Transcript Families_lec05_methods_09_23_11

METHODS OF SOCIAL
RESEARCH
Introduction to Family Studies
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
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How do we know what we know?
Most of us understand the world around us through
our personal experience -- the people and situations
we have been in or have seen
 This personal experience leads to your conclusions
about the world
 While there is nothing wrong with these ways of
knowing -- social scientists are skeptical about relying
ONLY on these sources because:
 An individual’s experience of those around them is not
representative of the broader society
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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
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How do we know what we know?
Social scientists use a systematic and more scientific
mode of investigation
 Social scientists rely on:
 Observations of the social world based on
representative samples
 Example: If we wanted to study why people in the
U.S. get married, we should not just survey college
students
 We avoid the error of overgeneralization: i.e.
using what we know about a small group of people
to conclude something about all people
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SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
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Social science theories explain or help us make sense
of patterns in social life
Theories shape and direct research – they point us in a
direction
That direction influences what we look for, what we
find, and how we explain it
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SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
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Theories about families and relationships are made up
a set of statements that explain why certain
relationships occur
For example: The age at first marriage has increased
because more women are graduating from college and
starting careers before marrying
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MACROLEVEL THEORIES
Macrolevel theories focus on:
 a whole society or a large part of it
 the BIG PICTURE
Example:
 How has the decline in real male wages influenced
husbands’ and wives’ involvement in the paid labor
force
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Research might examine cost of living and employment
rates by gender and compare data from 1960 to 2000
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SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
Theories used to explain relationships at a more
personal level are micro level theories
Examples:
 A researcher wants to know how often husbands
and wives argue on a weekly basis
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They might observe a husbands and wife in their
home – or tape their conversations over the week
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MOST FREQUENTLY USED
METHODS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
 Demographic
 Survey
Research
 Participant
 Social
Studies
Observation (Field Observation)
Experiments
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DEMOGRAPHIC STUDIES
 Demography
is a subfield of social science that is
concerned with:
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how social conditions are distributed in the human
population and
how these populations are changing
Core interests are trends in:
Fertility
 Mortality
 Migration
 Marriage and divorce
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HOW ARE DEMOGRAPHIC DATA COLLECTED?
Most data are collected at the state level and
compiled by the National Center of Health
Statistics (NCHS)
 NCHS is a department of the Center for Disease
control (CDC) in Atlanta GE
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DEMOGRAPHIC STUDIES
 Examples
of Demographic Studies in
Fertility
 What is the fertility rate by race/ethnicity in
the US?
 How has it changed over the past ten years?
 Go to the National Center for Health
Statistics:
 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs
 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_01.pdf
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FERTILITY RATE
Fertility rate is the number of women age 15 - 44
who gave birth per 1000 women
 For example the rate for Non-Hispanic Black
women is 89 births per 1000 Non-Hispanic Black
women 15 - 44
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SURVEY RESEARCH
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Collect information from a subgroup of people,
known as a sample
Samples are chosen to represent the larger
population from which they are selected.
Data is collected through in-person or phone
interviews, or by questionnaires sent through the
mail or NOW the internet (web-based)
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SURVEY RESEARCH
 Example
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of Survey Research
General Social Survey
 Who
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National Opinion Research Center (NORC)
 How
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conducted the survey?
many people were interviewed?
More than 38,000 people interviewed since
1972
 National
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Survey of Family Growth
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/abc_list.htm
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FIELD RESEARCH
 Used
to understand processes among
people by directly observing them as
the behaviors take place
 Researcher
participates directly in the
social life of individuals of groups in
question
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PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
 Complete
 Arlie
Observation:
Hochschild observed the division of
household labor by visiting wives and
husbands in their homes
 Observation takes place in the real world
 Researcher attempts to fade into the
background
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PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
 Complete
Participation:
 Researcher
tries to become a part of the group
they are studying
 Howard Becker hung around with Jazz
musicians to understand how people learned to
smoke pot - but he WAS also a Jazz musician
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FIELD RESEARCH
 Intensive
interviewing
Questions are open ended
 Designed to be very in depth, with a small sample
 Provide rich description of personal experience
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 Focus
Groups
Designed to obtain information from a small group of
people
 Encourage open discussions of topics
 Used by market researchers and political pollsters
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SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS
A real test of an effect of A on B
 Or the effect a new housing opportunity for better
housing on family opportunities…
 Is to RANDOMLY assign subjects to an
experimental group and a control group
 Moving to Opportunity
 Disadvantaged families were randomly assigned to
 staying in public housing
 receiving a housing voucher for Section8
housing, or
 or moving to a nearby suburb?
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ETHICS IN SOCIAL RESEARCH
Today, before you can even begin a research project –
you must go through an extensive process to receive
an okay to move forward
 Researchers must prove that the individuals
(subjects/respondents) who take part in a study will
not be mentally or physically injured by theory
participation
 Much of the ethical review process came out of the
Millgram experiements
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=274wQJmdRQg
SUMMARY
 Families
are one social institution among
many
 Families are influenced by and influence the
larger society
 Family theories guide research on families as
well as methods chosen to collect data may
operate at the:
 Family sociologists use systematic methods
Demographic studies
 Survey Research
 Observation and
 Social Experiments
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