Soc. 920:501, Sociological Research Methods I
Patricia A. Roos
Rm. A-342, Lucy Stone Hall
Phone: (732) 445-5848
Email: roos@rutgers.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 4-5 p.m. (or by appointment)

I. Goals: The focus of this course is on the basic methods sociologists use. I also introduce descriptive statistical techniques to illustrate the logic of the research process. Throughout the semester, we will review the processes whereby researchers in the social sciences investigate theoretically informed hypotheses about the behavior of individuals and the organization of social institutions. The course will address the major components of the research process, including hypothesis testing, conceptualization and operationalization of theoretical concepts, modes of data collection, sampling, the elaboration paradigm, and the presentation and interpretation of research results. You will gain expertise in the practice of social research, learn elementary statistical analysis, learn the elements of SAS, and gain preliminary skills necessary to read and evaluate published work. We will also focus on writing, especially how to write about data.

The course readings will consist of material from assigned books and scanned readings (see below). The major focus will be on learning by doing. You will use SAS and the GSS website to investigate hypotheses you generate from the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS). The GSS codebook needed to use these data is available online. Use the "Analyze" button to get the 2002 data.

II. Books: The following books are required (and available at the Livingston bookstore):

Russell K. Schutt. 2004. Investigating the Social World. 4th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Stanley Lieberson. 1987. Making it Count: The Improvement of Social Research and Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Recommended only: Lora D. Delwiche, and Susan J. Slaughter. 1996. The Little SAS Book: A Primer. Second edition. Cary, N.C.: SAS Publishing. [This is a good, reference volume if you plan to use SAS in the future. We will use it only briefly in this class. This and other SAS volumes are also available in the Sociology Computer Lab.]

Other readings will be available online (ask me for the password to access these readings).

III. Course Requirements: You will be evaluated in four ways:

1) A combined in-class/take-home, open-book exam on the first two-thirds of the course material (November 9th; 30 percent). Study guide

2) A set of assignments that will test your comprehension of course material/readings and develop your analytic writing abilities (30 percent). Most of these assignments will involve using PC's in the Sociology Computing Lab. Assignments not turned in on the day they are due will automatically lose a grade each day they are late.

Tentative due dates:

Assignment 1: September 21st
Assignment 2: October 5th
Assignment 3: October 19th
Assignment 4: November 23rd

3) A final paper that will involve library research, data analysis, and interpretation; the final paper will build on the assignments; due December 14th (30 percent). I don't like incompletes, and you shouldn't either!

4) Course participation (10 percent). Each of you will "lead the discussion" on course readings one or more times during the semester, and will also present your ongoing work (October 5th and December 7th). For proposals, class members should come prepared with comments for other presenters (e.g., suggestions for references, critical commentary). For both the mid-semester and final presentations, presenters will send around email copies of their preliminary writeups/tables two days prior the presentation. Class discussion will focus on comments and suggestions for revisions.

IV. Miscellaneous:

1) All assignments and the final paper must be typed. Use Word or Excel to prepare tables.

2) We have only 14 meetings, 3 of which are given over to the exam and presentations. Attendance and participation is critical and required. The norm for graduate courses is: thou shalt not miss class!

V. Course Outline (see attached schedule of readings and due dates):

Unit 1: Research Design

Week 1 (September 7): Introduction to Social Science Inquiry

Week 2 (September 14): Research Design

Week 3 (September 21): Logic of Causation I

Week 4 (September 28): Logic of Causation II

Week 5 (October 5): Proposal presentations

Unit II. Collecting and Analyzing Data

Week 6 (October 12): Multivariate Arguments I: Classical Experiments and Quasi-Experimental Designs/ IRBs and Human Subjects Research

Required attendance: Wednesday, October 13th, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.: Departmental seminar on Human Subjects Research: Laszlo Szabo

Week 7 (October 19): Multivariate Arguments II: Survey Research and Sampling

Week 8 (October 26): Interpretative Arguments: Field Research, Participation, Ethnography

Week 9 (November 2): Historical/Comparative Arguments

Week 10 (November 9): In-class portion of open-book exam (out-of-class due)

Week 11 (November 16): Descriptive Techniques: Analyzing Crosstabs and Differences in Means

Unit III. Thoughts on Theory and Method

Week 12 (November 23): Challenging Empirical Social Research

Week 13 (November 30): Critiquing Ethnography

Week 14 (December 7): Final paper presentations

FINAL PAPERS DUE: DECEMBER 14TH

Citations for Articles:

Abbott, Andrew. 1988. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago: University of Chicago. (Ch. 1 "Introduction" and Ch. 10 "The Construction of the Personal Problems Jurisdiction") (click here)

Agresti, Alan, and Barbara Finlay. 1986. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. San Francisco: Dellen. [parts of Ch. 7 "Differences of Means" and Ch. 8 "Measuring Association")

Anderson, Elijah. 2002. "The Ideologically Driven Critique." American Journal of Sociology 107:1533-1550. (click here)

Babbie, Earl. n.d. "Notes on Percentaging Tables. Unpublished notes. [click here]

Babbie, Earl. 2004. The Practice of Social Research, 10th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. (Chapter 15 on Elaboration Paradigm)

Berk, Richard A. 1986. Review of Stanley Lieberson's Making it Count, and Otis Dudley Duncan's, Notes on Social Measurement. American Journal of Sociology 92:462-465. Available through JSTOR.

Collins, Randall. 1989. "Proscience or Antiscience." American Sociological Review 54:124-39. Available through JSTOR.

Conley, Dalton. 1999. Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Ch. 1 "Wealth Matters" and Ch. 2 "Forty Acres and a Mule: Historical and Contemporary Obstacles to Black Property Accumulation") (click here)

Duneier, Mitchell. 2002. "What Kind of Combat Sport is Sociology." American Journal of Sociology 107:1551-1576. (click here)

Eckstein, Susan. 2001. "Community as Gift-Giving: Collectivist Roots of Volunteerism." American Sociological Review 66:829-851. (click here)

IRB Reading: Rutgers Human Subjects Research Annual Memo: [click here]

Newman, Katherine. 2002. "No Shame: The View from the Left Bank." American Journal of Sociology 107:1577-1599. (click here)

Shea, Christopher. 2000. "Don't Talk to the Humans: The Crackdown on Social Science Research." Lingua Franca 10 (6). (click here)

Skocpol, Theda. 2000. The Missing Middle: Working Families and the Future of American Social Policy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Ch. 2 "How Americans Forgot the Formula for Successful Social Policy" (click here)

Wacquant, Loic. 2002. "Scrutinizing the Street: Poverty, Morality, and the Pitfalls of Urban Ethnography." American Journal of Sociology 107:1468-1532. (click here)

Waters, Mary. 1999. Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Ch. 1 "Introduction," Ch. 4 "West Indians at Work," Appendix "Notes on Methodology") (click here)

Research, Thinking, and Writing:

Alford, Robert T. 1998. The Craft of Inquiry: Theories, Methods, Evidence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Becker, Howard S. 1998. Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You're Doing It. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Becker, Howard S. 1986. Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lee Clarke, "Notes on Proposing" and "On Writing and Criticism"

Miller, Jane E. 2004. The Chicago Guide to Writing About Numbers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sarah Rosenfield, "Some Things To Think About While Reading Papers"

James Jasper, "Why So Many Academics are Lousy Writers"

Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. 2000. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

American Sociological Association, "Writing an Informative Abstract"

And, for some humor: "How to Write Good"