Methodological Choices and Research Practices Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key concepts and researchers regarding how methodological decisions, transcriptions, and different research lenses (surveys vs. ethnography) influence data and the visibility of social inequality.

Methodological Choice

The process where researchers define "what counts" as data, shaping categories, rules, and outcomes rather than just collecting pre-existing facts.

Harris and Sim

Researchers who studied how survey design (e.g., 2000 census data vs. Add Health data) shapes multiracial counts by allowing different race-marking options.

Transcription is Interpretive

A concept from Bucholtz stating that recording the world involves framing choices, making transcription both a representational and interpretive act.

Calarco

A researcher who investigated the visibility of help-seeking practices, finding differences in how middle-class and working-class students interact with teachers.

Proactive and Assertive Requesting

The help-seeking behavior typically observed by Calarco in middle-class students to get immediate assistance.

Quiet Waiting and Deferring

The help-seeking behavior typically observed by Calarco in working-class students, which often leads to delayed or no help.

Cumulative Advantage

The mechanism where small differences in interactional help-seeking lead to faster progress and better performance, reinforcing inequality over time.

Aggregate Patterns

Large-scale data trends typically revealed through survey methods, as highlighted in the work of Harris and Sim.

Local Processes

Micro-level interactions and mechanisms typically revealed through ethnography, as highlighted in Calarco's work.

Blind Spots

The inherent limitations in every research method where certain information is missing or hidden from the record.

Transcription Politics

The analytical consequences of formatting and inclusion choices in transcripts, which can portray the same interaction in different ways (e.g., police vs. researcher versions).

Partial Records

The idea that data captures only segments of reality; for example, audio-only records miss body language, and observation misses internal feelings.

Triangulation

The practice of combining multiple methods (e.g., surveys, ethnography, and transcript analysis) to gain a fuller, complementary picture of a social phenomenon.