 Choosing a sociological research topic

Your homework

What is a research topic?  has to have a relevance for and relationship to sociological scholarship  must be researchable (that is documentable or testable by empirical methods)  narrower than a subdiscipline  but not as narrow as a research question (see week 6)

Instrumental or pragmatic reasons 1. Your advisor has an ongoing research project that you could piggy back on 2. You were asked to conduct a study by your organization 3. Call for research proposals (CFPs) by a foundation, government or professional organization that provides the successful applicants with research funds used for fairly specific purposes MORE LIKELY THAT YOU WILL COMPLETE THE PROJECT AND WILL HAVE PRODUCED A REPORT ON YOUR FINDINGS LESS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL LIKE THE TOPIC OR WILL BE ABLE TO STICK WITH IT DUE TO LACK OF CARING FOR IT

Personal interest, passion, politics  Your examples? MORE LIKELY THAT YOU WILL STICK WITH IT AND WILL ENDURE THE DRUDGERY OF RESEARCH, ANALYSIS AND WRITING LESS LIKELY THAT IT WILL BE OF INTEREST TO OTHERS AND THAT IT WILL BE FUNDED

In reality… somewhere between the two extremes:  must have passion and must care for topic  and must have support from your organization, advisor or grant agency  to find the right balance requires a lot of thinking, reading, discussion and creativity  we all have to tweak our projects to some extent to mold to funders’ interests, to have social relevance rather than just satisfying our own curiosity, to have institutional support whether from our employers, colleagues or academic advisors

The scope and breadth of a research project Two extremes: 1. too broad (e.g. what is the meaning of life; what is the nature of European identity) 2. too narrow (why did this pigeon cross this road at 8:20am on my street?; why did EUMP Mrs. Bacon vote for raising subsidies for pig farmers in 2010?) How do you know what is too big or what is too narrow? No specific rule of thumb, it requires reading a lot in one’s own discipline and talking it over with advisor. (also see class on research questions)

Brainstorming: a tool for…  understanding better what you are interested in  mobilizing what you already know about the topic (including what preliminary findings you already have)  gaining awareness of your personal experience and biases that might affect how you approach the topic  identifying possible directions for research, ways to narrow research focus and even identifying possible sites, cases, and research subjects

Types of written brainstorming Assumption: writing is a thinking tool not only a tool of communication!!!! If you are not writing regularly your thinking will not develop sufficiently!!!  Freewriting  Mapping, clusters, diagrams  Double-entry (field)notes EXERCISE:  Brainstorm about your own research topic for five minutes in one of the three formats.  Share.  Discuss experience.

A clarification on using one’s own personal experience for generating a research topic The difference between mobilizing personal knowledge and biases for topic selection and choosing a topic that is personal to you!  The first is about recognizing that you are a primarily a social being who already has at least a tacit (layman’s or informal) knowledge of society and that you are a being with cognitive, analytical skills and reflexivity  The second is about reducing yourself to an atomized individual (a psychological view of humans)

The sociological imagination C. Wright Mills: U.S. sociologist radical progressive sociologist

The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a person is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a person takes new heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesperson becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar operator; a wife or husband lives alone; a child grows up without a parent. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both. Yet people do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of people they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography and history, of self and world. They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them. (1959 Ch.1)

Trouble vs. issue trouble:  the individual as a biographical entity  “private matter: values cherished by an individual are felt by her to be threatened” issue:  matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of her inner life.  a public matter EXERCISE: unemployment, war, divorce, obesity or your research topic as personal trouble vs. public issue DISCUSS: Is this about relieving the individual of all responsibility? Is this excusing undesirable behavior? Is this a Communist idea?

Getting from interest, passion, and vague idea to research topic Read Brainstorm Vague Idea = not yet hypothesizing about a relationship (e.g. youth unemployment) Research Topic = suggesting/hypothesizing about what is involved in this vague idea, that is what relationships might you want to consider (e.g. rise of youth unemployment after the 2008 fiscal crisis in Spain ) After repeated reading-brainstorming cycles: you may further narrow and refine your research topic (e.g. rise of male youth unemployment after the 2008 fiscal crisis in Spanish cities, or the effect of rising unemployment on young male political affiliation)

What to read?  newspapers and other media accounts of your “vague idea”  scholarly articles (do you know where to look?)  reviews of scholarly articles and books on the topic  webpages dedicated to the issue that are maintained by the issue’s “constituency”

What might you find when you read prior to choosing a topic?  Too much is already done on this topic  Nothing is done on this topic  find out why? (Irrelevant topic? Powerful interest in keeping this topic in the dark?)  Someone has already covered this topic exactly from the perspective that you wanted to adopt  Someone has already covered this topic exactly from the perspective that you wanted to adopt but it was done a long time ago or in another country, etc. so it should be “repeated”—why?  You hate what is done on this topic—Why?  You love what is done on this topic—Why? TASK: Be sure to record what types of sources you have looked at and see what reactions you have to each type (double-entry note taking)

After you think you found your “niche”  talk to your advisor and professors  talk to colleagues  search for grant possibilities that might relate even if vaguely to your topic  consider who, what site, what organization could be studied (could be = feasible, legal, ethical, safe)

Homework  Read Babbie pages 3-26; 30-59; 74-81;  Be sure to redo brainstorming if you change your topic after today’s class  Read 2 newspapers and other media accounts of your “vague idea”  Read 1 scholarly article  Read 1 reviews of scholarly articles and books on the topic  Read 1 webpages dedicated to the issue that are maintained by the issue’s “constituency”  Turn in: double entry notes on these sources in next class!

example SourceKey finding/argumentMy reaction resource on finding jobs and lobbying why this mellow unideological focus? European Social Policy Vol.10 (3-37) male urban unemployed youngsters are politically radicalized is right wing radicalism the same as left-wing? the data are too limited El Pais editorialberates violencedouble standards? review of book on European unemployment finds the book too focused on statistical description surely statistical data can be useful