Sociological

Research

Week 4,5
 Session objec6ves
•  How do sociologists conduct research about
society?
•  How sociologists u6lize the empirical and the
interpre6ve framework to cri6cally examine
social situa6ons
•  What are the key ethical guidelines in sociology
•  Does the scien6fic method as it applies to
sociological research (Dis6nguish reliability from
validity)
•  Understand variables- independent, dependent
variable, & control

 Going beyond common sense
•  Because sociology examines social rela6onships
and behaviour (things everyone is familiar with in
some way), some6mes the concepts you cover in
this course will seem like common sense.
•  It is the business of sociological research in
general to go beyond surface-level
understandings of ordinary life
•  scien6fic research is based on empirical
evidence, which is evidence that comes from
direct experience, scien6fically gathered data, or
experimenta6on
 Empirical vs Interpre6ve framework
•  Scien6fic research is based on empirical evidence, which is
evidence that comes from direct experience, scien6fically
gathered data, or experimenta6on. Conduc6ng research
and tes6ng a hypothesis in a controlled seQng through
deduc6ve methods is the typical process for obtaining
empirical evidence. E.g., Full moon and crime
•  A interpre/ve framework focuses on gathering
informa6on instead of designing a study. While systema6c,
this approach doesn’t follow the hypothesis-tes6ng model
that seeks to find generalizable results. Instead, an
interpre6ve framework seeks to understand social worlds
from the point of view of par6cipants, which leads to in-
depth knowledge. EMIC perspec6ve (homelessness)

 Sociologists use empirical data and/or an
interpreta6ve framework to increase understanding
of socie6es and social interac6ons, but in all cases
research begins with the pursuit of an answer to a
ques6on.
Idea and focus

Research Idea General focus of research ques/ons

Health insurance schemes by government How are new public health ini6a6ves
perceived by poor?
E-governance and Right to informa6on What is the effec6veness of e-governance
in KP/FATA where majority popula6on
lack access to technology
Preserva6on of Cultural heritage In what ways can communi6es be
sensi6zed to take cultural preserva6on
seriously?
Popula6on displacements Why has KP not been able to evolve a
viable mechanism to support displaced
popula6ons
 Sociological ques6ons
•  What are the circumstances in which ethnic or
sexual minori6es live?
•  How can mass starva6on exist in a world that is
far wealthier than it has ever been before?
•  What effects will the increasing use of the
Internet have on our lives?
•  Is the family beginning to disintegrate as an
ins6tu6on?
•  Sociologists try to provide answers to these and
many other ques6ons.
 Ethical considera6ons
ASA Code of Ethics consists of the following six principles:
1.  Professional competence (raising expecta6ons)
2.  Integrity
3.  Professional and scien6fic responsibility
4.  Value neutrality: Respect for people’s rights, dignity,
and diversity
5.  Social responsibility
6.  Human rights
•  The ethical standards that relate most to the research
process itself are: confiden6ality, anonymity, informed
consent

`tea room trade by Humphrey

Research Topic:
Literature review and
finding a gap (e.g.,
feminist sociology);
major event (wars &
reconstruc6on efforts,
refugee issues); cultural
context of a material
item (cocaine, money,
dresses etc); Restudy,
luck during exploratory
work)

Preparing for the

fieldwork: Looking for
academic/founda6onal
grants, specialized
equipment's/clothing,
permissions, language
training, local assistants,
informed consent

 Cause and effect
•  Sociology is interested in theory building but also in cause
and effect
•  Correla6on and causa6on
•  Dependent and Independent variables : watch out for the
direc6on of the causal rela6on. Independent variables are
typically thought of as being the cause, and dependent
variables are ofen seen as being the effect
•  Beger grades (IV) lead to beger occupa6onal Income (DV)
•  Effects of Occupa6onal income (IV) on lifestyles (DV)
•  How does gender (the independent variable) affect rate of
income (the dependent variable)?
•  Controls- Maternal depriva6on leads to deviant
personali6es
 Research Methods
•  Research Methodology vs Research methods
•  Quan6ta6ve (posi6vism, func6onalism) and qualita6ve
(interac6onism)
•  Mixed methods
 1- Surveys
•  A survey targets a specific popula/on, people who are
the focus of a study, such as teenagers, clerical staff,
faculty etc
•  Researchers choose to survey a small sector of the
popula6on, or a sample: that is, a manageable number
of subjects who represent a larger popula6on.
•  For polls focused on U.S. issues, a random sample of
1,000 is representa6ve of the opinions of 230 million
adults with a +/- 4 percentage points of accuracy
•  Afer selec6ng subjects, the researcher develops a
specific plan to ask ques6ons and record responses.
•  Usually ques6onnaires (close ended mostly)
 Selecting samples
Population, sample and individual cases

Source: Saunders et al. (2009)

Figure 7.1 Population, sample and individual cases

 The need to sample

Sampling- a valid alternative to a census when

•  A survey of the entire population is impracticable

•  Budget constraints restrict data collection

•  Time constraints restrict data collection

•  Results from data collection are needed quickly

 Overview of sampling techniques
Sampling techniques

Source: Saunders et al. (2009)

Figure 7.2 Sampling techniques
Overview of sampling techniques
 2- Experiment
•  “If I study at night and review in the morning, I’ll improve
my reten6on skills.” Or, “If I stop drinking soda, I’ll feel
beger.” Cause and effect. But not exactly
•  Most studies are correla6onal, meaning they examine how
two variables change together, while others are
experimental, meaning they use controlled condi6ons to
agempt to explain cause and effect.
•  Experiments aim to measure the rela6onship of the
independent variable to the dependent variable, and the
researcher or research team will agempt to control all
other variables in the experimental process. This is ofen
done in a lab-based seQng, but can also be done as a field
experiment
 Lab seQng
•  To set up a lab-based experiment, sociologists
create ar6ficial situa6ons that allow them to
manipulate variables. Classically, the sociologist
selects a set of people with similar
characteris6cs, such as age, class, race, or
educa6on. Those people are divided into two
groups. One is the experimental group and the
other is the control group. The experimental
group is exposed to the independent variable(s)
and the control group is not.
•  Tutoring students in interven6on group
 Natural or field-based experiment
•  Discrimina6on in the low-wage job market
•  Sociologists Devah Pager recruited white,
black, la6no students who were assigned
equivalent résumés and who were matched
on a variety of characteris6cs such as age,
educa6on, physical appearance, and
interpersonal skills.
•  RCTs
•  Quasi-experimental designs
 3- Ethnography
•  Ethnographic Fieldwork in can be exci6ng,
frustra6ng, scary, boring, and some6mes
dangerous
•  Firsthand explora6on of a society and culture.
•  Develops a holis6c perspec6ve about a culture.
•  Reveals the difference between what people say
they do and what they do.
•  Produces experien6al knowledge (dancing with
locals feel like magic). Studying infant mortality!
 Par6cipant observa6ons
•  PO is best suited to research on culture and cultural
groups because of 5 reasons; (Russell. 2006)
–  Par6cipant observa6on opens thing up and makes it
possible to collect all kinds of data. Intrusive act of data
collec6on is impossible without PO such as birthing, burial
rites, inmates etc
–  PO reduces problem of “reac6vity” (Hawthrone effect)
–  PO helps you ask sensible ques6ons
–  PO helps you understand the meaning of your observa6on
–  Some social inquires cannot be agempted by any other
method than PO (severity of crime & severity of
punishment (understanding how jus6ce system, taxes,
criminals, gangs, hospital, communi6es work)
 Skills of Par6cipant observer
•  Researcher himself/herself is the data collec6on and
analysis instrument.
1- Learning the language: “Fluency vs use” of local
language (Samaons duped Mead with their tales as she
didn't’t know the language well)
“If one knows how to exclaim ‘‘how beau8ful!’’ of an
offering, ‘‘how fat!’’ of a baby, ‘‘how big!’’ of a just shot
pig; if one can say ‘‘my foot’s asleep’’ or ‘‘my back itches’’
as one sits in a closely packed na8ve group with whom
one is as yet unable to hold a sustained conversa8on; if
one can ask the simple ques8ons: ‘‘Is that your child?’’ ‘‘Is
your father living?’’
2- Building explicit awareness:
We are mostly not explicitly aware of what we see.
Watching clock for 6me, background music in
restaurants etc
•  How to build awareness: Get a group of
colleagues together and write separate, detailed
descrip6ons of the most mundane, ordinary
things you can think of: making a bed, doing
laundry, building a sandwich, shaving etc.
•  3- Building Memory: Even if you build good awareness,
building memory is ofen a pre-requisite for good PO. Only
reliability of memory gives you accuracy required for
research.
•  How to build memory: Walk past a store window at a
normal pace. When you get beyond it and can’t see it any
longer, write down all the things that were in the window.
Go back and check. Do it again with another window. You’ll
no6ce an improvement in your ability to remember ligle
things almost immediately.
•  Don’t talk to anyone afer an observa6on period and start
wri6ng directly.
•  Follow a historical sequence for the day
•  Draw a map of the place, event, or occurrence.
•  4- wri6ng: most cri6cal skill to develop as
par6cipant observer. If you cant reflect exci6ng
material of real peoples’ lives and turn it into a
deadly dull reading, you are not doing jus6ce to
ethnography. (see Sajjad Haider’s write ups
shared on emails)
•  5- Gaining rapport: Hanging out is a skill, it a
strategic skill rather. One has to learn when to
ques6on and when not to ques6on and what
ques6ons to ask.
 Working in the field
• 
Site selec/on: A research site is the place where the research takes place.
Tradi6onal Holism vs emerging Mul6-sited research (conducted on a topic
in more than one E.g., migrants, culture of hair styles amongst Afghan)
•  The researcher ofen has a basic idea of the area where the fieldwork will
occur for example, a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, a village in FATA, or a
factory in Malaysia
•  Gaining Rapport: Rapport is a trus6ng rela6onship between the
researcher and the study popula6on (Iden6fying gatekeepers)
•  People are usually apprehensive. Anthropologists & sociologists have been
labeled as spies (Richard Kurin)
•  Giving giFs to people involved in the research can help the project
proceed, but gifs should be culturally and ethically appropriate. Learn the
rules of exchange first in a culture!!
 Time consuming method
•  4 months PO in a family-run Chinese restaurant looking
at Chinese and non-Chinese employees concep6on of
good service, adequate compensa6on and role of
management.
•  A week long PO is possible in hair saloons,
laundereges, bars etc
•  5 years for Berreman to get into Rebels, a brotherhood
for outlaw bikers for his PhD thesis
•  The amount of 6me spent in the field can make a big
difference in what you learn. It helps repor6ng on
sensi6ve issues like witchcraf, sexuality, poli6cal feuds
etc
Challenges of ethnographic field work

•  Researcher & the researched: Working with
micro cultures (class, race, age groups,
gender, ethnici6es)
•  Researchers’ religion, gender, personality,
dress and command over language
•  Cultural shocks (food, sleeping in open,
illnesses, reduced competence)
 4- Par6cipatory assessments
•  Applied ethnographic research (development
anthropology) usually has lesser luxury of doing
long-term PO. So instead rapid assessment
procedures, esp Par6cipatory Rapid Assessments
(PRAs) are used.
•  RRAs (80s)
•  Participatory and integrated development (PID)
•  Participatory learning Approaches (PLA)
•  Community-based participatory research (CBPR)
•  Participatory Action Research (PAR)
 Assumptions in PAR
•  People who experience the problem are in the best
posi6on to conduct research on the issue.
•  All people can learn basic research skills.
•  Par6cipants can establish equal partnerships with
researchers that can be used to address community
problems.
•  PAR related ac6vi6es help empower members of
powerless groups. (scien6fic knowledge ofen has ligle
relevance in people’s every day lives, but instead serves to
maintain exis6ng ins6tu6onal arrangements, Rodwell,
1998)
•  The basic assump6on of these approaches is that academic
research should be used to reduce the harmful effects of
oppression by involving members of powerless groups in
the construc6on of knowledge, a cri6cal examina6on of
the world around them, and ac6on to address social
problems (Stringer, 1999).
 a- Community social maps
•  Who is living where
•  Usually done at beginning of a development
intervention or research need
•  social structures such as households, health
centres, schools, mosques etc
•  social and economic characteristics of the
households(e.g. better-off/poor, male/female-
headed)
•  Ethnic and religious segment in the village etc
 2- Community resources map
•  The Community Resource Map is a tool that helps us to
learn about a community and its resource base.
•  Presents information on land, water, cropping patterns
•  What resources are abundant? What resources are
scarce. Does everyone have equal access to land.
Where do people go to collect water. Who collects
water. Where do people go to collect firewood?
 3- Wealth Ranking
•  Who is who?
•  Different wealth categories in a village
•  Characterize the different wealth groups and start a
discussion on what factors are important determinants
of poverty as well as well-being.
•  Wealth ranking is best carried out immediately
following social mapping in order to be able to
physically locate specific households and link socio-
economic criteria to the wealth categories.
•  Step1. A numbered list is made of all the households in the
village
•  2. The key informants are asked to sort the cards in as many
piles as there are wealth categories in the village, using their
own criteria.
•  3. After sorting the cards, ask the informants what criteria
were used for each pile and what the differences between the
piles are.
•  4. List the local criteria and indicators derived from the ranking
discussion. What are local perceptions of wealth, well-being
and inequality?
 4- Household economy map
•  household economy map shows an overview of
where money comes from and where it goes
for a household. It describes the different
economic activities undertaken by the different
members of the households.
 5- Transects
•  Transects are diagrams of the land use in an area. They
compare the main features, resources, uses and problems of
different zones. Transects can be constructed by walking in a
line through an area with a key informant using direct
observation to note specific factors and talking to people you
meet on the way (e.g. noting areas which have no shops, which
have a lot of litter, where houses are falling down, where there
are many beggars, where certain crops are grown etc).
 6- /me alloca/on study
•  A /me alloca/on study is a quan6ta6ve
method that collects data on how people
spend their 6me each day on par6cular
ac6vi6es
 7- Seasonal calendar
•  These are ways of representing seasonal variations in
climate, crops, income-generating activities, nutrition,
health and diseases, debt, etc. they can help identify
times of shortage – of food, money or time – and the
best time of the year for particular kinds of development
work.
•  Money needs vary from month-to-month, depending on
family obligations, harvest and planting season
requirements, etc. Knowing more about these seasonal
changes will help people allocate and save their
resources more efficiently to smooth out yearly
consumption needs.
8- Using matrices (preference rankings)

Purpose
•  To make a comparison between different options,
or different issues, solutions to a problem, or
different situations at different times. Matrix
scoring shows how well options meet a criteria.
This method can be used to understand peoples
opinions on for example, different organisations’
services, changes over time, or different activities
that aim to reduce a problem
•  Two variants commonly used: Pair wise ranking &
scoring
Pair ranking exercise
 9- Decision making matrix
•  A decision-making matrix can be created to
get a better idea of who takes the decisions on
which issues within the household, and
therefore how the decision-making power is
distributed between the members of the
household.
•  Gender segregated understanding
Domains Male Male/female members jointly Female Comment
s
Male Equal Female
dominates dominates
1-Inputs

Seeds/sapling
Fer8lizers
Irriga8on
2- Produc6on
3-Marke6ng
4- Investments
5- Marriages
6- Household
budget
Others
 10- Venn Diagram/Chappati
•  A Venn Diagram is a set of different size circles – each
representing an institution - drawn to show the relationships
between a community or household and the institutions that
affect it. Different circles indicate the institutions or individuals.
When the circles are separate there is no contact between
them. If they overlap a little there is some cooperation in
decision-making. If they overlap a lot there is considerable
cooperation. More powerful groups or individuals have larger
circles
•  Used at times of planning mostly and for institutional strength/
weaknesses of existing institutions
 11- FGDs
•  Definition: Focus groups, or focused group interviews, are
facilitated group discussions in which an interviewer poses a
series of prompts to a group. The group provides answers to
the questions, and a discussion follows.
•  Who to invite: Usually between 6 – 10 in order to involve
everyone in the discussion. Homogenous groups usually
based on a screening criteria
•  1.5- 2 hours
Table 1: Interest Group Legend
S/No Group Representa/on/Catetory Age Limit Group/Category Code Male Female Total
1 FATA Youth 18-29 FY 16 16 32
2 Religious Leaders (Imams, khateebs, teachers of seminaries, Ulema) 35 and above RL 8 0 8
3 School Teachers (Public, Private) 30 and above ST 16 16 32
4 Community Elders/ Masharan (Jirga members, spingiri, maliks) 35 and above CE 16 0 16
5 Traders/businessmen 40 and above BM 16 0 16
6 Poli6cal Administra6on (only former PAs, APAs & Poli6cal Tehsildars 45 and above PA 24 0 24
Civil Society (Jouranlists, Lawyers a, academics, writers, intellectuals/poets, NGO
7 workers, Human Righsts ac6vits) 35 and above CS 24 24 48
8 FATA professionals (doctors, engineers, nurses etc) 35 and above FP 16 24 40
Total 136 80 216
 FGDs (Cont)
•  Personnel requirements:
•  One or two facilitator/s – to ask the questions,
keep the discussion going and focused and to
ensure that there is a summary made of the
discussion.
•  Note taker – or person responsible for taping
the session and recording participants
utterances, influences, and gestures etc.
 FGDs (Cont)
3 types of questions should be set in the FGD generally:
i)  General questions to get participants thinking about a topic
ii)  Further specific questions to get the information required
iii) Further probing questions – follow up questions – to get at
more detail, or more specific information. Probing questions
can ask ‘why’, and ‘why’ again, in order to understand
something better. Probing questions can be used to establish
whether what some-one has said is a fact, or whether it is
their opinion, and whether the others in the group have
different opinions or experiences
 FGDs (Cont)
When should FGDs be used
i)  For exploratory work: this is when we want to understand the broad
nature of issues that particular groups face. This can help us identify
areas that we need to understand better.
ii)  To assess the dimensions of a topic. This is similar to the point above,
but is more focused – this will be useful in planning our work, to
make it more relevant for particular groups. It is also a useful way of
evaluating our work, by collecting the views of different groups
about a similar project.
iii)  To get in-depth knowledge about a topic – range of experiences etc
iv)  To study how opinions form and change via group discussion. This
can be useful in awareness raising workshops etc
 12- Interviews
•  Structured interviews:
•  The ques6ons are asked in a set /
standardized order and the interviewer will
not deviate from the interview schedule or
probe beyond the answers received (so they
are not flexible).
•  Good for cross case comparisons
•  Interview schedules used by anthropologists
 13- Semi structured/unstructured
interviews
•  SSI is a tool that can be used any 6me. SSI is
guided interviewing, where only some of the
ques6ons are predetermined and new
ques6ons come up during the interview. The
interviewer prepare a list of topics and
ques6ons rather than a fixed ques6onnaire.
•  Also known as Discovery interviews, guided
conversa6ons
Addi6onal resources

OTHER KEY METHODS

 Life histories
linking of structure and agency ‘temporal dimension’ of social ac6on

•  In6mate and cultural portrait of interes6ng

people. Reveals how people perceive, react to
and contribute to changes that affect their lives
•  Qualita6ve, in-depth descrip6on of individual’s
life as narrated to the researcher (piwalls?)
•  Such accounts illustrate diversity in that how
different people interpret and deal with some of
the same problems. (births and marriages)
The stories people tell, from such a perspec6ve, are not isolated,
individual affairs but reflect and cons6tute the dialec6cs of power
rela6ons and compe6ng truths within the wider society.
humanise the research process
 Texts
•  Cultural sociologists also collect textual
material, a category that includes wrigen or
oral stories, myths, plays, sayings, speeches,
jokes, and transcrip6ons of people’s everyday
conversa6ons
•  These collec6ons provide valuable records of
cultures that have changed since the 6me of
fieldwork
 Archival & historical resources
•  Many cultural anthropologists & socilogists who
work in cultures with a wrigen history gain
important insights about the present from
records of the past preserved in archives
maintained in ins6tu6ons such as libraries,
churches, and museums.
•  E.g., Colonial policies, the culture of the
colonizers, and rela6onships with indigenous
people. Such records like land ownership,
agricultural produc6on, religious prac6ces, and
poli6cal ac6vi6es show how culture has changed
Anthropology of memory: collec6ng informa6on about what people
remember as well as gaps in their memory, revealing how culture shapes
memories and how memories shape their culture
 Other methods in team projects
•  Surveys: Interviews with 100 households, five
case studies, & long term PO (E.g., television
impact, ecological awareness & environmental
risk percep6on, educa6on voucher schemes)
•  Key cultural consultants KIIs
•  Longitudinal: The long-term study of a
community, region, society, culture, or other
unit, usually based on repeated visits.
 Data analysis
•  In data analysis, as with data collec6on, two basic
varie6es exist: qualita6ve (prose-based
descrip6on) and quan6ta6ve (numeric
presenta6on).
•  ANALYZING QUALITATIVE DATA: Qualita6ve data
include descrip6ve field notes, narra6ves, myths
and stories, songs and sagas, and more.
•  Themes or pagerns (Tropes) can be generated by
hand or through strong computer packages like
Nvivo, leximencer, MAXQDA, AQUAD, Transana,
XSight
•  ANALYZING QUANTITATIVE DATA:
•  Divide the households into three income
groups (lower, medium, and higher);
•  Urban rural, gender, ethnici6es, occupa6onal
etc
•  Counts or percentages or graphical
representa6on of data