you are looking for.
Finding Your Own Primary Sociological Research
There are three places that I want you to be aware of for finding primary research.
I. ASA journals
The most recent research in a number of journals is available online for free from the American Sociological Association. The journals page on the ASA website lists the journals along with a description of what is published in them. The journals page is here: https://www.asanet.org/publications/journals/
The most useful journals for our class are the following:
American Sociological Review, ASA’s flagship journal, includes the latest general interest scholarship in sociology that advances our understanding of fundamental social processes through theoretical, methodological, and empirical innovation.
City & Community, a journal of the ASA Section on Community and Urban Sociology, aims to advance urban sociological theory, promote empirical research on communities and urban social life, and encourage sociological perspectives on urban policy.
Journal of Health and Social Behavior publishes empirical and theoretical articles that apply sociological concepts and methods to the understanding of health and illness and the organization of medicine and health care.
Social Psychology Quarterly publishes theoretical and empirical work on the link between the individual and society, including the study of the relations of individuals to one another, as well as to groups, collectivities, and institutions.
Society and Mental Health, a journal of the ASA Section on Sociology of Mental Health, publishes articles that apply sociological concepts and methods to the understanding of the social origins of mental health and illness, the social consequences for persons with mental illness, and the organization and financing of mental health services and care.
Sociology of Education publishes research that examines how social institutions and individuals’ experiences within these institutions affect educational processes and social development.
Sociology of Race vand Ethnicity, a journal of the ASA Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, publishes sociological research on race and ethnicity across epistemological, methodological, and theoretical orientations.
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World provides an open access online-only forum for rapid publication of sociological research from any subfield of the discipline.
3a. What article did you find from the journals above? What journal was it from?
Use the journal structure to quickly decide if the article looks interesting to you or not.
II. JSTOR
Here is how to search JSTOR:
(Be sure that you are logged in).
Key Words - Type in the key words/topics that you would like to search. Try different search terms using synonyms such as "school" in one search then "education" in another search.
Narrow Results to Articles - Select only "articles" in the filtering menu on the left side - so you don't get results from reviews or book chapters.
Journal Filter - Scroll down to select "sociology" under search by subject. That will limit your search to only journals that are sociological.
Additional tips for finding research in JSTOR
- Try different search terms - open a few articles in different windows that you might be interested in. Then, try different search terms and open a few more. This might help you find the most relevant articles before you waste time reading one less relevant; quickly read the abstract or introduction to decide if the article is worth looking at in greater detail;
- Start general then narrow - start out with a search for general terms then you can narrow down by adding other terms or dates. One way to do this is to search within the results you find.
Many of these institutions publish reports for the general public so the advantage here is that they are likely going to be easier to read. But the disadvantage is that they will be less thorough.
Below is a list of institutions that publish primary research. I want to point these institutions out both as examples of places you can work and also as sources of primary research.
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