Soc101 Lecture 02-06-2008

Slide 1: RES EA RCH TECHNIQUES IN A CTION S ociology 101: Introductory S ociology F ebruary 6, 2008

Slide 2: Common Research M ethods 2  S urvey  Experiment  Participant Observation  Interview  Secondary Analysis

Slide 3: Inductive vs. Deductive S tudies 3  Inductive—observe the situation, develop an explanation.  New M exico Prison Riot S tudy (NM PRS )  Greenwich V illage V endor E thnography (GV S V E )  Deductive—start with theory, collect data to support or reject hypothesis.  S tanfordPrison E xperiment (S PE )  Toy S tore E thnography (TS E )

Slide 4: Prison S tudies 4  S tanford Prison Experiment  S tudy conducted in 1971  S ummarized by Haney, B anks, Zimbardo  New M exico Prison Riot S tudy  Riotoccurred in 1980.  S ummarized by Colvin

Slide 5: Retail E nvironment S tudies 5  Greenwich V illage S treet V endor Ethnography  S tudy conducted over 7 year period (1992-1999)  S ummarized by Duneier in book entitled Sidewalk  Toy S tore Ethnography  S ummarizedby Williams in book entitled Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping and Social Inequality

Slide 6: S tanford Prison E xperiment (S PE ) 6  Theory/Hypothesis:  Prison conditions are due to dispositional attributes of prisoners and/ guards. or  Null Hypothesis: Prison is a pathological setting.  Research Design: Experimental

Slide 7: E xperimental Design 7  Run mock prison for 2 weeks  S elect male college students  No histories of criminal behavior  Health psychological profiles  Randomly assign prisoner and guard roles  Guards work 8 hour shifts  Prisoners stay for 24 hours

Slide 8: S PE Findings 8  Guards were engaging in abusive behaviors.  Prisoners were breaking down.  Root cause of prison violence and anti-social behavior is structural not personality types.

Slide 9: New Mexico Prison Riot S tudy 9 (NMPRS )  Riot occurred over 2 days in February 1980 at Penitentiary of New Mexico.  34 inmates died  200 inmates injured  12 guards taken hostage  Research Design: Interviews & Secondary Analysis

Slide 10: NM PRS Findings 10  Prison administrators actively undermined social relations among prisoners.  Two major impacts:  Increaseddistrust among inmates  Reduced ability to rein in violent actors  Suggests that inmate social control is as or more crucial than prison administration control.

Slide 11: S ociological Insight on Prisons 11  Prison structure creates violence and aggression regardless of predisposition of inmates.  Even violent individuals can be constrained by informal social control.  S ocial order is maintained through human interaction not just formal “ rules.”  S ocial order is easy to destroy; hard to recreate.

Slide 12: The Toy S tore E thnography 12  Theory/Hypothesis: Symbolic Interactionism  We act based on the meaning we ascribe to a situation/thing.  M eaning is learned from social interaction.  We modify meaning based on experiences.  Research Design: Ethnographic

Slide 13: E thnographic Design 13  Williams worked at 2 different toy stores for a total of 300 hours.  M eaning of employees/customers differs based on target market.  Trainingvideos  E mployee rules

Slide 14: TS E Findings 14  Company rules and employee behavior conflict  Rules are one size fits all  Reality is affected by race , class and gender  Customers  Employees  Theory Refinement: S ymbolic meanings differ by race and gender because experiences do.

Slide 15: Greenwich V illage S treet V endor E thnography 15  Duneier worked and lived among NY C street vendors in one neighborhood.  Wanted to understand why “ sidewalk” life had changed over 40 years.  Why the increase in street vendors?  What role do they play in the social life of the neighborhood?

Slide 16: GV S V E /Retail S tudies Findings 16  Y ou have to read the book on GV S V E.  A rticle is in-depth look at ethnography  Unlike Prison Research—no common insight from retail studies.  Retail was a “ site” not the point.  A lot of factors going on in “ similar” structure.