Sociology Links
Journal
|
|
Current Research Journal
Sociology 699 Individual Study SECTION 1.0 - Proposal An Historical Review of Methodology in Sociology The goal of this course is to review the methods of investigation and data collection for the past 20 years. This research can be done by selection a specific set of sociological journals that have at least 20 years of archive in the Walter W, Stern library. The review should include a significant mention of variables: race, age, marital status, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc., as they are used in scholarly research. A paper will be produced which will discuss the shift and change in methodology that has occurred over a period of time. If an opportunity should be apparent to perform quantitative analysis, then the paper should include a reasonable use of statistical data that does not depart from the meaning of the review. The paper should offer explanation in reference to theoretical framework and provide some details about possible reasons for changes that occurred in methodologies throughout the course of time. It is expected that current methods of investigation will be discussed but not as the primary focus of the paper. Instead, the discussion should be focused on differences in participants, and equipment used. The paper should be arranged in ASA format and a literature review of any similar works that have dealt with the history of methodology should be included. SECTION 1.0 Review Selected journal as per discussion with Dr. McMillin for the study will be the Journal of Marriage and the Family. The time span to be studied will span twenty years of study, found to be available in Walter W. Stern Library at CSUB. It is also that case that variables be selected for useful comparisons that will be more likely to reveal change and shift in methodology. In addition, it is expected that a search for relevant literature begin immediately for any publications that would be suitable for reference and citation in the final paper. An Internet search will be used to find recent publications on the topic and issues that surround sociological methods, shifts, changes, and trends for the past twenty years. These resources will be used to provide background information and support reasoning for explanation used in any findings in this project. An explanation of the format and design of the paper should also be presented in the next section. SECTION 2.0 � Sub-topics Sub-topics for Methodological Review As per discussion, a list of methodological criteria to examine in the Journal[s] of Marriage and Family has been created.
An investigation of the hypotheses used and the way they tie into theory would probably be helpful for determining shifts in thinking throughout the period. I have considered dividing some of the theoretical references into two categories if possible: Theoretical Perspectives Classical
Contemporary
An investigation of the N size and its specifics (whether from or regarding government, private, organizational, local, national, or international and so forth) and type of samples such as: stratified, clustered, convenience, etc. should be included. Measurement, operational definitions of variables, index construction, population, random sampling, independent/dependent variables, missing data/sources of bias.
SECTION 3.0 Sources PRIMARY TEXT FOR THIS COURSE TO BE USED A History of Sociological Research Methods in America: 1920-1960 
Format: Paperback ISBN: 0-52164-6499 August 1998 Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr 372 pages Series: Ideas in Context , No 40 Language: English
The following excerpt is from the University of British Columbia website. Sources for Study In the 1996 winter/spring semester, the Sociology faculty [of the UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA] were asked to "list about five works which you consider to be �essential to the discipline�." Several works were included by several faculty members, although only one name follows each text below. No attempt was made to reach a consensus on the final draft or to produce an exhaustive list. Writings by department members have not been included here. Dates in square brackets indicate the original composition or earlier edition of the work. Agger, Ben, Socio(ont)logy,1989 (Stoddart) Bannerji, Hamani, Returning the Gaze: Essays on Racism, Feminism and Politics 1993 (Ross) Berger, Joseph, and Morris Zelditch, Jr., eds., Theoretical Research Programs: Studies in the Growth of Theory 1993 (Foschi) Berger, Peter, and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality 1967 (Guppy) Blalock, Hubert M. and Ann B. Blalock, Methodology in Social Research 1968 (Kay) Bottomore, Tom and Robert Nisbet, eds., A History of Sociological Analysis, 1979 (Schweitzer) Brym, Robert J., From Culture to Power: the Sociology of English Canada 1989 (Tindall) Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 1990 (Creese) Cicourel, Aaron V., Method and Measurement in Sociology 1967 (Stoddart) Cohen, Bernard P., Developing Sociological Knowledge: Theory and Method 1989 (Foschi) Coleman, James S., Foundations of Social Theory 1990 (Meissner) Collins, Patricia Hill, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and Politics of Empowerment 1992 (Creese) Collins, Randall, Theoretical Sociology 1988 (Tindall) Cook, Karen S., Gary Alan Fine,. and James S. House, eds., Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology 1995 (Foschi) Cowan, R.C., More Work for Mother 1983 (Meissner) Doyal, Len, and Roger Harris, Empiricism, Explanation and Rationality 1986 (Guppy) Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchicus 1980 (Fernando) Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Society 1988 [1893] (Chang), The Rules of Sociological Method 1990 [1895] Suicide 1954 [1897] (Kay) Eichler, Margrit, The Double Standard 1980 (Meissner) Elias, Norbert, The Civilizing Process 1978 [1939] (Kemple), The Court Society 1982 (Fernando) Fischer, Claude, To Dwell Among Friends 1982 (Tindall) Foucault, Michel, The Order of Things 1970 (Fernando), History of Sexuality 1978 (Kemple), Discipline and Punish 1977 (Ratner) Frankenberg, Ruth, The Social Construction of Whiteness: White Women, Race Matters 1993 (Ross) Garfinkel, Harold, Studies in Ethnomethodology 1967 (Stoddart) Giddens, Anthony, New Rules of Sociological Method 1976, The Constitution of Society 1984 (Guppy) Goffman, Erving, Strategic Interaction 1969 (Fernando), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life 1959 (Stoddart) Gouldner, Alvin, The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology 1980 (Ratner) Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks [1971] 1935 (Ratner) Grosz, Elizabeth, Space, Time and Perversion 1995 (Ross) Haberman, Jurgen, The theory of Communicative Action, Vols. I & II, 1987 (Schweitzer), Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere 1989 [1964] (Kemple) Haddad, Tony, ed., Men and Masculinities: A Critical Anthology 1993 (Ross) Harding, Sandra, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking From Women�s Lives 1991 (Creese) Hawthorn, Geoffrey, Enlightenment and Despair: A History of Sociology, 2nd ed., 1987. (Schweitzer) Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1979 (Schweitzer) Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan 1968 [1651] (Schweitzer) Homans, George C., The Nature of Social Science, 1967 (Foschi), The Human Group, 1951 (Ratner) Hooks, Bell, Feminist Theory from Margin to Center 1984 (Creese) Kinsman, Gary, The Regulation of Desire: Homo and Hetero Sexualities 1996 (Ross) Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1970 (Guppy) Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy 1985 (Ratner) Lefebvre, Henri, Everyday Life in the Modern World 1971 (Kemple) MacKinnon, Catherine A., Toward a Feminist Theory of the State 1989 (Kay) Marcuse, Herbert, One Dimensional Man 1964 (Kemple) Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts 1967 [1844] (Chang), Grundrisse 1972 [1858] (Kemple), Capital I-III 1976 [1872] (Kay) Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self, and Society 1931 (Chang) McClintock, Anne, Imperial Leather 1995 (Ross) Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite 1956 (Ratner), The Sociological Imagination 1959 (Stoddart) O�Neill, John, Five Bodies: the Human Shape of Modern Society 1985 (Kemple) Parsons, Talcot, The Structure of Social Action 1937 (Chang) Perrow, Charles, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies 1984 (Tindall) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, A Discourse on Inequality 1984 [1775]; The Social Contract 1968 [1762] (Schweitzer) Scott, Joan, and Judith Butler, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political 1992 (Ross) Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Epistemology of the Closet 1990 (Ross) Simmel, Georg, The Philosophy of Money 1989 [1900] (Chang) Smith, Dorothy E., The Everyday World as Problematic 1987 (Creese), Conceptual Practices of Power 1990 (Kemple) Sorokin, Pitirim, Social and Cultural Dynamics 1941 (Ratner) Stinchcombe, A.L., Constructing Social Theories 1968 (Meissner) Taylor, Ian, Paul Walton, and Jock Young, The New Criminology 1973 (Ratner) Tilly, Charles, As Sociology Meets History 1981 (Kay), From Mobilization to Revolution 1978 (Tindall) Toqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America 1969 [1837] (Chang) Turner, Jonathan, The Structure of Sociological Theory 1991 (Kay) Wellman, Barry and Berkowitz, eds., Social Structures: A Network Approach 1988 (Tindall) Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1954 [1920] (Kemple), Economy and Society 1978 [1920] (Meissner)
SECTION 4.0 SAMPLE REVIEWS Three Sample Studies As per notes of last session, I have recapped them here for reference. This course will focus on the most recent years of sociological studies and campare them to the earliest ten years available that are published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family. The Walter W. Stern library currently hold volumes from February, 1970 through August, 2003. I have done a preliminary review of three articles: ( 2 )from 1970 and ( 1 ) from 2003. Simply browsing the journals, the following excerpts were taken from the METHODS sections of the articles: Marital Satisfaction Over the Family Life Cycle by boyd C. Rollins and Harold Feldman, Journal of Marriage and the Family. Vol. 32, No. 1, February 1970, pages 20-28. Method "Data for this study were obtained through the use of an area survey sample of middle-class residents of Syracuse, new York, in 1960. Dr. Charles Willie, a sociologist at the University of Syracuse had previously classified all the census tracts in the city of Syracuse, new York into one of six �social areas� in terms of (1) percent of single family dwellings, (2) average monthly rental, (3) average market value of owned homes, (4) median number of school years completed, and (4) percent of operatives, services workers, and laborers in the census tract. The census tract in the top two social areas were considered to included a large proportion of upper middle class and upper class residents." "The nine census tracts in the top two socioeconomic categories of the city were sampled in this study"* *Further explanation in the methods seemed as if there were painstaking care to ensure randomness to survey approach. These surveys were distributed and collected by field workers. No explanation of training or background was mentioned.. Satisfaction with various aspects of Marriage Over the Life Cycle: A Random Middle Class sample by Wesley R. Burr. Journal of Marriage and the Family. Vol. 32, No. 1, February 1970, pages 29-37. A section titled, Hypotheses was included before the Methods section. Method The data were gathered as part of a larger study of marital interaction. The sample used a random sample of 147 intact couples in a group of census tracts that had been selected to eliminate lower socioeconomic strata. Cohabitating and Married Couples� Income Organization: Approaches in Sweden and the United States by Kirsten R. Heimdal and Sharon K. Housenect. Ohio State University. Journal of Marriage and the Family. Method "Data for this study came for the 1994 Family and Changing Gender Roles II module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), the follow-up to the Family and Changing Sex roles module carried out in 1988. The Swedish version of the survey was carried out by Statistics Sweden between February and May 1994. A survey was mailed to a representative sample of adults aged 18-74. In the United States, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), conducted the survey between February and April 1994. Using multistage probability sample, the self-administered supplement accompanied the General Social Survey Questionnaire. The total sample sized for Sweden and United States were 1,272 (64% response rate) and 1,447 (74% response rate), respectively. SECTION 5.0 � Critical Thinking Critical Analysis and Explanations I thought about the differences in these articles. It seemed to me that there were some sharp differences in just these articles that popped out at me. Firstly, it appeared that earlier articles favored more localized conditions by focusing on very specific areas or small sample sizes. This differed from the 2003 approach in that an international sample was sued with thousands of participants. In addition, it appeared that a major focus was concentrated on (but not mentioned above) the treatment of variables and data with different statistical methods. As my investigations furthers, I am interested in the popularity of Qualitative data collection and how its use has changed. Some issues to consider might be the types of findings that these approaches are likely to support. Another idea that came to mind is the earlier articles seemed overly interested in data regarding �middle-class� and excluding other variables. This did not seem to be the case in the 2003 article. |
|