Studied by 5 people
Emile Durkheim
structuralist
study on suicide published 100 years ago
aim: wanted to show suicide as linked to the way society is organised and how it is not affected by private troubles
observation: suicide rates in a country every year didn’t change much however there was significant difference between countries
He tried to show social forces varying between different countries led to these suicide rates. For ex: connection between individuals, families and religious organizations.
suicide rates show us something about the society, not the individual and how strong connections led to lower suicide rates and weak connections lead to higher rates.
Durkheim worked with the positivist framework.
Like other structuralists he looked at correlation (when two variables are related to eachother) and causation (where a strict link can be proved) between variables.
the UK census survey
the UK holds a census to gather statistical information about everyone living there
carried out every 10 years
every household has to answer many pages of questions on a range of subjects such as ages of people, ethnic backgrounds, religion and how people travel to work.
Why social surveys are not valid?
1980’s research
Finding out how many unsuitable films have children watched, they were horror films known as ‘video nasties’
there was no concern for media
children who watched these were heavily influenced
Surveys showed that many children have seen the films
To check the valdity of research, several films were mentioned which did not exist
Children claimed to watch these films to impress their peers or try to look matured and grown than they were.
hard labour (caroline gatrell)
2004
studied how women in top professional jobs combined work and motherhood
Gatrell caried 20 in-depth unstructured interviews with women
18 interviews with male partners
women all had one baby/preschool child
Gatrell asked questions related around being a parent, housework, conflict between motherhood and work
women faced far more problems than men in combining being a parent with paid work, laws, discrimination, and balance
gatrell won their trust so women talked freely - validity
small sample - not representative due to common high status
bandura and the bobo dolls
lab experiment - 1960s
link between watching violent acts and imitating them
set up with 4 groups of preschool children
group 1 - saw real life adult men and women attacking a self-righting inflatable doll with mallets
group 2 - saw a film of adult men and women attacking a self-righting inflatable doll with mallets
group 3 - saw TV film of cartoon characters attacking a self-righting inflatable doll with mallets
group 4 - control. saw nothing
each chold was mildly frustrated in being put ina. room with toys but being told they were reserved for other children
children were put in rooms with similar dolls as shown and each child spent 20 minutes
observed by judges seated behind a one-way mirror
first 3 groups were equally aggressive towards dolls and more aggressive than the control group
problems with this research:
meaning of violence and aggression - no one was hurt
children don’t normally watch TV in a lab with researchers watching
slow drip effect with the way media affects people
pygmalion in the classroom - rosenthal and jacobson
field experiment - 1968
researchers went to a primary school in USA and claimed to have a new IQ test predicting which children would become ‘high attainers’ in the future
teachers were told that 20% would fall into ‘very able children’ and invited to administer tests
researchers chose names at random and told teachers
reseachers went to the school randomly over the next 18 months and found the named pupils had made significant progress due to increased teacher expectations
affluent worker - goldthorpe and lockwood
1968
famous case study
investigated whether car factory workers in the UK started to behave like middle class people because they were paid well compared to other workers
only one factory was researched where workers were paid the most
researchers didn’t know whether embourgeoisement was happening at other factories
NCDS - national child development study
longitudinal panel research
followed lives of 17000 children in the UK born in one week in march 1958
eight follow up surveys at ages: 7, 11, 16, 23, 33, 42, 46, 50
data collected helped to understand the importance CAGE and education and other personal factors.
using NCDs: sons of professional fathers are more likely to get professional jobs than working-class parents
people who leave with A-level qualifications are more likely to climb up the social mobility than people who leave with GCSES.
7 up
british tv series
Good example of a panel survey
In 1964 20, 7 year olds from different backgrounds were shown to talking to eachother with different things.
every 7 years the same group of 20 children are visited and interviewed about their progress in life
7 up has showed dramatic life histories and insights into careers, family choices and aging in modern Britain.
gang leader for a day - sudhir venkatesh
participant observation
chicago, USA
researched the lives of people living in a poor area in the city
social problems such as:
high crime rate
drug use
poor quality housing
people: african-americans living in poverty
People at his university though it’s foolish to visit a dangerous place like that
venkatesh won the support of the leader of the black kings gang and showed him the gang and social life
this was very different from what might have been expected from media and other accounts by outsiders
gang played an important part in the life of the area
provides support to the most needy
punished those whose actions harmed the community
viewing the world (2000)
content analysis
commissioned by UK government’s Department for International Development
researched into the way that developing countries were reported on British television
researcher recorded all the main news programmes on the five main terrestrial television channels for three months and then analysed theme: counting the number of lengths of news stories mentioned developing countries and the tone of the story and what impression it gave
analysed the content of some non-news programmes that had some coverage or mention of the developing world
developing world was underreported
coverage was overwhelmingly negative (war and death)
Nearly 137 developing countries weren’t mentioned in this Time period
differences in coverage between the channels. For ex: channel 4 more information on developing countries and portrayed less negatively.
