Sociological Research

In the prior page, we explored how sociologists explain things about the social world. They propose a theory, an idea about why things happen. They begin to systematically explain, for example, why social class is prevalent in industrialized societies or why implicit bias is so common. But how do they pick which theory is right? Which idea works to explain or predict what might happen next?

As you saw in earlier in this chapter, sociology is the systematic study of society and social interactions to understand individuals, groups, and institutions through data collection and analysis. Sociologists look for evidence that supports or challenges their theory, or they build theory from their data. They often use the scientific method, a common set of steps that allow them to gather data, analyze the data, and share results. However, this is not the only method of research, as we will discuss.

In this page we will review approaches to knowledge – frameworks for studying the social world – including the scientific method, the interpretive framework, and Indigenous frameworks. We also provide examples of a variety of sociological (and broader social science) research methods. We will also discuss some advantages and disadvantages of those methods, as each research method has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Additionally, sociologists who study social problems often hope their findings will support effective action to address the social problem. Like SSSP President Nancy Mezey, who we met in a prior page, social problem scientists study and act. We will examine some of the research methods that combine learning and doing.

  

Approaches to Knowledge

Many scientists use shared approaches to figure out how the social world works. You have likely heard of the scientific method, as this is what children in the US learn in grade school. However, there are other methods of equally important value in social science research. We will discuss three approaches to studying the social world.

The Scientific Method

The most common approach is the scientific method, an established scholarly research process that involves asking a question, researching existing sources, forming a hypothesis, designing a data collection method, gathering data, and drawing conclusions. Often this method is shown as a straight line. Scientists proceed in an orderly fashion, executing one step after the next. However, it is not perfectly linear as scientists return to prior steps, such as the example in the image below.

The Scientific Method is an ongoing process. Each step feeds the next step. How is this different from a linear model you may have previously learned about?

"The Scientific Process" by Michaela Willi Hooper and Jennifer Puentes, Open Oregon Educational Resources (2022), is licensed under CC BY 4.0

This method emphasizes objectivity, the unrealistic idea of conducting research with no interference by aspects of the researcher’s identity or personal beliefs. In other words, an overriding principle of the scientific method is that research should be conducted as objectively as possible. Science uses evidence to prove theories. At the same time, all scientists, like all people, have unconscious biases. They make assumptions about the way the world works.

It is sometimes difficult to see these assumptions clearly. For example, suppose you unconsciously assume that women are weaker than men. In that case, you may label behavior emphasizing social connection as soft or passive rather than focusing on how important connection is to human health and happiness. Researchers are often passionate about their work, but they must take care not to let the findings they expect and even hope to uncover affect how they do their research. This in turn means that they must not conduct their research in a manner that helps achieve the results they expect to find.

In some cases, scientists use pseudo-scientific methods – illegitimate or unsound methods – to justify oppression. As early as 1684, French physician François Bernier classified people into different races based on where they lived in the world. Each race had a distinct temperament or set of characteristics. By the early 1800s, European and American white scientists classified people into five distinct biological races, with characteristics of more or less intelligence and diligence.

In another example, the French naturalist Georges Cuvier dissected the body of Sarah Baartman, a Khoekhoen tribal African woman, in 1817. The Penn Museum (2023) explains, "He claimed that she had a small brain and a resemblance to a monkey. For him and many of his contemporaries, the examination of her body, and the bodies of other Africans, proved their inferiority to Europeans, showing 'no exception to this cruel law which seems to have condemned to eternal inferiority the races with cramped and compressed skulls.'"

Both examples typify scientific racism, the use of pseudo-scientific methods to justify racial inequality. These “scientific” studies became a justification for slavery. However, even after slavery ended, scientific racism continued. In the 1800s and early 1900s, some white scientists and doctors conducted horrific experiments attempting to prove that Black people had thicker skins, felt less pain, and were less intelligent than white people (Tucker, nd, Villarosa 2021). These studies are not accurate.

This image displays a page in a geography book published in 1864. 'Scientists' for centuries used illegitimate pseudo-scientific methods to exaggerate physical differences between social groups and to attempt to position Western European white men as superior to everyone else.

"A geography for beginners" by K.J. Stewart via Wikimedia Commons is in the Public Domain

However, we continue to see the results of these beliefs in our medical and healthcare system today. When we look at pain management, for example, Black people are 22% less likely than white patients to receive pain medication (Sabin 2020). The ways in which “science” justified racist beliefs continue to influence our health care system today. We’ll discuss this more in the chapter on Medicine and Health. Even though social science is based on collecting and analyzing data, it often reflects the norms and values of the scientists and the existing social hierarchies.

Because objectivity is not entirely possible, scientists rely on collaboration to correct bias and validate results. The scientific method is a circular process rather than a straight line, as shown in the figure below. The circle helps us to see that science is driven by curiosity and that learnings at each step move us to the next step in ongoing loops. This model allows for the creativity and collaboration that is essential in how we create new scientific understandings.

Additionally, not all research follows this precise process. For instance, qualitative research (discussed below) may not formulate a hypothesis to be tested with data as the second step, but rather may collect data first then build theory from that data.

The Interpretive Framework

In contrast to the scientific method, the interpretive framework is an approach that involves detailed understanding of a particular subject through observation or listening to people’s stories, not through hypothesis testing. This framework comes from grounded theory developed by sociologists Glasser and Strauss, grounding a theory first in data and then theorizing (Chun Tie, Birks and Francis 2019).

Researchers try to understand social experiences from the point of view of the people who are experiencing them. They interview people or look at blogs, newspapers, or videos to discover what people say is happening and how people make sense of things. This in-depth understanding allows the researcher to create a new theory about human activity. These steps are similar to the scientific method but not the same, as shown in the figure below.

Rather than starting with a hypothesis, in the Interpretive Framework you start with a topic and ask people about it. As you look at the interview data, themes emerge. How is this model different from the scientific method?

No photo credit provided

In the interpretive framework, the researcher might start with a topic they are interested in. In one study, researchers were interested in improving medical care for women potentially experiencing miscarriages. They wanted to understand the experience of going to the emergency room from the perspective of pregnant women. They designed interviews that asked the pregnant women and the nursing staff about their experience. During the interviews, the women mentioned that most emergency room personnel did not include their partners in the process. The researchers added interviewing the partners as part of their study design.

Once the interviews were complete, the researchers analyzed the data and identified themes. They proposed a model called “Threads of Care” which emphasized the need to include both the pregnant person and the partner in understanding the physical processes associated with miscarriages and in providing gender-specific emotional support. Because the scientists included partner interviews, they discovered that both people involved in the pregnancy experienced uncertainty, loss, and grief, not just the pregnant person (Edwards et al 2018).

Even though both the traditional scientific method and the interpretive framework start with curiosity and questions, the people who practice science using the interpretive framework allow the data to tell its story. Using this method can lead to insightful and transformative results. You can find things you didn’t even know to expect because you are listening to what the stories say.

The social context of this framework is interesting from a sociological perspective. You may have noticed that most of the early recognized sociologists in this chapter were wealthy white men. Often, they looked at economics, poverty, and industrialization as their topics. They were committed to using the scientific method. Although women like Harriet Martineau and Jane Addams examined a wide range of social problems and acted on their research, social science was considered a domain of men. Even in 2020, women are less than 30% of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) workforce in the United States (American Association of University Women 2020).

Feminist scientists challenge this exclusion and the kinds of science it creates. Feminist scientists argue that women and nonbinary people belong everywhere in science. They belong in the laboratories and scientific offices. They belong in deciding what topics to study so that social problems of gendered violence or maternal health are studied also. They belong as participants in research, so that findings apply to people of all gender identities. They belong in applying the results to doing something about social problems. In other words:

"Feminists have detailed the historically gendered participation in the practice of science – the marginalization or exclusion of women from the profession and how their contributions have disappeared when they have participated. Feminists have also noted how the sciences have been slow to study women’s lives, bodies, and experiences. Thus from both the perspectives of the agents – the creators of scientific knowledge – and from the perspectives of the subjects of knowledge – the topics and interests focused on – the sciences often have not served women satisfactorily" (Crasnow 2020).

For instance, you may have seen the movie Hidden Figures or read the book. In it, women, particularly Black women, were the computers for NASA, manually calculating all the math needed to launch and orbit rockets. However, politicians and leaders did not recognize their work. Even when they were creating equations and writing reports, women’s names didn’t go on the title pages.

The practice of science often excludes women and nonbinary people from leadership in research, research topics, and as research subjects. The feminist critique of the traditional scientific method, and other critiques around the process of doing traditional science created space for other frameworks to emerge, including the interpretive framework described above. However, this is not the only alternate approach that sociologists use to explore the social world.

Indigenous Frameworks

Like the feminist scientists discussed the previous subsection, Indigenous scientists provide an alternative framework to mainstream science. Each Indigenous group has a unique way of understanding their own land and a method of learning that respects that place. At the same time, many Indigenous scientists share similar frameworks. Indigenous science is the scientific framework of Indigenous cultures worldwide, a time-tested approach that sustains the community and the environment.

Although mainstream scientists and Indigenous scientists share a common goal of understanding the social world, the frameworks that they use to create that understanding are deeply different. We will examine differences in their approaches to discovery, research methods, and consequences of doing science to more deeply understand the power of the Indigenous framework. Then, we will explore how weaving Indigenous and mainstream ways of knowing can lead to transformational knowledge that supports social justice.

Quote

Our research has shown us that Indigenous sciences and foundational principles have the power to heal and rebalance in this world, as well as to address serious illness. Our intent is to open a pathway that would allow for this knowledge and understanding to safely and respectfully be introduced – or in some cases reintroduced – to the world through science.

– Joseph American Horse, leader of the Oglala Lakota Oyate

You may remember from our prior discussion that people use different ways of knowing to understand the social world. Indigenous scientists value many ways of knowing. Robin Wall Kimmerer, an Indigenous biologist from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes this:

"Native scholar Greg Cajete has written that in indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit. I came to understand quite sharply when I began my training as a scientist that science privileges only one, possibly two, of those ways of knowing: mind and body. As a young person wanting to know everything about plants, I did not question this. But it is a whole human being who finds the beautiful path" (Kimmerer 2013).

Although Kimmerer is referring to biology, the same difference exists in social science. Mainstream social scientists using the scientific method focus on intellectual ways of knowing. Indigenous social scientists leverage the power of knowing through mind, body, emotion and spirit. Let’s look at each of these characteristics in turn.

First, both frameworks value the mind, the intellectual understanding of what is. However, they focus on two different ways of organizing that knowledge. Indigenous frameworks focus on interdependence and interconnectedness. Mainstream science will often break things down into parts to understand what each part does. While that may help understand details, it doesn’t give the whole picture of a process or help understand the interdependence in the social and physical world.

In an Indigenous example, Lakota scientists use the image of a tipi to describe their scientific model. In this model, they focus on interrelatedness, interconnectedness, and the vitality of life. These components of the models are compared to tipi poles, which provide structure for the model itself. They write:

"…these foundational poles are being used to signify the principles of Mitakuye Oyasiŋ (interrelatedness), Škaŋ (the constant motion of life) and Paowanžila (interconnectedness), which serve as the basis for our scientific systems" (American Horse et al. 2023:7).

Rather than focusing on splitting things into component parts to understand them, Indigenous scientists focus on connection and relationship in social systems. They also connect back to the ancestors and forward to future generations to imagine how any findings from science might impact the people and the environment. This interconnectedness includes both space – the interconnectedness and interdependence of water, air, earth, and beings – and time – back to the ancestors and forward to next generations. This is very different from the Western scientific perspective, which presumes objectivity and does not assume responsibility towards the subjects it studies.

Scholar Gregory Cajete, a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, articulates the differences between Indigenous and Western ways of doing science.

“Photo of Gregory Cajete” © Gregory Cajete is all rights reserved and included with permission

Gregory Cajete (picture above), the social scientist that Robin Wall Kimmerer referenced, is a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico. He describes the conflict in this way:

"But the sources of knowledge of nature and the explanations of natural phenomena within a traditional Native American context are often at odds with what is learned in 'school science' and proposed by Western scientific philosophy. Herein lies a very real conflict between two distinctly different worldviews: the mutualistic/holistic-oriented worldview of Native American cultures and the rationalistic/dualistic worldview of Western science that divides, analyzes, and objectifies" (Cajete 1999:146).

This conflict in approach is fundamental. At the same time, a few mainstream social scientists sometimes use models of social ecosystems and interdependence. Using interconnectedness and interdependence empowers social justice. If you’d like to learn more about the power of this perspective from Gregory Cajete, please watch A Pueblo Story of Sustainability.

In addition, both frameworks consider the body, or the physical reality of social phenomenon. However, while Western science will carefully measure the parts, Indigenous scientific frameworks are grounded in a sense of place. Explore the textbook from British Columbia called Knowing Home: Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science if this interests you. The authors write:

"In contemplating a title for this book, the phrase 'Knowing Home' reflects that traditional knowledge and wisdom is contextual. The stories and testimonies of Indigenous peoples are usually related to a home place. In the words of Kimmerer:

To the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, our connection to the ancestors, the home of non-human kinfolk, our pharmacy, our grocery store, our library, the source of everything that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold" (Snively & Williams 2013:17).

A sense of an interconnected place is essential in the Indigenous framework. Although mainstream social scientists will collect data about people carefully using the scientific method, their goal is to generalize their findings. Indigenous science grounds new findings within the context of a specific place in the physical world.

In the video below, Kimmerer has a longer conversation about what it means to be American. Starting at minute 55:25, she discusses how the Western approach to discrete naming and classifying, apart from a place, can prevent learning. Consider reflecting upon how the practices she introduces might change your own approach to science.

Biologist and storyteller Robin Wall Kimmerer reflects on the difference between naming and classifying in the Western scientific tradition and understanding relationships in the Indigenous traditions in this video, "Consider This with Robin Wall Kimmerer [YouTube]" (watch from 55:25 to 57:20).

“Consider This with Robin Wall Kimmerer” by Oregon Humanities is licensed under the Standard YouTube License

Another way the frameworks differ wildly is in the integration of emotion and spirit with the mind and the body. When we examined the scientific method earlier in the chapter, we noted that the scientific method emphasizes objectivity. Mainstream scientists often argue that beliefs, values, emotions, or faith have no place in effective science. Indigenous frameworks say that emotion and spirit are valid ways of understanding the world. For example, the Lakota scientists write:

"It is important to note that the Lakota do not traditionally have the concept of 'religion' as is present in Western culture (Goodman 2017). Rather, Tunkašila’s [the Creator’s] energy and other dimensions are foundational to our scientific systems. Their presence is measurable, visible, and replicable. When certain conditions are created, we can enter these realms. …. They are as real and tangible as the physical earth, but exist in different energetic planes" (American Horse et al. 2023: 7, emphasis added).

Indigenous scientists incorporate both emotion and spirit into their framework arguing that the integration of mind, body, emotion and spirit are essential to both healthy living and effective science.

Differences in research methods demonstrate the impact of focusing on emotion and spirit in addition to mind and body. Like the Interpretive framework, the Indigenous framework also values story as a source of truth. Oral traditions, or stories, are one way that Indigenous people convey knowledge. Indigenous scientists value these stories as sources of wisdom and knowledge. Jacinta Koolmarie is an Adnyamathanha and Ngarrindjeri Indigenous person from Australia who is studying stories of her elders. She asserts that Indigenous stories provide valid evidence about the natural and social world. Please consider diving into that idea in her video The myth of Aboriginal stories being myths.

This perspective contradicts that of mainstream science. For example, Joel Best (2018), who provides the model of the social problems process in the prior chapter, argues that case studies, a technical word for stories, are not useful in explaining social problems. He values measurements and numbers instead. In both the Interpretive framework and the Indigenous framework, stories matter.

Finally, the frameworks differ in how they think about the purpose of science. Like social problem scientists and feminist scientists among others, Indigenous scientists agree that the purpose of science is to understand more deeply so that we can take action.

Indigenous science challenges the dominant narratives of power and colonization in the Americas, for example. Colonization is the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the Indigenous people of an area. Many schoolchildren learn the mistaken idea that the Spanish conquerors brought the horse to the Americas. Indigenous oral history disagrees.

Yvette Running Horse Collins, a Lakota scientist challenges this colonialist history, examining the oral traditions of the Lakota people, finding the Creator gifted the tribe with horses long ago (Figure 4.8) She writes:

"…you cannot have a Lakota separate of the horse as we were – and are – one with them. As is the case in our language, there is no past, present, or future for us with Šungwakaŋ. The Horse Nation is with us and a part of us and has been so since 'time immemorial'" (American Horse et al. 2023: 21).

Her work stands in direct opposition to the more common narrative, challenging the truthfulness of colonizer accounts. This resistance is essential in the work of decolonization.

At the same time, the Indigenous framework and Western science are not binary opposites. They share a commitment to finding truth through exploring the social world. Increasingly, scientists working in both traditions are collaborating and discovering how the methods enhance one another. Using both approaches simultaneously creates powerful new knowledge that moves us toward justice.

For example, in a recent collaboration in anthropology, scientists tried to resolve the contradiction between Indigenous history and White dominant culture understandings of society and horses. Specifically, they wanted to know if horses were part of Indigenous culture before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. The team acknowledges the colonialist viewpoint of dominant culture, writing:

"Over recent decades, the story of people and horses has largely been told through the lens of colonial history. One reason for this is logistical – European settlers often wrote down their observations, creating documentary records that partially chronicle the early relationships between colonists, Indigenous cultures and horses in the colonial West. Another reason, though, is prejudice: Indigenous peoples in the Americas have been excluded from telling their side of the story" (Taylor and Collin 2023).

Then, they use Western science to date the bones of horse skeletons, finding that the bones pre-date the colonists. They combine the quantitative data with the qualitative data gathered from Indigenous stories to tell the deeper truth. Horses were part of Indigenous culture long before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. This evidence challenges mainstream ideas of history, and the oppression that created those ideas. If you’re interested in learning more about this powerful collaboration, you can read the full report Standing For Unči Maka (Grandmother Earth) And All Life: An Introduction To Lakota Traditional Sciences, Principles And Protocols And The Birth Of A New Era Of Scientific Collaborations.

Horses are an active part of life for the Lakota and many other Plains nations today. How does learning more about the Indigenous history of the horse challenge the ways of Western science?

“Image” © Jacquelyn Córdova/Northern Vision Productions is included under fair use

From the Western scientific method to the Interpretive framework to Indigenous ways of doing science, we are all curious about why our social world is the way it is. We construct different frameworks to make sense of our interactions and institutions. Each framework starts from a different set of assumptions and uses different ways of gathering evidence. They each have a unique way of deepening our understanding of social problems, and moving forward with justice.

  

Sociological Research Methods

Social scientists have many ways to collect the data to research their questions and allow them to explain and predict the social world. The ways in which social scientists collect, analyze, and understand research information are called research methods. These research methods define how we do social science. Sound research is an essential tool for understanding the sources, dynamics, and consequences of social problems and possible solutions to them.

In this section, we examine some of the most common research methods. Research methods are often grouped into two categories: quantitative research, data collected in numerical form that can be counted and analyzed using statistics, and qualitative research, non-numerical, descriptive data that is often subjective and based on what is experienced in a social setting. From the table and discussion below, surveys and experiments are quantitative studies, whereas field research and in-depth interviews are qualitative studies. Some of the strongest scientific studies combine both approaches. New research methods go beyond the two categories, exploring international and Indigenous knowledge or doing research for the purpose of taking action.

The Major Sociological Research Methods Snapshot table below summarizes the methods and some of their advantages and disadvantages.

Major Sociological Research Methods Snapshot

Method	Description	Advantages	Disadvantages
Surveys	Collects answers from many subjects who are asked a variety of questions, and analyzes the responses with statistics.	Many people can be included. If given to a random sample of the population, a survey’s results can be generalized to the population.	Large surveys are expensive and time-consuming. Although much information is gathered, this information is relatively superficial.
Experiments	Compares an experimental group who is exposed to the independent variable with a control group who is not exposed, and analyzes the differences.	If random assignment is used, experiments provide fairly convincing data on cause and effect.	Because experiments do not involve random samples of the population and most often involve college students, their results cannot readily be generalized to the population.
Observations / field research	Observes individuals and groups in their natural social setting, and analyzes the extensive field notes.	Observational studies may provide rich, detailed information about the people who are observed.	Because observation studies do not involve random samples of the population, their results cannot readily be generalized to the population.
In-depth interviews	Conducts many face-to-face (or online or phone) interviews with participants, and analyzes the transcriptions.	Interviewing people provides in-depth knowledge on how they understand or experience a social phenomenon.	Interviews are time-consuming to conduct as each may be 30 minutes to a few hours in length, and they are time-consuming to transcribe without quality software.
Secondary data	Analyzes existing data (does not collect original data to analyze)	Because existing data have already been gathered, the researcher does not have to spend the time and money to gather data.	The data set that is being analyzed may not contain data on all the variables in which a sociologist is interested or may contain data on variables that are not measured in ways the sociologist prefers.

Surveys

Do you strongly agree? Agree? Neither agree or disagree? Disagree? Strongly disagree? If you’ve heard this before, you’ve probably completed your fair share of surveys.

As a research method, a survey collects data from subjects who respond to questions about behaviors and opinions, often in a questionnaire or sometimes an interview. Surveys are one of the most widely used scientific research methods. The standard survey format allows individuals a level of anonymity that other methods may not allow for.

Not all surveys are considered sociological research. Many surveys people commonly encounter focus on identifying marketing needs and strategies rather than testing a hypothesis or contributing to social science knowledge. Questions such as, “How many hot dogs do you eat in a month?” or “Were the staff helpful?” are not usually designed as scientific research. Surveys gather different types of information from people. While surveys are not great at capturing the ways people really behave in social situations, they are a great method for discovering how people feel, think, and act – or at least how they say they feel, think, and act. Surveys can track support for same-sex marriage or report individual behaviors (such time in prayer or in housework) or information such as employment status, income, and education levels – socioeconomic status indicators.

The Gallup poll is perhaps the most well-known example of a survey and, like all surveys, gathers its data with the help of a questionnaire that is given to a group of respondents. The Gallup poll is an example of a survey conducted by a private organization, but sociologists do their own surveys, as does the government and many organizations in addition to Gallup. Many surveys are administered to respondents who are randomly chosen and thus constitute a random sample. In a random sample, everyone in the population (whether it be the whole US population or just the population of a state or city, all the college students in a state or city or all the students at just one college, etc.) has the same chance of being included in the survey. The beauty of a random sample is that it allows us to generalize the results of the sample to the population from which the sample comes. This means that we can be fairly sure of the behavior and attitudes of the whole US population by knowing the behavior and attitudes of just four hundred people randomly chosen from that population.

Some surveys are face-to-face surveys, in which interviewers meet with respondents to ask them questions. This type of survey can yield much information, because interviewers typically will spend at least an hour asking their questions, and a high response rate (the percentage of all people in the sample who agree to be interviewed), which is important to be able to generalize the survey’s results to the entire population. On the downside, this type of survey can be expensive and time consuming to conduct.

Surveys are very useful for gathering various kinds of information relevant to social problems. Advances in technology have made telephone surveys involving random-digit dialing perhaps the most popular way of conducting a survey.

Plantronicsgermany – Encore520 call center man standing – CC BY-ND 2.0

Because of these drawbacks, sociologists and other researchers have turned to telephone and online surveys. Most Gallup polls are conducted over the telephone (both landline and cell phones). Computers do random-digit dialing, which results in a random sample of all telephone numbers being selected. Although the response rate and the number of questions asked are both lower than in face-to-face surveys (people can just hang up the phone at the outset or let their answering machine take the call), the ease and low expense of telephone surveys are making them increasingly popular. Surveys done over the Internet are also becoming more popular, as they can reach many people at very low expense. A major problem with web surveys is that their results cannot necessarily be generalized to the entire population because not everyone has access to the Internet.

Surveys are used in the study of social problems to gather information about the behavior and attitudes of people regarding one or more problems. For example, many surveys ask people about their use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs or about their experiences of being unemployed or in poor health. Many of the chapters in this book will present evidence gathered by surveys carried out by sociologists and other social scientists, various governmental agencies, and private research and public interest firms.

Experiments

One way researchers test social theories is by conducting an experiment, meaning the researcher investigates relationships to test a hypothesis. This approach closely resembles the scientific method. Experiments are the primary form of research in the natural and physical sciences, but in the social sciences they are for the most part found only in psychology, including the subfield of social psychology. Some sociologists still use field experiments, however, and they remain a powerful tool of social research.

There are two main types of experiments: Lab-based experiments and natural or field experiments. In a lab setting, the research can be controlled so that data can be recorded in a limited amount of time. In a natural or field-based experiment, the time it takes to gather the data cannot be controlled but the information might be considered more accurate since it was collected without interference or intervention by the researcher. Field-based experiments are often used to evaluate interventions in educational settings and health (Baldassarri and Abascal 2017).

Typically, the sociologist selects a set of people with similar characteristics, such as age, class, race, or education. Those people are divided into two groups. One is the experimental group and the other is the control group. The experimental group is exposed to the independent variable(s) and the control group is not. To test the benefits of tutoring, for example, the sociologist might provide tutoring to the experimental group of students but not to the control group. Then both groups would be tested for differences in performance to see if tutoring affected the experimental group of students. In a case like this, the researcher would not want to jeopardize the accomplishments of either group of students, so the setting would be somewhat artificial. The test would not be for a grade reflected on their permanent record as a student, for example.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota in the early 1980s, sociologists were involved in a much-discussed field experiment sponsored by the federal government. The researchers wanted to see whether arresting men for domestic violence made it less likely that they would commit such violence again. To test this hypothesis, the researchers had police do one of the following after arriving at the scene of a domestic dispute: They either arrested the suspect, separated him from his wife or partner for several hours, or warned him to stop but did not arrest or separate him. The researchers then determined the percentage of men in each group who committed repeated domestic violence during the next six months and found that those who were arrested had the lowest rate of recidivism, or repeat offending (Sherman & Berk, 1984). This finding led many jurisdictions across the United States to adopt a policy of mandatory arrest for domestic violence suspects. However, replications of the Minneapolis experiment in other cities found that arrest sometimes reduced recidivism for domestic violence but also sometimes increased it, depending on which city was being studied and on certain characteristics of the suspects, including whether they were employed at the time of their arrest (Sherman, 1992).

In this field experiment, researchers investigated whether employers would discriminate against applicants with foreign names. The researchers found that if the application was from Brian instead of Boleslav, the person was twice as likely to get a job interview. What other indicators of social location might influence hiring?

“Image of Boleslav Makarey Experiment” from Seven Examples of Field Experiments for Sociology © Revise Sociology is included under fair use

The major advantage of experiments, whether they are done in the natural and physical sciences or in the social sciences, is that the researcher can be fairly sure of a cause-and-effect relationship because of the way the experiment is set up. Although many different experimental designs exist, the typical experiment consists of an experimental group and a control group, with subjects randomly assigned to either group. The researcher does something to the experimental group that is not done to the control group. If the two groups differ later in some variable, then it is safe to say that the condition to which the experimental group was subjected was responsible for the difference that resulted.

As the Minneapolis study suggests, perhaps the most important problem with experiments is that their results are not generalizable beyond the specific subjects studied. The subjects in most psychology experiments, for example, are college students, who obviously are not typical of average Americans: They are younger, more educated, and more likely to be middle class. Despite this problem, experiments in the social sciences have given us very valuable insights into the sources of attitudes and behavior. Scholars of social problems are increasingly using field experiments to study the effectiveness of various policies and programs aimed at addressing social problems. We will examine the results of several such experiments in the chapters ahead.

Observational Studies

Observational research, also called field research, is a staple of sociology. Sociologists have long gone into the field to observe people and social settings, and the result has been many rich descriptions and analyses of behavior in juvenile gangs, bars, urban street corners, and even whole communities.

At the beginning of a field study, researchers might have a question: “What is it like to be houseless?” Participant observation is a useful method if the researcher wants to explore a certain environment from the inside. The ethnographer will be alert and open-minded to whatever happens, recording all observations accurately. Soon, as patterns emerge, questions will become more specific, and the researcher will be able to either make connections to existing theories or develop new theories based on their observations. This approach will guide the researcher in analyzing data and generating results.

Field research studies consist of both participant observation and nonparticipant observation. Their names describe how they differ. In nonparticipant observation, the researcher observes a group of people but does not otherwise interact with them. If you went to your local shopping mall to observe, say, whether people walking with children looked happier than people without children, you would be engaging in nonparticipant observation.

Participant observation refers to a style of research where researchers join people and participate in a group’s routine activities for the purpose of observing them within that context. This method lets researchers experience a specific aspect of social life. A researcher might go to great lengths to get a firsthand look into a trend, institution, or behavior. For instance, a researcher might work as a waitress in a diner, experience homelessness for several weeks, or ride along with police officers as they patrol their regular beat. Often, these researchers try to blend in seamlessly with the population they study, and they may not disclose their true identity or purpose if they feel it would compromise the results of their research. In participant observation, the researcher is part of the group that she or he is studying, spends time with the group, and might even live with people in the group. Several classical social problems studies of this type exist, many of them involving people in urban neighborhoods (Liebow, 1967; Liebow, 1993; Whyte, 1943).

The data in observational studies are the field notes that researchers take when they are in the field, or shortly after. The notes are trascribed then analyzed for patterns.

Similar to experiments, observational studies cannot automatically be generalized to other settings or members of the population. But in many ways they provide a richer account of people’s lives than surveys do, and they remain an important method of research on social problems.

In-depth Interviews

Interview studies, often referred to as in-depth interviews, involve one-on-one conversations with participants designed to gather information about a particular topic. They are typically conducted face-to-face, but may be online (such as through Zoom) or on the phone. An interview study is not like journalism in which the reporter talks with only one 'expert' or person who experienced someone. Rather, in-depth interview studies often involved interviews with 30 or 60 or even 100 or more individuals.

The data in interview studies are the transcriptions of the interviews – what the participants have said. The researchers transcribe the interviews then code them, looking for patterns across the data.

Interviews can take a long time to complete, but they can produce very rich data. In fact, in an interview, a respondent might say something the researcher had not previously considered, which can help focus the research project.

In-depth interviewing is an art. Researchers have to built rapport – trust with the participant, maintain a conversational-style interview, manage which questions are being addressed in the interview guide and which to return to, and be careful not to use leading questions. For instance, the interviewer must avoid leading the respondent into certain answers by asking questions like, “You really like building community in your neighborhood, huh?” Instead, researchers should allow the respondent to answer freely by asking questions like, “How do you feel about community building in your neighborhood?”

In-depth interviewing is sometimes referred an 'art' because the researcher must be skilled enough to establish rapport and maintain a conversational tone in each interview, to help the participant build trust and feel comfortable answering questions.

"Women In Tech - 82" by WOCinTech Chat via flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Some observational studies, described above, also use in-depth interviews with individuals from the communities or social setting they are studying.

Secondary Data

Sometimes sociologists do not gather their own data but instead analyze existing data that someone else has gathered, a processed referred to as secondary data analysis. Sociologists might study works written by historians, economists, teachers, or early sociologists. They might search through periodicals, newspapers, magazines, or organizational data from any historical period. Or, they might use data collected by other researchers, agencies, or organizations. The US Census Bureau, for example, gathers data on all kinds of areas relevant to the lives of Americans, and many sociologists analyze Census data on such social problems as poverty, unemployment, and illness. Sociologists interested in crime and the criminal justice system may analyze data from court records, while medical sociologists often analyze data from patient records at hospitals.

Secondary data analysis is advantageous to sociologists because someone else has already spent the time and money to gather the data. A disadvantage is that the data set being analyzed may not contain data on all the topics in which a sociologist may be interested or may contain data on topics that are not measured in ways the sociologist might prefer.

International Research

International research is conducted outside of the researcher’s own immediate geography and society. This work carries additional challenges, considering that researchers often work in regions and cultures different from their own. Researchers need to make special considerations to counter their biases, navigate linguistic challenges, and ensure the best cross-cultural understanding possible. Students at Oxford University’s Masters in Development Studies offer a map and descriptions of field projects around the world. What are some interesting projects that stand out to you?

For example, in 2021, Jörg Friedrichs at Oxford published his research on Muslim hate crimes in areas of North England where Islam is the majority religion. He studied police data on racial and religious hate crimes in two districts to look for patterns related to the crimes. He related those patterns to the wider context of community relations between Muslims and other groups. He presented his research to hate crime practitioners in police, local government, and civil society (Friedrichs 2021).

  

Action Research

So far in this section, we’ve learned about research frameworks and research methods, the ways in which scientists study social problems. But that’s not enough. Social problems sociologists love to take action. Some specific research methods combine researching the problem and taking effective action.

Action research is a family of research methodologies that pursue research (or understanding) and action (or change) at the same time (SFSU, N.d.). We see this when the government changes a policy based on data, or a community organization tries a new evidence-based approach to providing services. One of the most visible applications of social problems research is through humanitarian or social action efforts.

Humanitarian Efforts

Humanitarian approaches involve improving human welfare or human lives. One effective example of social action efforts is in the work of Paul Farmer. Farmer was a public health physician, anthropologist, and founder of Partners in Health. Until his death in 2022, he focused on epidemiological crises in low and middle-income countries.

One trend that Farmer championed was the importance of good health and health care as human rights. He contributed to a broader understanding that poor health is a symptom of poverty, violence, and inequality (Partners in Health 2009). If you want to learn more, please watch the NPR video essay Paul Farmer: I believe in health care as a human right where he describes this view.

Farmer applied this human rights perspective to pandemics. His book, Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History, looks at the 2014 Ebola crisis and what we can learn from it to apply to the COVID-19 epidemic. In a PBS Newshour interview, he spoke of his work during the Ebola outbreak:

"Early in the Ebola outbreak, almost all of our attention was turned towards clinical services. But we kept on bumping into things we didn’t understand and sometimes even our colleagues from Sierra Leone and Liberia didn’t understand. And that just triggered an interest in a deeper understanding of the place, the culture, the history" (Public Broadcasting Service 2021).

Farmer shares his experiences both as a medical doctor and a researcher, asking the questions: “Who is most impacted by disease? How might things have been done differently? What can be done now?” His research on Ebola focused on circumstances in West Africa where lack of medical resources and decades of war played a role in the epidemic and how the epidemic itself, as we experience in the United States with COVID-19, revealed underlying problems and inequities in society (Public Broadcasting Service 2021).

Community-Based Action Research

Community-based research takes place in community settings. It involves community members in the design and implementation of research projects. It demonstrates respect for the contributions of success made by community partners. Research projects involve collaboration between researchers and community partners, whether the community partners are formally structured community-based organizations or informal groups of individual community members. This type of research aims to benefit the community by achieving social justice through social action and change.

Community-based research is sometimes called participatory action research (Stringer 2007). In partnership with community organizations, researchers apply their social science research skills to help assess needs and outcomes and provide data to improve living conditions. This cycle is illustrated in the figure below.

The action research cycle is a continuous process in which the researcher and the community learn about the social problem, figure out a root cause or diagnosis, plan an action that will impact the root cause, take action or make the change, evaluate the results, and continue to learn more. How is this cycle different from the scientific method we examined earlier?

“Action Research Cycle” from “Interpretive Research” by Anol Bhattacherjee, Social Science Research: Principles, Methods and Practices (Revised edition) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The research is rigorous and often published in professional reports and presented to the board of directors for the organization you action research. As it sounds, action research suggests that we make a plan to implement changes. Often with academic research, we aim to learn more about a population and leave the next steps up to others. This is an important part of the puzzle, as we need to start with knowledge. Still, action research often aims to fix something or at least quickly translate the newly acquired findings into a solution for a social problem.

To learn more about participatory action research, check out the quick video below for an introduction with Shirah Hassan of Just Practice.

Participatory action research involves the people that the researcher is studying in the study design and execution. Based on the results, organizations and people take action. As you watch this video, you might consider,” How might this increase social justice?”

“Participatory Action Research” with Shirah Haasan by Vera Institute of Justice is licensed under the Standard YouTube License

Community-based action research looks for evidence. As new insights emerge, the researchers adjust the question or the approach. This type of research engages people who have traditionally been referred to as subjects as active participants in the research process. The researcher is working with the organization during the whole process and will likely bring in different project design elements based on the organization’s needs. Social scientists can bring more formalized training, but they draw both on existing research/literature and the goals of the organization they are working with. Community-based research or participatory research can be considered an orientation for research rather than strictly a method. Often a number of different methods are used to collect data. Change is the purpose of the research.

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Now that we have an understanding of the field of sociology including sociological research, sociological theoretical perspectives, and sociological concepts, we can begin to explore specific social problems as they relate to a variety of broad topics. We will start with poverty and economic inequality in the next chapter.