Research Methods Week 3

We study:
-

Individuals
Organizations

We usually start with the individuals life. We have to start from out own
personal problems and transform them into a research topic.

We need what Mills calls sociological imagination. We should take into

consideration how people reason. By the fact of his living, he contributes
however minutely to the shaping of society and to the course of history,
even as he is made by society and by his historical background.
The individuals influence the society, but it is also the society that shapes
the individuals. Its a two-way relation.

WRITE DOWN ON PAPER WHAT BOTHERS YOU, SOMEONE CLOSE,

AN AREA OF WHICH YOU ARE KNOWLEDGEABLE. Then you move to
a higher level how society tends to deal with such a problem.
Make 2 lists: the causes of the social issue and what aspects of
society are affected by it. Think of the interests, think of the
troubles.
Start with the problem that interests you and ask questions from
all perspective. Use a 360 degree perspective.

In order to make things simple, Max Weber looked at the organizations by

looking at a simple pattern. This is an approach that can work on various
types of organizations: see if it is hierarchical, the types of authority, the
types of rules, the principles and practices they adopt, how personal or
impersonal the relationships are in that organization.
Take this framework and adapt it to a political party.

Robert K. Merton as a social scientist was interested in things that were

dysfunctional. He explained why the mechanism doesnt really work.

Whoever gets the time to get involved into community organizations also
has a family to take care of and draws ideas from it.

Serendipity do events happen accidently or does something rule

over what might appear as chaos?

It is important to ask questions, read the studies that were written by

others and remember to ask Does anyone care about this problem?.

The 3 principle components of doing research, according to Robert K.

Meron:
1. Is this question worth studying?
2. Hasnt the answer already been established?
3. Who cares about the subject?

How=Method it is used to gather information.

In an ideal world, the information is for the general benefit of the society. If
we look at the public opinion, its rarely that the results become public
data. It should be ideally that the solutions to the problems should be
applied to the improvement of social life.

Again, this is not happening all the time. Many methods from social
sciences have been adopted increasingly by other centers of society.
Movies: Wog the dog, The vice president, All Presidents
men (The Watergate Affair)

IRES.ro 60 pages of potential predictions of what the elections might

turn out into.

The Matthew effect the more you have, the more you get. The less you
have, the more you will lose/be taken away from. Big names matter:
quote an important author and the paper will be more valuable. Quote an
unknown author who might be relevant for the paper and the paper will
lose credit. The more credit you have, the more you will earn.

Homework: Find a quote from A study in Scarlet that you think

is relevant for research methods in social science.