Ethnographic Method Of Data Gathering

3. What are the main research methods for data gathering that sociologists use to study the social world? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of each method?

Sociologists typically use one of the five key research methods when conducting research, and collecting data. These data gathering techniques are experiments, interviews, surveys, field observations, and historical data. The lecture about studying the social world explains that, there are many different considerations to make when selecting a research method. It is important to consider data needs, cost and access when picking the right method. It is imperative to evaluate how general or specific you need your data to be, how much money you would like to spend, and whether
or not you have access to the data sources that you would need to complete the research. There are many strengths and weaknesses that are resulted in each research method. The lecture presents that for experiments, one of the major strengths is that it can be replicated. After conducting an experiment once, the researcher can repeat it and make changes accordingly. Another positive of experiments is that isolation of experimental variable’s impact over time. Although there are many positives of experiments, there are also negatives. Some of the challenges include finding participants. It is often hard to find someone to agree to be part of an experiment, which makes for a small sample size and fewer variables.
One of the most common methods, a survey, has a significantly larger amount of positives than negatives. Surveys are a lot easier than experiments to find participants for, this makes the research have larger sample sizes. The questions are typically standardized questions. This allows numerous questions can be asked about a subject, because of the extensive flexibility in data analysis. In addition to this, with most surveys being online in today’s society, it can reduce or prevent geographical dependence. As an example, a survey can be administered online and can be sent to participants in the United States, as well as different countries and ethnic areas. However, there are some weaknesses in using a survey. In this chapter, we learned that this includes that the respondents, a person who replies to the survey, giving results that are not valid. Respondents may not feel comfortable providing answers that present themselves in an unfavorable way. It would be difficult for the person collecting data to validate a participant’s answer.
Interviews are another interesting way to conduct research. One of the strengths of using an interview is that it gives a voice to groups that are often silenced by others. However, only so many interviews can be taken, which leads to only have a few opinions from that specific group. One weakness of an interview method is that it is very common that the research question being posed is only grazed upon during the interview, so it is important for the person giving the interview to stay on topic. There is also a large amount of data that is hard to analyze, which is a major weakness in using this method. For instance, it will take longer for the researcher to put the quote that an interviewee said into a form of data material. It is recommended that this method is used for more open-ended research questions and not one that requires many participants.
The ethnographic method is most often overlooked.
According to the lecture in this chapter, an ethnographer studies human cultures and societies by living among the people they study. They are able to produce some of the richest accounts of life in sociology and are able to provide detailed descriptions of their research because they are conducting it hands on. Although that is a major strength, there is one major weakness. That weakness is that is very tedious in making sense of the data and determining how to generalize it. An ethnographer observes other societies, although they may get an answer for their question from observing, it is hard to put into a data
analysis.
Lastly, Historical and existing sources have many strengths and weaknesses to them. This method is often used as an only option. It is when others generate data. It is an extremely efficient method and can have a large sample size if population data is available. In contrast to this, the researcher is limited to data gathered by others. This means that, once the researcher finds the existing source, all of the questions were already asked by a past researcher, which means that the current researcher cannot go back and ask follow up questions.
There are a great amount of research methods sociologist can use when a question is posed by a sociologist. Each method comes with its own strengths and weaknesses that are important to consider when deciding which method is the right one for the researcher’s question.

5.
Define the concept socialization. What/who are agents of socialization and which are the most important in the development of the self? What value(s)/function(s)does socialization have for the self and for societies? How can socialization create conflict?

Socialization is defined as, the set of interactions that give people the capacities so they can successfully participate in society. Not only are people unique due to his or her life experiences and genetics, but also they are unique because of socialization. As socialization increase, people in the same culture realize the degree of their similarities. Socialization can spread culture across generations, or create social reproduction. It is the source of integration and creating solidarity. The agent of socialization that is most important in developing the self are the stages we go through as children. It is through social interaction that we begin the socialization process that contributes to the development of the self. The self is the perceptions we have of who we are that are developed from our perceptions of the way others respond to us. The self develops through different stages. The imitation stage is the first stage that occurs under the age of 3, the play stage, in which we become used to family members and constant influences in our lives, and the game stage in which we become accustomed to being aware of other people. Each stage needs socialization in order to occur. It is necessary that a child can
socialize with others to move on to the next stage. Once they do, children are eventually able to understand the generalized other and be able to adapt to societal expectations. They learn to play and behave by interacting with others and realize how others act. This develops the self by imitation. Once an individual reaches each stage, and spent some time interacting with others, they developed their own culture, behavior, and thought processes, based on other’s experiences that they were able to share by verbal and non-verbal communication. The most important value or function that socialization has for the self and society is knowledge. By interacting with others one is spreading what they know to others. We learn about how to act, how to think and general information. By accomplishing this through socialization, an individual can share their new knowledge with others and start a cycle of sharing. Society can benefit from this by learning from mistakes and adjusting to new information. Society will be able to change the way they have been viewing rules. As an example, in recent years there has been protest, which is a form of socialization, to change the law that only same-sex couple could get married. Through socialization, society was able to see that times are changing and through their new knowledge, was able to adapt its thought. Not only did this example of socialization change society, it changed many peoples sense of self. It allowed others to gain the knowledge they needed to change their view of this topic, which also changed who they are. Sharing knowledge is one of the most important values socialization can give to society and to the self. The Social Interaction chapter suggests that, although socialization can bring people together, it also creates conflict. The biggest reason for this is that we face many challenges as we move from one social context to another. Once we change social status, possibly changing from a mother by day and student by night, we have to adjust. The conflict this creates occurs when fulfilling expectations of one status when actually in the other. The expectation of a mother is to help your child when they rely on you. However, if a student lets another student cheat off them to help them on a test, that is considered wrong and in long-term is not helping anyone. This socialization creates conflict because it is difficult to not accidentally intertwine the two social statuses. Although you are socializing the way you are used to, it is not always proper for the situation you are in. This creates conflict not only with yourself as you are learning to adapt to the different situations, but with society because they are unaware of your internal conflict.