SOC 232cv

Macrosociology

study of large-scale social systems.

• Political system, economy, educational institutions

Microsociology

study of personal concerns and interpersonal

interactions.

• Doctor-patient relationships, interactions between family members

sociological imagination

our personal experiences are powerfully shaped by macrosocial and historical forces.

• If a handful of people experience a problem, it may be just a result of their

“personal choices.” However, if the problem affects large numbers of people

in patterned ways, it is more likely a “public issue.”

Generalizable

the extent to which results or conclusions based on one population can be applied to others.

Agency

our capacity to make our own choices and act autonomously

Social structures

patterned social arrangements that may constrain (or facilitate) our choices and opportunities

Anthropology

study of societies and cultures, often with a non-Western focus

• emphasize the influence of culture on social behavior, whereas sociology tends to emphasize structure, but this boundary also has blurred over time.

• String cultural relitivism

Cultural relativism

refrain from making judgments about practices they observe and instead adopt the viewpoint of the communities being studied.

Basic research

seeks to answer theoretically informed questions or resolve fundamental intellectual puzzles about social behaviuor.

• This research is most commonly done in academia.

• Researchers conducting basic research use the method that is best suited for answering their particular question.

Applied research

seeks to answer a question or concrete problem in the real world or to evaluate a policy or program.

• Its conducted by researchers at policy organizations, think tanks, institutional research departments, and market research firms.

Qualitative methods

research methods that collect and analyze data that enable rich description in words or images.

• The most common qualitative method on sociology is field research, including ethnography and in-depth interviewing.

• Textual analysis of historical documents, letters, and films also is a form of qualitative research

Quantitative methods

research methods that rely on data that can be represented by and summarized into numbers.

• Survey research is the most widely used quantitative method in sociology.

• Social network analysis and experimental methods also generate numerical or statistical data that researchers can analyze.

Mixed-methods approach

general research approach that uses more than one method in a single study.

• This approach is used when researchers become aware that new insights can be revealed through more than one method.

• This process is valuable because the limitations of one approach may be , counterbalanced by the strengths of the other.

Cross-sectional study design

study in which data are collected at only one point in time.

• This approach provides a snapshot of a particular population at a particular historical moment.

• However, a single-point-in-time observation would not be sufficiently informative if we wanted to understand social and historical change.

Repeated cross-sectional study design

data are collected at multiple time points, but from different subjects at each time point.

• tell us about societal-level change, but it cannot show us whether a particular individual changed their views over time.

Benefits and Limitations of Cross-Sectional Studies

Strengths:

• Simple and straightforward

• Relatively inexpensive

• No need to recontact subjects

• Can be quickly implemented to address current events and hot- button issues

Limitations:

Cant assess causal ordering

Causality

relationship where one factor or variable is dependent on

another factor or variable.

• Studies that track individuals at multiple points in time are better suited for ascertaining cause and effect than a single cross-sectional design.

Panel Design

type of longitudinal study in which data are collected on the same subjects at multiple time points.

longitudinal study designs,

studies in which data are collected at

multiple time points.

Cohort Design

type of longitudinal study design in which data are collected from a particular cohort at multiple time points.

Cohort: large swath of the population spanning a full age range, or a specific group, such as a group of ‘ , people who all entered college in a particular year

Benefits and Limitations of Longitudinal Studies

Strengths: Can assess causal ordering and change over time

Limiotation:

• Attrition, or the loss of sample members over time, usually to death or dropout, in panel studies

• Costs are higher.

Units of Analysis

refer to the level of social life about which we want to generalize.

• Eg. individual people, households, schools, cities, countries

• conclusion muist match unit iof analysis

Ecological fallacy

mistake that researchers make by drawing conclusions about the micro level based on some macro-level analysis

The Scientific Method

systematic process of asking and answering

questions in a rigorous and unbiased way.

Steps of the Scientific Method

• Identify an important question that needs an answer.

• Construct a hypothesis, or prediction, about the answer to this question.

• Gather data that allow the researcher to assess the accuracy of this

prediction.

• Analyze the data to determine whether the prediction is accurate.

• Draw and report conclusions

Three general conditions guide question formulation

Social importance: Will answering the question make a difference in the

world?

• Scientific relevance: Will the study resolve an important practical or

theoretical puzzle in sociology?

• Feasibility: Can the researcher carry out a rigorous and well-designed

study that answers the question in a timely and cost-effective way?

Value-Free

goal of being objective and not biased by personal ideologies

• Sometimes, subtle biases can seep in very early in the project by the way that

social scientists ask their research questions.

• It is virtually impossible for researchers to be completely value-free in their

work.

• Researchers should still aim to minimize or explicitly acknowledge their biases.

Subjectivity

the way research is influenced by the perspectives, values,

social experiences, and viewpoint of the researcher.

Reflexivity

the process of attending systematically to the context of knowledge construction, especially to the effect of the researcher, at every step of the research process

Descriptive Research

documents or describes trends, variations, and patterns of social phenomena.

• can explain what is happening, but not necessarily how or why

• quantitative and qualitative methods

Exploratory Research

answer questions of how, with the goal of documenting precisely how particular processes and dynamics unfold.

Explanatory Research

documents the causes and effects of social phenomena, thus addressing questions of why.

CH 2

Theory

sequetial argument consisiting of a series of logically related statements put forward to illuminate some element of social life

• an explanation that develops a logical story for a social phenomena

Empiricism

The idea that the world can be subject to observation which is ther use of the senses to gather data about a social phenomena

scientific method,

The systemativ process of asking and answering questions in a rigorous and unbaised way

• theory and emprirism are key parts

5 basic stepts of the scientific method

steps 1 and 3 are theory

steps 3 and 4 asre empiricism

5 is the intergration of theory and empricism

dustbowl empiricism

empiricism unguided by theory… just a set of observations

• in porazctivce theory and empricism cant be seprate

purpose of theory

• to decribe

• explain

• explore

Theory to describe

• characterized by thre amount of detail it introduces in tryong to explain somthing from the inside our in a consise wat it organizes that detail into basic insights and principles

• often arises from research studies

• decribes

theory to explain

think of explain as akin to the term predict

theory to explore

• serve as a guide helping researchers study social problems in a targeted way

• narrows down avenues of inquiry

Macro level

refers to the broadest way of thinking abikut social life foucsingh on the structure, compusition and procsess of society

Micro-Level

Most intimate way oft hinking abiout social life; focus on f2f interaction and small group processes

• bridges social experances with psy and cognition

meso level

• middle ground way of thinkingf abouyt social lifwe

• focus on physical setting and organization that link individuals to larger society

• Example: Neighborhood collective efficacy theory argues that neighborhood poverty influences deviant behavior in children by decreasing the level of collective efficacy

Commonalities among Theories

• Testable: They can be quantitatively or qualitatively examined.

• Falsifiable: They can be proved wrong.

• Generalizable: They can explain a broad class of events.

• Probabilistic: They refer to what is likely, not what is definite.

inductive approach

scientists draw up a general understanding of social phenomenon through empirical observations.

• working from losed pazst studies

• buyilkd up to a theory though observing data

deductive approach

• translation of general theory into specific empirical analysis

• take what is al;ready knwon about social phenomena and intwergreate it into a coherent argument that explain that phenomena in a way that can be tested

paradigm

Theories develop from paradigms

• Broad set of taken for granted and often unacknowledge assumtipns about socal reality

Positivism

• the paradigm holding that all knwolege can be confoirmed or refuted though empirical observation

• ex:scintific method

Post modernism

• paradigm characterized by significasnt skepticism of claim about general truths or priciples ot facts

social paradigmes

structural functionalism

• macro level frame work associatedwith talcott parsons

• society must be viewed as a collection of interrelated parts, each with a unique role that come together to work as a whole

• is it stablizes society it is functional and the reverse is unfunctional

streangths and limitations of structral functionalism

Strengths:

• Straightforward

• By viewing social life through the single lens of functionality, this paradigm allows for the comparison of diverse social phenomena in concrete ways.

Limitations:

• Its simplicity does not allow for different phenomena to arise for different reasons.

• It considers social ills, like crime, to be functional as well.

conflict pov

• macro level; associated with marx

• the struglle bw the powerful and the less powewerful is the key element to undertsanding society

• soceity is a collectionj of competeing intrests

conflict pow strenths and weakness

Strengths:

• It allows for the concrete comparison of diverse social phenomena through a single lens.

• It brings issues of race, class, gender, and inequality into social dynamics.

Limitations

• Its simplicity does not allow for different phenomena to arise for different reasons.

Rational choice

• macro and micro levels and meso

• applies economic priciples to social life; people are seen as logical and informed being who make choices top maximize their intrest

s and w of rational choice

s:

• grants agency to people

w:

• dosnt consideer power dynamiocs

• dosnent socsior social meanin of phenomena

symbolic interactionism

• micro level; herbert mead

• humans communicate thouygh symbolic exchange in the form of spoken and unspoken communication

• how societal issues play out among indviduals

s and w of symolic interactionism

s:

• emphasizes the micro level of processes that are obscured in the structural functionalism and thre confliuct paradigms

  w;

• too focusedon indicidual at the expense of macro

concept

idea that can be named defined and mesured ikn some way

• exist in the mind as symbols more thsan in the natural world

• assembeld to form theory

positive and neghitive realtions

Postive/direct: both concepts move in the same direction. increase/decrease in one lead to the some in the other

Negative/inverse: two concepts move in opposite directiuons

• bopth associated with stats

mediation

expected relation between 3 concepts is channeled through a third concept that links them together

Moderation

The strength of the association between 2 variables is made weaker of stronger by a 3rd variable

Spuriousness

When an apparent relation between 2 concepts is actually the result of some third concept (confound) influencing them both

• not part of theory comes up when testing theory

• Failure to account for confound would lead to misleading results

Hypotheses

\testable statement of a relationship between 2 concepts

Null hypothisis

Hypothesis that no realtuipn be concepts exists or no difference in the dependant variable be groups exist

Types of hypotheses

Hypothesis of difference is a testable statement about group differences in

some concept.

• Hypothesis of association is a statement that two variables will increase

or decrease together, without an explicit specification of cause and effect.

• Causal hypothesis is a statement that the relationship between two

concepts is the result of cause and effect

Casual Hyp And casual interference

Theories often focus on causes, and so causal hypotheses are common

outcomes.

• However, establishing causality is difficult outside of experiments, even if

researchers take steps to improve causal inference.

• Causal inference is the degree of confidence that an observation based on

the test of a hypothesis is truly causal.

Conceptulization

Process of precisely defining ideas and Turing them into variables

Operatationalization

Liking the conceptualizer variables to a set of procedures to measure them

Variables

Representation that capture the diff femensions categories or levels of a concept

Ch 3: ethics

Moral system that determines wether action are right or wrong good or bad

Informed consent

Freedom to say yes or no to participating once all possible risks and benefits have been properly explained

• signing or orally

Vulnerable populations

Group of people who can’t give informed concept including underage or have a finished mental capacity

Privacy

Control over the extent timing and circumstance of sharing oneself with others

Anonymity

When no identifying information can be linked to repondnats and even reasreacher can’t identify them

Confedintality

When identifying info is only accessible to research team

Deductive disclosure

Use of unique combo of variables to indemnify an individuals data

Nuremberg code

set of ethical principles for human subjects

research, including the requirement of informed consent, developed in the

wake of the Nuremberg Trials following World War II.

Risk vs benefits analysis

assessment in which the potential harms to research subjects are weighed against the potential benefits of the research.

Research ethics boards (REBs)

• research is done that is responsible for reviewing all research involving human subjects, with the goal of protecting the human subjects and preventing ethical violations in the research.

Research protocol

Description from researcher of the intended method and procedures target poipulation and recruitment methods possible risks and benefits of the study and major research question

Demand characteristics

• avoid

• Process whereby research subjects when they become aware of the study’s hypothesis behave in the way that conforms hyp

Deception in social research

• allows it there’s no alternative wat to do the study. And if it involves no more than minimal risk

• Must be debriefed: informing them of actual purpose

Conflicts of interests

Occur if researchers interests or loyalties compromise the way they design or report research

• $

• Unconscious bias

• Personal bias

P-hacking

Researcher rum a lot of diff stat models and choose to report those that come our stat significant

Ch 4: conceptualization

Precisely defining ideas and Turing them into variables

Operationalization

Linking the conceptlized variables tos a set of procures to measure them

Absolute standers

• same threshold applies to everyone regardless of context

• Ex whether person has food

Relative stander

Individual compared to what is typical ina population

• if they fall below avg income

Social artifacts

Aspectsa of social life that can be counted such as new articles tombstones or texts

Dimensions

Components that represent diff manifestations angles or units of the concept

• make up concepts

Categorical variable

• finite set if possible values

• No known distance be values

• Includes nominal and ordinal variables

Continuous variable

• infinite set of possible values

• Values have fixed distance

• Includes interval and ratio variables

Nominal variables

Catalog states or statuses that are parallel and cannot be ranked or ordered

Ex race school or sector

Ordinal variables

Have catrergopries that dan be ordered in some way but the distance be valkues is not known

• ex scale of agree or disagree

Interval variables

Have continuum of values with meaningful distance be them, but no tru 0. The values can be compared directly but they cannot be used in proportions to math

Ex: stat score and temp

Ratio variables

Interval variables that do hav a true 0 and the distance be values can be measured and values can be expressed in proportions

• ex aschoolsoxe and income

Indicators

Values assigned to a variable to provide the blueprint for measurement

• ex; length be birth and tarns into adulthood